Understanding the Effects of Social Media Marketing on Customers’ Bank Loyalty: A SEM Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

After going through the material, we can appreciate the chosen topic as being of interest, the study examining the role of e-marketing factors (EMFs) in boosting customer loyalty to banks as well as the variables that have influenced such interactions in the age of social media and digital technologies.

Nevertheless, we formulate some recommendations related to:

- a more careful drafting of the material in compliance with formatting standards and form aspects.

- the aspects related to the introduction and the context analysis, that could be improved by an extension of the review of the relevant bibliography

Author Response

Thank you very much for your time and effort. Your recommendations have been applied. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review your paper entitled "Understanding the Activities of Social Media Marketing on customers' bank loyalty: A SEM approach". Following the paper you will find huge suggestions on what you need to do to prepare a manuscript for publication:

 

1. Use the proper reference style, not the APA. Use the exact and proper font of the text according to the journal's guidelines.

 

2. In the abstract you need to highlight the main findings from the paper. (i.e. Social media features have the strongest effects on perceived usefulness and Informativeness have the strongest effects on perceived ease of use)

 

3. In the introduction you need to better explain what is research context. It's a little bit confusing what is the main aim of this study?

"This study argues that loyalty in many Arab countries and their contribution to the legacy of any profit and non-profit businesses are not fully understood, especially when it comes to banks. Our study aims at filling this gap by exploring perceived use of SMM and customers’ loyalty in Jordan, as well as the factors that have influenced such relationship in the era of social media and digital technologies, using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in identifying users’ intention."

I am not sure that evidence only from Jordan could be representative of the whole Arab world. Please, give focus on the Jordan bank systems, not the whole Arab world.

 

4. In the literature review you need to make a five parts:

 

1. Social media features (SMF)

Stay with the existing text, and remove the sentence "There is relationship between social media features (SMF) and (H1a) perceived them usefulness and (H1b) ease-of-use."

2. Electronic word of mouth (EWM)

Stay with the existing text, and remove the sentence "EWM has impact on (H2a) and perceived usefulness and (H2b) ease of use to enhance 173 loyalty."

3. Informativeness (INF)

Stay with the existing text, and remove the sentence "2.4. Informativeness has impact on (H3a) perceived it usefulness and (H3b) ease-of-use in loyalty."  Additionally, you have there a technical error in 194 row. The sentence starts with 2.4, I suppose it needs to be before the part about Customer loyalty.

4. Customer loyalty

Stay with the existing text, and remove the part about TAM model, TAM model needs to be a part of the methodology.

5. Hypothesis development

In this section you need to better explain how you developed the proposed hypotheses from the literature:

H1a: Social media features have a positive effect on Perceived usefulness

H1b: Social media features have a positive effect on Perceived ease of use

H2a: Electronic word of mouth has a positive effect on Perceived usefulness

H2b: Electronic word of mouth has a positive effect on Perceived ease of use

H3a: Informativeness has a positive effect on Perceived usefulness

H3b: Informativeness has a positive effect on Perceived ease of use

H4: Perceived ease of use has a positive effect on Perceived usefulness

H5: Perceived usefulness has a positive effect on Behavioral intention

H6: Perceived ease of use has a positive effect on Behavioral intention

H7: Behavioral intention has a positive effect on Customers loyalty

You need to find statements which support your hypotheses.

In this form that is so difficult to understand what is the main literature and how this literature supports the proposed hypotheses.

 

 

5. In the methodology you need to move the TAM model part from the literature review. You need to better explain the data collection procedure.  There is no clear how this sample represents the population. Also, I am not sure that this sample is representative.  Part descriptive statistics from the results, you need to move to the methodology entitled Sample. Please, organize methodology to be:

3.1 TAM model

3.2 Data collection and Sample

3.3 Instrument and measurement

 

 

6. You need to better organize the results section to present more clearly the main findings from this study. In Figure 2 and 3 bold the positive and statistically significant relations from your model.

 

7. Discussion part you need to organize with two subparts. Now you have Theoretical contributions and practical implications (please, divide that) and Limitations and future research (move to the conclusion section):

·        5.1 Theoretical implications

Explain how your findings fill the gap in the literature.

·        5.2 Practical implications

Explain how your results cud be useful for the banks in Jordan.

 

8. You need to write the part about the conclusion in the paper. In this part, you need to summarize the main parts of your manuscripts and give limitations and future implications.

 

My decision is a major revision, but I am not so sure how authors could change these things in the short term period.

Author Response

Point 1: Thank you for the opportunity to review your paper entitled "Understanding the Activities of Social Media Marketing on customers' bank loyalty: A SEM approach". Following the paper, you will find huge suggestions on what you need to do to prepare a manuscript for publication:

1. Use the proper reference style, not the APA. Use the exact and proper font of the text according to the journal's guidelines.

Response 1: Thank you very much for your time and effort. We really appreciate and value your comments and suggestions to improve our work. This has been changed.

Point 2: 2. In the abstract you need to highlight the main findings from the paper. (i.e. Social media features have the strongest effects on perceived usefulness and Informativeness have the strongest effects on perceived ease of use)

Response 2: This has been changed.

Point 3: 3. In the introduction you need to better explain what is research context. It's a little bit confusing what is the main aim of this study?

"This study argues that loyalty in many Arab countries and their contribution to the legacy of any profit and non-profit businesses are not fully understood, especially when it comes to banks. Our study aims at filling this gap by exploring perceived use of SMM and customers’ loyalty in Jordan, as well as the factors that have influenced such relationship in the era of social media and digital technologies, using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in identifying users’ intention."

I am not sure that evidence only from Jordan could be representative of the whole Arab world. Please, give focus on the Jordan bank systems, not the whole Arab world.

Response 3: Agreed and changed accordingly.

Point 4: 4. In the literature review you need to make a five parts:

1. Social media features (SMF)

Stay with the existing text, and remove the sentence "There is relationship between social media features (SMF) and (H1a) perceived them usefulness and (H1b) ease-of-use."

2. Electronic word of mouth (EWM)

Stay with the existing text, and remove the sentence "EWM has impact on (H2a) and perceived usefulness and (H2b) ease of use to enhance loyalty."

3. Informativeness (INF)

Stay with the existing text, and remove the sentence "2.4. Informativeness has impact on (H3a) perceived it usefulness and (H3b) ease-of-use in loyalty."  Additionally, you have there a technical error in 194 row. The sentence starts with 2.4, I suppose it needs to be before the part about Customer loyalty.

4. Customer loyalty

Stay with the existing text, and remove the part about TAM model, TAM model needs to be a part of the methodology.

Response 4: Thank you very much for your advice. Although we like your advice, we feel that either way is acceptable in presenting the literature review. Thus, we would like to keep our way to save time and effort.

Point 5: 5. Hypothesis development

In this section you need to better explain how you developed the proposed hypotheses from the literature:

H1a: Social media features have a positive effect on Perceived usefulness

H1b: Social media features have a positive effect on Perceived ease of use

H2a: Electronic word of mouth has a positive effect on Perceived usefulness

H2b: Electronic word of mouth has a positive effect on Perceived ease of use

H3a: Informativeness has a positive effect on Perceived usefulness

H3b: Informativeness has a positive effect on Perceived ease of use

H4: Perceived ease of use has a positive effect on Perceived usefulness

H5: Perceived usefulness has a positive effect on Behavioral intention

H6: Perceived ease of use has a positive effect on Behavioral intention

H7: Behavioral intention has a positive effect on Customers loyalty

You need to find statements which support your hypotheses.

In this form that is so difficult to understand what is the main literature and how this literature supports the proposed hypotheses.

Response 5: Yes, we agreed with your comment, but we would like to present and link our hypotheses to the literature review directly.

Point 6: 5. In the methodology you need to move the TAM model part from the literature review. You need to better explain the data collection procedure.  There is no clear how this sample represents the population. Also, I am not sure that this sample is representative.  Part descriptive statistics from the results, you need to move to the methodology entitled Sample. Please, organize methodology to be:

3.1 TAM model

3.2 Data collection and Sample

3.3 Instrument and measurement

Response 6: Thank you very much for your advice here. We could not agree with you on moving TAM model into the methodology part, as it is not really related to this part. Thus, we would like to keep the present formal.

Point 6: 6. You need to better organize the results section to present more clearly the main findings from this study. In Figure 2 and 3 bold the positive and statistically significant relations from your model.

Response 6: Thanks. The results section is presented to reflect the hypotheses order. With regard to the Fig 2 & 3, these are seen as an additional information to support and illustrate information in Table 5.

Point 7: 7. Discussion part you need to organize with two subparts. Now you have Theoretical contributions and practical implications (please, divide that) and Limitations and future research (move to the conclusion section):

• 5.1 Theoretical implications

Explain how your findings fill the gap in the literature.

• 5.2 Practical implications

Explain how your results cud be useful for the banks in Jordan.

Response 7: Agreed and changed accordingly.

Point 8: 8. You need to write the part about the conclusion in the paper. In this part, you need to summarize the main parts of your manuscripts and give limitations and future implications.

My decision is a major revision, but I am not so sure how authors could change these things in the short term period.

Response 8: Agreed and changed accordingly.

Reviewer 3 Report

The introduction is a little unclear. In some cases, there are examples provided which is useful. However, these examples are then
also counter-argued which can add to the confusion. I think it needs to be clearer why you have chosen to work with banks.
Perhaps one clear example of a bank's implementation of SMM and how it was successful would help.
The font also seems to get larger in the second half of the introduction.

The social media features section of the literature review is again a little unclear. There are a few statements that need more explaining.
For example "Social media platforms have several features (e.g., simple and friendly user interface, visually appealing deign, content sharing method, messaging system, real-time notifications etc.) have changed the force structures in the commercial center; focuses on a significant force relocation occurring and to development of another variety of amazing and modern client, hard to impact, convince and hold (Constantinides, 2014)." I'm not sure this helps your literature review, but if you want to include it, then I would choose just two or three key points to stick to and explain why they're relevant to your paper.
There are a lot of different articles here but most only support one sentence and add to the confusion of the overall section.
The EWM section is well done. I think the other sections of the literature review could benefit from a similar structure.
The description of the TAM model is good however it's again not clear how or why you are choosing to use it.
I would like to know more about why you believe it's the best model for your case study.
The methodology of data analysis was extremely technical and in-depth, which I was not expecting considering the case study.
I found it unclear, although I can see a lot of work was put into it.

Overall, this article needs a lot of work in clarifying exactly what has been done and why. I think there is a benefit in simplifying things as it seems a little over-complicated and this isn't helping your overall argument. Lastly, a conclusion section is also needed that helps summarise what you have been explaining in the article.

Author Response

Point 1: The introduction is a little unclear. In some cases, there are examples provided which is useful. However, these examples are then counter-argued which can add to the confusion. I think it needs to be clearer why you have chosen to work with banks.

Response 1: Thank you very for your time and effort.

This study is about customers’ loyalty in Jordan which is unexplored topic. This study argues that loyalty and its contribution to the legacy of any profit and non-profit businesses are not fully understood, especially when it comes to banks. Our study aims at filling this gap by exploring perceived use of SMM and customers’ loyalty in Jordan, as well as the factors that have influenced such relationship in the era of social media and digital technologies, using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in identifying users’ in-tension.

Point 2: Perhaps one clear example of a bank's implementation of SMM and how it was successful would help.

Response 2: This is the example, “it is arguably very difficult these days for banks to operate / survive without adopting, and integration into SMM [9], [10], as they have invaded every business [11]”.

Point 3: The font also seems to get larger in the second half of the introduction.

Response 3: Yes, agreed and sorted.

Point 4: The social media features section of the literature review is again a little unclear. There are a few statements that need more explaining.
For example "Social media platforms have several features (e.g., simple and friendly user interface, visually appealing deign, content sharing method, messaging system, real-time notifications etc.) have changed the force structures in the commercial center; focuses on a significant force relocation occurring and to development of another variety of amazing and modern client, hard to impact, convince and hold (Constantinides, 2014)." I'm not sure this helps your literature review, but if you want to include it, then I would choose just two or three key points to stick to and explain why they're relevant to your paper.

Response 4: Yes, these features are included in mind when we asked about social media features.

Point 5: There are a lot of different articles here but most only support one sentence and add to the confusion of the overall section. The EWM section is well done. I think the other sections of the literature review could benefit from a similar structure.

Response 5: Thanks. The paper follows the same structure.

Point 6: The description of the TAM model is good however it's again not clear how or why you are choosing to use it.
I would like to know more about why you believe it's the best model for your case study.

Response 6: Thank you. We chose this model to reflect on our paper and understand the relationship between variables.

Point 7: The methodology of data analysis was extremely technical and in-depth, which I was not expecting considering the case study. I found it unclear, although I can see a lot of work was put into it.

Response 7: Agreed. And we would like to know which part can be edited for clarity.

Point 8: Overall, this article needs a lot of work in clarifying exactly what has been done and why. I think there is a benefit in simplifying things as it seems a little over-complicated and this isn't helping your overall argument. Lastly, a conclusion section is also needed that helps summarise what you have been explaining in the article.

Response 8: Yes. New conclusion has written to reflect and summarise the results.

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors,

I can see that you have done a major revision and it reads better that the original version. You should be commended for revising this paper.

Please have one more proof read for grammar in some sections. Use Microsoft Edit function and also put it through Google docs to highlight the obvious errors.

Author Response

Point 1: I can see that you have done a major revision and it reads better that the original version. You should be commended for revising this paper.

Response 1: Thank you very much for your time, advice and suggestions.

Point 2: Please have one more proof read for grammar in some sections. Use Microsoft Edit function and also put it through Google docs to highlight the obvious errors.

Response 2: Yes we totally agreed. The work has been proofread by a British native speaker and small typing mistakes have been checked with both Google doc and Microsoft Edit.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors failed to make the desired changes. The paper is labelled yellow, although this just indicates that the reference style has been rectified. Furthermore, they correct only the Disscusion component, but not in the appropriate way. That, in my opinion, is not necessary for the publishing. My advice to authors is to revise their article and upload a fresh version. My proposal to editors in this form is rejection.

The authors didn't reply to the following request:

1. In the abstract you need to highlight the main findings from the paper. (i.e. Social media features have the strongest effects on perceived usefulness and Informativeness have the strongest effects on perceived ease of use)

2. In the introduction you need to better explain what is research context. It's a little bit confusing what is the main aim of this study?

"This study argues that loyalty in many Arab countries and their contribution to the legacy of any profit and non-profit businesses are not fully understood, especially when it comes to banks. Our study aims at filling this gap by exploring perceived use of SMM and customers’ loyalty in Jordan, as well as the factors that have influenced such relationship in the era of social media and digital technologies, using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in identifying users’ intention."

I am not sure that evidence only from Jordan could be representative of the whole Arab world. Please, give focus on the Jordan bank systems, not the whole Arab world.

3. In the literature review you need to make a five parts:

Social media features (SMF)
Stay with the existing text, and remove the sentence "There is relationship between social media features (SMF) and (H1a) perceived them usefulness and (H1b) ease-of-use."

Electronic word of mouth (EWM)
Stay with the existing text, and remove the sentence "EWM has impact on (H2a) and perceived usefulness and (H2b) ease of use to enhance loyalty."

Informativeness (INF)
Stay with the existing text, and remove the sentence "2.4. Informativeness has impact on (H3a) perceived it usefulness and (H3b) ease-of-use in loyalty."  Additionally, you have there a technical error in 194 row. The sentence starts with 2.4, I suppose it needs to be before the part about Customer loyalty.

Customer loyalty
Stay with the existing text, and remove the part about TAM model, TAM model needs to be a part of the methodology

4. Hypothesis development

In this section you need to better explain how you developed the proposed hypotheses from the literature:

H1a: Social media features have a positive effect on Perceived usefulness
H1b: Social media features have a positive effect on Perceived ease of use
H2a: Electronic word of mouth has a positive effect on Perceived usefulness
H2b: Electronic word of mouth has a positive effect on Perceived ease of use
H3a: Informativeness has a positive effect on Perceived usefulness
H3b: Informativeness has a positive effect on Perceived ease of use
H4: Perceived ease of use has a positive effect on Perceived usefulness
H5: Perceived usefulness has a positive effect on Behavioral intention
H6: Perceived ease of use has a positive effect on Behavioral intention
H7: Behavioral intention has a positive effect on Customers loyalty

You need to find statements which support your hypotheses.

In this form that is so difficult to understand what is the main literature and how this literature supports the proposed hypotheses.

5.  In the methodology you need to move the TAM model part from the literature review. You need to better explain the data collection procedure.  There is no clear how this sample represents the population. Also, I am not sure that this sample is representative.  Part descriptive statistics from the results, you need to move to the methodology entitled Sample. Please, organize methodology to be:

3.1 TAM model
3.2 Data collection and Sample
3.3 Instrument and measurement

 

 

Author Response

Point 1: The authors failed to make the desired changes. The paper is labelled yellow, although this just indicates that the reference style has been rectified. Furthermore, they correct only the Discussion component, but not in the appropriate way. That, in my opinion, is not necessary for the publishing. My advice to authors is to revise their article and upload a fresh version. My proposal to editors in this form is rejection.

The authors didn't reply to the following request:

1. In the abstract you need to highlight the main findings from the paper. (i.e. Social media features have the strongest effects on perceived usefulness and Informativeness have the strongest effects on perceived ease of use)

Response 1: the abstract has been rewritten to reflect and highlight the main findings.

Point 2: 2. In the introduction you need to better explain what is research context. It's a little bit confusing what is the main aim of this study?

"This study argues that loyalty in many Arab countries and their contribution to the legacy of any profit and non-profit businesses are not fully understood, especially when it comes to banks. Our study aims at filling this gap by exploring perceived use of SMM and customers’ loyalty in Jordan, as well as the factors that have influenced such relationship in the era of social media and digital technologies, using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in identifying users’ intention."

I am not sure that evidence only from Jordan could be representative of the whole Arab world. Please, give focus on the Jordan bank systems, not the whole Arab world.

Response 2: Yes, we agreed on this and we focused only on Jordan.

Point 3: 3. In the literature review you need to make a five parts:

Social media features (SMF)
Stay with the existing text, and remove the sentence "There is relationship between social media features (SMF) and (H1a) perceived them usefulness and (H1b) ease-of-use."

Electronic word of mouth (EWM)
Stay with the existing text, and remove the sentence "EWM has impact on (H2a) and perceived usefulness and (H2b) ease of use to enhance loyalty."

Informativeness (INF)
Stay with the existing text, and remove the sentence "2.4. Informativeness has impact on (H3a) perceived it usefulness and (H3b) ease-of-use in loyalty."  Additionally, you have there a technical error in 194 row. The sentence starts with 2.4, I suppose it needs to be before the part about Customer loyalty.

Customer loyalty
Stay with the existing text, and remove the part about TAM model, TAM model needs to be a part of the methodology

Response 3: we have moved the required parts in the suggested place.

Point 4: 4. Hypothesis development

In this section you need to better explain how you developed the proposed hypotheses from the literature:

H1a: Social media features have a positive effect on Perceived usefulness
H1b: Social media features have a positive effect on Perceived ease of use
H2a: Electronic word of mouth has a positive effect on Perceived usefulness
H2b: Electronic word of mouth has a positive effect on Perceived ease of use
H3a: Informativeness has a positive effect on Perceived usefulness
H3b: Informativeness has a positive effect on Perceived ease of use
H4: Perceived ease of use has a positive effect on Perceived usefulness
H5: Perceived usefulness has a positive effect on Behavioral intention
H6: Perceived ease of use has a positive effect on Behavioral intention
H7: Behavioral intention has a positive effect on Customers loyalty

You need to find statements which support your hypotheses.

In this form that is so difficult to understand what is the main literature and how this literature supports the proposed hypotheses.

Response 4: new heading was created for the hypothesis development with supporting statements.

Point 5: 5.  In the methodology you need to move the TAM model part from the literature review. You need to better explain the data collection procedure.  There is no clear how this sample represents the population. Also, I am not sure that this sample is representative.  Part descriptive statistics from the results, you need to move to the methodology entitled Sample. Please, organize methodology to be:

3.1 TAM model
3.2 Data collection and Sample
3.3 Instrument and measurement

Response 5: the methodology has been organized as suggested. Regarding the sample, we don’t intent to generalize our findings. There’re only applied in those participate in our research.

Please note that the manuscript has been extensively edited by an English-native speaker.

Reviewer 3 Report

I still find that this paper should be simplified with a few key examples to make your point in each place.

for example in the literature review, you state "The growing number of Internet and social media users in Jordan itself indicated that they actually transform users from being passive users (e.g., reading only online content) to more active users (e.g., content producers, share different visual and none-visual content)".
I don't understand the correlation between growing number of users and active/passive users. There are many factors that can contribute to a users transition from more passive to active activity. If you are to make claims like this - which are made often throughout these sections - then they need to be explained and supported by the literature.
Throughout the introduction and literature review, this is what I mean when I ask for more examples. I think you would be better off finding a case study of one particular Arab bank that uses social media, and explain how it has affected their business, citing the literature and theory to justify your claims.

Another example - "Social media can help any business in terms of attract customers, increase marketing reach, revenue, build customer loyalty. Studies confirm the powerful of SMM on shopping decisions [22], brand development [25], promotion [26], and publicity [27], [28]."
If this is true, at least one of these studies should be explained in more detail.
I won't highlight all the examples but I think this is something that really needs to be revised.

The changes made to the Informative and Customer Loyalty sections are good.

The Mulia citation in the TAM section is good for clarifying its use related to your article.

Table 2 in the results is where I'm struggling. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I'm not understanding the columns such as Chronbach's Alpha. Can these terms be explained "Table 2 shows the factor loading (FL), Cronbach’s alpha (CA) and composite reliability (CR), and average variance extracted (AVE).".

The discussion section is more clear now which is good. I think perhaps this section can be used to improve the introduction. For example, knowing what you know from the results, your introduction can be structured according to what you found to help reinforce your argument.

I think the conclusion is good for now, but I will review again once the introduction has been updated.

 

Author Response

Point 1: I still find that this paper should be simplified with a few key examples to make your point in each place.

for example in the literature review, you state "The growing number of Internet and social media users in Jordan itself indicated that they actually transform users from being passive users (e.g., reading only online content) to more active users (e.g., content producers, share different visual and none-visual content)".
I don't understand the correlation between growing number of users and active/passive users. There are many factors that can contribute to a users transition from more passive to active activity. If you are to make claims like this - which are made often throughout these sections - then they need to be explained and supported by the literature.
Throughout the introduction and literature review, this is what I mean when I ask for more examples. I think you would be better off finding a case study of one particular Arab bank that uses social media, and explain how it has affected their business, citing the literature and theory to justify your claims.

Response 1: Yes we agreed with this, the paragraph has been revised again. More examples related to Arab banks have been cited.

Point 2: Another example - "Social media can help any business in terms of attract customers, increase marketing reach, revenue, build customer loyalty. Studies confirm the powerful of SMM on shopping decisions [22], brand development [25], promotion [26], and publicity [27], [28]."
If this is true, at least one of these studies should be explained in more detail.
I won't highlight all the examples but I think this is something that really needs to be revised.

Response 2: Yes, we provided example and explanation.

Point 3: The changes made to the Informative and Customer Loyalty sections are good.

The Mulia citation in the TAM section is good for clarifying its use related to your article.

Response 3: Thank you very much.

Point 4: Table 2 in the results is where I'm struggling. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I'm not understanding the columns such as Chronbach's Alpha. Can these terms be explained "Table 2 shows the factor loading (FL), Cronbach’s alpha (CA) and composite reliability (CR), and average variance extracted (AVE).".

Response 4: we’ve tried to simplify the table and reduce its content.

Point 5: The discussion section is more clear now which is good. I think perhaps this section can be used to improve the introduction. For example, knowing what you know from the results, your introduction can be structured according to what you found to help reinforce your argument.

I think the conclusion is good for now, but I will review again once the introduction has been updated.

Response 5: Thank you very much, we updated the introduction based on the discussion section.

Please note that the manuscript has been extensively edited by an English-native speaker.

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors include all comments in the revised version of the manuscript. The paper could be published in 

 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments and Satisfactions. Your suggestions have improved the quality of the work and we've learnt a lot from your advice.