The Impact of Social Media Marketing Strategies on Consumer Brand Loyalty

Abstract

This paper is a systematic literature review (SLR) on the impact of social media marketing (SMM) strategies on consumer brand loyalty and closely related constructs, such as brand equity, brand trust and repurchase intention. The review is performed according to the PRISMA 2020 protocol. A search in Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar resulted in 687 records. The author has no institutional access to Web of Science and Google Scholar does not have a bulk citation-export function; full title-and-abstract data suitable for record-level screening were available only for the Scopus export. The 589 records from those two sources could therefore not be screened and the review is in effect a single-database review of Scopus-indexed gold open-access literature.

Of 98 records screened (exclusion: off topic or non-qualifying, n=13), 85 reports were to be retrieved. 2 records had no full text available. 83 reports were assessed for eligibility. At this stage, another 34 were excluded, mainly because one of the four focal constructs was not the ultimate tested outcome but merely a mediator toward another dependent variable, because the predictor was not a social-media-marketing or influencer-marketing construct, or because the sample was not consumers. This resulted in 49 included studies published from 2020 to 2026. One reviewer did the screening, eligibility assessment, quality appraisal and data extraction without independent-rater cross-validation.

The most tested terminal outcome among the 49 included studies is brand loyalty (27 studies) followed by brand equity and repurchase intention (12 each). Brand trust is a terminal outcome in only 4 studies but is a mechanism mediating in a further 8 studies, suggesting that it is more often a mechanism than an endpoint in this literature. The two main predictor flows are social media marketing activities (SMMA) - entertainment, interaction, trendiness, customization and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) – and influencer marketing. The influence of influencer marketing on loyalty and equity is through both direct and indirect channels. The main mediating factors in the SMM-loyalty and the SMM–equity relationships are consumer brand engagement and brand trust. The paper concludes with theoretical and managerial implications, a synthesized research model and an agenda for future research emphasizing multi-database, multi-coder and longitudinal designs.