Social Media Marketing Activities: Driving Consumer Engagement and Purchase Intent.

Shelter stands alongside food, water, and clothing as one of the irreducible necessities of human life. In India — a nation whose real estate market ranks among the fastest growing in the world — the act of finding and purchasing a home has, within the span of a single decade, migrated from newspaper classifieds and roadside hoardings to the scrolling feeds of Instagram, the conversation threads of WhatsApp, and the curated video galleries of YouTube. This shift has fundamentally altered the commercial landscape for developers, brokers, and buyers alike. Yet despite the visible and growing importance of social media in shaping real estate purchasing decisions, the academic literature had not, prior to this study, produced a comprehensive account of precisely how social media marketing activities exert their effects on Indian real estate consumers. Questions about which specific attributes of social media marketing drive outcomes, by what psychological mechanisms those effects operate, and how factors like brand trust amplify or constrain those mechanisms had remained largely unanswered in this specific context. This study was designed to answer those questions. Drawing on structured survey responses from 494 real estate customers across India and applying an analytical framework anchored in structural equation modelling (SEM), the study traces the complete pathway from social media marketing inputs to consumer behavioural outputs. Six social media marketing attributes — informativeness, entertainment, interactivity, trendiness, customization, and influencer marketing — are examined as independent variables. Customer brand experience is modelled as the mediating mechanism. Customer brand trust is positioned as a moderating influence. Behavioural intention — encompassing purchase intention, positive word-ofmouth, and brand advocacy — is the outcome of interest.