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This study seeks to explore the impact of “fear of missing out” (FOMO) and “psychological enhancement” (PE) on addiction to social media applications, subsequently influencing users' life satisfaction and continuous usage intention.

This research involved the administration of two sets of questionnaires during distinct periods: December 15 to December 30, 2022 and August 26 to September 2, 2023. The participants were college students from three universities in China, and the data collection utilized the “Questionnaire Star” platform. Only responses deemed valid and consistent were included in the subsequent statistical analysis. A total of 1,108 valid samples were used for the final analysis. Analyses including reliability, validity, path analysis, structural equation modeling, mediation effects and moderation effects were conducted using SPSS and AMOS software.

The study revealed that both FOMO and PE exerted positive influences on users' addiction to social media applications. Furthermore, this addiction was found to have a negative effect on users' life satisfaction while simultaneously contributing positively to their intention to continue using these platforms. The mediating effect of social media application addiction and the moderating impact of self-regulation were also substantiated through the analysis.

Firstly, it is important to note that the research population of this study is limited to college students, which may limit its generalizability and representativeness. Although college students are a group known for their familiarity with and frequent use of smartphones and social media apps, the findings may not fully capture the behaviors of social media app users in other age groups. To enhance the understanding of social media app addiction across different age groups, future studies should consider expanding the research population and conducting multi-group difference analyses. Secondly, while focusing on specific users within a particular region can minimize unexplained variance in model estimation, it may also restrict the broader applicability of the study results. Therefore, future studies should consider testing the research model with diverse groups from different regions and cultural backgrounds. This approach will provide valuable insights into how social media app addiction may vary across various contexts, thereby enriching our understanding of this phenomenon.

Our findings reveal that in the “attention economy” environment shaped by addiction, social media app managers should leverage technology to swiftly and accurately target audiences, attract them to their platforms and cultivate long-term relationships. Encouraging users to develop new beneficial habits through app-specific functions and precise services will foster continuous usage and unlock revenue and marketing opportunities for app companies.

Despite the extensive scholarly discourse on social media application addiction, there is a lack of a well-defined framework delineating how addictive user behaviors can be leveraged in the marketing strategies of social media application platforms. The present study seeks to address these gaps, contributing to a better understanding of the formation mechanisms and knowledge systems related to social media application addiction. By investigating the causes and consequences of such addiction, this research offers valuable insights and recommendations for the innovative development of these apps, given their widespread popularity. Concurrently, the study establishes a theoretical basis for the concept that users can mitigate the negative effects of social media addiction by exercising their own self-regulation.

As the functionalities and features of social media apps converge, their individual uniqueness starts to diminish, intensifying the competition among social media companies. This escalating rivalry places higher demands on these companies. This study aims to aid social media app companies in comprehending and analyzing the diverse psychological needs of users. By enriching their platform features and services, leading users towards addiction and gaining an edge in the “Attention Economy” competition. Understanding and catering to users' needs will be instrumental in thriving within this dynamic and evolving attention economy landscape.

This study aims to examine the use of social media by academic librarians at universities in Zimbabwe with particular focus on the application of the four key constructs of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model. This study assesses the degree to which academic librarians in Zimbabwe believe that using social media enhances service delivery, the extent to which academic librarians perceive social media as easy to use, the influence of peers on social media use among academic librarians and the extent to which facilitating conditions influence social media use.

A pragmatist worldview in which both quantitative and qualitative methods were adopted, this multiple case study used face-to-face interviews, self-administered questionnaires and content analysis for collecting data.

Academic librarians in Zimbabwe perceive social media tools to be useful and easy to use in the provision of services. Social influence had a moderate effect on academic librarians’ use of social media for service delivery at universities in Zimbabwe, but they feel that their supervisors do not provide enough help for them to use social media.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no similar study has been done previously in Zimbabwe. This multiple case study presents useful findings on the acceptance and use of social media by academic librarians in Zimbabwe.

This study examines the effect of social media marketing on voting intention applying a combination of fuzzy logic methodology and a multidimensional panel data model.

The study adopts a multidimensional panel data method that includes several fixed effects. The dependent variable is a multifaceted construct that measures the participants’ intention to vote. The independent variables are electronic word of mouth (eWOM), customisation (CUS), entertainment (ENT), interaction (INT), trendiness (TRD), candidate’s perceived image (CPI), religious beliefs (RB), gender and age. The grouping variables that signify fixed effects are employment status, level of education, mostly used social media and religion. First, the significance of said fixed effects was tested through an ANOVA process. Then, the main model was estimated, including the significant grouping variables as fixed effects.

Employment status and level of education were significant fixed effects. Also, eWOM, ENT, INT, CPI, RB and gender significantly affected participants’ voting intention.

Being based on a questionnaire that asked participants about how they perceive different aspects of social media, the present study is limited to their perceptions. Therefore, further studies covering the voters’ behaviour in action could be efficient complements to the present study.

The findings could guide the political parties into prioritizing the aspects of social media in forming an effective campaign resulting in being elected.

The findings have the potential to help the public in making better informed decisions when voting. Furthermore, the results of this study indicate applications for social media which are beyond leisure time fillers.

Fuzzy logic and multidimensional panel data estimates are this study’s novelty and originality. Structural equation modelling and crisp linguistic values have been used in previous studies on social media’s effect on voting intent. The former refines the data gathered from a questionnaire, and the latter considers the possibility of including different grouping factors to achieve a more efficient and less biased estimation.

During the past few years, social media has faced the challenge of maintaining its user base. Reports show that the social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter experienced a decline in their users. Taking WhatsApp's recent change of its terms of use as the case of this study and using the push-pull-mooring model and a configurational perspective, this study aims to identify pathways for switching intentions.

Data were collected from 624 WhatsApp users recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk and analyzed using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

The findings identify seven configurations for high switching intentions and four configurations for low intentions to switch. Firm reputation and critical mass increase intention to switch, while low firm reputation and absence of attractive alternatives hinder switching.

This study extends extant literature on social media migration by identifying configurations that result in high and low switching intention among messaging applications.

The study identifies factors the technology service providers should consider to attract new users and retain existing users.

This study complements the extant literature on switching intention that explains the phenomenon based on a net-effect approach by offering an alternative view that focuses on the existence of multiple pathways to social media switching. It further advances the authors’ understanding of the relevant importance of switching factors.

This study aims to discover the factors which influence user satisfaction levels and their continuous use intention (CUI) of academic library social media, and then considers how to promote and improve further work on library social media to reduce user churn and increase user satisfaction.

An updated DeLone and McLean information systems success (D&M ISS) model and the expectation confirmation model for information systems continuance (ECM-ISC) with new variables of emotions are used to examine the factors which influence user satisfaction levels and CUI of academic library social media through 445 questionnaires. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data and presented in tables.

The results show that information quality, system quality and emotions affect user satisfaction and CUI, and reveal that emotions can affect that most obviously.

The WeChat public platform is mainly used in China, so the study only focuses on Chinese academic libraries. There are still limitations on the settings of observed variables which cannot cover all the causes of users’ positive and negative emotions. In addition, although the respondents of this questionnaire can represent academic library users, 445 samples are still fairly low in contrast to the great number of academic library WeChat public platform users.

This study integrates ECM-ISC and D&M ISS models, adds positive and negative emotions as new variables, to broaden the application scope of these models, and demonstrates the applicability of these two models in the fields of researching academic library social media, expanding and deepening related theories above. This also provides practical reference for academic libraries on how to improve user satisfaction and CUI of academic library social media and academic library WeChat public platforms, promoting the development of academic library social media.

This study aims to investigate the effect of social influence and value-driven mobile marketing activities on consumers’ acceptance of mobile marketing offers.

The method used is survey questionnaire. A proposed model was tested by using structural model analysis and data gathered from 356 Mexico consumers and 346 US consumers.

The study shows the number of peers and providing information are the main predictor variables of consumer acceptance of mobile marketing offers in both countries. These results suggest that social value factors are important variables for explaining consumers’ responses to mobile marketing offers across two countries characterized by dissimilar macro-environmental conditions.

The study’s overall implication about standardization vs adaptation is that social value messages can be standardized across countries. However, the marketing tools and touch points required to communicate any message appeal must be adapted across countries. One limitation in this study is the use of a convenience sample of undergraduate college students. This study did not control for different types of mobile phones and the screen sizes of mobile phones.

The overall implication of standardization vs adaptation from the study results is that social value messages can be standardized across countries. However, the marketing tools and touch points required to communicate any message appeal must be adapted across countries.

Unlike previous studies where the emphasis is to explicate the effect of value-oriented mobile activity, this study examines the combined effect of social influence and value-driven mobile activities on acceptance of mobile marketing.

In a dynamic, continuously evolving sports landscape, social media have become an indispensable tool for sports organizations to cultivate meaningful connections with fans. The rapid pace of technological advancements has elevated these digital platforms from a supplementary role to a pivotal position within strategic management frameworks. The existing literature explores how football clubs can utilize social media, but analyzing social media strategies within the context of football leagues is lacking. The absence of comparative studies benchmarking clubs across different geographical regions while simultaneously analyzing multiple social media platforms is especially noteworthy. In this study, a comprehensive analysis of social media engagement is undertaken within esteemed football leagues spanning Europe, South America and North America.

Drawing on relationship marketing and employing content analysis as a methodological tool, the study examined 10,772 posts from the official accounts of eight football leagues on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Across the leagues, the findings reveal that content quality drives engagement more than frequency. In addition, several format combinations were identified that facilitate engagement and Instagram emerged as the top social media platform for generating fan engagement.

This is one of the first empirical studies focusing on optimizing the use of social media to amplify fan engagement across various geographies and social media accounts and formats simultaneously.

In spite of the merits of artificial intelligence (AI) in marketing and social media, harm to consumers has prompted calls for AI auditing/certification. Understanding consumers’ approval of AI certification entities is vital for its effectiveness and companies’ choice of certification. This study aims to generate important insights into the consumer perspective of AI certifications and stimulate future research.

A literature and status-quo-driven search of the AI certification landscape identifies entities and related concepts. This study empirically explores consumer approval of the most discussed entities in four AI decision domains using an online experiment and outline a research agenda for AI certification in marketing/social media.

Trust in AI certification is complex. The empirical findings show that consumers seem to approve more of non-profit entities than for-profit entities, with the government approving the most.

The introduction of AI certification to marketing/social media contributes to work on consumer trust and AI acceptance and structures AI certification research from outside marketing to facilitate future research on AI certification for marketing/social media scholars.

For businesses, the authors provide a first insight into consumer preferences for AI-certifying entities, guiding the choice of which entity to use. For policymakers, this work guides their ongoing discussion on “who should certify AI” from a consumer perspective.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is the first to introduce the topic of AI certification to the marketing/social media literature, provide a novel guideline to scholars and offer the first set of empirical studies examining consumer approval of AI certifications.

By building and examining an integral model, the principal objectives of this research are to systematically explore how indirect and direct network externalities lead to user loyalty toward WeChat through the mediating effect of perceived gratifications.

The data were collected through an online survey of 688 young people in Mainland China. To empirically assess the conceptual model, zero-order correlation analyses and structural equation modeling were carried out utilizing web-based data.

Path analysis results demonstrate that indirect network externalities and direct network externalities exert a significant impact on users' hedonic gratifications and utilitarian gratifications. Moreover, the study discovers the significant mediating influences of utilitarian gratifications on the association between indirect network externalities and user loyalty.

Theoretically, this article may extend the scope of diverse studies on the association between network externalities and perceived gratifications and offer fresh insights into how mobile social media could actually improve user loyalty through enhancing perceived values among younger generation. Practically, this research assists mobile social media practitioners in retaining users and gaining competitive advantages over rival applications.

Although the extraordinary growth of WeChat has successfully become the dominant media by which individuals develop interpersonal network and contact with others, the roles of perceived gratifications between network externalities and user loyalty toward WeChat have not yet been investigated in depth. These obtained outcomes not only enrich the existing literature regarding the relationship between network externalities and affective response, but also offer fresh insights to mobile social media designers, marketers and users.

Given the limited literature on depression as a contributing factor to compulsive social media use, the present research examines the role of perceived depressive mood (PDM) in developing compulsive social media use behavior. The authors also identify and hypothesize channels such as contingent self-esteem (CSE), social interaction anxiety (SIA) and fear of negative evaluation (FNE), which may explain how PDM affects compulsive social media use.

The research model was empirically tested with a survey of 367 Chinese university students using structural equation modeling by drawing on the escape and self-presentation lenses.

The findings indicate that PDM contributes to compulsive social media use behavior both directly and indirectly through CSE. Furthermore, the impact of CSE on compulsive social media use is mediated by the FNE, whereas SIA fails to mediate this effect.

The results can advance the authors’ knowledge of the role and process by which depressive mood impacts compulsive social media use. These findings may add insights into psychological treatment and help in, for example, developing counseling programs or coping strategies for depressed people to protect them from using social media excessively.

This research identifies the pathway mechanism between PDM and compulsive use of social media. It also increases the understanding of how CSE and social interaction deficiencies contribute to compulsive social media usage (CSMU).