Exploring the impacts of social networking on brand image and purchase intention in cyberspace

Social networking websites have become increasingly popular, and have also become the main media not only to connect lives socially, but also to affect brand image and consumers’ purchase intention. The purpose of this paper is to incorporate the Facebook fan page and e-journal provide over the Internet (cloud e-journal) with the uses and gratification theory to test the impact on brand image and purchase intention through the use of cloud learning. We used cloud learning material from the Ivy League in Taiwan in our case study. This paper also applied structural equation modeling to analyze the data collected from members of the Ivy League Facebook fan page and the Cloud users’ e-journal. The results of this study demonstrated that for the members of the Ivy League Facebook fan page, purchase intention was positively and significantly influenced, regardless of any use intention factors, based on the uses and gratification theory. In addition, using the Facebook fan page and Cloud e-journal would also positively and significantly affect the brand image for Internet users. Moreover, with the Ivy League fan page and the Cloud e-journal’s improved brand image, there is an increase in intention to buy the journals and relevant services. This paper also demonstrated that six features of the Cloud e-journal did have a moderating effect on the purchase intention. Our results provide suggestions to those who attempt to build cloud learning solutions for customers, and are also helpful to those who wish to apply the Facebook fan page to customer relationship marketing platforms.