An Emerging Perspective On The Impact Of Social Media Strategies On Customer Engagement

Social Media is widely used in marketing during the current era.Every brand is trying to shift its marketing campaign on social media platforms.With the diverse use of social media for marketing,brands are struggling to engage their customers to create long-lasting relationships.Engaging customers for long-term relationships,converting these relationships into purchase intention,and turning them into loyal customers are the major challenges for marketing professionals in modern marketing.However,the prior literature lacks sufficient knowledge to use different social media strategies to engage customers with the brand,turning this engagement into purchase intention and loyalty.This dissertation aims to fill this gap by examining different social media marketing strategies to engage customers.Furthermore,this dissertation focuses on developing and validating four conceptual frameworks by analyzing factors related to social media marketing strategies and customer engagement.The first study is based on customer participation-based social media strategies and uses customer engagement theory(CET)and social exchange theory(SET).This study uses three main social media strategies:involvement,customer participation,and commitment.Furthermore,customer engagement refers to three main components,i.e.,cognitive,emotional,and behavioral are discussed.A sample of 463 online customers was selected from online communities to test the research framework,and confirmatory factor analysis(CFA)and partial least square structural equation modeling(PLS-SEM)was applied.The findings of this study depict the positive impact of social media marketing strategies,i.e.,involvement,customer participation,and commitment on customer engagement.Moreover,customer engagement finds to be a significant tool for developing customer loyalty in social media marketing.The empirical findings reveal that customer engagement significantly influences social media marketing strategies and customer loyalty.The second study is based on customer activities-based strategies and uses SOR(stimuli-organisms-response)framework;this study investigates the role of different social media activities(i.e.,entertainment,interaction,trendiness,customization,word-of-mouth)and the intentions of the customers,which subsequently turns into customer engagement.Also testing purchase intention,study calculates two mediating variables,social identification and customer satisfaction,which are vital constructs in social media marketing.A sample of 353 online customers was used to validate the model,and the PLS-SEM technique was applied.The study’s results show that different social media activities are positively and significantly related to consumer intentions,ultimately developing long-term customer engagement with the brand.Likewise,social identification and satisfaction have a significant relationship with engagement.The empirical results further specify that social identification and customer satisfaction significantly mediate relationship between social media activities and customer purchase intentions to strengthen customer engagement.The study’s findings contribute to the literature and suggest that marketing professionals focus on different social media activities that can create long-term consumer engagement.The third study is based on customer relationship-based social media strategies and uses relationship marketing theory(RMT).RMT is applied to strengthen the model and to get more vibrant findings.This study aims to fill the gap by examining how relationship marketing plays its role in maintaining customer engagement in social media marketing.The model was tested using cross-sectional data from 343 online customers,using the covariance-based structure equation modeling(CVB-SEM)to analyze the data.The empirical results show that to strengthen customer engagement,brands should adopt positive activities on social media platforms.The findings further explore that relationship marketing significantly mediates between social media activities and customer engagement with the brands.While using social media for marketing,brands should pay more attention to developing long-term relationships to engage their customers with the brand,ultimately leading to purchase intention.This study provides valuable theoretical and practical contributions and potential directions for the newly emerging era of social media marketing.The fourth study is based on customer motivations-based social media strategies and focused on uses and gratifications theory(UGT)and the theory of reasoned action(TRA).The study framework focuses on understanding the role of customer motivations(i.e.,empower,financial,social)to strengthen customer engagement within social media marketing.Motivating the customers is an integral part of marketing strategy,which helps to develop long-term engagement between the brand and the customer.In an online environment,brands try to attract customers by providing motivations for monetary benefits,empowerment,and socialization.The study evaluates 275 responses from online buyers who use social media to purchase fashion products,and PLS-SEM was applied to analyze the collected data.Empirical results show that customer motivations are positively and significantly related to purchase intentions which is the ultimate goal of customer-brand engagement.Results further explain that customer commitment positively mediates between customer motivation and purchase intention to strengthen customer engagement with the brand.Therefore,a brand needs to motivate its online customers by offering some financial benefits,empowering its customer,and providing them with socialization opportunities.This study is valuable in existing literature,and marketing professionals can use the findings to motivate customers for long-term customer engagement.