FROM SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING TO CUSTOMER LOYALTY: THE MODERATING ROLE OF BRAND TRUST IN E-COMMERCE

Abstract

In this research, we will discuss the direct impact of social media advertising, influencer marketing, and content quality on customer loyalty in e-commerce, and at the same time discuss the mediating variable of brand trust. The current study is an integrated framework where the brand trust is viewed as a psychological infrastructure between and among the translation of marketing investments into the result of relational loyalty, based on the Social Exchange Theory, Trust-Commitment Theory and Signaling Theory. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data in 355 active e-commerce consumers in Pakistan and was later analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) which was used with SmartPLS4. The measurement model had excellent psychometric characteristics (Cronbach’s alpha >0.83; composite reliability 0.88; average variance extracted 0.64), and the structural model had significant explanatory power (R2=0.977 customer loyalty). Empirical support was given to all ten hypotheses. The strongest and direct predictors of customer loyalty were influencer marketing (b = 0.364) and, the strongest effect on the formation of trust, was observed in the case of social media advertising (b = 0.501). Mediation analysis established that brand trust partially mediates all the three marketing-to-loyalty channels, meaning that loyalty development occurs in two processes direct value recognition and trust-mediated confidence. The study results contribute to the theoretical knowledge of trust contingent loyalty and offer practical implications towards how social media marketing can be maximized in the context of digital retailing.