REFLECTION OF CUSTOMER-BRAND ENGAGEMENT ON PURCHASE INTENTION IN SOCIAL MEDIA

Creating and developing purchase intention in social media is an important strategic goal for businesses. Marketers, in particular, feel the need to invest in consumer-brand engagement (CBE) in social media marketing more than ever before as social media platforms are available for consumers to socialize and interact with each other. However, current research in marketing provides little guidance to marketers how brand pages in Facebook can be leveraged to engage customers and create purchase intention for the brands. Toward filling this gap, the present research examines the customer's brand engagement-purchase intention link with the mediating role of customer's information motivation in social media. Using data from 298 surveys of brand pages are analysed in partial-least squares (PLS) structural equation modelling (SEM). The research fills a gap in the literature through its analysis of the mediating role of information motivation of consumers in the relationship between customer-brand engagement and purchase intention in social media. The specific strategies, and the implications of this research for theory and practise are discussed. (C) 2017 Published by Future Academy www.FutureAcademy.org.UK