Influence of Social Media Marketing on Customer Equity Drivers and Purchase Intention: Understanding World’s Most Valuable Brand - Amazon

Abstract

Social Media is getting incredibly popular amongst brands and consumers both. This study aims to identify the constructs of perceived Social Media Marketing (SMM) activities of an e-commerce brand, Amazon and to evaluate the influence of those activities on customer equity drivers; value equity, relationship equity and brand equity and purchase intention using a PLS-SEM approach. The five constructs of perceived SMM activities are Interactivity, Informativeness, Personalization, Trendiness and Word of Mouth. The effects of SMM activities on value equity, relationship equity and brand equity were significantly positive. Out of the three customer equity drivers, only brand equity had a significant impact on the purchase intention, whereas value equity and relationship equity had no significant influence on purchase intention. The findings of this study will help the e-commerce brands to forecast the future purchasing behavior of their customers as well as manage their SMM activities.