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1 – 10 of over 55000Xi Y. Leung, Billy Bai and Mehmet Erdem
The purpose of this study is to develop a typology of social media messages to compare the effectiveness of different message strategies.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to develop a typology of social media messages to compare the effectiveness of different message strategies.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 1,837 messages from 12 hotel brand Facebook pages were content-analyzed. Applying both correspondence analysis and multivariate analysis of variance, the study compared message strategy across hotel-scale levels and explored the effectiveness of different message strategies.
Findings
A typology of four-type message format and six-type message content was developed. The picture message was the best message format. Product, brand and involvement messages were shown to be more effective than information, reward and promotion messages. Promotion message was the least effective message content type.
Research limitations/implications
The major limitation of this study is the generalizability owing to the sample selection process. There is also the limitation on exclusion of control variables, selection of the three effectiveness measures and evolving social media technology.
Practical implications
The typology of Facebook message strategy developed in the study provided guidelines for hotel marketers to create messages on Facebook pages and track effectiveness. Hotels should also take full advantage of the picture format and product, brand and involvement contents.
Originality/value
This study created a new typology of social media message strategy consisting of two dimensions. It also provided empirical evidence to support the application of message strategy theory in the hotel social media marketing area.
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Phumisak Smutkupt, Donyaprueth Krairit and Do Ba Khang
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of SMS (Short Message Service) advertising on consumer perceptions of Au Bon Pain's brand equity in Thailand.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of SMS (Short Message Service) advertising on consumer perceptions of Au Bon Pain's brand equity in Thailand.
Design/methodology/approach
The experimental study was based on a 4×2 between‐subjects design, with four levels of message types (personalization, interactivity, general, and no message control) and two levels of permission (with and without permission). Structural equation modeling was utilized to test the hypotheses.
Findings
SMS marketing is found to have a significant positive impact on brand awareness and perceived quality. Personalized, interactive, and general messages are effective for building brand awareness, and general and personalized messages positively influence perceived quality. With the right choice of message, explicit permission enhances the effects of SMS marketing on brand association.
Research limitations/implications
The experiment was conducted over a period of one month, with three SMS ads sent to each subject. Future research could extend the trial period and increase the number and variation of ads to confirm validity of the results.
Practical implications
As text message ads have a strong impact on brand awareness, marketers should focus on using text messages as reminders or updates rather than for complete marketing campaigns. They should also focus on offering permission‐based customers personalized information.
Originality/value
This is among the first mobile marketing experiments in a real‐life setting. Real text‐based promotions from an existing brand (Au Bon Pain) were tested on consumers. This approach creates a natural ad‐processing situation for participants, thus increasing the internal validity of the experiment.
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Jane McKay-Nesbitt and Sukki Yoon
– This paper examines how social marketing communication messages influence physical activity attitudes when a health organization is revealed as the message source.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines how social marketing communication messages influence physical activity attitudes when a health organization is revealed as the message source.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper examines how social marketing communication messages influence physical activity attitudes when a health organization is revealed as the message source.
Findings
Results from three studies using experimentally manipulated messages (Studies 1 and 3) and real TV commercials (Study 2) suggest that work-framed social marketing communication messages may be more effective than fun-framed messages when the sponsoring health organization is disclosed, versus not disclosed in the ad.
Research limitations/implications
This research extends the literature on source-effects on message effectiveness by suggesting that the type of message sponsor (i.e. a health organization) may influence attitudes toward the physical activity promoted in the message content.
Practical implications
The results suggest that health organizations may be able to maximize communication effectiveness by employing work – rather than fun-framed messages, when it is evident that the message source is a health organization. When individuals are unaware that a health organization is the message source or when a non-health organization is the message source, fun-framed messages may be as effective for encouraging physical activity.
Social implications
This research may assist health organizations to make the best use of their limited resources by providing guidance for the development of social marketing communication messages that encourage people to be physically active.
Originality/value
Although source effects on marketing message effectiveness have been well established in the marketing literature, this study is the first to suggest that a health-organization message source interacts with work- versus fun-framed message content to impact the persuasiveness of messages designed to encourage physical activity.
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Olalekan K. Seriki, Kenneth R. Evans, Hyo-Jin (Jean) Jeon, Rajiv P. Dant and Amanda Helm
This paper aims to examine how external marketing messages, which are generally used to convey company and product information to external target audiences, influence job…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine how external marketing messages, which are generally used to convey company and product information to external target audiences, influence job attitudes and behaviors of salespeople.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is conducted based on survey data on 348 salespeople working at regional banks in the Midwestern USA. The relationships among salespeople’s perceptions of marketing messages (i.e. in terms of value incongruence and claim inaccuracy), organizational cynicism, job attitudes (i.e. organizational commitment and job satisfaction) and behaviors (i.e. extra-role performance) are empirically tested.
Findings
Salespeople’s perceptions of value incongruence and claim inaccuracy of marketing messages heighten organizational cynicism, which in turn negatively impacts on organizational commitment, job satisfaction and extra-role performance. Also, inaccurate claim directly decreases job attitudes and behaviors.
Research limitations/implications
The results are limited to salespeople in financial institutions, and future research should investigate perceptions of non-customer contact employees in other industry contexts. Future investigation may also include objective performance metrics and consumer satisfaction ratings.
Practical implications
Service firms should strive to align salespeople’s perceptions of marketing messages with firms’ intended goals from those messages.
Originality/value
Drawing on attitude theory and perspectives from sales literature, social psychology and organizational behavior literature, in the first of such investigations, the authors studied the impact of external marketing messages on salespeople’s cynicism, job attitudes and behaviors.
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Jia Chen, Gang Kou, Yi Peng, Xiangrui Chao, Feng Xiao and Fawaz E. Alsaadi
Social media commerce provides a convenient way for users to share information and interact with each other. Few studies, however, have examined the effect of marketing messages…
Abstract
Purpose
Social media commerce provides a convenient way for users to share information and interact with each other. Few studies, however, have examined the effect of marketing messages and consumer engagement behaviors on the economic performance of marketing. This study, therefore, explored the economic performance of social media in terms of marketing messages and consumer engagement.
Design/methodology/approach
Using ordinary least squares regression and data collected from Weibo and Maoyan, this study analyzed the effects among marketing messages, consumer engagement and movie ticket sales.
Findings
The results indicated that marketing messages on Weibo had a positive effect on box office revenues, while consumer engagement behavior (whether personal or interactive) did not affect box office revenues. The results suggested that marketing messages on social media have more salient effects for predicting economic performance than consumer engagement behaviors.
Originality/value
This study underscores the importance of social media in consumer purchasing behavior. The findings also extend the literature related to commerce and product message design on social media platforms.
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Jeanine P.D. Guidry, Richard D. Waters and Gregory D. Saxton
This paper aims to examine what type of messaging on Twitter is most effective for helping move social marketing beyond focusing on personal changes to find out what messages help…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine what type of messaging on Twitter is most effective for helping move social marketing beyond focusing on personal changes to find out what messages help turn members of the public into vocal advocates for these organizations’ social changes. Social marketing scholarship has regularly focused on how organizations can effectively influence changes in awareness and behaviors among their targeted audience. Communication scholarship, however, has repeatedly shown that the most influential form of persuasion happens interpersonally. As such, it is imperative that organizations learn how to engage audiences and facilitate the discussion about organizational messages between individuals. Social media provide platforms for such conversations, as organizational messaging can be shared and discussed by individuals with others in their networks.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a content analysis of 3,415 Twitter updates from 50 nonprofit organizations, this study identifies specific types of messages that are more likely to get stakeholders retweeting, archiving and discussing the organizations’ messaging through regression analysis.
Findings
Messages focusing on calls-to-action and community building generated the most retweets and Twitter conversation; however, they were also the least used strategies by nonprofit organizations.
Originality/value
Research has regularly examined the types of messages sent out by nonprofit organizations on Twitter, but they have not tested those messages against measures of engagement. This study pushes the understanding of social media communication to the next level by analyzing those message categories against metrics provided by Twitter for each tweet in the sample.
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Pramod Iyer, Atefeh Yazdanparast and David Strutton
Political marketing is unable to reach out or influence voters as it once did. This study aims to identify means for political marketers to effectively reach to voters…
Abstract
Purpose
Political marketing is unable to reach out or influence voters as it once did. This study aims to identify means for political marketers to effectively reach to voters. Specifically, this study examines the role of different WOM/e-WOM political messages (shallow vs deep) delivered through various communication channels on voters’ message evaluation, believability, attitude towards the message and communication, message involvement, voting intentions and WOM/e-WOM intentions.
Design/methodology/approach
Two experimental design studies were conducted to test the research hypotheses. Data were collected from age-based voting cohorts through snowball sampling and online consumer panels.
Findings
The results suggest that political WOM/e-WOM messages received via different communication modes are perceived differently by age-based voting cohorts in terms of message evaluation, believability and attitudinal dispositions. The perceived credibility of the communication source makes a difference in such evaluations and dispositions. Also, the complexity of message impacts behavioral intentions of age-based voting cohorts differently. Older (younger) voter cohorts are more receptive to complex and detailed (short and brief) messages. Political message involvement mediates the relationship between message believability and voting intentions, as well as WOM/e-WOM intentions.
Research limitations/implications
The results are limited in terms of generalizability due to the experimental nature of the studies. Future research may seek to use actual candidates and examine the effects of moderators such as the cognition-based needs of respondents to engage in central or peripheral processing.
Practical implications
Political marketers can achieve greater credibility and effectiveness and partially restore political marketing’s reputation by honoring three guidelines: construct shallower (or deeper) political marketing messages when targeting younger (or older) voting cohorts through internet-connected (or traditional) delivery modes.
Originality/value
This paper explores an important but under-researched area in political marketing (i.e. the use of WOM/e-WOM messages in political marketing) and identifies important differences in attitudinal and behavioral dispositions of age-based voting cohorts impacted by the choice of communication mode and message complexity. Moreover, the perceived credibility of the communication source (sender) can sway communication mode preferences for age-based voting cohorts.
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Hongwei “Chris” Yang, Hui Liu and Liuning Zhou
The purpose of this paper is to integrate the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Palka et al.'s model to predict young Chinese consumers'…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to integrate the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Palka et al.'s model to predict young Chinese consumers' mobile viral attitudes, intents and behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
A paper survey was administered to 835 college students in Beijing, Shanghai, Kunming, and Liuzhou in summer and fall, 2010. The data were subject to statistic analyses including Pearson correlation, structural equation modeling, and backward regression with SPSS and AMOS.
Findings
The SEM model testing results confirmed the chain of young Chinese consumers' viral attitudes to intents to actual behavior. Subjective norm, perceived cost and pleasure were significant predictors of their viral attitudes. Their viral attitudes, perceived utility and subjective norm predicted their intent to pass along entertaining electronic messages. Their intent to forward useful electronic messages was determined by their viral attitudes, perceived utility and market mavenism. Their viral attitudes, intents and market mavenism predicted their mobile viral behavior.
Practical implications
It pays to foster Chinese consumers' favorable attitudes toward mobile viral marketing. It is advisable to know both target consumers and their associates very well. It is recommended to convince Chinese consumers that their friends and relatives can benefit greatly from viral content forwarding. Mobile messages with entertaining, useful, relevant and self‐involved values can go viral more easily.
Originality/value
The paper is probably the first study the integration of the TPB, TAM and Palka et al.'s model to predict Chinese consumers' mobile viral attitudes, intents and behavior.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the credibility assessment and adoption of electronic word-of-mouth on online social-networking sites, social word-of-mouth (sWOM)…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the credibility assessment and adoption of electronic word-of-mouth on online social-networking sites, social word-of-mouth (sWOM), where the author writes product reviews on Facebook and hopes their Facebook friends will buy these products. The readers of the sWOM message are aware of the author’s commercial intentions. sWOM messages on search goods and experience goods are considered separately.
Design/methodology/approach
Author of sWOM messages invites their closed circle of Facebook friends to participate in a survey. The respondents are randomly assigned to read a product review of a search good (i.e. a laptop computer) or an experience good (i.e. a moisturizer cream (beauty product)). The partial least squares method is used to analyze the data from 339 returns (166 for the search good and 173 for the experience good).
Findings
The sWOM readers’ assessments of the messages’ credibility remain free from commercial influence. While the traditional factors of credibility and author-reader tie strength continue to influence the adoption of sWOM message, readers’ perceptions of the sWOM author’s marketing skills is also a factor. The relationships between the constructs depend on whether the products are search or experience goods.
Originality/value
Few studies investigate the type of sWOM considered here. Commercially influenced sWOM messages are effective since the author’s marketing skills, and other often-cited factors, affect the credibility and adoption of sWOM. Thus, the equality-matching (friendship) relationship and the market-pricing (sales) relationship can work hand-in-hand in the sWOM context.
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Xi Leung, Sarah Tanford and Lan Jiang
The purpose of this study was to explore the marketing effectiveness of hotel Facebook messages in terms of promoting favorable attitudes and behavior intentions among potential…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to explore the marketing effectiveness of hotel Facebook messages in terms of promoting favorable attitudes and behavior intentions among potential hotel guests
Design/methodology/approach
An online experiment was conducted with a three (message format) × three (message content), between-subjects factorial design in which three message formats, i.e. word/text, picture and weblink, and three types of message content, i.e. brand, product and interactive, were manipulated.
Findings
The findings indicate that the most effective message format is dependent upon its purpose. Picture messages are most effective for promoting the brand, whereas weblink messages influence intentions to book hotels based on product attributes. Electronic word-of-mouth intention is an important outcome of Facebook marketing, which can be strengthened by word messages and weblink messages about products.
Research limitations/implications
The major limitation of this study is that the study used pseudo Facebook pages and messages created for each experimental condition. Facebook pages can take many forms, so the findings may not generalize to other Facebook pages.
Practical implications
The findings of this study suggest several important practical implications for the hotel industry to leverage Facebook marketing. To foster favorable attitudes and build brand awareness, hotel marketers should include picture messages that prominently feature the brand image. To motivate booking a particular product, word messages describing product features should be provided, along with a weblink that takes the customer directly from product information to a hotel-booking engine.
Originality/value
Although preliminary research has been conducted on Facebook marketing activities, little is known about the effectiveness of Facebook messages. For example, do different types of messages have different effects on marketing effectiveness? What message type is most effective? Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate empirically the effects of different message types on marketing effectiveness. The results of this study will shed light on how hotels can post the most persuasive message content in the most effective message format on their Facebook pages to enhance their fans’ attitudes and increase their purchase intentions.
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