Social media use and consumer shopping preferences

We empirically explore the associations between social media use at home and shopping preferences using survey data. We focus on popular retail firms including brick-and-mortar firms such as Walmart, Target, Nordstrom, and Best Buy, and online retailers, such as Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Best Buy. Social media use of popular platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Skype and a general category Other Social Media are analyzed. We find that use of LinkedIn, Skype and Other Social Media at home, in the model without control variables, is associated with shopping at Nordstrom, Walmart and Target. Shopping online at Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart, without control variables in the model specification, is associated with use of Facebook, Skype, Twitter and Other Social Media at home. We report additional insights using an alternative specification that includes social media use at work. Media Richness Theory (MRT) and Strength of Weak Ties from Social Network Analysis (SNA) and related theories help explain our results. Our results have important implications for social marketing campaigns and social media policies for consumer retail firms.