Explanatory model of consumer purchase intention in digital social networks

The present research work addresses the impact of the influence and involvement of online experience exchanges among consumers of digital social networks, the commitment they manifest towards brands and the persuasive attitude towards advertisements. The study is contemplating Veblen social psychological theory as predictors of purchase intention. A theoretical-methodological model was developed at a confirmatory level, which is based on the Motivation, Opportunity, Capability model and the attitude model towards the brand and advertisement, alternative models for measuring purchase intention and commitment. The objective of this research was to evaluate the attitudinal effect of consumers' purchase intention through the engagement model of consumers in digital social networks. The methodology used is quantitative, descriptive-correlational, cross-sectional applied in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Jalisco; Veracruz, Veracruz; Puebla, Puebla; Monterrey, Nuevo Leon; Villahermosa, Tabasco. The study population consisted of 140 consumers of cars, in car dealerships and users of social networks. The results of the study, were statistically processed at a confirmatory level, generating the proposed model with Patha analysis and the software SPSS and AMOS version 24.

studied in various researches considering the impact and influence of the brand on followers, the contents that are created by brands and the eWOM produced by the opinions of consumers in social networks Hsu (2017). It is emphasized that the origin, evolution and dissolution of social networks, develop consumer practices, as well as successfully influence their behavior and decisions. The consumer becomes the primary target of digital marketing trends (Rodriguez, 2017). Brands in this context, apart from the information that is transmitted, have new challenges to design content and impact on users who remain in social networks to find new formats and content that capture the attention of users of digital social networks (Bigné, 2012).
Companies are designing marketing strategies based on the development of this digital socialization process, which makes it possible to recognize the knowledge required to identify the needs of consumers, as well as the impact of the company's brand in order to obtain a sustainable competitive advantage in the market against the competition in the digital environment (San José et al., 2012). When this differential advantage in the environment occurs, it makes brand image a standard for companies. Brand image guidelines contain the rules that standardize the internal communication of the organization, as well as its planned external activities; in these documents, policies and actions are evaluated and adjusted to assess the impact on current and potential customers, in addition to improving brand positioning. One of the most popular trends in the area of digital marketing and brand building is the growth of social networks and their popularity among consumers (Schivinski, 2016).
According to many companies have started to maintain interactive relationships with people through brand follower pages or fan pages. In the last decade there have been several researches that have analyzed the effect of these communities in social networks on purchase intention and brand loyalty. In the literature, the independent variables analyzed that influence purchase intention have been diverse; engagement or commitment, content created by the brand, eWOM and the susceptibility of the followers of a Facebook page with the purchase intention of the brand (Laroche, 2017). The present study aims to understand the engagement of digital social media consumers with brands directly influences purchase intent. Likewise, persuasion in the attitude towards the brand contemplating Veblen social psychological theory influencing the purchase intention by consumers particularly in the automotive market (Martinez , 2015).

Problem Statement
In the world there are several automotive companies that compete with each other and share the global consumer market. Each brand has the necessary elements to identify itself in the communication directed towards consumers and therefore to have a certain level of positioning in the minds of consumers. Products can be identified, seeking to satisfy needs or benefits according to the specific attributes they offer Lee, (2008

Strategic Management
Companies require tools that allow them to meet their objectives, despite their complexity, business line or industrial sector, size, formality, academic level of their personnel, stability in the market, among other variables, they require strategic management. Garrido (2006) defined that an important element of strategic management is the formulation of the strategy, he mentioned that strategy planning implies a synthesis, which implies the art and technique in which the strategist must decide and negotiate the dynamic way to handle uncertainty, ambiguity and negotiation scheme. He also mentioned that strategy planning implies a synthesis, which is a technique and art in which the strategist or actor must decide and negotiate dynamically handling uncertainty, ambiguity and negotiation possibilities. Daft (2011) mentioned that a strategy is the action plan that describes resource allocation and activities to face the environment and achieve the organization's goals. Strategic management is a systems approach process of evaluating the nature of a business, defining long-term objectives, identifying quantitative goals and objectives, developing strategies to achieve these objectives and locating resources to carry out these strategies (Thompson, 2012). To establish a competitive advantage, four fundamental elements are considered: superiority in efficiency, quality, speed, flexibility and innovation, and responsiveness to customers (Robbins, 2013). For companies, knowledge is an important input, since through the understanding of consumer behavior it is possible to identify tastes and needs important to people, in addition to providing answers to the questioning of companies about the buying motivations of consumers: why they buy, how much they buy, how often they buy and all the variables that influence consumption decisions in the same sense, the information is valuable to design strategies that impact sales through the internet, by identifying the reference groups whose behaviors and opinions, it is possible to influence (Jones and George, 2014).

Theory of Thorstein Bunde Veblen
The social-psychological model of Thorstein Bunde Veblen is conceived in the theory of consumption based on habits included in the theory of the idle class of 1899, as well as the theory of economic cycles and crises that he developed in the Theory of the business which selfishness is only one of them. He also explained that the place of hedonism in the discipline of economics was an elusive way of studying the complexity of human motivations. He attributed the use of this basic assumption to intellectual laziness. His criticism was not based on the use of egoism in social reality, but on the excessive importance given to it by received economics. He sought to demonstrate that human behavior associated with various motivations, such as emulation, instinct for efficient work, idle curiosity, instinct for self-preservation, and parental inclination.
Veblen considered that the received economy conceived man as a passive entity that is affected by the exterior identifying pains, pleasures and determined the importance of the motivations of human beings that define mentalities and behaviors. He focused on two fundamental aspects; the motivations of consumers and social change. On the other hand, they identified in the study of motivations, that Veblen adopted a broader psychological approach, stating that man acts guided by five instincts: that of efficient work, emulation, or tendency to follow the behavior of the reference group and imitate that of peers, that of idle curiosity or inclination to disinterested knowledge; that of paternal inclination which implies concern not only for their own present welfare, but also for the future of their offspring, and that of self-preservation Figueras ( 2013).
Likewise, he considered in the idle theory as an economic factor the idle class that influences the behavior patterns and consumption habits of the whole society. Likewise, he elaborated a theory of consumption based on emulation and the instinct to work, which he contrasts with the vision of an automaton consumer who assumes utility with foresight.
A person's reputation or prestige is related to the social patterns or standards associated with individual prowess or feat, the signs on the basis of which a person is catalogued and socially esteemed. As consumption is the basis of social and individual esteem, the individual develops the habit of seeking expressions within a certain line of honorary spending, thus consumption patterns become habits and are difficult to change. Every individual seeks self-improvement and therefore determines his consumption based on the next level of the immediate superior class, imitating their patterns of behavior. From The purchases that an individual make may be motivated by social class influences and the desire to belong to a certain group of interest. In such a way that the consumption behavior of the person is affected by the prestige of the product and/or service, because those that enjoy greater prestige in the group, community or society where he/she lives are desirable, factors such as family, culture and reference groups, can significantly influence consumer behavior.
The desire for greater comfort and security in the face of need is present in each and every stage of modern industrial society, although it is largely affected by the habit of emulation, which allows modeling methods and selects objects of expenditure for comfort and life with respect Figueras (2013).

Engagement
Engagement offers an improvement in the current theories on the relationship between consumers and brands, based on the roots of relationship marketing (Fournier, 1998). The engagement or loyalty of a brand's followers on Facebook influences all phases of the buying process: cognitive phase, affective phase and conative phase. They argued that engagement influences brand awareness, because social networks generate a way of exposing the brand to consumers, therefore, engagement influences the initial stage of the purchase process (Hutter, 2013).
A brand in social networks is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct composed of three dimensions: cognitive, affective and conative (Hollebeek, 2014). The added value of engagement lies in supporting interactions and experiences in consumer relationships and influencing different purchase situations (Vivek, 2012). The affective dimension includes enthusiasm towards the community and the brand, and the enjoyment of interactions with them, the cognitive dimension includes the conscious and voluntary decision to invest time to connect with the community and the behavioral dimension includes participation, through active learning, sharing and endorsing behaviors of others (Dessart, 2015). Engagement was defined as the emotional links between consumers and brands. It was mentioned that positioning is not focused on reasoning but on emotions, it seeks a relationship in both directions, making engagement the degree to which the consumer interacts with a brand, the commitment between the brand and the users is evidenced on the basis of the branded content found in the experiences offered. There are many ways to show the love or affinity that a person may have with a particular brand, through social networks such as Facebook fanpage with a like, following the official accounts of brands or sharing videos (Müller, 2017).

Electronic Word of Mouth (e-WOM)
Electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) is defined as any positive or negative statement made by potential, current or former customers about a product or company, which is made available to a multitude of people through the Internet (Hennig-Thurau, 2004). This definition includes communication between vendors and consumers, as well as between consumers themselves. Its typology is two-dimensional: 1) by the scope of communication; one-to-one (e-mails), one-to-many (opinion portals) or many-to-many (virtual communities). 2) By the level of interactivity: from asynchronous (e-mail, opinion portals, blogs) to synchronous (chats, forums, instant messaging). On the other hand, although electronic word-of-mouth is considered more persuasive and more desired by consumers than content generated by brand managers, it is important to highlight that compared to other sources of information, word-of-mouth is considered more persuasive and more desired by consumers than content generated by brand managers Lee; It is important to highlight that compared to other sources of information, word-of-mouth is considered more persuasive and more desired by consumers than content generated by brand managers Lee (2008). Consumers who are highly loyal are more likely to positively express WOM for the brand and act as brand advocates. In the same vein, communication among consumers through social networks has become one of the most widely used digital media of the existing electronic word-of-mouth formats and user-generated content has originated new information review habits in those consumers who take an active role in their purchasing decisions have changed the way consumers make purchasing decisions, as they can easily and quickly exchange product-related information and opinions with personal contacts Chiu, (2015).

Purchase intention
The purchase intention is established as a decision making on the part of consumers and focuses on solving a problem. When a consumer tends to perceive a problem and focuses their attention on solving it, adopts and disposes of all measures to try to identify what they are looking for and chooses the means to obtain a product and / or service, usually coincides with the actual subsequent purchase Fishbein (1975) there may be situations in which the intention does not involve a subsequent actual purchase. The factors that affect in consumer purchase decision making are complex, so the study of consumer behavior is related to psychology and sociology Torres, (2013).
It is explained that each person is different, so it is important to provide an instrument to explain how purchasing decisions are made Martinez (2006). As this situation manifests itself, companies take advantage of this need, developing brand positioning strategies in order to identify the degree of importance given in the mass consumption of certain brands and being the main target to buy. The stages of the purchase intention in which the consumer incurs the first stage occurs at the time of seeking to acquire a product and / or service is the recognition of the need, the second stage is when consumers must seek information and is to be clear about the degree of importance of the purchase decision either to satisfy a need or an expectation. In the third stage, is the evaluation of alternatives, where consumers pay all their attention to the assessment to make the best decision according to the search previously made Santos (2020).

METHOD
A theoretical-methodological model was developed at a confirmatory level by Path analysis which is based on and adapted from the following models: engagement or  Calculating a sample of 144 customers/cars.

Coding procedure and categories.
The methodology elaborated for the development of the research followed the order of type of study, study population, sampling method, operationalization of variables, measurement instruments for data collection and data analysis. A quantitative, descriptive, correlational and cross-sectional research was carried out, since the association or relationship between variables that have been quantified was studied, which helped in the interpretation of the results of a sample in a certain period of time.
The study is subject to certain limitations. Firstly, to consumers who buy cars from automotive agencies and use social networks (Facebook), the sample size that in an estimated time span of three months. The use of five-chord Likert scales.
▪ Based on the calculation of the sample size of 144 customers of the car dealerships, the data collection instrument was delivered. ▪ The online survey was carried out using the Qualtrics platform, a research support tool provided by the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara.
▪ The construction of the questionnaire was carried out through the thorough examination of other data collection instruments that two constructs measured in the model are engagement and purchase intent.
▪ The data collection instrument was validated and a pilot test was applied. The behavior of the engagement and purchase intention dimensions was identified.
▪ The reliability analysis of the data was carried out using the Cronbach's Alpha statistic, obtaining 0.778 for engagement and 0.708 for purchase intention, both being optimal above 0.7 (Hair, 2009).
▪ The exploratory analysis of the instrument was performed by construct, for which the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measurement test (KMO) and Barlett's test of sphericity were used. The extraction test used maximum likelihood (MLV) without rotation due to the unidimensionality of the constructs.
▪ The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) sample adequacy test was used, obtaining 0.742 for purchase intention and 0.882 for engagement, both being optimal according to the appropriate value of 0.7, so the measure the homogeneity of the variables and the contribution to the degree of explanation of the questionnaire items (Hair, 2009).
▪ Likewise, the AVE composite validity was calculated whose optimal value is 0.5, giving 0.5042 for purchase intention and 0.500 for engagement.
A descriptive analysis was used to identify the descriptive characteristics of the study clients in the sample. Frequency tables were used for nominal data such as gender, age, education. (Table 1) Subsequently, in relation to the age of the participants, the composition of the sample was: less than 20 years old 7.1%, 21 to 25 years old 11.4%, 26 to 30 years old 5.7%, 31 to 40 years old 22.9% and 41 years old and over 52.9%. (Table 2).

Total 100%
Source. Own elaboration based on data from SPSS24 software.
In reference to the level of education of the participants, the sample was made up of 0.7% secondary school, 10.7% high school, 37.9% undergraduate and 50.7% graduate, allowing us to conclude that the sample has an elevated level of education. Participation in social networks by the sample classified as follows: less than 6 months 4.3%, 1 to 2 years 0.7%, 2 to 3 years 11.4%, 3 to 5 years 16.4% and more than 5 years 67.1%, detecting a sample with experience in the management of social networks. The results obtained for the frequency of connection to social networks by the participants in the study were: more than twice a day 55%, once or twice a day 10.7%, several a week 14.3% and once a month 20%.

3.ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
For the testing of the hypothesis that the engagement of consumers of digital social networks to brands directly influences the purchase intention. A PATH analysis (PA) was carried out with a multivariate model using AMOS 24 software. This multivariate method was used to adjust causal models and to identify the direct and indirect contribution made

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
The problem posed in this research, was solved through structural equation modeling (SEM). The confirmed theoretical model allows us to answer the following research questions. The question Is, the purchase intention of consumers in digital social networks, confirmed as an attitudinal effect of the Engagement model? It is confirmed that consumers' purchase intention has an attitudinal effect relationship based on the model , which proposes that the consumer's relationship with the brand, is established based on identification with the community, which affects the user's commitment to the community.
The identification with the community is stated as the strength of the relationship that exists between the consumer and the community. Engagement with the brand community, refers to the positive influences to identify with the brand community being intrinsic motivations to interact and cooperate with community members. If the perceived influence is positive by community users, they help each other by participating more actively. The consumer experiences a social pressure to be a member and is related to the norms that ultimately influence their behavior. If the consumer is committed to the brand community, the greater the obligation to contribute and defend it. Bigné et, al (2005).
This research was conducted with the purpose of evaluating the attitudinal effect of consumers' purchase intention through customer engagement with brands posted on digital social networks. The measurement instrument for data collection was validated, being a methodological contribution of this research. In the research process, a sample of customers who directly purchased cars through automotive distributors of different brands that manage digital social networks was contemplated, which provided objective information on the perception of comments on digital social networks and their influence on the intention to purchase a car.
The results of the research reflect that for the sample under study, the commitment or engagement is linked to a series of behaviors that lead to the purchase action as a result of individual and collective motivations that generate a determining effect on the performance of the brands. Engagement is relevant because it has consequences for the brand as it contributes to increase the value of the most valuable asset, which are the customers. The attitude of purchase intention of consumers in digital social networks is based on the theory of Veblen, which emphasizes the consumption practices, taste formation and its relationship with social institutions, being in the field of digital social networks such as facebook is a factor that influences the patterns and habits of consumption based on the value between social classes, where the reputation or prestige of a person is related to the patterns or social standards from which it is cataloged, motivating the estimation of the person who has a good reputation becoming an opportunity references and honorability of actions. The purchase intention was confirmed as a determinant effect produced by the consumer and their commitment (engagement) towards the brand, being their attitude towards it, the advertisements, the exchange of experiences produced by their motivation, the opportunity to carry them out and their ability to express themselves in digital environments. Digital social networks are becoming more relevant every day with frequent use recognizing that 80% of Internet users have made online purchases in recent years. Also 9 out of 10 seek to compare products and prices online to make any purchase as well as pay attention to the ads and makes them relevant in social networks.
Given this, companies should consider in their digital brand strategies to participate more actively, generating engagement with users, collecting information about users who participate in them. The company's social network profile should be entertaining and fun, becoming the main objective of the communication strategies of the companies in the digital environment, thus improving the user's commitment to the brand, their attitude towards the communication strategies designed, exchanging comments with other users that ultimately leads to their intention to purchase the products and / or services of the company