Impact of social media marketing features on consumer's purchase decision in the fast-food industry: Brand trust as a mediator

The main aim of this paper was to investigate the effect of four features of social media marketing on the purchase decision of consumers in the fast-food industry. It also aimed to determine if brand trust mediates the relationship between them. Necessary data was gathered from the visitors of different fast-food cafes in UAE via a quantitative online survey. After obtaining the desired responses, the data was analyzed by the AMOS 21- structural equation modeling. The results confirmed the significance of brand trust in predicting purchase decision. Above all, the findings showed that informativeness, perceived relevance, and interactivity have positive effect on purchase decision. But, it was found that the effect of entertainment on purchase decision is insignificant. The results also confirmed that brand trust mediates the association between only two social media marketing features (interactivity and informativeness) and consumer purchase decision. Theoretically, this paper advances the current literature by exploring the mediating effect of brand trust among the four features of social media marketing and purchase decision with new empirical insights from UAE, taking into account that the earlier researches of this nature in Arab region are scarce.