The relationships among community experience, community commitment, brand attitude, and purchase intention in social media

The brand community built by social networking sites (SNSs) promotes efficiency in modern marketing. However, building consumer-brand relationships through an SNS brand community to improve marketing performance has always presented a challenge. Thus, this study aims to identify and test the main factors related to SNS brand communities that can predict purchase intention. The conceptual model includes community experience, community commitment, brand attitude, and purchase intention. The results of the structural equation modeling (SEM) using a sample of 278 Korean consumers reveals that in addition to information experience, other experiences (entertainment, homophily, and relationship-based) have a positive influence on community commitment. Relationship-based experience as constructed in this study has the largest impact on community commitment. SNS brand community commitment has a positive influence on brand attitude. However, SNS brand community commitment has no significant impact on purchase intention. Finally, the results show that SNS brand community commitment has a partial mediation effect on the relationship between SNS brand community experience and brand attitude. This study suggests that companies should strategically manage consumers' SNS brand community experiences and commitment. Other theoretical implications and managerial implications are also discussed.