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The purpose of this study is to explore informetrics researchers' use of social media for academic activities, their attitudes to the applicability of altmetrics in research evaluation, the factors influencing their attitudes, and the main opportunities and weaknesses of using altmetrics.

A survey using a questionnaire was conducted with researchers who participated in the 16th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics ISSI 2017 and a sample of 125 respondents was obtained.

Progressively more researchers are using social media for different types of academic activities. The study found that many factors affect informetrics researchers' attitudes in different application scenarios with respect to research evaluation. Researchers who have studied altmetrics and who began using social media platforms recently or frequently have more positive attitudes. Academic users and social users have statistically significantly disparate attitudes toward altmetrics in different disciplines and different application scenarios.

Our study only focused on 125 informetrics researchers, who participated in ISSI 2017. We mainly used the questionnaire method, but did not conduct in-depth interviews with the researcher's views.

Informetrics researchers are participants in social media and major researchers of altmetrics. Previous research has examined their use of social media, and this study combines this use of social media with their attitudes to altmetrics to explore the value of altmetrics from a particular perspective. The paper also provides suggestions for the application of altmetrics in research evaluation.

As organisations are increasing their investment in social media marketing (SMM), evaluation of such techniques is becoming increasingly important. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to knowledge regarding SMM strategy by developing a stage model of SMM evaluation and uncovering the challenges in this process.

Interviews were conducted with 18 key informants working for specialist SMM agencies. Such informants are a particularly rich source, since they manage social media campaigns for a wide range of clients. An exploratory research was conducted and thematic analysis surfaced the key components of the SMM evaluation process and associated challenges.

The SMM evaluation framework is developed. This framework has the following six stages: setting evaluation objectives, identifying key performance indicators (KPIs), identifying metrics, data collection and analysis, report generation and management decision making. Challenges associated with each stage of the framework are identified, and discussed with a view to better understanding decision making associated with social media strategies. Two key challenges are the agency-client relationship and the available social analytics tools.

Despite an increasing body of research on social media objectives, KPIs and metrics, no previous study has explored how these components are embedded in a marketing campaign planning process. The paper also offers insights in the factors that make SMM evaluation complex and challenging. Recommendations for further research and practice are offered.

This study aimed to analyze existing problems in the dissemination and management of emergency information on social media platforms, improve social media users' experience regarding such information, increase the efficiency of emergency information dissemination and curb the spread of misinformation.

In this study, the emergency information quality on social media platforms was examined. Based on the evaluation principles of the quality of mature information, social media information characteristics and the rules of emergency information dissemination, combined with relevant academic research results, an index to evaluate the quality of emergency information on social media was constructed. In addition, the authors have introduced cloud theory as an information quality evaluation method and used social media users' emotional characteristics to assess information quality evaluation results. A comprehensive system for evaluating emergency information quality, including indexes, methods and detection strategies was established. Based on a comprehensive system, a case study was conducted on the forest fires in Sichuan Province and the African swine fever events as reported on the Zhihu platform. In accordance with the results of the case study, the authors expanded the research and introduced the emotional characteristics of social media users as an independent evaluation dimension to evaluate the quality of emergency information on social media.

The comprehensive system's effectiveness was verified through the case study. Further, it was found that users' emotional characteristics (reflected in their information behavior) are inconsistent with their evaluation of websites' information quality regarding major emergencies. Integrating users' emotional characteristics into the information evaluation system can enhance its effectiveness following major emergencies.

First, an evaluation index system of emergency information quality on social media about major emergencies was offered. Unlike the commonly available index system for information quality evaluation, this proposed evaluation index system not only accounted for the characteristics of social media, such as massive disordered information, multiple information sources and rapid dissemination, but also for the characteristics of emergency events, such as variability and the absence of precursors. This proposed evaluation index system enhances the pertinence of the information quality evaluation and compensates for the shortcoming that the current research only focuses on evaluating social media information quality in a broad context, but pays insufficient attention to major emergencies. Second, cloud theory was introduced as a method to evaluate the emergency information quality found on social media. Existing research has primarily included the use of traditional statistical methods, which cannot transform numerical values into qualitative concepts effectively. Various indeterminate factors inevitably affect the quality of emergency information on social media platforms, and the traditional methods cannot eliminate this uncertainty in the evaluation process. The method to assess emergency information quality based on cloud theory can effectively compensate for the gaps in the research and improve the accuracy of information quality assessment. Third, the inspection and the dynamic adjustment of assessment results are absent in the research on information quality assessment, and the research has relied principally on the information users' evaluation and has paid insufficient attention to their attitudes and behaviors toward information. Therefore, the authors incorporated users' emotional characteristics into the evaluation of emergency information quality on social media and used them to test the evaluation results so that the results of the information quality assessment not only include the users' explicit attitudes but also their implicit attitudes. This enhances the effectiveness of the information quality assessment system. Finally, through this case study, it was found that an inconsistency exists between user evaluation and user emotional characteristics after major emergencies. The reasons for this phenomenon were explained, and the necessity of integrating user emotional characteristics into information quality assessment was demonstrated. Based on this, the users' emotional characteristics were used as a separate evaluation dimension for assessing the quality of emergency information on social media. Compared with assessing the quality of general information, integrating the user's emotional characteristics into the evaluation index system can lead the evaluation results to include not only the users' cognitive evaluation but also their emotional experience, further enhancing their adaptability.

Conspicuously absent from the branding literature is research on the brand-to-brand (Br2Br) interface enabled by social media. The author proposes how networked brands-as-actors integrate their resources as Br2Br interactions that co-create consumer–brand value. As a secondary contribution, the author provides an empirical baseline exploration of the value co-creating impact of Br2Br interactions on consumer–brand evaluations and social media engagement.

Three streams of research aid in conceptualizing the value co-creating process of Br2Br interactions. A follow-up exploratory study uses a controlled Br2Br interaction stimulus in a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects design, where brand familiarity and product category complementarity are manipulated, and interaction spillover effects are analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The author finds Br2Br interactions positively affect consumer–brand evaluations and social media engagement likelihood. Spillover effects of these interactions are symmetric for consumer–brand evaluations for both brands. However, brand familiarity moderates the effects of Br2Br interactions on consumer–brand evaluations.

The author lays the groundwork for future research on the complexities of Br2Br interactions – including brand personality conflict, interaction duration and paratextual language – and the boundary conditions for Br2Br and brand-to-consumer relationships.

This study aims to investigate how a sample of US municipalities use social media for strategic communication, focusing on efforts to effectively measure and evaluate that communication. Research questions focus on measurement and evaluation practices, as well as the motivations and impacts associated with these practices.

This research uses a qualitative approach. Interviews were conducted with 12 municipal government personnel responsible for social media communication. The self-selected participants represent 10 states and all US Census regions. Data was content analyzed and categorized according to four research questions, with emergent themes described.

The results show a diverse set of approaches and motivations, with surface-level measurement and evaluation methods. Initial efforts at more ad hoc use of social media are moving toward more deliberate strategies, but limited resources inhibit progress for some municipalities.

Few studies exist which explore how US municipalities formally measure and evaluate their social media activities as part of their overall strategic communication efforts. This study adds to the existing literature by providing insight into the measurement and evaluation practices that municipalities use to assess their social media communication. The study also provides a basis for larger and deeper investigations of municipal strategic communication practices related to measurement and evaluation.

Due to their unique characteristics in terms of information type, quantity and exchange, social media are regarded as a challenging information resource that makes credibility evaluation a more complicated behavior. This study aims to investigate the role of media literacy in the credibility evaluation of social media information among students as a major community of user groups.

The study tried to explore whether or not the three popular platforms of WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram with their unique features, show a significant difference in the credibility evaluation among a sample of 150 students at the Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran. By administrating two validated measures related to the two main variables, data gathered were analyzed through the partial least-squares (PLS) method using the software SmartPLS.

Convergent and discriminant validities, as well as model fit indices, showed the reliability of the conceptual model at the 99% confidence level. Moreover, path analysis demonstrated that media literacy could affect all components of the credibility evaluation, except for currency evaluation. Overall, media literacy had less impact on evaluating information sources and information credibility compared to information presentation. Further analysis showed no significant difference in credibility evaluation with respect to the application used.

There appears a crucial need for the students to be skilled more in evaluating content and source without which their decision-making might be negatively affected.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the uses and gratifications (U&G) theory for evaluating social media usage in higher education. The paper reports on a social media awareness campaign which was designed and implemented in a higher education context as extra-curricular content.

A case study research approach was used and the theoretical model was adopted in a South African higher education institution where a social media campaign was conducted to improve environmental awareness. The activities of the environmental awareness campaign were conducted using popular social media such as Facebook and YouTube. The U&G theory was used to evaluate social media usage before and after the campaign. Three gratifications (or factors) of the U&G were used, namely coordination, immediate access and social presence.

The findings revealed an increase in environmental knowledge during the campaign and a positive correlation was found between activity on the social media campaign and environmental knowledge. However, the ratings for the U&G gratifications were lower in the post-test evaluation than in the pre-test evaluation for all three factors. This low rating could indicate that the use of social media for these gratifications and the acceptance of social media used for extra-curricular educational purposes are low. Through qualitative feedback three other factors that influenced the usage and acceptance of the campaign social media were identified, namely: time, attitude and a fast internet connection.

One limitation of the study was the relatively small sample size of 72 students in one higher education institution.

The findings of the study still provide deeper insight into students’ usage of social media for extra-curricular education and the theoretical model can be used in other studies on social media usage.

Whilst several studies have investigated social media use for learning, there is limited research which explores the usage and acceptance of social media for extra-curricular knowledge.

This study aims to answer an important question of how brand-related communications, including advertising and sales promotion contents, which are disseminated on social media platforms, can enhance positive brand image and evoke favourable behavioural intention from consumers.

This study surveys 615 consumers of automotive brands across Malaysia. The data were analysed with AMOS, which was used to specify both the measurement and structural models. The mediating effect of both hedonic and functional brand images was tested using the bootstrapping approach in AMOS and Sobel test.

The findings reported in this research demonstrate that there are positive and significant relationships between social media advertising content, social media sales promotion content, hedonic brand image, functional brand image and behavioural intention. Both hedonic and functional brand images have significant mediating effects on social media advertising content, social media sales promotion content and behavioural intention. However, the relationship between social media advertising content and behavioural intention is insignificant.

This paper proffers insights to brand managers and marketers on how to leverage on social media contents by unearthing the roles of traditional marketing communications such as social media advertising and promotional information in enhancing brand preference and improving consumers’ purchase intention.

This research advances the discussions in the realm of social media communications and branding by examining the mediating effects of both hedonic and functional brand images of automotive brands. In addition, this study focuses on two essential marketing communications, advertising and sales promotions, which are commonly disseminated by brand managers on social media platforms.

The purpose of this study is to explore “how social media influence the way consumers search, evaluate and select a hotel within the ‘evaluation stage’ of the wider hotel decision-making process”.

An exploratory qualitative research has been carried out, conducting 12 individual face-to-face, semi-structured, in-depth interviews with social media users, followed by a qualitative thematic analysis.

Social media transform the consumers’ hotel decision journey by influencing the way consumers search, decide and book hotels. The findings reveal the determinants shaping this process, by shedding light on the perceived value of using social media, consumers’ information search behaviour “then and now”, the advantages and disadvantages of social media use for decision-making, their trustworthiness and the factors that influence the consumers’ hotel decision-journey. The findings are conceptualised in an integrated theoretical model, entitled “hotel consumer decision-journey through social media”.

The study’s scope for qualitative in-depth insights into the “hotel consumer decision-journey through social media” asked for a compromise on a larger sample size and in turn the transferability of the theoretical model beyond service, hospitality and tourism consumer decision-making contexts.

This paper provides strategic implications for hospitality marketing and management for a better understanding of the influence of social media on the hotel customer decision journey. The study shows that a variety of social media with associated content sources and levels add to the complexity of hotel-related information search and decision behaviour. The developed framework not only helps hotel professionals understand consumers’ different levels (e.g. type of content, content source, content level) through which social media might influence decision-making. Various real-life scenarios presented also help practitioners understand the fine nuances of how consumers are influenced by social media and how this causes them to iteratively change their minds and make a final decision towards the rejection or selection of a hotel.

Consumers use social media for a wide spectrum of scenarios in tourism and hospitality, while the influence of social media on the consumers’ hotel decision-making process remains little understood. This study makes a theoretical contribution in that it addresses these existing gaps and bridges consumer behaviour and social media literature in the hotel context to shed light on the “hotel consumer decision journey through social media”. The core contribution is an integrated theoretical model and real-life scenarios that depict the impact of social media on the hotel decision-making.

Sponsored social media content is one of the advertising strategies that companies implement so that ads appear as native to the delivery platform without making consumers feel that they are directly targeted. Hence, the current study examines whether prominently featuring corporate information on social media ads affects how consumers perceive them. It also investigates whether an ad's evaluation metrics on Twitter (e.g. number of likes/comments) influence its persuasiveness and consumers' behavioral intentions towards the sponsoring company. Underlying cognitive and affective mechanisms through which sponsored content operates are also investigated.

A 2 (corporate credibility: low vs high) by 2 (bandwagon cues: low vs high) between-subjects experiment was conducted.

The findings showed that corporate credibility and bandwagon cues can influence social media ad effectiveness. Sponsored content from high-credibility companies – evoked more favorable attitudes and behavioral intentions – is perceived as less intrusive, and elicits less anger than equivalent posts from low-credibility companies. Furthermore, it was found that bandwagon cues work via different pathways. For high-credibility corporations, a high number of bandwagon cues improved ad persuasiveness by mitigating consumers' anger towards intrusive sponsored content. Conversely, for low-credibility corporations high bandwagon cues enhanced ad persuasiveness, and this triggered more positive attitudes towards it.

This paper is the first to test corporate credibility and bandwagon effects in social media ads, while also exploring consumers' cognitive and affective responses to sponsored content. Implications for how companies with varying popularity levels should promote products on social media are discussed.