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The world has been forced to implement movement restriction strategy because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and industries have to embrace online technologies and social media marketing activities (SMMAs) to continue their business operations. Considering the aftermath of COVID-19 on the business world, this study aims to explore the determining elements of SMMAs and analyse how these factors affect brand equity (BE), relationship equity (RE) and purchase intention (PI) among smartphone consumers in China. Five constructs of SMMAs, namely, entertainment (EN), interactivity (IN), trendiness (TR), customisation (CU) and electronic word-of-mouth (WM), were examined to examine the effects of SMMAs on BE and RE. Subsequently, the mediation effects of BE and RE on the relationships of all constructs of SMMAs with PI were analysed.

An online survey was conducted with the participation of 347 Chinese consumers who used social media platform managed by the smartphone brands as their marketing activities during COVID-19. The data were analysed via structural equation modelling using SmartPLS.

This study’s result showed the significant and positive influence of CU, TR and WM on BE and the strong and positive influence of CU, IN and TR on RE. Furthermore, BE was found to fully mediate the relationships of CU, TR and WM with PI, while RE was found to mediate the relationships of TR and CU with PI. The performance and impact factor analysis revealed RE as the most important factor for PI, followed by BE, CU and TR.

This study extended the authors’ knowledge and understanding about social media marketing, BE and smart phone PI during COVID-19. Findings of this study can assist smartphone brands in China to develop the most effective strategies for SMMAs, which can be tailored for consumers to maximise profits, even during any crisis when physical business activities are deemed difficult. Moreover, this study’s findings can benefit the government and policymakers in developing and regulating rules and regulations for e-commerce and social media commerce for all industries and areas.

This study explores central questions related to the connection between social media marketing activities (SMMAs), user engagement and the self-brand connection of restaurant Instagram pages. The study examines the mediating role of user engagement between SMMAs and self–brand connections. Also, this study explores the connection between SMMAs and user engagement through the moderating role of gender and trust.

A convenience sample method was employed to collect data from customers (18–24 years old). A structural equation modeling approach and PROCESS macro were applied based on 298 online questionnaires completed by customers who follow restaurant Instagram pages. The mediating effect for user engagement and the moderating effect for gender and trust were performed.

The findings revealed that SMMAs have a significant positive influence on self–brand connection and user engagement. Further, user engagement acts as a mediator between SMMAs and self–brand connection. The results illustrate the importance of SMMAs in enhancing user engagement in light of gender and trust.

This paper presents significant managerial implications for restaurant businesses about how SMMAs can effectively enhance user engagement behavior and self–brand connection on Instagram pages.

This research developed a theoretical model to understand how SMMAs might enhance user engagement in the restaurant industry by invoking gender and trust as moderating variables in the relationship between SMMAs and user engagement. This paper offers new theoretical and practical contributions that add value to social media marketing (SMM) literature by testing the moderated–mediation model of these constructs in the hospitality sector.

This study investigates the influences of social media marketing activities (SMMAs) on brand preference by focussing on the mediation influence of brand recognisability and the moderator influence of brand signature in higher education institutions in Germany. A total of 257 students were surveyed and the data gathered were tested through partial least squares structural equation modelling. The findings demonstrated that higher-education institutions’ SMMAs had a significant effect on both brand recognisability and students’ brand preference. The findings also empirically proved the significant mediator influence of brand recognisability and the moderator influence of brand signature upon the association of higher education institutions’ SMMAs and students’ brand preference. It is anticipated that the findings of this research could be utilised as a significant solution in the improvement of higher education institutions’ SMMAs, specifically focussing on the significance of each component of SMMAs.

The social media expands the scope of museum marketing. Through the social media marketing, visitors get a rich and colorful visual experience, and the museum can quickly and effectively convey various information to visitors. At present, the research on social media in the museum industry mainly focuses on the level of technology use, while the research on the marketing application of social media is relatively scarce, especially from the empirical perspective. This study constructs a conceptual model to identify the impact of SMMAs on visitor experience in the context of the museum industry through the empirical analysis.

A survey is conducted with a total of 538 visitors who follow the fan page of the Palace Museum Weibo. The collected data are analyzed via structural equation modeling.

The results show that SMMAs have significant effects on social presence and social support, which in turn significantly affect flow state. Moreover, the results demonstrate that social presence and social support partially mediates the relationships between SMMAs and flow state.

The contribution of this study is twofold. First, from a theoretical perspective, it offers new insights into the conceptualization of social media marketing. Second, from a pragmatic perspective, the results are helpful to guide museums how to carry out social media marketing activities.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-12-2020-0564

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.

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.

The study revealed three key findings. First, perceived SMMAs of e-commerce comprise five dimensions, namely, interactivity, informativeness, word-of-mouth, personalization 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.

This study will help e-commerce managers to boost customer loyalty toward the e-commerce sites through perceived SMMA.

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.

The present study aims to examine the impact of social media marketing activities (SMMAs) on the adoption of food waste reduction behavior among Generation Z consumers within the restaurant service industry in Pakistan. The study focuses on the impact of social media advertisements and investigates the mediating influence of waste reduction intentions on actual behavior. This underscores the significance of contextual and emotional variables in comprehending consumer behaviors.

The study used a cross-sectional research methodology to examine the impact of SMMAs on the behavior of Generation Z consumers in Pakistan’s food service industry with regard to reducing food waste. A study was conducted to investigate the restaurant purchasing behaviors of a sample consisting of 449 individuals belonging to the millennial generation, often known as Generation Z.

The majority of variables related to SMMA, except for interactivity and personalization, were shown to have a positive impact on individuals’ intents to reduce food waste. The study observed a significant relationship between consumers’ intentions to decrease waste and their actual behavior in waste reduction. Furthermore, this relationship was shown to be influenced by the mediating role of waste reduction intention.

Examining how social media affects Pakistani Generation Z’s efforts to reduce food waste is what makes this study distinctive. According to the research, the majority of social media factors positively influence intentions to reduce waste. The relationship between intentions and actual behavior, which highlights the impact of social media campaigns and emotional aspects in promoting waste reduction, is one of the important conclusions.

The research paper examines the impact of perceived social media marketing activities (SMMAs) (interaction, entertainment, customization, trendiness and word of mouth (WOM)) on customer loyalty (CL) toward e-commerce providers. The study also explores the mediating role of customer relationship quality (CRQ) (commitment, trust and satisfaction) on the relationship between perceived SMMAs and CL.

The study is based on the S-O-R model, which states that characteristics of the environment (stimulus) arouse a cognitive state (organism) that results in positive or negative behavior (response). The present study proposes the characteristics of the e-commerce environment as stimuli (S), the inner state of customers as an organism (O) and consumer behavior as the response (R). This study investigated the responses of 487 social media users through structural equation modeling (SEM).

The results offer three crucial findings. First, the study validated that perceived SMMA comprises five dimensions (interaction, entertainment, customization, trendiness and WOM) in the Indian e-commerce context. Second, perceived SMMA significantly influences CRQ (commitment, trust and satisfaction). Third, CRQ significantly mediates the relationship between perceived SMMA and CL.

The study attempts to understand the effect of perceived SMMA on CL via CRQ in an e-commerce context, especially in an emerging economy like India. The present study argues that the SMMA of e-commerce is likely to be reflected in CL when the consumers experience CRQ through commitment, trust and satisfaction. Thus exploring the mediating role of CRQ is the authors' contribution.

The purpose of this study is to examine an integrated model, in which brand equity (BE) mediates the effects of social media usage (SMU) and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) on purchase intentions among Indian consumers of branded apparel.

An online questionnaire was used to collect data from 317 Indian customers of branded apparel, and the data were analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with the help of SmartPLS version 4.

First, the results indicated that SMU, eWOM and BE significantly impact consumers purchase intention; at the same time, BE is influenced by SMU and eWOM. Second, results confirmed that BE partially mediates the effects of SMU and eWOM on the purchase intentions of consumers of apparel brands.

The study's dataset is limited in its generalizability as it is based on specific responses from Indian consumers of branded apparel via an online survey. The results of this study would help marketers and advertisers create customized advertising campaigns for the people who are most likely to buy their products. Marketers can also use social media to promote the uniqueness or point of difference (PoD) of their apparel brands.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, no study has been conducted on apparel brands in the Indian context that has tested an integrative model, in which BE mediates the effects of SMU and eWOM on the purchase intentions of customers of apparel brands.

This research aims to explore the impact of social media marketing (SMM) activities on brand equity (BE) in the banking sector in Bangladesh. Moreover, brand love and brand trust are examined as a mediator of SMM activities and BE.

Data were collected from a total of 289 banking customers in Bangladesh through a structured questionnaire and the hypotheses were examined using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The results validated that SMM activities have no significant influence on BE directly. Furthermore, brand love fully mediates the linkage between SMM activities and BE. Likewise, brand trust was found to have a partial mediation effect on SMM activities and BE.

This study was based on a specific sector in a particular geographic area. Hence, cross-cultural studies on different sectors need to be conducted to generalize the findings of the current research.

The study offers useful insights for bank marketers to successfully manage SMM activities that can generate consumer interest toward a bank's brand and prevent switching behavior. Furthermore, the proliferation of authentic brand-related information over a firms' social media pages can build strong brand trust, which in turn contributes to BE for the banks.

The study further extended the current knowledge by showing that how SMM activities influence BE in the banking sector in Bangladesh. Also, this study empirically corroborates the mediation influence of brand love and brand trust on SMM activities and BE in the banking sector in Bangladesh, which was rarely tested in prior studies. Hence, the findings will add value to the nascent literature of BE from an SMM perspective.