The role of awareness and brand image in the relationship between social media marketing and customer response

Abstract

Purpose: The main purpose of this study was to analyze the mediating role of brand awareness and brand image in the relationship between social media marketing and customer response in the Iranian banking industry. Methodology: The statistical population of this study was banks active in the Iranian banking industry. In order to determine the members of the statistical sample, first 20 banks active in the Iranian banking industry were selected and then with the help of the database of the studied banks, the respondents to the questionnaires were identified judiciously by the marketing managers of the banks. The number of these people in the initial study was estimated at 1673 people and finally 313 people were selected using the Cochran's formula as the sample size. In this research, PLS-SEM was used to fit the conceptual model of research and test hypotheses. Results: The results of testing the research hypotheses showed that social media marketing has a positive and significant effect on customer response and brand awareness and brand image. In addition, the results showed that the variable of brand awareness and brand image has a mediating role in this regard. In addition, social media marketing positively affects the goal of customer response through brand awareness and brand image. Contributions: Proper planning in the development and institutionalization of brand awareness and image allows banks to be able to effectively influence the positive responses of customers, and in the meantime, the role of social media can be very decisive