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As adults and young adults have become increasingly active on social media, public libraries have incorporated social media alongside their more traditional services. However, libraries are faced with the challenging task of determining how to successfully engage with their users through social media. This chapter examines research literature from both social media and information studies to explore evidence-based results on providing popular information services and resources for adult and young adult users in social spaces. Key elements of social media use by libraries identified in this review include promotion of information resources and services, participation and engagement, social care, pastoral care, outreach, cocreation and motivation of users, advocacy and crowdsourcing, and measurement and assessment. Based on results from current research, best practices and assessment methods for social media are discussed which offer practical considerations for selecting social media platforms appropriate to a library’s mission, goals, and objectives, with examples relevant to a variety of social media platforms. The chapter also offers a review of social media platforms, practices, and assessment designed to inform librarians and library managers in decision-making about library social media efforts.

Given the widespread popularity of social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn, theorizing and understanding the user attitude and usage behavior of social media site is fundamental in developing future understandings and deployment of these new technologies. One approach to such studies on drivers of social media usage behavior would be to revisit the technology acceptance model (TAM). The purpose of this paper is to discuss these issues.

Decades of extensive research have focussed on validating the TAM, proposed by Davis (1986), for various types of information systems and communication technologies. TAM forecasts individual adoption and voluntary use of technology. This study examines individual adoption behavior of the most popular social networking site Facebook. The influences on the intention of using social networking based on individual's perceived ease of use (EU), the user's critical mass (CM), social networking site capability (CP), perceived playfulness (PP), trustworthiness (TW), and perceived usefulness (PU) is empirically examined with a primary data set of 398 users of Facebook gathered from a web-based questionnaire survey.

The results demonstrate that the revised social media TAM model proposed in this study supports all the hypotheses of social media usage behavior. The results of this study provide evidence for the importance of additional key variables to TAM in considering user engagement on social media sites and other social-media-related business strategies.

Based on our review of existing scientific literature on social media, few empirical studies have been conducted to scientifically evaluate and explain the usage behavior of social media using Facebook. A validated instrument of usage behavior of social media can provide usability experts and practitioners with a validated tool to assess social media acceptance and usage behavior. This can help us gain a better understanding of “who is and who is not using these sites, why and for what purposes” (Boyd and Ellison, 2007).

This paper aims to address two primary research questions: Why does a consumer integrate into a brand community and how does that impact overall satisfaction with the brand? Which of the main social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest) is more/less appropriate for cultivating a brand community?

Data were collected via an online survey of college students at two universities. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling with AMOS software.

Results suggest that brand community does lead to satisfaction with a social media brand. Consumers are more likely to integrate into a brand community if they view the site as personally relevant. Relevancy is affected by the frequency with which the consumer visits the site. The analysis also indicates that there are interesting differences among the different sites.

This study has some limitations due to the demographics of the respondents and the finite listing of sites.

Social media marketers looking to build brand community and increase satisfaction will be able to use the results of this study to make informed decisions regarding these efforts.

Society could benefit from this study if marketers use the findings to engage consumers in brand communities through social media. Brand communities help participants to feel more engaged and connected to others. It is well known that people thrive in community settings and this togetherness, as opposed to isolation, will be good for the participants and society in general.

The understanding of why a consumer would integrate into a brand community is valuable information because it is generally known and accepted that there are positive results for the brand, but this study takes it a step further and looks at the specific social media sites to give guidance to marketing practitioners as to which ones are best for brand community building.

In the internet era, the boundaries between public and private lives of government employees are often blurred, resulting in enhanced concerns about administrative accountability and effectiveness. By adopting a multi-step qualitative methodology involving internet survey and analysis of illustrative examples, this research explores and examines how social media policies could assist in keeping the public and private lives of civil servants distinct. We find that very few public sector agencies have adopted social media policies in an attempt to regulate employee behavior. We conclude that social media sites, both private and official, could be an effective administrative tool if harnessed properly. We offer certain recommendations and strategies based on our findings that could assist in accomplishing the principles of ethical administration.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the implications of the shift from citizen journalist to social media user by examining how ethics are addressed on social media sites compared to citizen journalism sites.

This paper applies the framework of a 2012 study of ethics on citizen journalism sites to social media sites’ guiding documents to compare how they discuss ethics and what they ask of the users, offering suggestions for how social media sites might imbue users with a sense of their responsibilities and obligations.

The analysis finds that ethics are largely ignored on social media sites, written in legalistic language and framed in negative terms, rather than in terms of responsibilities or obligations.

When citizen journalism was subsumed by social media, much of the language – lacking as it may have been – around users’ responsibilities to each other was lost. This paper suggests social media sites should seek to raise rather than lower the barriers to entry, and imbue users with a sense of the responsibility they accept when sharing information online.

In the internet era, the boundaries between public and private lives of government employees are often blurred, resulting in enhanced concerns about administrative accountability and effectiveness. By adopting a multi-step qualitative methodology involving internet survey and analysis of illustrative examples, this research explores and examines how social media policies could assist in keeping the public and private lives of civil servants distinct. We find that very few public sector agencies have adopted social media policies in an attempt to regulate employee behavior. We conclude that social media sites, both private and official, could be an effective administrative tool if harnessed properly. We offer certain recommendations and strategies based on our findings that could assist in accomplishing the principles of ethical administration.

The main purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of embedded social media channels and determine whether the embedded social media channels enhance the overall experience of travelers using the hotel Web sites.

A true-experimental, between-group and post-test-only design was used to address the primary research questions. Two privately accessible complete versions of the Web site (one with embedded social media channels and one without them) were designed for the experiment. The uses and gratifications approach was used to test the proposed hypotheses. Data were analyzed using ANOVA.

The results of this study revealed that embedded social media channels on the hotel Web site enhanced travelers’ social gratifications of perceived social interaction. Apart from these benefits for travelers seeking social gratifications, embedded social media channels did not enhance the overall experience (content and process gratifications) of travelers using the Web site.

In the case of embedded social media on hotel Web sites, this study suggests that hotel managers measure return on engagement to examine the effectiveness of embedded social media, instead of return on investment.

The study revealed that the emergence of embedded social media channels and their integration on hotel Web sites will have significant influence on travelers who seek social gratifications.

The findings of this study offer new empirical evidence that embedded social media channels enhance only travelers’ perceived social interaction during their first visit to the hotel Web site.

Social media usage has become popular among the youth. The popularity and acceptance of this tool by the youth in large numbers make it necessary to find out more about the reasons why the youth are so interested in social media sites and as a result rely so much on it in every social engagement irrespective of the dangers or demerits it poses. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

With the adoption of survey methodology, this paper randomly selected 204 students majoring in sociology from University of Ghana and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology to participate in the study.

Using the uses and gratifications theory, this study identified the following: WhatsApp was found to be the most widely used social media tool in both institutions; chatting and keeping in touch with loved ones and maintaining distant relationships are the major factors that motivate students in both institutions to use social media sites. The results further indicated that students are highly influenced by social media sites and, therefore, this has become their main medium of communication within and outside campus.

Social media, one way or the other is controlling the world and everything in it. The exposure of students to this tool requires the taking of certain relevant measures to direct the focus of its usage in tertiary institutions. It is against this background that this paper strongly recommended its integration into the academic system and the enshrinement of social media policies in the handbook of university students in Ghana.

This paper adds to existing literature on students frequent use of social media and confirms the assumptions of the uses and gratifications theory which simply asks the question why and how people use media.

Social media sites contribute significantly to nature conservation in, that they enlighten and educate those members of the public who would ordinarily not be in a position, or would not be fortunate enough to visit the park and experience the various aspects first-hand. The purpose of this paper is to showcase social media pages related to a national game reserve in South Africa. This game reserve is the largest in the country and has a wide variety of conserved fauna and flora.

The theoretical framework used is the SCOPE framework that streamlines strategy development, content choice, refinement of online engagement, choice of social media platform and evaluations of social media campaigns.

The findings relate to the content found on these social media pages, as well as how members of the public interact with each other and officials from the game reserve in sharing experiences related to this wilderness area.

The research is related to the Kruger National Park in South Africa and is limited to three social media sites.

Through its social media presence, this South African game reserve is able to share experiences from what is effectively a living museum, as well as from its library and archives, with members of the public and allowing individual members to share their encounters with wildlife and their historical memories of this wilderness area.

The study aims to develop a theoretical model that portrays the antecedents of emotional attachment in the travel context by combining branding, marketing and information systems theories.

The authors gather empirical data through a Web-based questionnaire from 236 respondents. The proposed theory-driven model is examined empirically by using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.

The findings suggest that social media rewards and benefits impact users’ brand commitment. Social media interactivity and rewards help building a stronger brand image. Brand commitment and brand image, in turn, affect emotional attachment positively.

Other unexamined constructs may add to the explanation of building brands using social media platforms. As this is an exploratory study in relation to enhancing emotional attachment in an online travel setting, other constructs such as brand page commitment, annoyance, social benefits and telepresence may be considered in future studies.

Practitioners might encounter ways to influence favorable perceptions and brand commitment when consumers use social media sites. The model addresses questions regarding the significant role of social media activities on influencing brand image and brand commitment that in turn influence the development of a strong emotional attachment.

This study examined the effects of social media activities including interactivity, psychological benefits and rewards on brand image and brand commitment, and the effects of brand image and brand commitment on emotional attachment in the travel context. The results offer further verification for the theory-based model presented in the study. Evidently, statistically significant and meaningful associations exist among the factors.

The key contribution of this study is that it presents and validates a theory-driven model that reveals the antecedents of sustainable emotional attachment. The proposed framework stresses the positive relationships among constructs and offers research basis for expansion in other settings.

本论文结合品牌、营销、以及信息系统等理论, 建立了一个理论模型以描述在旅游情境中影响情感依恋的各种要素。

作者通过网络问卷的形式收集了236份数据, 并且通过验证性因素分析和结构方程模型的手段来实际测量以理论为基础建立的模型。

本论文研究结果表明社交媒体的奖励和好处影响用户的品牌承诺。社交媒体的交互性以及奖励帮助建立更强的品牌形象。品牌承诺和品牌形象对情感依恋有着积极促进的作用。

社交媒体平台的品牌建立模型还存在一些其他变量尚未开发测量。本论文只是开拓了网络旅游平台的情感依恋研究的方向, 其他变量比如品牌专页承诺、烦恼、社交好处、以及网真等, 应该在未来的研究中得以深入。

执业者可能会遇到多种方法, 通过社交媒体网站的方式影响消费者的主观感知和品牌承诺。本论文提出的模型可以帮助执业者解决关于社交媒体活动对品牌形象和品牌承诺显著影响从而达到强烈情感依恋效果的诸多问题。

本论文研究了旅游产业中, 社交媒体活动, 包括交互性、心理好处和奖励对品牌形象和品牌承诺的影响, 以及品牌形象和品牌承诺对情感依恋的影响。研究结果进一步深入测量了提出的理论模型。很显然, 数据分析结果表明模型结构之间存在显著有意义的联系。

本论文最重要的贡献在于它提出并验证了一个理论模型, 显示可持续情感依恋的动力起因。本论文提出的模型强调了结构之间的积极联系, 并且为在其他情境中的研究延申做出启示。