Investigating the effect of social media content on brand image and trainees’ behavioral intention (A study on Azad Technical and Vocational Schools in Mashhad)

At the forefront of e-marketing tools is social media marketing, and many organizations have begun their work on creating content for social media. Therefore, the main purpose of the present study is to test the effect of advertising content and promotion content on social media on the components of brand mental image and behavioral intention. The statistical population of the study is the trainees' Azad Technical and Vocational Schools in Mashhad. In order to conduct this research, 388 questionnaires were distributed both in person and electronically and by non-probability sampling method among community members. The collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling technique in Amos software. The research results show that the estimated model has a good fit to the data, and all research hypotheses are confirmed. Specifically, the effect of social media advertising content on the hedonic image is confirmed; The effect of social media advertising content on the functionalist image is confirmed; Social media promotion content has a significant effect on the hedonic image; Social media promotion content has a significant effect on the functional image; The hedonic image of the brand significantly affects the behavioral intention; And the significance of the functional image of the brand on the behavioral intention is also confirmed. Based on these results, the promotion content has the most effects on the functional image (0.48) and the functional image on the behavioral intention (0.70).