The role of social media marketing on purchasing intention and loyalty of sport recreational centers customers based on the Uses & gratification theory

Growing interest in social media marketing in the sports industry, especially among sports entertainment complexes, has led to this research to identify the characteristics of social media marketing activities, and check out the relationship between the theory of the Use & Satisfaction, purchase intention and loyalty through a structural equation model. To collect data, a questionnaire was distributed online and physically among the 393 customers of sports amusement complexes of Hamedan. In terms of purpose, this research is an applied one and in terms of gathering its data, this research includes a descriptive-survey method. The instrument of the present study was a questionnaire. In this research, descriptive statistics methods including central tendencies and dispersion indices and inferential statistics methods including Pearson correlation, structural equations were used at the alpha level of 0/05. Spss.20 and Amos.18 software was used for data analysis and Amos software was used for structural equation modeling. The results indicate that there are significant relationships between "use and gratification components" and satisfaction. Also, significant relationships between satisfaction of purchase intention and loyalty and also purchasing intention and customer loyalty were reported respectively. and purchasing intention and customer loyalty has a significant relationship too. It seems that the approach of use and gratification can be used effectively in measuring customer satisfaction as well as the intention to purchase and loyalty of sports centers.