Social media marketing (SMM) is a new field that involves the marketing of goods, services, information, and ideas via online networks and social media. Drawing on the stimulus-organism-response framework, this study aims to examine how social-media-marketing activities (SMMA) affect brand loyalty, brand trust, and revisit intention (returning to the same place in the future) for coffee shops in Northern Cyprus. Empirical evidence was collected from 415 undergraduate students who follow specific coffee shops on Facebook, and a structural equation modeling approach was applied. The results showed a significant positive influence of SMMA on brand loyalty, brand trust, and revisit intention. The findings show that SMMA are a stronger predictor of revisit intention than brand loyalty and brand trust. Furthermore, brand loyalty and brand trust are significant mediators in the relationship between SMMA and revisit intention. Additionally, the sequential mediation effects of brand loyalty and brand trust in the relationship between SMMA and revisit intention are supported. Overall, with effective SMMA from coffee shops on Facebook, the customer grows confidence in the brand, which increases the level of brand loyalty. This, in turn, encourages revisit intention of the customer. As a result, brand executives on social media platforms (in this case, Facebook) should promote specific SMMA for their brands and engage in such activities to creates brand trust and brand loyalty. These findings contribute to the literature by examining the relationship between SMMA and revisit intention and exploring how SMMA affect revisit intention by adding brand loyalty and brand trust as mediators.

The social media revolution has massively transformed marketing plans and practices in the business world. Moreover, marketers can reinforce customer–brand relationships through companies’ social media marketing (SMM) plans and gain a clear understanding of the consumer perspective more quickly than ever before. Using the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) framework, this study developed a model to examine how SMM activities (SMMAs) affect dimensions of customer relationship quality (CRQ) – that is, commitment, trust, and satisfaction – and brand loyalty (BL). This study, which investigated the dimensions of CRQ as mediation effects between SMMAs and BL to telecommunications brands on Instagram, adopted structural equation modeling and obtained data from a sample of 290 Instagram users in Palestine who are telecommunications customers. The findings show that SMMAs positively affect the dimensions of CRQ and that SMMAs are a stronger predictor of commitment than trust and satisfaction. Additionally, SMMAs had a positive effect on BL. The results confirmed the significant effect of three components of CRQ on BL building. The results also revealed that dimensions of CRQ act as mediators between SMMAs and BL. The study contributes to the literature by examining the underlying mechanism of how SMMAs promote dimensions of CRQ and BL in the service industry.

Social media marketing activities have been grasping considerable attention from marketers and researchers recently, as demonstrated by more research efforts investigating these relatively new marketing channels and their impacts. This study reports on a meta-analysis examining social media marketing activities (SMMA) relationships with brand equity (BE) and purchase intention (PI). A quantitative meta-analysis of 15 articles (n = 6282) is conducted in order to determine the effect sizes of these relationships. Furthermore, potential moderating effects have been investigated for two types of study characteristic variables; measurement characteristics (type of economic development, type of questionnaire employed, type of study quality), and context characteristics (industry type and sample type of social media). The meta-analysis results indicate a positive relationship between SMMA and BE (r = 0.57) reflecting a large effect, while SMMA relationship with PI (r = 0.43) indicates a medium positive effect. Moreover, the results of meta-regression show that context characteristics do not moderate the relationship between SMMA and BE or between SMMA and PI. As for measurement characteristic, only the type of study quality moderates the relationship SMMA and PI. Based on these findings theoretical and practical implications are presented.

The central purpose of this data article is to empirically investigate the relationships among social media marketing (SMM) activities, brand loyalty and revisit intention in five-star hotels in Northern Cyprus. Few researchers have investigated SMM activities, while none has looked at how SMM activities can be used toward improving brand loyalty and revisit intention in the tourism service industry. Hence, data gathered for the purposes of this research add to our understanding of today׳s social media marketing as a new generation marketing tool. This data was generated via a structured questionnaire, a total of 389 customers were surveyed who used five (5) hotels Facebook profiles, the hotels were all five-star ranked and located in Kyrenia city (Northern Cyprus). The data were examined by Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Several analysis techniques have been used, the result showed a significant influence of SMM activities on brand loyalty and revisit intention, also the mediation outcome of brand trust is partially supported. Thus, consequential recommendations have been put forward.

Purpose: The aim of this study is first, to investigate the relative effect of user-generated content (UGC) and firm-generated content (FGC) on online brand advocacy, and second, to examine the mediation effect of customer engagement and the moderation effect of brand familiarity in the relationship between UGC and FGC and online brand advocacy. The differential impact of UGC and FGC on consumer behavior has yet to receive sufficient academic attention among hospitality scholars.Design/methodology/approach: Based on social learning theory, cognitive consistency theory and schema theory, this study established an integrated research framework to explain the relationship between the constructs of the study. This study adopts a scenario-based experimental design in two separate studies within contexts to examine the proposed hypotheses.Findings: The results revealed that UGC is a stronger predictor of online brand advocacy than FGC. A mediation analysis supported that the effect of digital content marketing types on online brand advocacy occurs because of customer engagement. Further, when the brand was familiar, participants showed a higher level of online brand advocacy than when they were exposed to FGC (vs. unfamiliar brand), whereas the effect of familiar and unfamiliar brands on online brand advocacy remains slightly close to each other when the participants were exposed to UGC. Brand familiarity positively enhanced participants’ engagement when they were exposed to UGC. Further, customer engagement is only a significant mediator when the brand is unfamiliar.Practical implications: This paper presents significant managerial implications for hospitality companies about how they can effectively enhance brand advocacy in the online medium.Originality/value: This research provides a novel contribution by examining the differential impact of UGC and FGC on online brand advocacy as well as uncovering the underlying mechanism of how and under what conditions user- and firm-generated content promotes online brand advocacy in the hospitality context.

Purpose: Synthetic advertising, which involves creating or modifying ads through artificial intelligence (AI) technology, has recently transformed the field of media and advertising. Despite its emerging importance, our understanding of consumer perceptions in this context is limited. This study is one of the first to explore the impact of synthetic advertising on consumer behavior.Design/methodology/approach: Across two between-subject experimental studies, using coffee shop customers in the USA, we tested how, why and when awareness of falsity in AI-generated corporate social responsibility (CSR) ads affects online brand engagement.Findings: In Study 1, awareness of falsity in AI-generated CSR ads negatively impacts online brand engagement, with perceived sincerity mediating this relationship. Additionally, a higher level of CSR authenticity mitigates the negative effect of awareness of falsity on online brand engagement. CSR authenticity does not moderate the mediation effect of perceived sincerity in the relationship between awareness of falsity and online brand engagement. In Study 2, the relationship between awareness of falsity and online brand engagement is moderated by brand familiarity. Importantly, perceived sincerity only mediates this effect for unfamiliar brands, not familiar ones.Practical implications: This study provides key insights for managers using AI to promote CSR initiatives. While AI can save time and budget, it may lead to negative consumer reactions due to perceptions of insincerity. To mitigate this, companies should focus on enhancing the authenticity of their CSR efforts and humanizing AI-generated ads. Additionally, established brands should be cautious of reduced consumer engagement with AI-generated content, while unfamiliar brands can benefit by emphasizing sincerity in their messaging.Originality/value: This paper is one of the first studies that discuss how, why and when awareness of falsity in AI-generated corporate social responsibility ads affects online brand engagement.