Clicks to comfort: the magic of social media marketing in the hotel service industry

Given the prominence of using social media as a marketing technique and the lack of attention to how to benefit from this method in the hospitality industry, this study aims to investigate the interrelationships between perceived social media marketing, brand attitude, purchasing intention, post-purchase behaviour of hotels' customers, and brand cognition as a moderator. The data were collected from 259 customers of four international hotels in Istanbul, Turkey. The results were analysed using the PLS-SEM approach by SmartPLS 3 software. The findings illustrate that social media marketing had a significant effect on brand attitude, and brand attitude had a positive impact on customers' purchase and EWOM intention. Moreover, the moderation test indicates that social media marketing is more positively related to brand attitude when brand cognition increases. From a practical view, hotel managers and associated decision-makers may use these findings to develop well-designed and valuable advertising campaigns using social media.