Influences of Social Media Live Streaming on Building Stable Customer Loyalty in Global Trade Cooperation

Abstract

With the digitalisation of global trade, the old ways of communicating that are offline trade fairs, static emails and printed product catalogues are unable to maintain continuous cooperation among buyers and suppliers due to a lack of timely information updates and delayed feedback. Social media live-streaming platforms, including Facebook Live, Instagram Live and TikTok Live, have begun to use live streaming for a long time and are now often employed by cross-border enterprises to keep in touch with consumers. The object of this paper is the construction of trust in real time during live broadcasts, and based on the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) model and relationship marketing theory, it studies how live streaming affects the stable loyalty of customers in global trade cooperation. Based on industry data and typical cases of B2B foreign trade, this paper will examine the three internal mechanisms that promote buyer trust through live interaction, summarize four operational live-streaming customer retention models, identify the main problems of cross-cultural barriers, homogeneous content and disconnected post-live services, and put forward corresponding improvement plans. Based on the above study, timely communication with foreigners can be initiated to build rapport and increase the frequency of such contact; thus, the sense of switching costs for importers will be reduced, motivating them to be more willing to buy and engage in subsequent trade, extending the period of cooperation among these enterprises and their overseas partners for small and medium-sized export enterprises.