Abstract:
Research Purpose: Social media marketing is a cost effective tool of marketing in a digital era, especially when today’s customers are searching for place to eat or product to buy, while on-the-go. For this reason, many organizations in fast-food sector keeping youth in mind are considering social media as a most influential tool to enhance customer loyalty and satisfaction. On this basis, the goal of this research was to determine the impact of social media marketing practices (i.e. Customer Participation, Word-of-Mouth, Discounts & valuable Gift offers, Customer Recognition & Customer Awareness and Social Media Marketing Campaigns) on customer’s brand loyalty.
Research Methodology: The research was conclusive and descriptive in nature; administrative survey with 400 respondents from students of three private business Universities was conducted in Karachi, Pakistan.
Research Findings: The results of a step-wise multiple regression analysis shown that two ways of Behavioral Customer Engagement (i.e. Customer Participation & Word of Mouth Marketing) on social media differed; Customer Participation on social media has positive impact on only one brand loyalty dimension (i.e. Action Loyalty), Whereas Word of Mouth Marketing on social media have a positive impact on first three brand loyalty dimensions (i.e. Cognitive, Affective, Conative, Action Loyalty). Another social media marketing practice- Rewarding customers on social media’s in two ways (i.e. Discounts/Valuable Gifts offers and Customer Recognition/ Customer Appreciation) also differed; Provision of Discounts/Valuable Gifts offers on social media have positive impact on only one brand loyalty dimension (i.e. Action Loyalty), Whereas Customer Recognition/ Customer Appreciation on social media have a positive impact on first three brand loyalty dimensions (i.e. Cognitive, Affective, Conative, Action Loyalty). The last social media marketing practice- Enhancing customer experience via social media marketing campaigns have a positive impact on all four dimensions of brand loyalty.
Practical Implication & Limitations: This piece of research help marketers and brand managers of future how to utilize the technology to uplift there brands to their target audience in savvy way and how to enhance the brand loyalty. The limitation for this study was limited sector (only Fast-Food), limited target population (only Youth) and limited findings respondents (only Students of three Private Business Karachi Universities, who were the active social media users and follow at least one Fast- Food brand on social media.
