The funtion of brand equity in social media marketing with customer response

EXTENDED ABSTRACT
 
Introduction
Globalization of service industries and economic open space forces service companies to continuously increase their competition. As the access to the Internet and the use of its facilities have increased in today's world, the number of customers who use its services has also increased. To attract customers and customize their needs, advertising professionals have started using social media for their advertising, their aim is to encourage users to share their brand image and free advertising. In recent years, social networks have widely become a tool to promote marketing, businesses have recognized the importance of communication in the process of attracting customers, and many brands use these networks to reach and attract customers. Today, business owners are looking for products that are liked by customers and satisfy them. Fort and Daugherty (2001) state that networking behaviors are people's efforts to develop and maintain relationships with people who potentially help them and their business. These network relationships create interaction between the seller and the buyer and ultimately lead to the production of innovative products, and the results of these interactions are improving customer experiences and creating the image of the brand among customers. Kim and Ko (2012) believe that relational equity and the customer's desire to maintain a relationship with a brand go beyond objective and subjective evaluation of a brand, and loyalty programs under the control of the organization promote relational equity. Therefore, it will be useful to examine why there is a high expectation that social media will definitely be used as one of the advertising tools. Promoting and advertising various organizations using social media is a cheaper solution than paying high costs for advertising in non-virtual space. Kotler states in 1999 that the brand increases the speed of information transfer from the product to the customer, besides, the brand itself cannot have negative and positive effects on the perception of the effectiveness of the advertised products and services. Social network marketing is a two-way communication that seeks to attract users. In addition, social network activity provides an opportunity for brands to reduce misunderstandings and prejudices towards other brands and create a space for exchanging ideas and information online, leading to an increase in brand value through people. Rowley (2004) states that organizations intend to establish relationships with customers and consider their recommendations and suggestions for production, which can lead to an increase in brand image and awareness. With the growing use of social media marketing by the brand of various organizations, especially in the hotel industry, it is very necessary to quantitatively analyze the effects of social media on the brand value of these organizations and customer responses.
 
Methodology
The current research studies and examines the current state of research variables and their relationships in the society, so it is placed in the descriptive research group in terms of method. The statistical population of this research includes all people who are members of different hotels in Iran in social networks (in the forms of external platforms, Instagram was the reference because it was the most used and membered, in the forms of internal platforms, the reference was Rubika and some forms of other platforms). Due to the uncertainty of the statistical population, the statistical sample is 385 people using Cochran's formula. To collect field data, the standard questionnaire of Seo and Park (2018) with a five-point Likert scale was used. The analysis of research data was done at two levels of descriptive and inferential statistics. At the level of descriptive statistics, using statistical characteristics such as frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation, the data was analyzed, and at the level of inferential statistics, in order to analyze the data, structural equation modeling was used with the partial least squares approach. The tools used for data analysis are SPSS 24 and smart Pls 3 software. SPSS 24 software was used for descriptive data analysis and Smart Pls 3 software was used for structural equation modeling.
 
Results and Discussion
According to the obtained results, the first hypothesis of the research is confirmed, so it can be said that social media marketing activities have a positive and significant effect on brand value in the hotel industry. Regarding the second hypothesis, the results confirm this hypothesis, so it can be said that brand equity has a positive and significant effect on customer response in the hotel industry. Regarding the third hypothesis, the results confirm the current hypothesis and it can be said that social media marketing activities have a positive and significant effect on customer response in the hotel industry. According to the results and the existence of an indirect effect between social media marketing activities and customer response, we can conclude The effect of independent variables on dependent variables is also conditional and indirect; Therefore, the mediating relationship of brand equity between the relationship of social marketing activities and customer response is confirmed. The value of the indirect effect is also 0.365. According to the results, all sub-hypotheses of the research have been confirmed in this research, therefore, regarding the confirmation of the first sub-hypothesis, it can be said that social media marketing activities have a positive and significant effect on brand awareness in the hotel industry. Therefore, regarding the confirmation of the second sub-hypothesis, it can be said that social media marketing activities have a positive and significant effect on the brand image in the hotel industry. Regarding the confirmation of the third sub-hypothesis, he said that brand awareness has a positive and significant effect on electronic word-of-mouth communication in the hotel industry. Regarding the confirmation of the fourth sub-hypothesis, it can be said that brand image has a positive and significant effect on electronic word-of-mouth communication in the hotel industry. Regarding the confirmation of the fifth sub-hypothesis, it can be said that brand awareness has a positive and significant effect on commitment in the hotel industry, and regarding the confirmation of the sixth sub-hypothesis, it can be said that brand image has a positive and significant effect on commitment in the hotel industry.
Conclusion
In the research of the researcher, it was found that social media marketing has a positive and significant effect on brand equity and customer response, and brand equity has a positive and significant effect on customer response, therefore, from the test of the mentioned paths, it was concluded that brand equity in the relationship between marketing social media and customer response play a mediating role.