How Social Media Marketing Activities Influence Brand Loyalty through Brand Identity and Brand Awareness during COVID-19

Social media is great news for businesses and brands in this pandemic situation and at best it can benefit both big and small brands. Once you know the numbers, it’s easy to understand why businesses and consumer marketers unanimously believe that social media is essential to building a brand. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the impact of social media marketing on brand loyalty through brand awareness and brand identity of the consumers, given that the concept is receiving increasing attention from marketing academia and practitioners while analyzing the mediate effect of brand awareness and brand identity. The study employs a quantitative research method where the sampling method is followed by a convenience sampling technique, and study data is collected from consumers in the fashion apparel industry in Sri Lanka through the online survey questionnaire with social media users. Based on the samples of 285 respondents, Structural Equation Modelling has been used for analysis. The results showed that social media marketing influenced brand awareness, brand identity, and brand loyalty, and also, brand awareness and brand identity influenced brand loyalty. The findings further prove that brand awareness and brand identity can mediate the effect of social media marketing on customer loyalty which is promoted through social media. As a result, social media marketing has enhanced the brand and consumers can easily remember the brand as the brand visibility on social media platforms increases. Research has shown how fashion apparel consumers interact with the brand through social media and how fashion apparel companies build awareness and identity about their brand when they hear their hiccups by interacting with social media.