The role of the social media brand community on consumers' purchasing attitude

Abstract

This paper aims at examining the mediating role of online based-brand community (OBBC) through social media platforms given the interplay of consumers' purchasing attitude in a target market. To do this, a structured questionnaire and online survey were employed to solicit opinions of consumers so as to establish their brand experience in virtual space and purchasing attitude on social media platform. In other to ascertain an empirical evidence, a convenience sampling technique was used to select 89 students (online community members) from Tomas Bata University in Zlin, Czech Republic for the study. Findings emanated from the nonparametric test showed that, OBBC on the social media platform influence positively on consumer-brand engagement, user-brand relationship, consumer-brand trust, and consumer-brand loyalty which thereby translates positively into consumer's purchasing attitude and intention. For the purpose of brand management and firm's profitability, the paper offered a conceptual model that convert online based-brand community into consumer-brand outcome (purchasing attitude). The managerial implication of this research was to help practitioners and industry players to harness the usefulness of social media platform in their quest to increase market share in the medium to long-term goals. Though this pilot study adds to scanty research in the social media marketing sphere. Future research direction should focus on generalizing the scope of the study because of number of social media users worldwide. © The Authors, 2019. All Rights Reserved.