Abstract
The development of social media has changed traditional media by providing a platform to conduct marketing and advertising activities. Nowadays, social media offers the opportunity to build a relationship between customers and brands. The strategic use of social media marketing has significant importance for customers as well as for marketers. In this paper, the influence of social media marketing activities (SMMAs) is assessed on apparel brands’ perceived value and Chinese customers’ satisfaction. The data was collected through a quantitative survey-based approach from Chinese social media and apparel brands’ users (n = 355). The collected data from respondents were analysed through the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Hayes PROCESS macro. Based on our findings, it is noted that SMMAs play an essential role in improving the brand perceived value and customers’ satisfaction in China. Moreover, it is also concluded that the apparel brand’s perceived value significantly mediates the relationship between SMMAs and customers’ satisfaction. This study provides several theoretical and practical guidelines to the marketers in China to effectively implement their advertising activities on social media platforms.
Highlights
Social media channels (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube) are persistent platforms aiming to communicate consumers with different brands and companies (Shan et al, 2016)
In the light of this mentioned research model, we considered Chinese customer satisfaction towards apparel brands supported by Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA)
For reliability and validity of data, we used the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) procedure to assess the fitness of data before further analysis
Summary
Social media channels (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube) are persistent platforms aiming to communicate consumers with different brands and companies (Shan et al, 2016). In contrast to Western countries’ social media (i.e., Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram), WeChat is the most popular social media platform in China, with the function of marketing and online shopping (Chiu et al, 2012; Tan & Teo, 2000). Numerous fashion retailers, such as Zara, YOOX, and Topshop, have adopted WeChat to extend their market in China (Consulate General of the Netherlands in Shanghai, 2014). This study focuses on the influence of apparel brands’ social media marketing activities (SMMAs) over Chinese consumers’ satisfaction
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