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Purpose
Although blood banks have recently started to recruit blood donors through social media platforms, including WeChat, to increase recruitment effectiveness, few researchers have studied their effects on blood donation behavior. The aim of this study is to examine the influence of using official WeChat accounts on repeat blood donation behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper used the backstage operation data of official WeChat accounts and blood supply chain management system data from the blood bank for the study to analyze the changes in repeat blood donation behavior. First, to analyze the changes in the average frequency of blood donation per year, average volume of single blood donation and blood eligible rate of repeat blood donors before and after following the official WeChat accounts by difference-in-differences model combined with propensity score matching (PSM-DID). Second, we examined the impact of official WeChat accounts on the proportion of repeat blood donors through survival analysis.
Findings
The results show that following WeChat accounts increases the average frequency of blood donation and blood eligible rate of repeat blood donors by 14.36% and 1.19%, respectively, and have no significant effect on the average volume of single blood donation. Further, WeChat accounts have a more significant impact on the average frequency of blood donations per year for workers, farmers, medical staff and groups with education levels of junior high school. In addition, official WeChat accounts can effectively increase the proportion of repeat donors.
Originality/value
The results provide a quantitative basis for the influence of official WeChat accounts on repeat blood donation behaviors. On the one hand, it is of great significance to guide the publicity and recruitment of unpaid blood banks. On the other hand, it provides an evidence for the promotion of official WeChat accounts.
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The purpose of this paper is to introduce the implementation of the official WeChat account, the most popular mobile social media site in China, to share Jinan University Library…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the implementation of the official WeChat account, the most popular mobile social media site in China, to share Jinan University Library collections and services to students, faculty and staff. The implementation, experience and issues have implications for academic libraries and other institutions to run and improve social media tools.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is a case study, which elaborates on the implementation process of the official WeChat account, including project group establishment, account application and management, users’ needs analysis, WeChat secondary development and model of development.
Findings
The official WeChat account has already engaged a population of followers who are able to directly access library resources and service via their mobile device. The social media tool is an effective approach to promote library services and to enhance relationships between the library and its users. The issues appear during the process of WeChat implementation and promotion, which requires WeChat’s provider, third-party application vendors and the library to work together to solve.
Originality/value
The implementation of official WeChat account has practical implications for academic libraries and other institutions to conduct it and similar social media tools, such as Sina Weibo, Facebook and Line. In particular, it is beneficial for academic libraries outside China which desire to use WeChat to engage Chinese international students. Additionally, it provides insight into the future effort on social media promotion, secondary development and cooperation within the social networking industry.
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Jie She, Tao Zhang, Qun Chen, Jianzhang Zhang, Weiguo Fan, Hongwei Wang and Qingqing Chang
Following the hierarchy-of-effects model, this study aims to propose a two-step process framework to investigate social media post efficacy via attraction and likes.
Abstract
Purpose
Following the hierarchy-of-effects model, this study aims to propose a two-step process framework to investigate social media post efficacy via attraction and likes.
Design/methodology/approach
The study analyzes 113,785 social media posts from 126 WeChat official accounts to explore how external (headline features and account type) and internal (content features and media type) features impact social media post attractions and likes, respectively.
Findings
The antecedents of post attraction differ from those of post likes. First, headline features (punctuation, length, sentiment and lexical density) and account type significantly influence social media post attraction. Second, content features (depth, tone, domain specificity, lexical density and readability) and media type affect social media post likes.
Originality/value
First, this study considers online user engagement as a two-step process regarding social media posts and explores different influencing factors. Second, the study constructs new variables (account type and domain specificity) in each stage of the two-step process model.
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This study aims to investigate whether and to what extent the characteristics of headlines impact the attraction of online financial articles by using data collected from WeChat…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate whether and to what extent the characteristics of headlines impact the attraction of online financial articles by using data collected from WeChat, a popular social app in China.
Design/methodology/approach
By integrating the methods of econometric and text mining, this study analyzed the content of 113,917 headlines published by 126 official accounts from the day account being created to May 12, 2016. Hierarchical regression was used to investigate the effects of headline features, account ownership type and stock market volatility on the attraction of online financial articles.
Findings
The empirical results show that sentiment, length, domain specificity and language intensity in a headline are significantly associated with the attraction of an online financial article. In addition, the relative and moderating roles of stock market volatility and account ownership type were also explored, showing significant moderating effects on the relationship between sentiment and online article attraction.
Research limitations/implications
This study had several limitations. First, the sample data for this research were collected from one social media platform. While WeChat is the most popular social media application in China, it is just one of the many social media applications that can be used to publish online financial articles, and it differs from other social media applications greatly. This makes it hard to generalize the conclusions of the study. Future studies could compare the different features of headlines and their effects on the attraction of financial articles on different platforms. Second, in mining the characteristics of headline, this study only analyzed the influence of the sentiment, domain specificity, length and language intensity of the headline on article attraction. In future studies, in-depth analysis of the headline content could be conducted, such as the similarity between the body text and the headline, the theme and the sense of humor. However, the authors believe that these limitations do not have major negative implications for the results and contributions of this study.
Practical implications
From a practical perspective, this work could help official WeChat accounts to write better headlines for the articles they publish to attract more readers and fans and thus improve the value of their accounts, which would enable them to maximize the tangible benefits through differential pricing on advertisement placement.
Originality/value
The contributions of this study are as follows. First, the paper explored how headline sentiment influences article attraction and found that positive sentiment is negatively related to article attraction, while negative sentiment is positively related to article attraction. In addition, there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the extent of negative sentiment and article attraction. Second, the paper investigates how headline domain specificity affects article attraction and there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between headline domain specificity and article attraction. Third, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first large-scale case study that explores the association between stock market volatility and the attraction of an online financial article.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore the current characteristics and status of WeChat application in Chinese public libraries.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the current characteristics and status of WeChat application in Chinese public libraries.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a sample of 46 sub-provincial and provincial public libraries in China, this study collected data from their WeChat official accounts. Statistical analysis and content analysis were employed for data analysis.
Findings
The results show that 82.6 percent of the 46 libraries had applied for WeChat accounts and offered services, of which the earliest created time was March 20, 2013. Differences were found among history information regarding their numbers, types and contents. Moreover, as for service mode, 84.2 percent of the libraries present custom menus, and 68.4 percent provide self-inquiry information. In addition, three types of reference services are revealed: real-time services (28.9 percent), services via telephones or e-mails (36.8 percent) and menu services (7.9 percent).
Originality/value
This study illustrates an overall picture of WeChat application in Chinese public libraries. Extant research has mainly focused on Web 2.0 applications in university libraries, and less attention has been paid to the application of mobile social media in public libraries. This study attempts to fill this research gap.
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Liang Ma, Xin Zhang and Xiao Yan Ding
The rise of social media has gained increasing attention in recent years; however, few studies have focused on social media users’ specific behavior and subjective well-being. To…
Abstract
Purpose
The rise of social media has gained increasing attention in recent years; however, few studies have focused on social media users’ specific behavior and subjective well-being. To fill this research gap, the purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated model to investigate factors that affect social media user’s share intention and the relationship between user’s share intention and subjective well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation model is used in this study. A field survey with 398 WeChat users is conducted to test the research model and hypotheses.
Findings
The empirical results show that: utilitarian value, hedonic value, user satisfaction and information source credibility are important factors affecting users’ share intention; users’ share intention positively affects user’s subjective well-being; moderating effects show that relative significance positively moderates the relationship between utilitarian value and users’ share intention; and users’ demographic characteristics differences actually exist in users’ share intention.
Originality/value
First, the authors clear that factors affect social media users’ share intention from the perspective of customer-perceived value. The results deepen our understanding about the factors that affect WeChat users’ share intention. Second, the authors focus on the effect of users’ specific behavior on users’ subjective well-being and found that users’ share intention is one of the important aspects that affect user’s subjective well-being. More importantly, the authors tested users’ characteristic differences in social media users’ share intention, which have previously received limited attention.
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Hasan Tinmaz and Viet Phuong Doan
China has been one of these countries that followed glocalization with the establishment of Chinese social media platforms, which adopt global trends and software patterns. WeChat…
Abstract
Purpose
China has been one of these countries that followed glocalization with the establishment of Chinese social media platforms, which adopt global trends and software patterns. WeChat has been a success story that at first emerged as a social communication tool but has extended to include commercial dynamics as well. Hence, this study aims to understand WeChat user’s general perceptions of the WeChat platform as a general social platform and as a commercial business platform.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, the sample (n = 400) was obtained from a specific group of people who have had experiences with different WeChat tools and their payment systems. Nonrandom purposive sampling was used by considering its higher probability of representativeness. The online survey that was given to participants through the WeChat groups included 14 questions, in which eight questions are for demographics and general WeChat use, and six questions are for WeChat payment. After descriptive statistical analysis, comparison-based tests were conducted and interpreted accordingly.
Findings
Overall, the study participants had a high frequency of using WeChat’s messaging and moments features. Moreover, users perceive WeChat and its payment tools as unsecured or not secure enough. However, that perception did not affect their intention to continue adopting the app. Hence, regardless of the unsecure perception, study participants still had high usage of WeChat pay.
Originality/value
This paper provides an example from China that is known as a high-tech country, and there are a very few studies on the WeChat app despite their high number of users and daily financial transactions.
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Ge Zhang, Liang Ma, Xin Zhang, Xiao Yan Ding and Yi Ping Yang
An increasing number of users join and become immersed in WeChat official accounts, but many users quit using these services as well. Nevertheless, most of the previous studies…
Abstract
Purpose
An increasing number of users join and become immersed in WeChat official accounts, but many users quit using these services as well. Nevertheless, most of the previous studies mainly focussed on the usage behavior. The purpose of this paper is to fill the gap by examining factors affecting users’ unfollow intentions for WeChat subscriptions in a Chinese context.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modeling is used in our study. A field survey with 260 WeChat users is conducted to test the research model and hypotheses.
Findings
The results show the following interesting key findings: first, the effect of actual cost on users’ unfollow intentions is larger than the effect of opportunity cost; second, users’ unfollow intentions will decrease with the increase of users’ perceptions of information usefulness; third, the results of the control variables showed that only landing frequency has a negative effect on users’ unfollow intentions; and fourth, users’ demographic differences are also examined in regard to how they may affect users’ unfollow intentions.
Originality/value
First, this paper studies factors influencing users’ unfollow intentions for WeChat subscriptions from a social exchange theory perspective; the authors considered both extraneous factors and users’ internal perception factors potentially affecting users’ unfollow intentions, which has rarely been researched. Furthermore, the authors examined significant differences among users’ demographic characteristics in affecting users’ unfollow intentions. The results of the study provide a more comprehensive understanding of the influencing factors of users’ unfollow intentions.
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