The Impact of Brand Consumer Relationships on Brand Loyalty in Social Business: The Modifying Role of Characteristics Related to parasocial Interaction

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of consumer relations with the brand on brand loyalty in the context of social trade, taking into account the moderating role of features related to parasocial interaction. The statistical population of the study includes people active in the Instagram social network who have ever intended to buy (purchased or not) from Digi Kala site and information about their intention to buy or purchase in this network. They have published a social post. In this study, based on the Cochran's formula for 1100 statistical population, a sample size of 248 people was obtained. The present research questionnaire is a combination of Giovanis and Athanasopoulou questionnaires in 2018 and Zehir in 2012. The results showed that consumer relations with the brand and its dimensions (customer satisfaction, customer trust, customer commitment and brand experience) have a positive effect on brand loyalty in the context of social business. Also, the characteristics related to parasocial interaction in the relationship between consumer relations with the brand and brand loyalty play a moderating role.

Social business provides a good platform for long-term consumer relationships with the brand. Social business has emerged from the integration of different fields. The main emphasis of social business is on combining social activities with online marketing and sales. (Turban et al, 2011). Social marketing includes scientific and practical areas of business. Thus, social business can be considered as a subset of social marketing that deals with online shopping. The other roots of social commerce are communication and collaboration theories, virtual societies and the virtual world, and finally, the main roots are e-commerce (or e-business) with different business models (Borden and Mahamane, 2020). No previous research has found that consumer relationships with brand and brand loyalty have been studied in Digi Kala, and the information gap is palpable. Therefore, this study seeks to answer the question that the impact of consumer relations with the brand and its dimensions (customer satisfaction, customer trust, customer commitment and brand experience) on brand loyalty in the context of social business considering the moderating role of features. How is it related to quasi-social interaction?

The statistical population of this study is people who have been active in the social network Instagram, they have ever intended to buy from the Digi Kala website, and have published information about their intention to buy on this social network. Materials and Methods Samples selected in this study from the participants in Digi Kala's "Listen Contest" who answered the questions of this contest based on the information about the goods introduced on Instagram of Digi Kala, and through this to their account Access was available, selected, the statistical population was 1,100 people, and the number of samples was calculated based on the Cochran's formula, calculation, and sample size was 284. A standard questionnaire was used to collect information in this study.

The results showed that consumer relations with the brand and its dimensions (customer satisfaction, customer trust, customer commitment and brand experience) have a positive and significant effect on brand loyalty in the social trading platform. Therefore, the first main hypothesis and the first to fourth sub-hypotheses were confirmed. Also, the characteristics related to parasocial interaction have a positive and significant effect on the relationship between consumer relations with the brand and brand loyalty.

The results of this study were examined in the form of two main hypotheses. The results obtained from the first main hypothesis showed that consumer relations with the brand have a positive and significant effect on brand loyalty. In a competitive market, companies seek to gain and develop a competitive advantage by differentiating their brand from other competitors. The second main hypothesis in this study examined the role of moderating the characteristics associated with parasocial interaction in the relationship between consumer relationship with brand and brand loyalty. Increasing parasocial interaction in the context of social commerce can facilitate the consumer-brand relationship and create the ground for the formation of sustainable brand loyalty in consumers.