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1 – 10 of over 3000Hsiao-Pei (Sophie) Yang, Tommy K. H. Chan, Hai-Anh Tran, Bach Nguyen and Han Lin
This research examines how universities enhance the virality of their social media messages among students. Specifically, we explore whether and how positive affective content in…
Abstract
Purpose
This research examines how universities enhance the virality of their social media messages among students. Specifically, we explore whether and how positive affective content in universities’ social media posts can influence sharing behavior. We also investigate the mediating roles of perceived effort and positive emotional reaction, as well as the moderating effect of visual content (i.e. photos).
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing upon the emotions as social information model, we conducted (1) an online experiment (N = 222) and (2) text analysis of 1,269,798 Twitter posts extracted from the accounts of 94 UK universities over 11 years (2010–2020) to test our hypotheses.
Findings
The findings show that social media posts containing positive affective content encourage sharing behavior and the relationship is mediated by both perceived effort and positive emotional reaction. An additional finding suggests that the use of visual content (photos) strengthens the relationship between positive affective content and sharing behaviors through an interaction effect.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the scant research focusing on positive affective content in the higher education context. The findings shed light on how universities could create social media communications that engage current and prospective students.
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Lydia Mähnert, Caroline Meyer, Ulrich R. Orth and Gregory M. Rose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how users on social media view brands with a heritage. Consumers commonly post opinions and accounts of their experiences with brands on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how users on social media view brands with a heritage. Consumers commonly post opinions and accounts of their experiences with brands on social media. Such consumer-generated content may or may not overlap with content desired by brand managers. Drawing from “The medium is the message” paradigm, this study text-mines user narratives on Twitter1 to shed light on the role of social media in shaping public images of brands with heritage through the lens of the stereotype content model.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses a data set of almost 80,000 unique tweets on 12 brands across six categories, compares brands high versus low in heritage and combines dictionary-based content analysis with sentiment analysis.
Findings
The results indicate that both user-generated content and sentiment are significantly more positive for brands low rather than high in heritage. Regarding warmth, consumers use significantly more positive words on sociability and fewer negative words on morality for brands low rather than high in heritage. Regarding competence, tweets include more positive words on assertiveness and ability for low-heritage brands. Finally, overall sentiment is more positive for brands low rather than high in heritage.
Practical implications
Important from co-creation and integrated marketing communication perspectives, the findings provide brand managers with actionable insights on how to more effectively use social media.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is among the first to examine user-generated content in a brand heritage context. It demonstrates that heritage brands, with their longevity and strong links to the past, need to be aware of how contemporary social media can detract from their image.
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Social media marketers are keen to understand how viewers perceive their brands on a platform and how the learning experiences from content can impact their attitudes toward a…
Abstract
Purpose
Social media marketers are keen to understand how viewers perceive their brands on a platform and how the learning experiences from content can impact their attitudes toward a brand. This study aims to focus on examining the effect of firm-generated content (FGC) on X (formerly known as Twitter), using Kolb’s experiential learning theory to analyze the viewers’ learning process. In addition, the study investigates how the length of time a viewer follows a brand and the type of brand can influence their attitudes toward it.
Design/methodology/approach
This study involved three qualitative studies on X to investigate how content learning affects consumer attitudes toward two brands, namely, Nike and Subway. The study also examined the impact of the duration of following the brands, with participants following the brands for 4, 8 and 12 weeks, respectively, to assess changes in their attitudes.
Findings
The results demonstrate that content learning significantly impacts consumer attitudes. By following brands and engaging with their FGC over time, viewers can transition from being occasional or intermittent followers to becoming devoted brand enthusiasts. Through the four-stage experiential learning process, followers undergo cognitive, emotional and behavioral transformations that collectively shape their brand attitudes. The impact of content learning varies according to the brand type, and the duration of following has a positive effect on brand attitudes.
Research limitations/implications
The study’s findings have significant marketing implications for social media marketers, suggesting that they should restructure their social media platforms as learning platforms to effectively engage followers. Companies should adjust their content marketing strategies from a learner’s perspective, providing followers with content that resonates with them, enhances their learning outcomes and helps shift their beliefs and brand attitudes, ultimately converting them into loyal consumers.
Originality/value
To the best of the author’s knowledge, this qualitative research is the first of its kind to apply experiential learning theories to investigate how users learn from FGC by following brands on social media and how this learning ultimately changes their brand attitude. The study provides a unique perspective on social media marketing, enriching the understanding of content marketing and consumer experiences on social media platforms.
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Revanth Kumar Guttena, Cedric Hsi-Jui Wu and Ferry Tema Atmaja
This study aims to investigate how the gratifications obtained through brand-related social media content affect brand intimacy and thereby influence customer extra-role behavior.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate how the gratifications obtained through brand-related social media content affect brand intimacy and thereby influence customer extra-role behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the uses and gratification theory, this study proposes information, entertainment and remuneration content that motivates customers to develop brand intimacy and thereby perform customer extra-role behavior. The study also tests the moderated moderation effect of self-congruence and customer experience using 704 observations from South India in the food industry context.
Findings
The study’s results reveal the influence of entertainment and remuneration content on brand intimacy, which further influences customer extra-role behavior (civic virtue, cocreation, sportsmanship and helping behaviors). The study confirms a moderated moderation effect in the relationship between brand intimacy and civic virtue and brand intimacy and sportsmanship behaviors.
Practical implications
The study suggests that brands may include entertainment and remuneration elements in their social media content to build intimate customer relationships, further influencing customers’ extra-role behaviors. Besides, brands should focus on customers’ self-concepts and experiences to encourage them to act voluntarily.
Originality/value
This study makes a unique contribution by investigating the influence of brand-related social media content on customer extra-role behavior through brand intimacy. It uses self-congruence and customer experience to test their moderated moderation effect in the relationship between brand intimacy and customer extra-role behavior.
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Angeliki Nikolinakou and Joe Phua
Social media has the potential to enable exchange of diverse opinions, foster dialogue on important social issues and exert positive influence on stakeholders and society…
Abstract
Purpose
Social media has the potential to enable exchange of diverse opinions, foster dialogue on important social issues and exert positive influence on stakeholders and society. However, evidence is contradictory as to whether this is the case; it is possible that millennials' behaviors on social media are mainly driven by conservation (conformity and safety) or self-enhancement (power and achievement). In this research, the authors examine the extent to which different human values (self-transcendence, conservation, self-enhancement and openness to change) influence millennials' activities and behaviors on social media.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conduct three separate surveys on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with 491 millennials (18–34 years of age) in the USA, examining the influence of four higher-order values of the Schwartz human values model (open self-transcendence, conservation, self-enhancement and openness to change) on specific social media activities (consumption, self-focused and sharing nonpersonal content activities).
Findings
First, the authors find that for millennial users, human values significantly influence social media activities. Second, conservation values, followed by self-enhancement values, overshadow the expression of open self-transcendence values on social media. Thus, social media platforms may function more as agents of conservation and self-enhancement than agents of personal growth.
Originality/value
This is among the first studies to examine the influence of human values on social media and to find that human values such as conservation and self-enhancement have a strong influence on users' social media activities, while open self-transcendence values, which lead to expansion and growth, do not find genuine expression on social media.
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Anice Milbratz de Camargo, Alyne Michelle Botelho, Moira Dean and Giovanna Medeiros Rataichesck Fiates
This study explored how Brazilian young adults who cook interact with cooking-related content on social media and how such content fits their cooking routine.
Abstract
Purpose
This study explored how Brazilian young adults who cook interact with cooking-related content on social media and how such content fits their cooking routine.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews (n = 31) were transcribed, inductively and reflexively thematic analysed.
Findings
Interactions happened both in recreational and intentional ways, which coexisted and alternated depending on participants' motives and schedules. Recreational interactions such as browsing and saving happened more for self-entertainment and to some participants, to help meal planning and food shopping. Intentional interactions such as searching and sharing happened to fulfil specific needs which arised on cooking occasions, leading to agency development. Young adults who self-identified as being less experienced in cooking reported checking and comparing many recipes, as well as relying on video features to improve skills and develop self-efficacy. Despite showing agency in cooking-related matters, participants perceived lack of time to cook as an important barrier to cooking more. Intentional interactions with cooking content were linked to more established cooking routines, indicating the importance of social media to young adults' development of self-efficacy and improvement of skills.
Originality/value
The use of social media to search for cooking-related content is recommended by Brazilian dietary guidelines to develop cooking and food skills, but research on if and how the interaction occurs, and the resulting knowledge is put into practice, is scarce. This study addressed this gap and proposed practical implications to inform the development of interventions employing social media to improve young adults' cooking skills and health.
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Ernest Emeka Izogo and Mercy Mpinganjira
Although digital content marketing (DCM) research and industry-wide expenditure is growing very rapidly owing to the positive outcomes associated with this new pull marketing…
Abstract
Purpose
Although digital content marketing (DCM) research and industry-wide expenditure is growing very rapidly owing to the positive outcomes associated with this new pull marketing strategy, research has not completely mapped how DCM activities can be optimized in the social media brand community context. This paper seeks to understand how social media DCM activities can be optimized to achieve greater relational and monetary outcomes for different products.
Design/methodology/approach
A structural equation modeling procedure was used to analyze 416 survey responses obtained from members of Facebook brand communities in South Africa.
Findings
The results reveal that social media DCM consumption motives exert significant differential effects on both relational and monetary marketing outcomes in search and experience product contexts while also demonstrating the mechanism through which social media DCM consumption motives lead to contributing social media engagement behaviors.
Practical implications
The study findings call for the need for firms to understand the motives that drive the consumption of DCM in social media brand communities. Specifically, marketers of search products should deploy more of hedonic contents such as images while simultaneously keeping highly textual DCM to a minimum in Facebook brand communities as this works better for experience products. Finally, more authentic SM-DCM activities that effectively address the authenticity SM-DCM consumption motive can result from the DCM activities of social media opinion leaders and genuine consumer–brand interactions in the context of Facebook brand communities.
Originality/value
This paper broke new grounds in three unique directions in terms of: (1) the relative salience of SM-DCM consumption motives in enhancing WTP and different aspects of SMBE; (2) the contextual influence of product type on SM-DCM activities optimization and (3) the mechanisms that underlie the effects of SM-DCM consumption motives on contributing SMBE in the Facebook brand community context.
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Ulla-Maija Sutinen, Roosa Luukkonen and Elina Närvänen
This study aims to examine adolescents’ social media environment connected to unhealthy food marketing. As social media have become a ubiquitous part of young people’s everyday…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine adolescents’ social media environment connected to unhealthy food marketing. As social media have become a ubiquitous part of young people’s everyday lives, marketers have also shifted their focus to these channels. Literature on this phenomenon is still scarce and often takes a quite narrow view of the role of marketing in social media. Furthermore, the experiences of the adolescents are seldom considered.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a sociocultural approach and netnographic methodology, this study presents findings from a research project conducted in Finland. The data consist of both social media material and focus group interviews with adolescents.
Findings
The findings elaborate on unhealthy food marketing to adolescents in social media from two perspectives: sociocultural representations of unhealthy foods in social media marketing and social media influencers connecting with adolescents.
Originality/value
The study broadens and deepens the current understanding of unhealthy food marketing to adolescents taking place in social media. The study introduces a novel perspective to the topic by looking at it as a sociocultural phenomenon.
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Hue Kim Thi Nguyen, Phuong Thi Kim Tran and Vinh Trung Tran
This paper aims to examine the role of social media communication, tourist satisfaction and destination brand equity components in enhancing destination brand equity based on the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the role of social media communication, tourist satisfaction and destination brand equity components in enhancing destination brand equity based on the Stimulus – Organism – Response (S-O-R) theory.
Design/methodology/approach
The conceptual model and research hypotheses were assessed using covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM). An online survey was used to collect data from 369 domestic tourists who had traveled to Danang and knew about content related to Danang generated by either DMOs or other users on social media.
Findings
Except for the effect of DMO-generated social media communication on tourist satisfaction and the impact of destination brand awareness on destination brand loyalty, the findings confirmed the sequential causal relationships between research concepts based on the S-O-R model.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should explore the proposed model based on comparisons of different nationalities to better understand the impact of cultural factors.
Practical implications
DMOs should associate social media with their marketing strategies to enhance destination brand equity, using cutting-edge technologies to create content and update information in a significant way to make communications by DMOs more effective. The findings especially suggest that UGC plays a vital role in improving brand equity dimensions, so DMOs could exploit UGC to engage existing customers and build relationships with potential customers. This research provides guidance for DMOs to improve their brand equity based on social media.
Originality/value
This study has contributed to the destination marketing literature by applying the S-O-R theory to propose a pathway for effectively increasing destination brand equity and highlight the importance of social media communication as a driver to achieve a hierarchical relationship between destination brand equity components and tourist satisfaction from stimulus to organism (e.g. cognition to affect).
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Muhammad Faisal Shahzad, Jingbo Yuan, Farrah Arif and Abdul Waheed
This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of two types of social media videos used for destination image development: induced/commercial-oriented content and organic…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of two types of social media videos used for destination image development: induced/commercial-oriented content and organic content (where content is made without commercial interest, such as vlogs classified as user-generated content).
Design/methodology/approach
Experimental research using “Emotive EEG” (electroencephalogram) in a controlled environment was conducted with 30 participants (20 males, 10 females), age range 18 to 26. Emotive EEG recording was performed while the participants watched both types of video clips. Test results for both groups indicate that induced content is preferred over organic content.
Findings
This study opens up future research avenues where neuromarketing’s “Marketer Friendly” EEG equipment can be applied to the customer selection process.
Originality/value
Marketing analysts can gauge the interest and response of customers on different types of social media video content for destination marketing based on the findings of this study.
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