The influence of social media marketing activities on customer loyalty: A study of e-commerce industry

摘要

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of perceived social media marketing activities (SMMAs) on customer loyalty via customer equity drivers (CEDs) in an e-commerce context. Design/methodology/approach - The study surveyed 371 students from a large university in India. The data were analyzed via confirmatory factor analysis and the research hypotheses were examined using SEM. Findings - The study revealed three key findings. First, perceived SMMAs of e-commerce comprise five dimensions, namely, interactivity, informativeness, word-of-mouth, personalisation and trendiness. Second, perceived SMMAs of e-commerce have significantly and positively influenced all the drivers of customer equity (CEDs). Third, the CEDs of e-commerce exhibit a significant and positive influence on customer loyalty toward the e-commerce sites. Practical implications - This study will help e-commerce managers to boost customer loyalty toward the e-commerce sites through perceived SMMA. Originality/value - The study is the first to identify five dimensions of e-commerce perceived SMMA. The current study also introduces the stimulus-organism-response model as a theoretical support to connect perceived SMMAs of e-commerce to customers' loyalty via CEDs. This is supposed to be the first study to examine the impact of perceived SMMA on customer loyalty toward the e-commerce sites via CEDs in the e-commerce industry.