Why do small and medium enterprises use social media marketing and what is the impact: Empirical insights from India

Increasingly firms are looking to use social media to connect with different stakeholders as plans on building presence on such platforms are becoming part of top-level strategy. The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that would help the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) of India to adopt Social Media Marketing (SMM) mechanisms for improving their business impact. Adoption of SMM by SMEs has considerable impact on the improvement of business outcome of the SMEs. A theoretical model has been developed with the help of theory borrowed from TAM and UTAUT2 with some modifications to explore this impact through business performance, sales, connect with customers, identify customer' needs and creativity of the employees. The theoretical model has been validated empirically using a survey of 310 firms and subsequent analysis have been carried out using structured equation modelling. The results highlight that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and compatibility positively affect impact of SMM after adoption by the SMEs. The facilitating conditions have insignificant impact whereas cost has a significant but negative impact on the use of SMM by SMEs. Since there are a few studies in this context, the study contributes to existing literature on the impact of SMM in SMEs in an emerging economy.     

The digital marketing skills gap: Developing a Digital Marketer Model for the communication industries

Scholarly literature suggests digital marketing skills gaps in industry, but these skills gaps are not clearly identified. The research aims to specify any digital marketing skills gaps encountered by professionals working in communication industries. In-depth interviews were undertaken with 20 communication industry professionals. A focus group followed, testing the rigour of the data.     

新媒体传播对转发意愿及品牌态度的影响研究

传统传播环境下企业营销传播活动对用户品牌态度形成具有显著影响,但社会化媒体的发展极大地改变了企业营销传播的生态环境,现阶段企业的社会化媒体传播并未获得预期影响力,需要从理论上对企业社会化媒体传播的策略及其影响因素进行创新性研究。本文采用实验研究方法,基于企业传播信息内容主题、信息源、传播策略与用户再传播意愿和品牌态度间关系的理论假设,实证研究发现:企业社会化媒体传播对用户品牌态度有正向显著影响;信息内容主题类型、信息源、传播组合策略对用户再传播意愿有显著影响;用户再传播意愿对用户品牌态度的影响不显著等。研究结论丰富了企业社会化媒体传播的理论研究,对企业社会化媒体传播实践具有指导意义。     

Antecedents and consequences of social media fatigue

Prior literature suggests that social media users are increasingly experiencing social media fatigue. Only recently have scholars undertaken empirical studies to investigate its antecedents and outcomes to better understand the impact of fatigue on social media users. To further this understanding, the present study has conducted a cross-sectional survey with 1552 users. The Stress-Strain-Outcome (SSO) theoretical framework is applied to examine if privacy concerns, self-disclosure, parental mediation strategies, and decrement in academic performance due to social media use correlate with social media fatigue. Two forms of fatigue are considered, namely, fatigue due to social networking site (SNS) and mobile instant messaging (MIM) use. The study results suggest that privacy concerns, self-disclosure, parental encouragement and worry significantly and positively correlate with SNS and MIM fatigue. Parental permission and parental monitoring are either not or lowly associated with fatigue. In addition to this, SNS and MIM fatigue positively correlated with the tendency to experience academic decrement due to social media use. The antecedents and consequences of social media fatigue were similar for SNS and MIM users. Moreover, students perceived their parents to be more open to their MIM use, and they had higher self-disclosure in MIM than in SNS. The study concludes with significant implications for practitioners, policy makers as well as service designers.     

企业社会化媒体的内涵、特征及研究趋势

企业社会化媒体(ESM)是近年来一个新兴的研究领域,已经受到国内外学者和业界的广泛关注。今天,这个领域的一些基本概念已经达成共识,但进一步的研究尚在探索之中。本文从内涵、特征的角度对ESM的一些基本概念和性质进行梳理和总结,并进一步从研究视角、层次、主题和方法四个维度探讨了ESM的研究现状。论文结合业界和学界对ESM本质的探索,展望其未来的发展趋势。本文对研究者了解ESM的现状和把握未来的研究趋势,以及洞察ESM对经营管理的影响,具有一定的启示作用。     

Emergency management in the changing world of social media: Framing the research agenda with the stakeholders through engaged scholarship

The use of social media and Web 2.0 platforms is proliferating and affecting different formal and highly structured organisations including public safety agencies. Much of the research in the area has focussed on public use of social media during an emergency as well as how emergency agencies benefit from the data and information generated by this process. However, there is little understanding of “what are the operational implications of this public use on emergency management agencies and how does social media either positively or negatively impact these operations”? In order to progress research into this topic, we chose an engaged scholarship framework to shape a research agenda with the active participation of stakeholders. Hence, we conducted a series of workshops primarily involving over 100 public safety practitioners working in the area of disasters and emergency management who work in public safety agencies, humanitarian organisations, volunteering online platforms and volunteer groups in addition to 20 academics working on this area of enquiry. The findings highlight six different challenges that emergency responding organisations currently face in relation to social media use. We conceptualise these challenges as creating six operational tension zones for organisations. We discuss these tensions and their implications for future research and practice.     

The role of social media in the engagement and information processes of social CRM

This study furthers investigation into exactly how Social CRM (S-CRM) is different from traditional CRM, and models the interrelationships between its capabilities. It is underpinned in dynamic capabilities theory, to explain how social media, as a resource all organizations use, can lead to differing performance outcomes. It is underpinned in seminal research into traditional CRM, but which does not cater for the disruptive nature of social media. We outline how S-CRM is a second-order dynamic capability consistng of a set of first-order integrative dynamic capabiliies that, when properly interrelated, lead to performance outcomes. We particularly model the role of S-CRM front- and back-office technology capabilities, customer engagement initiatives, and social information processes in driving customer relationship performance. Findings show that S-CRM is different from traditional CRM in a range of ways in the front- and back-offices, and provide a framework for researcher and managers in information systems and marketing to operate at strategic and tactical levels within S-CRM, while being congisant of both.     

The strategic use of artificial intelligence in the digital era: Systematic literature review and future research directions

Artificial Intelligence tools have attracted attention from the literature and business organizations in the last decade, especially by the advances in machine learning techniques. However, despite the great potential of AI technologies for solving problems, there are still issues involved in practical use and lack of knowledge as regards using AI in a strategic way, in order to create business value. In this context, the present study aims to fill this gap by: providing a critical literature review related to the integration of AI to organizational strategy; synthetizing the existing approaches and frameworks, highlighting the potential benefits, challenges and opportunities; presenting a discussion about future research directions. Through a systematic literature review, research articles were analyzed. Besides gaps for future studies, a conceptual framework is presented, discussed according to four sources of value creation: (i) decision support; (ii) customer and employee engagement; (iii) automation; and (iv) new products and services. These findings contribute to both theoretical and managerial perspectives, with extensive opportunities for generating novel theory and new forms of management practices.     

Social media platforms and social enterprise: Bibliometric analysis and systematic review

A considerable number of contributions at the intersection of social media platforms and social entrepreneurship has been witnessed over the past decade. The multi-disciplinary nature of current literature necessitates integrative insights on the topic. We thus undertake a two-pronged approach – bibliometric analysis followed by systematic review – to map the extant literature in a structured, objective, and quantitative way. We contribute to the literature as we (i) offer a classification of the literature in three clusters, namely ‘social media platforms, social collaboration and social marketing’, ‘social media platforms and crowdfunding, and ‘social media platforms and crowdsourcing’; (ii) analyze recent research development in each cluster, methodological development, countries co-authorship and evolution of research in the area; and (iii) propose a conceptual framework -accompanied by research propositions- that provides an overview of the literature at the intersection of social media platforms, various social entrepreneurial practices and their influence on the social enterprise performance. Our review culminates with numerous impactful research avenues for scholarly progression in the area. From a practical standpoint, this review integrates scattered findings into one body, allowing the practitioners and policymakers to discern the role of social media platforms in dealing with emerging societal problems and increasing operational efficiencies of social enterprises (SEs). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first review of its kind, offering unique perspectives at the nexus of social media platforms and SE’s performance.     

Web and social media usage by museums: Online value creation

This paper contributes to the understanding of online strategies in the context of museums as examples of cultural organisations, an underrepresented sector in the information management literature. It presents a theoretical framework for understanding the online strategies of museums’ use of Web and social media, their sources of online value (efficiency, novelty, lock-in, complementarities) and some measurements of Internet performance, such as the Alexa Internet ranking and the number of followers of museums in social media. This type of analysis has not been conducted before and the findings will help museum curators and managers of other cultural institutions to appreciate the impact of these technologies and to make better informed decisions regarding online strategies and resource allocation. In addition, the results of this research are applicable to similar organisations, such as archives and cultural exhibitions, as well as to other service organisations related to information, education and entertainment activities.     

Envy on social media: The good,the bad and the ugly

Observing the positive aspects of others’ lives on social media (SM) can bring about envy among users. Drawing from social comparison and technology acceptance theories, this study develops a research model to explain how envy occurs and impacts SM users’ behavior. In this work, we conducted two studies across three different SM settings to investigate two types of envy, benign and malicious envy. The results show that malicious envy is negatively related to the dependent variable of SM use intention while benign envy facilitates it. The findings provide many valuable contributions to both information systems (IS) academia and industry. This study identifies the unique SM factors intertwining with envy. Moreover, this work helps SM users and practitioners be aware of the potential envy issue on SM so they can take effective actions to enhance SM use.     

Evaluating books finding tools on social media: A case study of aNobii

A user study of aNobii was conducted with an aim to exploring possible criteria for evaluating social navigational tools. A set of measures designed to capture various aspects of the benefits provided by the tools was proposed. To test the applicability of these measures, a within-subject experimental design was adopted where fifty regular aNobii users searched alternately with three book-finding tools: browsing “friends’ bookshelves”, “similar bookshelves”, and “books by known authors”. Other than the self-report user experience and search result measures, the “choice set” model was used as a novel framework for navigational effectiveness. Further analyses were conducted to explore whether three aspects of reader preference, “preference insight”, “preference diversity”, and “reading involvement” might influence the performance of the tools.     

Social media and entrepreneurship research: A literature review

The rise of social media has led to changes in how entrepreneurs carry out their day-to-day activities. Studies on social media and entrepreneurship are relatively new and fragmented in their focus, however there is increasing interest from academia and practitioners for further research and investigation within this area. This study systematically reviews research carried out in the domain of social media and entrepreneurship. A total of 160 papers, published between 2002 and 2018 were synthesised to identify critical theories and research methods used in the domain. Based on the extent review, an integrative framework was developed to identify relationships amongst elucidated constructs. While most papers investigated the factors that drive social media adoption and use by entrepreneurs, it was found that the use of social media by entrepreneurs had transcended marketing and it is now used in business networking, information search and crowdfunding for their business. This has led to significant impact with improved firm performance and innovation enhancement being the essential outcomes. The literature review and framework further understanding of social media and entrepreneurship research, providing a useful basis for future studies and informs practice in this area.     

Consumer response towards social media advertising: Effect of media interactivity,its conditions and the underlying mechanism

Marketers increasingly use social media platforms as a promotion channel, and doing this, they prefer highly interactive social media because it allows consumers to socialize and network better. However, in this media, attention is often restricted towards primary purpose only as a result of the level of interactivity, thereby affecting consumer response towards the advertisement(ad). In this setting, the study analyzes the role of media interactivity and the effects it has on the reaction of customers towards the social media ad. Further, the study also introduces the conditional role of message relevant aspects, such as message vividness and anthropomorphism, and examines the intervening role of flow experience. Results from a between-subjects study indicate that interactivity hurts the consumer ad reactions. It also suggests that the right use of message relevant aspects can mitigate these adverse effects. Thus, the study makes a significant contribution to the literature and practice regarding the effects of social media interactivity which is relatively recent and has been overlooked by past researchers.     

How social media live streams affect online buyers: A uses and gratifications perspective

Social media live streams (SMLSs) are becoming mainstream e-commerce platforms, especially for direct selling, offering online retailers (e-tailers) immense consumer interaction and engagement levels. Despite their growing prevalence, e-tailers face difficulties capitalising on this platform to enhance retail operations. This paper explores how SMLSs affect consumers' purchase intentions by exploring their motivations for participating in e-commerce SMLSs. To this end, we used the uses and gratifications (U&G) theory to explain how using SMLSs to satisfy consumers' needs could lead to high or low purchase intentions. It was done by collecting cross-sectional data from 795 consumers who have participated in e-commerce SMLSs. The data were analysed using partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Our findings revealed that people use SMLSs to satisfy their need for value, social identification, and the medium's attributes. Based on these findings, we show six configurations that lead to high or low purchase intentions and make corresponding theoretical propositions. Thus, our study contributes to the research and practice of using SMLSs for online shopping.     

增强现实技术对建筑类期刊新技术出版设计的启示

【目的】 研究增强现实(Augmented Reality,AR)技术在期刊出版的应用趋势,为建筑类期刊的AR出版提供借鉴。【方法】 采取经验总结的研究方法,通过研究其它类型期刊的AR出版技术应用现状,提出建筑类期刊新技术出版的应用思路。【结果】 建筑类期刊具有AR技术应用的基础和需求,利用AR技术能够延伸建筑类期刊出版形态,提升读者的阅读体验,增强建筑类期刊的盈利能力。【结论】 建筑类期刊应重新定位AR应用的出版价值,充实期刊新技术设计与运营团队,利用AR技术来增强期刊内容传播效果,构建期刊广告盈利的新模式。     

Advancing social media derived information messaging and management: A multi-mode development perspective

With global reach of over 2 billion active users, the evolution of Social Media (SM) systems has provided organizations with sophisticated tools and technologies for delivering business objectives. Importantly, while marketers and public relations experts have taken leading positions in promotion and advancement of SM, project managers are often tasked with delivering SM systems. In this study, a sample of 127 project managers were asked to evaluate and recommend modes of SM development for six diverse firms using a four-part taxonomy. The results show that firms of varying size can employ narrowly focused and low cost SM development modes to meet their business objectives, with well-resourced firms able to use experimental modes to deliver widespread and higher cost ‘listen and learn’ SM systems. Alternatively, in addition to achieving groundswell promotions and broader business marketing and sales influencing objectives, firms that engage in large scale SM developments can document and implement SM best practices and apply multi-organizational collaborations required for information exchange, customer feedback and experience sharing. These managerial perspectives expose the intrinsic connections between SM systems and information messaging and management within firms. The article builds further into cumulative studies directed at SM systems construction, deployment, and firm capability affordances.     

Emergency knowledge management and social media technologies: A case study of the 2010 Haitian earthquake

The US response to the 2010 Haiti Earthquake was a large effort coordinated by three major agencies that worked in tandem with the Government of Haiti, the United Nations, and many countries from around the globe. Managing this response effort was a complex undertaking that relied extensively on knowledge management systems (KMS). For the first time, however, US government agencies employed social media technologies such as wikis and collaborative workspaces as the main knowledge sharing mechanisms. In this research we present a case study developed through action research of how these social media technologies were used, what influences they made on knowledge sharing, reuse, and decision-making, and how knowledge was effectively (and at times ineffectively) maintained in these systems. First-hand knowledge of the response is used, offering strategies for future deployment of social media and important research questions that remain regarding social media as knowledge management systems, particularly for disaster and emergency management.     

Social media enablers and inhibitors: Understanding their relationships in a social networking site context

This study extends and tests the dual factor model of technology usage (Cenfetelli, 2004, Cenfetelli and Schwarz, 2011), which recognizes enablers and inhibitors as two distinct constructs in the context of social media. We test the effect of two enablers: perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment on perceived communication quality and social media continuance intention. We advance the understanding of the conceptualization of inhibitors from object-based, social-based, behavioral-based, and affective-based perspectives. We investigate the moderating effects of affective-based inhibitors (i.e., perceived social media distress and perceived social media anxiety) and the direct effects of object-based inhibitor (rapid change), social-based inhibitor (i.e., distorted reputation), and behavioral-based inhibitor (perceived complexity) on communication quality and continuance intention. To test the hypotheses, we collected data using an Online Crowdsourcing Markets (OCMs) technique. Using a sample of 268 Facebook users, our findings suggest perceived enjoyment is the main enabler, whereas perceived complexity is the main inhibitor of social media continuance intention. The findings also suggest that perceived social media anxiety moderates the relationships between (1) perceived complexity and perceived enjoyment, (2) perceived complexity and perceived usefulness, and (3) perceived complexity and perceived communication quality. We also find distorted reputation has a positive effect on perceived complexity but rapid change does not have a significant effect on perceived complexity. Perceived communication quality also significantly influences social media continuance intention. Our study confirms the dual factor model of technology usage and advances social media research by demonstrating that inhibitors are distinct from enablers.