The Impact of Social Networking Service (SNS) Usage Motivations and Content Source on Purchase Intention for Hair Beauty Products: Integrating the Theory of Planned Behavior and Uses and Gratifications Theory in a Survey and Text Mining Mixed-Methods

This study investigates the comprehensive impact of Social Networking Service (SNS) usage motivations and content sources—categorized into Firm-Generated Content (FGC) and User-Generated Content (UGC)—on the purchase intention of hair beauty products by integrating the dual frameworks of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and the Uses and Gratifications Theory (U&G). Employing a mixed-methods research design, the study combined a quantitative survey of 475 SNS users, analyzed through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), with a qualitative text mining approach utilizing TF-IDF, LDA topic modeling, and BERT-based sentiment analysis of diverse SNS data. The empirical results demonstrated that information seeking, social interaction, and self-expression motivations are significant predictors of positive attitudes toward hair products, which in turn, alongside subjective norms, significantly enhance purchase intentions. A multi-group analysis further revealed a critical moderating effect of content sources: UGC was found to be more effective in transforming personal attitudes into purchase intentions, whereas FGC played a more dominant role in reinforcing subjective norms and social expectations. The qualitative findings provided deeper context to these results, showing that FGC typically focuses on ‘expertise,’ ‘clinical solutions,’ and ‘brand authority’ to establish professional credibility, while UGC provides ‘practical purchase guides’ and ‘candid user experiences’ that include realistic negative feedback, fostering higher perceived authenticity among consumers. Conclusively, the study proposes a strategic ‘two-track’ marketing model for the hair beauty industry, emphasizing the necessity of balancing official brand messaging with authentic consumer-led communication. By theoretically unifying TPB and U&G and methodologically merging structured survey responses with unstructured big data, this research provides a robust framework for understanding the evolving mechanisms of consumer behavior in the digital beauty market.