The impact of social media marketing efforts on consumer equity and consumer loyalty

The research has been shaped within the framework of social media which is one of the greatest benefits of digitalization-consumer equity-consumer loyalty. The active use of social media tools has incentived businesses to utilize these communication channels. It is considered significant that businesses can adapt to this new way of communicating with the consumer in the digital age. In this context, the aim of this study is to examine the impact of social media marketing efforts with five dimensions (i.e. entertainment, interaction, trendiness, customization, and word of mouth (WOM)) on consumer equity (i.e. brand equity, relationship equity, value equity) and consumer loyalty through e-commerce sites that have become widespread use. The population of the investigation consists of the consumers using social media in Turkey, who have a favorite e-commerce site and get an information about the site's marketing efforts through the social media channels such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other. Quantitative method has been conducted and investigation data has been collected via the survey through Google Forms. The results obtained from the 201 participants who answered the questionnaire were analyzed with SPSS. 18 hypotheses have been proposed. Consequently, interaction in social media marketing has been found as statistically impactful on all dimensions of consumer equity. Furtherly, it has been determined trendiness has impact on brand equity. Apart from that, relationship equity and value equity have statistically impact on consumer loyalty has been found while brand equity has not. Various inferences have been made; recommendations and limitations for future study have been given. Keywords: Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Marketing Efforts, Consumer Equity, Brand Equity, Relationship Equity, Value Equity, Consumer Loyalty