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According to Simon (2021), since January 2021, Malaysia had 28 million social media users. Malaysia’s social media users were
increased by 7.7% or 2.0 million from 2020 to 2021. Moreover, Malaysia’s social media users had reached 86% of the total population of
Malaysia in January 2021. As a result, it could offer companies the chance to develop the next level of customer engagement. Then, the
effect of unique capabilities is derived from broach reach and customization choices, rich advertising alternatives, innovative commercial
platforms, and substantial measurement and insights (Arthur, 2020). In addition, businesses can leverage the advantages of social media
marketing because of its low cost, rapid, extensive transmission of information, high intensity of customer engagement, and highly efficient
public relations management (Zhou et al., 2017).
Nevertheless, Red Future Network Enterprise had no active social media presence, which walk-in customers only. Therefore, to enhance
their online visibility, customers’ purchase intention, and sales, social media engagement had become a vital element of any marketing
strategy. This is because most customers expected the interaction to get better customer support. Social media posts with more active and
thoughtful interactions would attract more customers. According to Chin et al. (2015), user attitude consistently influences Facebook users’
purchase intention. For instance, users’ perceptions and ideas about the information they receive via social media will shape their affective
attitudes (Lee & Hong, 2016). On the other hand, the brand equity of an online business can also positively impact customers’ purchase
intention. According to Schivinski and Dabrowski (2016), online purchase intention from social media communication that generated by
both users and companies is significantly influenced by brand equity. This means Red Future Network Enterprise could use social media
marketing to boost its brand equity and increase consumer purchase intention.
In sum, social media engagement strategy is vital for Red Future Network Enterprise to attract more customers and increase their purchase
intention from brand awareness to brand equity. Therefore, this study examined the factors that impact brand equity and consumers’ purchase
intention towards telecommunication services. Further, the study used the findings to implement several social media marketing efforts to
increase the brand equity and customers’ purchase intention of telecommunication services provided by Red Future Network Enterprise.
1.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Based on the problem statement, the following three research questions can be derived:
RQ1: What enhances brand equity and customers’ purchase intention of telecommunication services?
RQ2: What are the social media marketing efforts to enhance the brand equity and customers’ purchase intention of telecommunication
services provided by Red Future Network Enterprise?
RQ3: Are the implemented social media marketing efforts able to enhance the brand equity and customers’ purchase intention of
telecommunication services provided by Red Future Network Enterprise?
1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
There are three research objectives in this study as below:
RO1: To identify the factors that enhance the brand equity and customers’ purchase intention of telecommunication services.
RO2: To design social media marketing efforts to enhance the brand equity and customers’ purchase intention of telecommunication
services provided by Red Future Network Enterprise.
RO3: To examine the effectiveness of the implemented social media marketing efforts to enhance the brand equity and customers’
purchase intention of telecommunication services provided by Red Future Network Enterprise.
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 PURCHASE INTENTION
“Purchase intention refers to the connection between consumer’s needs, attitude, and perception of the product or brand will possibly
influence a consumer to buy certain product” (Beneke et al., 2016, p. 6). The prospect of buyers who intend to buy an item is described as
purchase intention (Dehghani & Tumer, 2015). According to Ariffin et al. (2018), purchase intention is referred to the desire of a consumer
to purchase a specific product. In other ways, purchase intention is described as the strongness of a consumer’s willingness to buy (Lee et
al., 2017). Due to the consumer’s actions are generally determined by their intentions, it is critical to identify a customer’s purchase intention
(Hsu et al., 2017). A client’s willingness to buy a specific product or service in the future is referred to as buying intention (Gomez-Suarez
et al., 2016; Usman & Okafor, 2019), which can be enhanced by marketing strategies (Watanabe et al., 2020). Purchase intention is also
known as the intersection of a customer’s desire to acquire a product and the possibility of buying (Wu et al., 2015). The mental stage in
deciding when the consumers have expressed interest and willingness to act on a product or brand is referred to as purchase intention (Garg
& Joshi, 2018). Likewise, purchase intention is also defined as a consumers’ intention to buy products (Nurcahyo & Hudrasyah, 2017).
Modern businesses increasingly consider social media as promising platforms for conducting promotional activities and effectively
communicating with their target clients (Kohli et al., 2015; Gao and Feng, 2016; Popp & Woratschek, 2016; Harrigan et al., 2017). Purchase
intention is used to evaluate a customer’s behavioral influence because of the company’s social media marketing activities, the
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