Social Media Marketing and Purchase Intention in Consumer Durables: Examining the Mediating Ef ects of Brand Perception and Consumer Trust

ABSTRACTThis paper assesses the impact that social media marketing makes on brand association, customer confidence, aswell as purchase intention in the market of consumer durable goods. The aim is to grasp how marketers shoulddesign engagement strategies targeting online consumers. Purposive sampling was employed to gatherinformation from 145 social media users who had used social media for buying consumer durables in the last oneyear. The study’s results suggest that marketing activities on social media greatly boost brand association andtrust which, in turn, leads to stronger purchase intentions and actual buying behavior. The study details how brandperception and credibility mediate consumers’ decisions. The strategic implication is that brands need to improvetheir efforts in social media marketing to build trust with engagement, hence increase conversion rates. This is aunique contribution because it fills a gap identified in the reviewed literature, specifically the association of socialmedia brand association, trust, as well as consumptions of durable goods in the online marketplace.