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Online content developers use the term “stickiness” to refer to the ability of their online service or game to attract and hold the attention of users and create a compelling and magnetic reason for them to return repeatedly (examples include virtual pets and social media). In business circles, the same term connotes the level of consumer loyalty to a particular brand. This paper aims to extend the concept of “stickiness” not only to describe repeat return and commitment to the learning “product”, but also as a measure of the extent to which students are engaged in online learning opportunities.

This paper explores the efficacy of several approaches to the monitoring and measuring of online learning environments, and proposes a framework for assessing the extent to which these environments are compelling, engaging and “sticky”.

In particular, the exploration so far has highlighted the difference between how lecturers have monitored the engagement of students in a face-to-face setting versus the online teaching environment.

In the higher education environment where increasingly students are being asked to access learning in the online space, it is vital for teachers to be in a position to monitor and guide students in their engagement with online materials.

The mere presence of learning materials online is not sufficient evidence of engagement. This paper offers options for testing specific attention to online materials allowing greater assurance around engagement with relevant and effective online learning activities.

The key purpose of the present research is to learn whether businesses use web site metrics to support business strategies and how web site metrics used differ by web site categories.

A combination of a preliminary telephone survey and an e‐mail questionnaire survey was used to gather data. Potential respondents were contacted by phone to find firms measuring web site success. An e‐mail survey was conducted to learn how metrics were used to measure the success of a corporate web site. Responses were examined to study not only purposes and net benefits of measurement but also metrics measured.

Findings of the study indicated that a majority of businesses which took part in this survey were using the metrics more for operational than for strategic purposes. This observation is to some extent consistent with the normative view highlighted by the literature that organizations should measure how successfully their web sites support business objectives and, therefore, the web metrics to measure web site success should differ by web site categories.

This explorative research is not based on a large sample, thereby limiting its academic contribution. Since the data analysis is over eight web site categories, future research will need to employ a sample large enough to eliminate any potential bias.

A key managerial implication is that businesses need to measure the success of their web site using web metrics tied to their business objectives, if they want their web site to effectively support business strategies.

This paper is the first attempt to explore the way that Internet‐dependent businesses measure the success of their web site via web metrics, for the purpose not only of observing some patterns between web metrics measured and site categories, but also of examining whether metrics were used for strategic or merely for operational purposes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of word-of-mouth (WOM) types, WOM valence, content types and discussion topics of user posts on online engagement in two channels of a consumption community. The posts are composed by users on the discussion forum and shared to the Facebook channel of the consumption community by the administrators.

The data for this study were obtained from a popular car consumption community in Vietnam. A total of 505 user posts on the discussion forum were manually coded and assigned to WOM types, valence and content characteristics. The online engagement metrics were measured by the number of views and replies on the discussion forum, and the number of likes, comments and shares on Facebook.

The results indicate that the WOM types and valence have a significant impact on online engagement and the popularity of posts on Facebook is associated with the number of views on a discussion forum. The content type and discussion topic partially influence some factors of the online engagement metrics.

The findings are helpful for consumption community administrators to understand and manage their users’ engagement. Moreover, it indirectly supports brands and companies, since the consumption communities also include sub-communities of particular brands and marketers cooperate with consumption communities for their social media marketing strategies.

This research contributes to the literature of online engagement in two aspects. First, this study examines the impact of WOM types and valence. Second, this is the first study investigating the effects of posts by users within an information flow from a discussion forum to Facebook.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate social shopping deals and their impacts on review metrics at an online review site, Yelp and to compare the review metrics of the restaurant businesses and the health and wellness businesses to understand how social shopping deals affects them.

This study adopts a multiple regression model to analyse the effect of seven independent variables on the dependent variable, the growth rate of reviews which is a proxy of sales growth. This sample consisted of the review data of 134 merchants which offered social shopping deals at Groupon in 2011. The online review data of these merchants were collected in 2015 to analyse the relationship between the deals and the grow rate of the reviews.

For the restaurant businesses, there is a positive persuasive effect of Groupon customers’ review score on the growth rate of the reviews and consequently on the sale growth. For the health and wellness businesses, there are a positive persuasive effect of the regular customers’ review score on the growth rate of the reviews and a negative awareness effect of the number of Groupon reviews on the growth rate of the reviews. The review data also show that the Groupon customers of the health and wellness businesses are three times more likely to post their reviews than those of the restaurant businesses.

First, while the author limited the study to the seven independent variables, additional variables may exist. These additional variables may also influence the number of reviews, too. Future research needs to identify such variables to build a comprehensive model. Second, future research needs to address other types of businesses, such as education and entertainment, and compare differences between them. Third, while the study focussed on the review score and the number of reviews, a more in-depth analysis of the comments using sentiment analysis and social network analysis may shed additional insights on their review activities.

Despite the potential significance of customers’ reviews about social shopping deals, the critical mass of empirical studies still lacks in this area. The study contributes to the literature of this field by investigating the effect of social shopping deals on the customers’ online reviews. This study provides practical guidance for the improvement of online reviews about social shopping deals.

This paper aims to bridge the gap by understanding the context of ageing consumer behaviour in the online community. Specifically, this research seeks to identify which content typologies are critical to generating high engagement levels and, consequently, online brand advocacy and to understand the underlying motivation behind consumer online engagement.

A netnographic approach was used to comprehensively analyse older consumers’ online communities on Facebook, namely, “Silversurfers”. A total of 3,991 posts were included in the study and analysed using a content analysis approach over two years, from 2020 to 2022.

Results revealed that photography is the most active media type among older consumers. This study extends the literature on content marketing, identifying 17 new content types that reflect the four motivation states of older consumers to engage with the online community: cognitive/informative oriented, affective/emotional oriented, co-creation/interactive oriented and nostalgic oriented. Moreover, this investigation stressed affective/emotional oriented and nostalgic oriented as the primary motivations for higher engagement levels.

The older population is growing, which makes the ageing market potentially huge. However, more literature needs to address it, especially in online communities. Finally, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study develops an original content typology framework in which firms can consider implementing effective content typology strategies for the older consumer segment.

Constantly expanding chemical and environmental information sources increase the need for descriptive statistical analysis. This paper gives a comparative evaluation of data sources, i.e. online databases, databases on CD‐ROM and Internet resources in the field of environmental chemicals. The evaluation is based on information in three metadatabases for environmental chemicals: DADB‐Metadatabase of Online Databases, DACD‐Metadatabase of CD‐ROMs, DAIN‐Metadatabase of Internet Resources. A data matrix of 50 environmental and chemical descriptors found in DADB, DACD and DAIN is analysed and a technique is applied to transform the data set into a data matrix of a more homogeneous structure. This method is based on algorithms for solving the so‐called travelling salesman problem. Two different ways of analysing the data set are applied and the results are compared. Also, media combination patterns are identified and discussed. For most descriptors the information depth is higher in commercial online databases and databases on CD‐ROM than in free Internet resources. Exceptions, e.g. some health‐related parameters which have a higher percentage in Internet resources, are identified and explained.

Companies operating on the internet need appropriate metrics to make strategic marketing decisions. This paper applies established qualitative research methods to the online environment to evaluate how web managers generate and incorporate web metrics to inform strategic marketing decisions.

Initial theories were developed using a comprehensive literature review as well as exploratory interviews with New Zealand companies. Applying a mixed methodology, the exploratory research used interviews to assess current practice within the industry, refine the research questions and set up the research design. An in‐depth case study in the USA evaluated best practices and highlighted issues that affect the use of web metrics. The main data collection utilized case studies to generate the in‐depth information necessary for theory building.

The exploratory results showed that companies currently measure web site performance and consumer behaviour online but are still uncertain how best to use those metrics to inform strategic marketing decisions. The in‐depth case study showed how web metrics can be used when sufficient resources are available and measuring performance is a priority. Owing to the initially recognized low level of web metrics use, the main research was expanded purposively to selected participants who make greater use of web metrics.

This paper applies traditional qualitative research methods to the online environment. Analysis of the case studies and continued research will address the research gap and provide recommendations to web managers as well as attempt to illustrate best practices, solutions to issues and industry benchmarks.

This study aims to propose a set of metrics in order to assess reactivity, dialogic communication and stakeholder engagement (popularity, commitment and virality): stakeholders' mood and social legitimacy on corporate Facebook pages. These metrics can offer a better understanding and measurability of this social media/social network/online communication management tool.

Three theories (dialogic, stakeholders and legitimacy) were considered in the development of these metrics. Empirical evidence was collected from a sample of 314 European companies. Then ten active companies were used to validate the proposed metrics on Facebook.

The constructed set of metrics was found to be valid and efficiently usable according to the principles of the applied theories. Moreover all the proposed metrics could be adapted for such sites as Google+.

Limitations can only be identified within the validation process as the metrics were only applied to ten representative companies from the Eurozone.

The proposed metrics will help users, marketing/PR/communication professionals and company managers to measure their and their competitors' popularity, commitment, virality (metrics which reflect stakeholder engagement), and the mood of stakeholders, and use content analysis in order to measure social legitimacy via CSR information disclosure on Facebook. Thus the online reputation of a company can be practically measured.

This paper is the first proposing metrics to assess stakeholder engagement and social legitimacy on a corporate Facebook page that can be used in both academic and professional circles to a gain a better understanding of corporate online communication via Facebook.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an introduction to the various web metrics tools that are available, and to indicate how these might be used in libraries.

The paper describes ways in which web metrics can be used to inform strategic decision making in libraries.

A framework of possible web metrics is provided that can be adapted for use as appropriate in libraries.

The paper offers assistance to any web site manager in planning new developments, given limited resources.

In this paper the authors aim to review the state-of-the-art literature on online review systems and their impacts on consumer behavior and retailers' performance with the aim of identifying research gaps related to different design features of review systems and developing future research agenda.

The authors conducted a systematic review based on PRISMA 2020 protocol, focusing on studies published in the domains of retailing and marketing. This procedure resulted in 48 selected papers investigating the design features of retailer online review systems.

The authors identify eight design features that are controllable by retailers in an online review system. The design features have been researched independently in previous literature, with some features receiving more attention. Most selected studies focus on the design features adapted metrics and review presentations, while other features are generally neglected (e.g. rating dimensions). Previous literature argues that design features affect consumer behaviors and retailers' performance. However, the interactions among the features are still neglected in the literature, creating a relevant gap for future research.

This paper distinguishes between different types of retailer online review systems based on how they are implemented. The authors summarize the state-of-the-art of relevant literature on design features of online review systems and their effects on consumer- and retailer-related outcome variables. This systematic literature review distinguishes between online reviews provided on websites controlled by retailers (internal systems) and third-party websites (external systems).