The Influence of Social Media Marketing on Consumers' Purchase Decision: Investigating the Effects of Local and Nonlocal Brands

Growing usage of social media has provided marketers a better space to engage with customers. However, research examining effects of social media marketing from the perspective of branding, has been relatively unexplored. Further, few researches on international branding have investigated the influence of brand's localness/non-localness on consumer-brand relationships. The purpose of this paper is to increase an understanding of the antecedents of social media marketing and their effects on purchase intention, as well as the moderating influence of local and nonlocal brands on these relationships. Data were collected online from 343 social media users in Saudi Arabia. The research model was empirically tested using structural equation modeling. The findings support most of the proposed direct and moderating effects. Brand trust, brand community, brand awareness and interaction were found to influence purchase intention. Brand origin had a moderating effect in the relationships between brand trust and interaction with purchase intention. The proposed framework contributes to social media marketing and branding research by integrating the contingent effect of brand localness and non-localness. Detailed discussion of the theoretical and practical implications concludes the paper.