AI-Based Social Media Marketing and Customer Experience: The Mediating Role of Information Seeking and Consumer Awareness

Abstract

The fast development of artificial intelligence technologies has had a powerful impact on the practice of social media marketing and communicating with the customers in the online sphere. This paper has explored the effects of AI-based social media marketing on customer experience with the intermediation of information seeking and consumer awareness. AI influencer marketing, AI marketing personalization and AI content optimization were the independent variables of the study, whereas customer experience was taken as the dependent variable. The conceptual framework included information seeking and consumer awareness as mediating variables. The research design was a quantitative research design which was backed by deductive philosophy and descriptive research design. Using a structured survey questionnaire with five-point Likert scale, 384 respondents were involved in the collection of primary data. Random sampling was used to choose the customers who use social media platforms and engage with AI-based marketing activities actively. The descriptive analysis, reliability analysis, correlation analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, structural model analysis, and mediation analysis were performed with Smart-PLS. The results showed that AI influencer marketing, AI marketing personalization, and AI content optimization were all positively and significantly related to customer experience. The independent variable that had the biggest positive impact on customer experience was AI marketing personalization. The mediation analysis further confirmed that information seeking, and consumer awareness significantly mediated the relationships between AI-based social media marketing dimensions and customer experience. The various hypotheses forwarded were all statistically justified in terms of significant beta values, t-values, and p-values. The researchers concluded that AI-driven social media marketing can be a valuable addition to customer experience by increasing personalization, helping to optimize communication, making information available, and raising consumer awareness. The results offer useful theoretical and practical implications on organizations, marketers, and subsequent researchers about the successful application of AI technologies within the social media marketing settings.