Building customer loyalty through social media marketing strategy for internet service providers in Malaysia.

Abstract

Consumer behaviour has been changed since year 2020 as people spending more time at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The new normal life-style in pandemic results in the exploration of Internet usage. Retention of Internet users can be challenging with the advent of social media. Thus, the present study adopted the S-O-R model as the underpinning theory to develop a conceptual framework on building customer loyalty through social media marketing strategy. Three independent variables from social media marketing strategy were identified as environmental stimuli (S) including social media presence, social media informativeness, and social media interactivity; the mediating variable, customer satisfaction was identified as emotional reaction (O); and the dependent variable, customer loyalty, was identified as the consumers' behavioural responses (R). A structured survey questionnaire was employed for data collection and 392 usable data were collected through online survey method from Internet and social media users in Malaysia. The quantitative data was analysed quantitatively by using descriptive analysis, reliability analysis, regression analysis and mediation analysis. The results concluded that social media marketing strategy has positive impact on customer loyalty, and the social media marketing strategy-customer loyalty relationship was partially mediated by customer satisfaction. Thus, it is recommended that Internet service providers establish an effective social media marketing strategy to improve customer satisfaction in order to develop customer loyalty from Internet users.