Building Brand-Fan Relationships in Social Commerce Contexts: Mediators of Online Brand Relationships

The effect of the Internet and social media on consumer behavior has recently begun to outweigh the effect of traditional marketing strategies. Therefore, numerous enterprises have begun to use social media to communicate with brand users, and social media has b"ecome the optimal tool for brand marketing. According to current brand-community relationships from the perspectives of brand authenticity and brand identification, we identified the mediating factors (brand trust and brand passion) of relationships between community members and brands and developed an integrated model to determine the effects of these factors on community member purchase intentions. The research targets in the present study were consumers who had purchased products from one of the top three cosmetic brands in Taiwan and had been a member of the brand’s official fan page for at least 1 year. Overall, 484 valid samples were collected in this study. We employed structural equation modeling to examine our model. Five hypotheses were supported, and excellent model fits to the data were obtained. Additionally, this study discovered that brand trust and brand passion played crucial mediating roles. Finally, we propose management implications and make suggestions that can serve as a reference for brand community managers