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Consumers, companies and virtual social worlds: A qualitative analysis of second life
... Common types of social media include collaborative projects (e.g., Wikipedia), blogs and microblogs (e.g., Twitter), content communities (e.g., YouTube), social networking (e.g., Facebook), virtual game worlds, and virtual social worlds [29]. Among various social media networks, Facebook is the most popular in terms of its network traffic and has been widely used by businesses to engage customers and to influence and track consumer beliefs and attitudes [23,58]. ...
... Radick [45] found that social media has been "instrumental in promoting consumer awareness and providing access to vast amounts of information, which impact decisionmaking processes." As social media can reach a large audience at a low cost [24,29], they are excellent vehicles for businesses to access markets, to communicate with customers [25], to foster stronger relationships with customers [13,55], and to facilitate brand communities [29,31]. On the social media platform, businesses are able to develop new approaches to rapidly disseminate information [4,27], learn customer perceptions of new product offerings and competitive actions, and maximize opportunities to attract and collaborate with loyal customers [20,38], influence customers' evaluations and actions [40], and cultivate loyal customers [38]. ...
... Radick [45] found that social media has been "instrumental in promoting consumer awareness and providing access to vast amounts of information, which impact decisionmaking processes." As social media can reach a large audience at a low cost [24,29], they are excellent vehicles for businesses to access markets, to communicate with customers [25], to foster stronger relationships with customers [13,55], and to facilitate brand communities [29,31]. On the social media platform, businesses are able to develop new approaches to rapidly disseminate information [4,27], learn customer perceptions of new product offerings and competitive actions, and maximize opportunities to attract and collaborate with loyal customers [20,38], influence customers' evaluations and actions [40], and cultivate loyal customers [38]. ...
A large amount of user-generated content is now freely available on social media sites. To increase their competitive advantage, companies need to monitor and analyze not only the customer-generated content on their own social media sites, but also the content on their competitors’ social media sites. In this article, we describe a framework to integrate several techniques including quantitative analysis, text mining, and sentiment analysis for analyzing and comparing social media content from business competitors. Specifically, we conducted an in-depth case study which applies our developed framework to the analysis and comparison of social media content on the Facebook sites of the three largest drugstore chains in the United States: Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid. We found similarities and differences in the social media use among the three drugstore chains. We discuss the implications of our findings and provide recommendations to help companies develop their social media competitive analysis strategies.
... Second Life in particular and virtual worlds in general have received some interest in the academic literature in recent years (see, for example, Barnes and Mattsson, 2008;Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009a;Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009b;Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009c;Lin, 2008;Wood, Solomon and Allan, 2008;, and since 2008 there has even been a journal specifically dedicated to this subject (Spence, 2008). Although the hype around this topic has now come to an end, the market research company Gartner still estimates that by 2012, 70% of all organizations will have established their own private virtual world. ...
... Exemplary recent studies include Stafford, Stafford and Schkade (2004), who investigate gratification of Internet usage, and Chung and Kim (2008) who applied this approach to the analysis of blog use by cancer patients. In the area of virtual worlds, Kaplan and Haenlein (2009a;2009b) have identified four key motivations for Second Life usage: the search for diversion, the desire to build personal relationships, the need to learn, and the wish to earn money. In our analysis, we assume that the gratification that Second Life users intend to achieve with their usage will have a moderating effect on the relationships expressed in H 1 and H 2 . ...
... Attitude toward the real life brand relied on a threeitem scale proposed by Gardner (1985a) and real life purchase intent was measured as suggested by Baker and Churchill (1977). Use gratification was measured with scales derived from McQuail et al. (1972), building on the work of Kaplan and Haenlein (2009a;2009b). Following the recommendations of Cox (1980), all items were measured on 7-point Likert scales with the default response cues being strongly disagree (-3) and strongly agree (+3). ...
The authors contributed equally to this work and are listed in alphabetical order. The authors thank the managers from the market research firm, Repères, especially François Abiven and Emilie Labidoire, for their help during data collection. The authors may be contacted at the following e-mail addresses: haenlein@escpeurope.eu; mail@andreaskaplan.eu ABSTRACT Virtual hyperrealities, also referred to as virtual social worlds, have experienced increasing managerial interest in recent years. Although they have also received some attention in the academic literature, the extent to which corporate presences within such environments can influence attitude toward the brand and purchase intent in real life remains unclear. Based on a survey conducted among 580 Second Life residents, we show that exposure to flagship brand stores within virtual worlds positively influences attitude toward the associated brand and real life purchase intent. We furthermore show that a user's purchase experience (shopping frequency, purchase frequency, spending per purchase) and the gratification derived from the use of their purchases have a significant moderating effect on these relationships. Our results are of managerial and theoretical importance as they provide empirical evidence for spill-over effects between virtual worlds and real life and help to develop recommendations on optimal store design within virtual social worlds.
... Sosyal medya, etkileşimleri, ortak çalışmayı veya içerik paylaşımını kolaylaştıran çevrimiçi bir uygulama programı, platform veya medya olarak tanımlanmaktadır (Kaplan ve Haenlein, 2009). Sosyal medya, bir şirketin pazarlama faaliyetlerinin, müşterilerle bireysel bir ilişki kurması açısından ve şirketlere müşterilere erişim fırsatı sağlaması sürecinde önemli bir rol oynamaktad ır (Kelly vd. ...
... Çevrimiçi sosyal medya, Web 2.0'ın ideolojik ve teknolojik temellerine dayanan ve içeriğinin kullanıcı tarafından oluşturulmasına ve paylaşılmasına izin veren internet tabanlı uygulamaların bir kümesi olarak tanımlanabilir (Cormode ve Krishanmurthy, 2008;Kaplan ve Haenlein, 2010). Çevrimiçi sosyal medya, iş birliği projeleri (LinkedIn), bloglar / mikroblo glar (Twitter), içerik toplulukları (YouTube), sosyal ağ siteleri (Facebook), sanal oyun dünyalar ı (World of Warcraft) ve sanal sosyal dünyalar (Second Life) gibi farklı uygulama türlerini açıklayan bir şemsiye terimdir (Kaplan ve Haenlein, 2009). ...
Bilgi ve internet teknolojilerinin gelişimiyle, çoğu işletme gerek müşterilerine gerekse de ilgili pay daşlarına ulaşmada
sosyal medyayı yaygın bir şekilde kullanmaya başlamıştır. Her ne kadar sosyal medyada işletmelerin müşterilerine
yönelik iletişimleri ön planda olsa da paydaşlarının da işletmelerin sunmuş oldukları sosyal medya mesajlarından
etkilendikleri bilinmektedir.Bu çalışmanın temel amacı, işletmeden işletmeye (B2B) firmalarının sosyal medya
üzerinden paydaşlarıyla kurdukları ilişkiyi Türk lojistik hizmet sağlayan işletmeler örnekleminde incelemektir.
Ayrıca, bu çalışma sosyal medya yayınlarında en çok kullanılan medya türü ve içerik türünü analiz etmektedir.
Araştırma, 739 Facebook gönderisinde yapılan içerik analizine dayanmakta olup; örneklem olarak Facebook’ta aktif
faaliyet gösteren 30 Türk lojistik hizmet sağlayan işletmenin 1 Kasım 2017 ve 31 Ocak 2018 arasındaki paylaşımları
dikkate alınarak gerçekleştirilmiştir. Bu çalışma, Türk lojistik hizmet sağlayan işletmelerin kurumsal profilleri
üzerindeki faaliyetleri göz önünde bulundurarak, Facebook'taki takipçilerinin katılımını incelemektedir. Bu yönüyle
çalışmanın katkısı,lojistik sektörü gibi birden fazla tarafın birbiriyle yoğun iletişimde olduğu bir sektörü sosyal medya
kullanımı ve paydaş katılımı açısından inceleyen ilk çalışma olmasıdır.
... Second Life en particulier et les mondes virtuels de façon générale ont bénéficié d'un certain intérêt dans la littérature académique durant ces dernières années (voir par exemple, Barnes et Mattsson, 2008 ;Kaplan et Haenlein, 2009a ;Kaplan et Haenlein, 2009b ;Kaplan et Haenlein, 2009c ;Kaplan et Haenlein, 2009d ;Lin, 2008 ;Wood, Solomon et Allan, 2008 ;Yee et alii, 2007) et depuis 2008 il y a même eu une revue spécialement dédiée à ce sujet (Spence, 2008). Bien que le battage médiatique sur ce sujet se soit atténué aujourd'hui, le cabinet d'études marketing Gartner estime que d'ici 2012, 70 % des entreprises auront créé leurs propres mondes virtuels. ...
... Par exemple, Stafford, Stafford et Schkade (2004) ont récemment examiné les gratifications liées à l'utilisation d'Internet, et Chung et Kim (2008) ont appliqué cette approche pour analyser l'usage de blogs par les patients atteints de cancer. Dans le domaine des mondes virtuels, Kaplan et Haenlein (2009a, 2009b, 2009d) ont identifié quatre motivations clés pour l'utilisation de Second Life : la recherche de la diversion, la volonté de construire des relations personnelles, le besoin d'apprendre et le désir de gagner de l'argent. Dans notre analyse, nous supposons que les gratifications que les utilisateurs de Second Life cherchent à obtenir auront un effet modérateur sur les relations exprimées dans H1 et H2. ...
Les hyperréalités virtuelles, connues aussi sous le nom de mondes sociaux virtuels, ont connu un intérêt managérial grandissant durant ces dernières années. Bien qu'elles aient également fait l'objet d'un certain intérêt dans la littérature académique, la mesure de l'influence de la présence des entreprises dans Second Life sur l'attitude envers la marque et l'intention d'achat de la marque dans la vie réelle reste encore floue. À partir d'une étude effectuée auprès de 580 résidents de Second Life, nous montrons que l'exposition aux magasins de marques phares dans les mondes virtuels influence positivement l'attitude associée à la marque et l'intention d'achat dans la vie réelle. De plus, nous montrons que l'expérience d'achat d'un utilisateur (fréquence de courses, fréquence d'achat, dépenses par achat) et les gratifications liées à l'usage modèrent significativement les relations citées plus haut.
Nos résultats apportent une contribution managériale et théorique dans la mesure où ils fournissent des preuves empiriques d'effets d'imbrication entre les mondes virtuels et la vie réelle et permettent de développer des recommandations sur le design optimal des magasins au sein des mondes sociaux virtuels.
... Social media alludes to "websites and applications that facilitate creation, exchange, and access of contents" (Zarrella, 2010, p.10). Based on Web 2.0 internet-based applications, the social media has been working with user-generated content, which covers all ways in which people make use of social media, such as digital photos or videos, data generated through all online interactions (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2009). ...
Abstract: Purpose – This study is an attempt to identify the impact of Covid-19 crisis on consumers’ preferences for social media marketing and how these changed preferences are going to sustain in the future. The study aims to investigate and analyze the key factors that affect the consumers’ preference for SMM in India and to find out the impact of such factors on consumers’ online purchasing preferences.
Design/ Methodology – The present study is a quantitative research that adopts the survey method for data collection using a self-administered questionnaire on a 5-point Likert scale. The study is based on a sample of 600 graduation/ post-graduation students and research scholars from various private and public
universities in Rajasthan (India). The hypotheses were tested using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 23.0.
Findings – The study scrutinized the past researches and studies about purchase preferences and identified four factors, viz. Electronic word-of-mouth, Information Acquisition, Ease of use, and Perceived Risks as key variables that affect the consumer preference for SMM in India. The results indicated positive and significant effects of Electronic word-of-mouth, Information Acquisition, and Ease of use on consumers’ online purchase preferences while perceived risk influenced negatively. Further, the Covid situation has made consumers’ preferences more inclined towards online shopping.
Contributions – All the four identified factors are proven to affect consumers’
Empirical Economics Letters, 21 (Special Issue 3) (November 2022) 223
buying intentions, but they have never been tested together in past research
studies. The present study has collected these factors from various studies in order
to test them together in a new context.
Originality/ Value – This study is the first, to the best of the author’s knowledge,
to explore the impact of the identified four factors, viz. Electronic word-of-mouth,
Information Acquisition, Ease of use, and Perceived Risks on consumers’ online
purchase preferences.
Keywords: Consumer preferences, Online Buying Intentions, Perceived risks, Social media marketing, electronic word of mouth, Social media communities,
Perceived ease of use.
... A recent global management study has shown that almost half of the customers pay attention to SM's role in the purchasing process (Agnihotri et al., 2012). Therefore, the social media assembly precedes the development and implementation of wealth (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2009). Furthermore, the use of social media decreases the costs of transfers and ease of access; thus, it is a vital promotion tactic where businesses form their connections with clienteles (Agnihotri et al., 2012). ...
Social media is gaining popularity nowadays and is increasingly
being used by many small and large organisations. Organisations are adopting new social platforms and technologies to achieve their
key and effective management strategies. However, there are still
opportunities to explore the role of new technologies in developing
useful strategies. In current research, the utilisation of technological
tools especially social media was examined to improve the customer
value analysis in the organisations. Besides, the research of social
media use for crisis management is also increasing and the relevant
strategies are still being-investigated. To overcome this gap, this
research aims to evaluate the impact of the use of social media on
customer value analysis and crisis management. To attain this, a
detailed questionnaire was adapted from several different studies.
Data were collected from a diverse targeted sample of tourism-related
firms from all over Malaysia, including hotels, resorts, travel agencies
and transportation companies. The model was tested using Smart PLS
software and the results were generalised. Overall, this research will
add a noteworthy contribution to the literature by highlighting the
significance of social media and recognising its urgency during crisis
for businesses. It will also help in answering questions regarding
the role of social media usage towards customer value analysis and
crisis management of organisations in the Malaysian tourism sector.
Moreover, the practitioners will use the findings to make strategies for
crisis management and build customer value chain.
... Social media is the only platform in this century which gears the growth of industry on high altitude [12]. Radick [13,14] described that social media has been involved to endorsing industry/business and also helpful in changing the customers mind and provides huge quantity of data, which are very helpful to influence the customers and gear up the business. ...
In current century, big number of people adopting social media very fastly because social media is very reliable, fast and easy to use. So, many big industries adopting social media also, like Facebook to analyze their customers' reviews, analyze customers' emotions and to understand their behavior, which is very helpful in providing facilities to customers. Nowadays bulk of data available is on social media. To increase competitive benefits and assess competitive environment of industries, companies need to analyze social media data as well as customer generated data. To guide large industries in understanding how they may use social media to understand customer emotion and use social media marketing approaches into their marketing strategies to get customer engagement. This paper describes in-depth analysis of pizza industry of United Kingdom to understand their customers' emotions and get data for analysis from Facebook. We are using January 2018-December 2018 data of five largest pizza chains in United Kingdom: Papa John, Prezzo, Pizza Express, Pizza Hut and Dominos. The results disclose the power of sentimental analysis and social media competitive analysis will put positive impact on business value. At the end of this paper we will provide some recommendations to enhance marketing strategies.
... Web based life is just stage in this century which outfits the development of industry on high height [15]. Radick [16] [17] depicted that web-based life has been included to supporting manufacturing/commercial and furthermore accommodating in fluctuating the client's concentration and gives tremendous amount of information which is extremely useful to impact the clients and apparatus up the corporate. ...
Text mining has become one of the most eminent research filed used in computational techniques and retrieving information from structured and unstructured data. Technique which is used to extract informational patterns and informative knowledge from the textual data is Natural Language Processing. Purpose of text mining is to get useful and trendy patterns from unstructured data in a very shortest period of time. Social media has become buzzword of 21 st century. Social media is being used to interact with the customers and source of feedback & customer opinion. This research paper leads to find out trendy patterns of pizza industry from five selected pizza chains in United Kingdom on social media (Facebook): Pizza hut, Dominos, Prezzo, Pizza Express, Papa John. These trendy patterns are very useful for pizza chains in generating competitive marketing strategies to capture more customers towards their pizza chains. Pizza chains can increase their sales depending upon the patterns find out from the research and recommendations to develop competitive marketing strategies.
... Social media is the only platform in this century which gears the growth of industry on high altitude [12]. Radick [13,14] described that social media has been involved to endorsing industry/business and also helpful in changing the customers mind and provides huge quantity of data, which are very helpful to influence the customers and gear up the business. ...
The paper, ’Social Media Analysis of Customer Emotions in Pizza Industry’ by Muhammad Umar Nasir, Urva Rehmat and Imran Ahmad, published in The Computer Journal (April 2022), looks at social media influence on UK pizza sales.
... Companies use social media as an important part of their online marketing strategies (Dann, 2010). Social media allow vendors to coordinate internal value creation functions, and thereby, gain a great value in relations with customers (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2009). Social media also draw the attention of managers. ...
Purpose – The main purpose of this study is to assess the effect of social media marketing strategy components on customer participation with organizations active in the Iranian insurance industry, taking into account the mediating role of value perceived by insurance service customers.
Design/Methodology/Approach – This is an applied research study based on the objective and a descriptive survey. A questionnaire was used in the research to collect the research data among the customers of Iranian insurance companies. Fifteen insurance companies were randomly selected for the sample using the simple random sampling method. The respondents to the questionnaires were identified using a judgmental method.
Findings and implications – The results of this study show that social media marketing strategy has a positive and significant effect on customer participation intention. The results also indicated that the perceived value of customers in the insurance industry plays a mediating role in the relationship between the social media marketing strategy and customer participation intention. Companies working in the insurance industry as well as other service-providing organizations can apply the findings of this research to enhance the level of participation of their customers and improve the performance of social media marketing in attracting customers.
Limitations – Since this is an exploratory study, the research findings are limited to the specific sample, and thus, the results may change in the case of changes in the sample size. Also, different opinions about the research topic among members of the sample population can affect the research results to a certain extent.
Originality – Proper analysis of the impact of social media marketing strategies on customer participation intention, and attention to the perceived value of customers when receiving insurance services, is crucial in improving the performance of insurance companies. This is the first time that research on the Iranian insurance industry was conducted for this purpose and the results can be very effective.
... The word "Weblog" was first used concurrently and was truncated one year later as a "blog" when a blogger jokingly modified the noun "weblog" into a "we-blog" sentence (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2009b). High-speed internet access is increasingly widespread, leading to the establishment of social networking websites, such as MySpace in 2003 andFacebook in 2004. ...
Effective marketing and advertising campaigns contribute to customer development, profitability, and business success in the long term. The evolving economies, globalization, and innovative technologies, which have quickly transformed the economic community, make present markets more attractive. Marketing firms are pushed in a new direction by social media marketing, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Social media have reached so deeply into millions of people globally and it also has drawn the interest of advertisers. Considering the timeliness and relevance of the phenomenon, this study aims to identify the impact of online communities and e word of mouth on the purchase intention of generation Y. The relevant data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire from 150 individuals aged 25 to 40 years who are residing in the Colombo district based on the convenience sampling method. This study found a positive significant effect of e word of mouth on brand trust and purchase intention and the relationship between e word of mouth and purchase intention is mediate by the brand trust. Further, online communities have a positive significant impact on brand trust and the relationship between online communities and purchase intention is mediated by brand trust. This research fills the gap in the existing literature and provides valuable insights to organizations that use social media marketing as a communication tool.
Keywords: Social Media Marketing, E Word of Mouth, Online Communities, Brand Trust, Purchase Intention
... As per figure 3, in 2019, the 'worldwide % change' in the growth of eCommerce sales has been reached to an average of 20.7%. Fig. 3. Evaluations of increasing eCommerce sales [14] Which means the online transactions has also been increased tremendously. This led us to the very important questions: a) Privacy -Is the data of the online registered users is secured? ...
... World of Warcraft), and virtual social worlds (e.g. Second Life) (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2009, 2012. Pezet and Casalegno (2017) underlined as the firms, to strength the engagement with society, publish storytelling about their social and environmental concerns on their web sites and official social network pages. ...
Corporate communication plays an important role in establishing and maintaining transparent and open dialogues with different stakeholders to foster ethical and socially responsible actions. The advent of the internet not only reorganized the way in which companies collect information, but also redefined stakeholders’ expectations. This paper investigates the potential of internet-based communication tools to disclose CSR topics. The study analyses the extent to which the Dow Jones Sustainability Index companies are using the internet-based tools to foster one-way and two-way communications and, so, to develop a dialogue with stakeholders. The research suggests a prevalence of one-way communication through internet-based tools but, at the same time, a large dissemination of social network channels.
... Social media enable firms to draw in buyers at a moderately ease and with larger amounts of effectiveness (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009). Organizations can create associations with clients through rehashed communications with them on Facebook (Watson, 1993). ...
... YouTube and Face book [9]. Twitter is a very famous social media network and the companies are keeping eye on the feedback of their customers to find out the belief of their customer and what are their attitudes about their business, what they are thinking about the products or services they purchased [1]. ...
Social media sites provide us facility to get the data which is generated by the customers, this data is available in large amount. Companies not only need to analyze the data generated on social media sites by their own customers, but they also need to analyze the data generated by the competitor’s customers. In this research paper, we collected the data of six fast food chains KFC, Pizza Hut, Subway, Dunkin Donuts, Domino’s Pizza and McDonald from twitter. We analyze 25,000 English tweets of each company. We used the lexicon for sentiment analysis, for each tweet we compare every word of the tweet with lexicon and determine that either this tweet contains more positive words or negative words. The main concern of this research is to calculate the reputation from the collected tweets in Twitter. To do so, an English sentiment lexicon has been used to classify tweets then beta probability function used to calculate reputation score of every restaurant based on the calculating of number of positive/negative words and tweets. Experimental results show some statistical information such as comparing the number of positive/negative tweets, the occurrence of top 10 positive/negative word, and reputation of every restaurant based on word-level and sentence-level statistics calculation.
... Facebook), virtual game worlds (e.g. World of Warcraft), and virtual social worlds (e.g., Second Life) (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009;Kaplan & Haenlein, 2012). ...
This study examines whether online interaction through social media is used as a mechanism of dialogic accounting and stakeholder engagement by top-ranked universities. Our research adopts a quantitative methodology based on the Content Analysis of the Facebook and Twitter accounts of the top 200 universities in the QS World University Rankings. Our analysis confirms that many universities take advantage of social media to provide public information and engage stakeholders. This highlights some early signs of dialogic accounting and the attempts of top-ranked universities to create spaces for stakeholders whose opinions are ignored in traditional accounting.
... They are also useful in getting feedback and reviews about products. Similarly, online review services help an enterprise whilst at the same time having the potential to make or break their business ( King et al., 2014). The ability of a company to leverage user reviews helps in obtaining knowledge about their customer base and their product or service perceptions. ...
Papers from the 3rd International Conference on Communication and Management, organised by the Communication Institute of Greece, 24-27 April 2017
... They are also useful in getting feedback and reviews about products. Similarly, online review services help an enterprise whilst at the same time having the potential to make or break their business (King et al., 2014). The ability of a company to leverage user reviews helps in obtaining knowledge about their customer base and their product or service perceptions. ...
... World of Warcraft), and virtual social worlds (e.g. Second Life) (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009;Kaplan and Haenlein, 2012). Social media applications are particularly well-suited for stakeholder engagement (SE), as the community element embedded within them makes it possible to interact with a large group of people, especially external stakeholders such as local communities, beneficiaries, other non-profit organizations (NPOs), and central and local public administrations. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the utilization of the social network, Facebook, as an instrument of stakeholder engagement and dialogic accounting in American charitable foundations, specifically non-profit organizations that are dedicated to philanthropy.
Design/methodology/approach
The research motivation involves whether online interaction through Facebook could represent a channel of dialogic accounting that engages organizational stakeholders. This paper aims to understand if this dialogue is geared to generate a consensus necessary to deliberate over decisions that are shared between all stakeholders, or if a divergent and agonistic perspective, which highlights struggles and differences between actors, prevails. The present study employs a form of content analysis that takes into account the Facebook pages of the 100 largest American philanthropic foundations.
Findings
The primary goal of the analysis is to examine the discrepancies in terms of how (and how much) large organizations are using Facebook. The study wants to provide more details on which kind of information large organizations are willing to disclose and collect on Facebook, and to evaluate the level and type of interaction between foundations and users.
Research limitations/implications
Further research could build on the present study by providing in-depth case studies and extending the analysis to other social media and other types of organizations.
Originality/value
Social media represent a powerful mechanism to engage stakeholders in a polylogic conversation. However, the scholarly literature confirms that further studies are necessary to understand how companies and organization can exploit this potential.
... Online social media can be defined as "a group of Internet based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content" (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, p. 61; see also Cormode & Krishanmurthy, 2008). It is basically an umbrella term describing different types of applications, such as collaborative projects (e.g., Wikipedia), blogs/micro-blogs (e.g., Twitter), content communities (e.g., YouTube), social networking sites (e.g., Facebook), virtual game worlds (e.g., World of Warcraft), and virtual social worlds (e.g., Second Life; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2009. Meijer and Thaens (2013) show that the adoption of social media in public administrations (particularly governments) is often inspired by four strategies: 1. ...
This study uses theories on dialogic accounting to assess whether online interaction through social media is used as a mechanism of public information and stakeholder engagement by Canadian and American public transportation agencies. We embraced a quantitative methodology in which content analysis was performed on the Facebook and Twitter accounts of 35 transit operators in Canada and the United States. We categorized the contents of 1,222 Facebook posts and 2,615 tweets, assessed which level and what type of interaction was effectively reached for every category, tracked whether and how agencies reply to comments on their posts, and assessed the general tenor of the discussion. Our results show that public transportation agencies often take advantage of their presence on social media to provide the public with information on their services and to perform activities associated with stakeholder engagement. However, we have found some significant differences in the utilization of social media by public transportation agencies, all of which are discussed in the “Conclusion” section of this article. Twitter is most often used for public information messages, while Facebook appears to be used more to publish content in a dialogic perspective that creates two-way, collaborative conversations with users. In terms of practical implications, our study suggests that a broader and more continuous commitment to interaction between users and stakeholders on social media would create new opportunities for improving transparency and, indirectly, the services of public agencies.
... Similar to the virtual game world, the users appear as avatars and interact in a three-dimensional virtual environment; however, in this realm, there are no rules restricting the range of possible interactions, except for basic physical laws such as gravity. This allows for an unlimited range of self presentation strategies, and it has been emphasized that with increasing usage intensity and consumption experience, the players of virtual social worlds show behaviour that more and more closely mirrors the one observed in real life settings (Haenlein, Kaplan, 2009;Kaplan, Haenlein, 2009a, 2009b. One of the most popular example of virtual social worlds is the Second Life application, founded and managed by the Linden Research Inc company. ...
Customers presently interact with companies in ways unimaginable even five years ago. The rapid growth of Social Media provides organizations with a great deal of information and yet, marketing practitioners seem to have a limited understanding of what Social Media exactly means, how it can be best used and quantified. This article intends to provide some clarification by describing the concept, and emphasize the difference from related concepts. We then provide a classification of Social Media which groups applications currently subsumed under the generalized term into more specific categories by characteristic. Finally, we present some pieces of advice for companies which decide to utilize Social Media.
... The concept of social media is top of the agenda for many business executives today. Decision-makers, as well as consultants, try to identify ways in which firms can make profitable use of applications (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009). To ease the transition towards opening up innovation efforts, web tools and applications such as the ones incorporated under the term social media have played a significant role (Kärkkäinen et al., 2010). ...
Social media can be a useful tool in order to interact with customers and open up innovation efforts. Our case studies of firms aim to outline if, how and why social media is utilised in their product development processes. Our results show that the use of social media within product development is limited among our respondents, mainly due to limited resources in combination with a low amount of customers. The results show that a low number of customers impede the ability to realise the possible gains of using social media to facilitate communication among a large number of users. Additional challenges are perceived to be the difficulty in controlling content, measuring gains and dealing with security issues. There is no consensus among the respondents with regard to social media's perceived future potential within product development; some are quite hesitant, other companies anticipate increased potential in the future.
... Kassarjian 1977, Kolbe andBurnett 1991). Recently researchers (Pavlou and Dimoka 2006, Kaplan and Haenlein 2009, McCorkindale 2010, Patchin and Hinduja 2010, Lin and Peña 2011, Bronstein 2013 have used content analysis to analyze the usergenerated contents on e-business and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and achieved significant results. For example, a content analysis study by Pavlou and Dimoka (2006) discovered extraordinary past seller behaviors contained in the textual comments made by sellers. ...
Social media provide an online platform for enterprises to engage existing customers and attract new customers. Although social media can be easily set up at no cost, however, due to limited human and financial resources, many small businesses find it challenging to compete against large enterprises in social media use. While more and more small businesses have jumped on the bandwagon of social media in recent years, few studies investigated the social media strategies that can help small businesses to survive and even thrive against large competitors in the social media arena. Therefore, we studied 32 small pizzerias in a mid-size U.S. city in terms of their social media use for business. Our study found that small pizzerias emphasizing social media use on community relations and social responsibility tend to be more successful in attracting and engaging local customers. This study also sheds light on both effective strategies and successful practices of social media use by small pizzerias. The insights and recommendations identified from this study can help small businesses to enhance their social media competitiveness against large enterprises.
... Exchange has a particularly important role for Second Life residents. Linden Lab established an economic model on the basis of charging Second Life inhabitants for the use of virtual goods and services, including virtual land [31]. Participants can own objects of all sorts, buildings of all architectural designs, clothing and furniture representing all fashion styles ranging from classic to modern, and vehicles of all makes. ...
This paper examines the relationship between virtual identity and virtual consumption in Second Life. More specifically, we investigate the tendency to link the virtual world to reality through the concept of identity, and explore the role consumption and business endeavors play in this process. Information was obtained from comments posted on four Second Life forums, focusing on the general themes of virtual avatars, aspects of business activities, and their mutual impact on each other. Qualitative narrative research analysis was employed. From our results, three distinct categories emerged on the basis of residents' immersion to Second Life; 1) purely virtual, 2) mixed, and 3) realist. We highlight particular characteristics associated with each of these clusters, with suggestions aiming to capture the various demands and preferences of each corresponding group. In terms of business activities, residents appeared quite demanding, identifying high quality products and professional services as the basis for business success in virtual settings. The business approaches most likely identified to lead to success or failure associated with certain businesses confirm that online environments differ substantially from physical and real world markets, with trust being a particularly sensitive issue in these anonym and fully disembodied contexts. Further implications for organizations and scholars are discussed.
... In the age of Web 2.0, Community Web Sites, especially Second Life, present new opportunities for companies to get to know their customers better. (Shelton, 2010; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2009b). The Internet has radically changed the way people search for information. ...
Virtual social worlds, such as Second Life, by gaining more and more popularity, have attracted the attention of the business media. The aim of the present article is to explore the relationship between the Second Life avatar (using the term of virtual identity) and shopping habits in Second Life focusing on consumer behaviour. Firstly, we present how virtual social worlds function and how they differ from other social media. Secondly, we will illustrate how online identity construction affects one’s behavior in such environments from a business perspective. To study Second Life we used the term virtual identity which was compared to the actual person’s actual self-representation. According to the literature, people tend to construct their virtual identity in a different way from the real one. Therefore, it is extremely important to study both the aspects of the everyday life and the presentation of the virtual self. We also wish to highlight the points companies should pay particular attention to in their virtual social world activities from the perspective of the psychological mechanisms that conduct people’s online behaviour and thinking. Finally, we demonstrate our hypothetical model of Second Life identity construction along with its effects on consumption and its implications for the future.
... In one of our first projects in the area of virtual social worlds (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2009) we conducted a series of in-depth interviews with Second Life residents to better understand the benefits consumers obtain from using such media. The results show that there are basically four key motivations for spending time in-world: the desire to build personal relationships, the wish to earn money, the search for diversion, and the need to learn. ...
Virtual social worlds, such as the Internet site Second Life, have acquired a high degree of popularity in the popular and business press. In this article we address the increasing importance of virtual social worlds, and discuss how companies can make use of their potential. We first present how virtual social worlds evolved historically, how they fit into the postmodern paradigm of our time, and how they differ from other social media, such as content communities (e.g., YouTube), social networking sites and blogs (e.g., Facebook), collaborative projects (e.g., Wikipedia), and virtual game worlds (e.g., World of Warcraft). We subsequently present how firms can make use of virtual social worlds in the areas of advertising/communication, virtual product sales (v-Commerce), marketing research, human resources, and internal process management. We also highlight the points companies should pay particular attention to in their activities, the 5Cs of success in virtual social worlds, and the future evolutions that we expect to shape this sector over the next 5–10 years: a trend toward standardization and interoperability, improvements in software usability, increasing interconnection between reality and virtual worlds, establishment of law and order, and the transformation of virtual social worlds to business hubs of the future.
This research was designed to examine the effect of using social media technology on improving participation and customer satisfaction in the banking industry due to the mediating role of value perceived by customers of the studied banks. The present study was an applied and descriptive-surveying research in terms of objective and methodology, respectively. The research statistical sample consisted of 235 senior managers of state and private banks in the banking industry of Iran. A questionnaire was employed to collect the research data, and its validity and reliability were con and Cronbach's alpha indices. The structural equation modelling method was used in the SmartPLS software to test the research hypotheses once the data was gathered. The results of testing the hypotheses demonstrated that the use of social media technology has a positive impact on improving participation intention, satisfaction, and value perceived by customers of the studied banks, which directly predicts 0.486, 0.551, and 0.568 of changes related to the participation intention, satisfaction, and perceived value, respectively. The results analysis also revealed that social media technology has a positive impact on participation intention and customer satisfaction through the value perceived by customers. Hence, the use of social media technology through the mediating variable indirectly predicts 0.517 and 0.449 of changes related to participation intention and customer satisfaction, respectively. Accordingly, one may acknowledge that the studied banks can move towards sustainable improvement of customer participation and satisfaction by accurately utilizing social media technology such as social networks aimed at boosting the continuous relationship with their customers as well as improving the capabilities of customer relationship management by related technologies.
The purpose of this research is to assess the opportunity to increase retailers' profitability through metaverse stores, digital spaces, and digital twins. An exploratory methodology using Nike pioneer case studies and in-depth interviews with retail managers was used. The case studies analysis focused on the Nikeland store on Roblox and the Nike virtual store in Milan through Matterport 3D technology. Additionally, five retail managers were interviewed expressing their perceptions about the advantages, disadvantages and risks, and challenges and precautions in the implementation of metaverse stores and digital twins in their organizations. The findings demonstrate that these technologies have the potential to increase sales growth, market share, capital-to-labor ratio and promotion efforts, and therefore retailers' profitability. Moreover, the implementation can reduce inventory levels and operational costs improving the overall efficiency and profitability of retailers. The study also identified key measures to be considered when implementing these technologies.
The history and development of marketing and sales automation has been shaped by the reciprocation of technological advancement, organizational adoption, and contextual application. It was modern computing and the adoption of Internet services by consumers, that enabled Marketing and Sales Automation as known today. However, hurdles of organizational technology adoption have created imbalances between an organization’s state of technology adoption versus its environment. These imbalances extended through the involvement of the human factor in marketing and sales automation relevant decision-making processes. Utilizing the Human Activity Assistive Technology Model allows to acknowledge these imbalances through contextual dependencies. Balancing novel technologies alongside an autonomous decision-making versus a technology interaction sphere, permits to rank technologies by their potential efficiency and effectiveness impact on marketing and sales automation. While it is impossible to discuss every technology’s impact on marketing and sales automation, smart glasses provide the next efficiency frontier by enabling real-time contextual analytics, as well as CRM-based predictive or even prescriptive outputs. Algorithmic Commerce on the other hand completely substitutes the human factor by combing autonomous decision-making processes with autonomous technology interaction models. The autonomous organization is the result of the next evolution of marketing and sales automation through value chain integration. Despite the fictional and slightly dystopian nature of these predictions, companies like SHEIN have already made these developments a de-facto reality. Organizations are thus advised to evaluate their state of marketing and sales automation to identify contextual shortfalls and how the next wave of technological innovations can strengthen their marketing and sales automation landscape.
As more Americans use Facebook as one of primary sources of news consumption, television broadcasters have increasingly added this social media platform in their distribution strategies for program optimization and audience engagement. Within a local market, media outlets not only need to monitor and analyze their own social media content and online audience behavior but also their competitors’ to increase competitive advantage. This study proposes a social media competitive analysis framework with three aspects: social media utilization, social media content strategy, and social media news engagement. By applying the analytics framework, this study examines the dynamic Facebook competition among five local television stations within a designated market area (DMA) in the U. S. The results show two divergent social media deployment patterns among these five local television broadcasters. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed to help media organizations develop their own social media strategies and gain competitive advantages over their opponents.
Social media platforms have become a major forum for consumers to interact with firms and other individuals. Drawing on both the customer-dominant logic and the theory of planned behavior, the present chapter aims to advance understanding and encourage research on the variables that drive consumers' online purchase intention. Al though there is a general agreement in recognizing the importance of social media platforms as a source of information about consumer behavior, a complete theorization of the variables that affect the relation between behavioral intention and online purchase intention is still lacking. The proposed theoretical model is an extension of the theory of planned behavior and incorporates trust and electronic word-of-mouth communication as part of the customers' online purchase intention. Finally, the theoretical and managerial implications are further discussed.
In the last decade or so there have been plenty of innovations pertaining to information technology and social media that has taken place. This has brought in a tremendous amount of change in the society and the quality of life. The chapter explores the various aspect of change that has happened due to information technology and social media in a democratic setup. The chapter highlights how social change has occurred due to innovation in information technology and social media. This chapter explores how information technology and social media have supported the various elements of social change which have improved social wellbeing and quality of life such as education, healthcare, personal safety, transport, predictive tool, and the economics around social change.
User generated contents in a very big number is freely available on different social media sites now a day. Companies to increase their competitive advantages keep an eye on their competing companies and closely analyze the data that are generated by their customers on their social media sites. In this article the study is going to integrate the several techniques using a framework to analyze and make a comparison of social media content from the business competitors. The techniques include the competitive analysis, data mining and sentiment analysis. Specifically, this article is going to analyze the three big brands of sports shoe (Adidas, Nike, and Puma) and will compare the competitive analysis among them on social media sites. When analyzing these three big brands the study found some similarities among their social media usage. This article discusses the suggestions of study and provides the strong recommendations for helping businesses to develop better business strategies.
Social media platforms have become a major forum for consumers to interact with firms and other individuals. Drawing on both the customer-dominant logic and the theory of planned behavior, the present chapter aims to advance understanding and encourage research on the variables that drive consumers' online purchase intention. Al though there is a general agreement in recognizing the importance of social media platforms as a source of information about consumer behavior, a complete theorization of the variables that affect the relation between behavioral intention and online purchase intention is still lacking. The proposed theoretical model is an extension of the theory of planned behavior and incorporates trust and electronic word-of-mouth communication as part of the customers' online purchase intention. Finally, the theoretical and managerial implications are further discussed.
The paper demonstrates that how branding and corporate branding approach has been utilized into destination branding, both tourist and MICE destination. The research addresses most common features in both MICE destination branding and corporate branding. An abductive approach of research was employed and the process was substantiated independently. The study detects and highlights that corporate branding issues may offer new intuitions in MICE destination branding. Consequently, the study suggests that corporate branding approach can be utilized for MICE destination branding. In addition, this provides new-fangled acumens for destination management organisation as well as for corporate branding researcher to conduct corporate branding research in different context.
This study examines the role of social media marketing strategy and its relation to organizational culture, strategic leadership, organizational learning, social network, innovation orientation, and performance in the chain store and franchise context. The study uses data from 327 active firms from a chain store and franchise system in Taiwan. The study tests the predictions of relationships using mail survey data from the sample, and employs structural equation modeling (SEM) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze the research questions. Results show that social media marketing strategy, organizational culture, strategic leadership, organizational learning, social network, and innovation orientation are key factors in reinforcing a firms' organizational performance within the chain store and franchise system. The study provides theoretical and managerial implications.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess if online interaction through social media, particularly Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, represents an effective stakeholder engagement mechanism in order to define the contents of social, environmental, or sustainability reporting (SESR). Design/methodology/approach – After examining 332 worldwide sustainability reports for the year 2013, drawn up according to the guidelines provided by the Global Reporting Initiative, the authors conducted a content analysis on the Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube pages of the organisations who rely on these types of social media. This was done in order to assess the scope of interaction between the organisation and its stakeholders.
Findings – The authors found that a small number of organisations use social media to engage stakeholders as a means of defining the contents of SESR, and that the level of interaction is generally low. Rather than assuming a deliberative approach that is aimed at forging a democratic consensus on how to address specific corporate social responsibility or SESR issues, these types of interaction focus on gathering divergent socio-political views in an agonistic perspective.
Research limitations/implications – Further research could complement this exploratory research with statistical analyses. It could focus on how comments/replies by users are used by organisations and examine the impacts of SESR on companies’ performances.
Originality/value – The authors contribute to the literature on social accounting by understanding whether social media can be reliable instruments of stakeholder engagement and by examining the relevance of information that is voluntarily disclosed by corporations in SESR.
Although the hype around virtual worlds has slowed down in recent months, chances are high that this type of social media will increase in importance over years to come. Many companies which pioneered in entering virtual worlds have left these environments after their first steps. One of the reasons for these initial failures is likely the lack of understanding of in-world consumers and their expectations toward virtual commerce. The purpose of the authors' chapter is therefore to investigate consumer purchase behavior within the virtual social world Second Life. Specifically, the authors analyze the types of purchase behavior consumers show within such an environment (planned purchases vs. impulse buying) and the factors that influence the decision to buy virtual products and services in exchange for real life money. For this, the authors' study is based on a combination of a qualitative pre-study consisting of 29 in-depth interviews and a quantitative analysis based on responses obtained from a representative sample of 580 Second Life residents. The authors' analysis results in the following three findings: First, the authors show that Second Life residents engage in two different types of purchase behavior: planned purchases and impulse buying. Second, the authors show that traditional consumer behavior theories and concepts can be transferred to similar behavior in a virtual world, although with different degrees of importance for different variables. And finally, the authors show that a Second Life resident's usage intensity and consumption experience have a significant moderating influence on planned purchase behavior but not on impulse buying. From a managerial perspective, the authors' results imply that Real Life companies that maintain Second Life flagship stores may consider communicating about their virtual products and services within real life. Additionally, Second Life stores should try to make thepurchasing process as simple and convenient as possible (in order to increase planned purchases) and to create an overall exciting and pleasant shopping environment to elicit positive emotions among their potential customers (in order to maximize the probability of impulse buying). Finally, since purchasing behavior within Second Life appears to be more individualistic than what can be observed in real life, firms can consider offering virtual products and services in Second Life that are highly extravagant and may never be purchased in Real Life due to fear of other people's opinions--which is likely to be of particular importance for fashion goods.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to help marketing scholars view virtual worlds as new product–markets and trigger serious investigations on consumer evaluation of brand extensions when a brand is extended from the real world to a virtual world and vice versa.
Design/methodology/approach
– The paper makes an extensive review of studies on virtual world. Further, it amalgamates understanding from well-established literature on consumer evaluation of brand extensions into the emerging virtual world understanding to conceptualize moderating influence of contexts – the real world context and a virtual world context – on how consumers evaluate brand extensions.
Findings
– Through logical arguments supported by existing literature, the paper provides 14 well-conceptualized propositions that argue that the real world and virtual world contexts moderate the well-established relationships in brand extension literature. It broadly proposes that the relationships between the consumer evaluations of brand extension and its known determinants are stronger in case of within-the-world extensions and weaker in case of across-the-world extensions.
Research limitations/implications
– The paper introduces to the marketing scholars an entirely new area of enquiry as it challenges the known brand extension knowledge when a brand is extended across the worlds.
Practical implications
– Marketers considering launching new offerings across the contexts of real or virtual world would have implications on whether to extend the brand or not.
Originality/value
– Virtual worlds have largely been construed in marketing literature as fictional worlds. There is not much explored in terms of virtual worlds as new product–markets. The study offers unique value in conceptualizing differences among within-the-world brand extensions and across-the-world brand extensions.
The aim of this study is to identify and interpret the main emerging strategic approaches in communicating a corporate brand through social media (SM). A quantitative content analysis of the SM platforms of 60 major international corporate brands yielded data that were processed by hierarchical cluster analysis. The study identified four clusters, characterized by distinctive approaches in terms of interactivity and openness toward corporate brand building via SM. The findings highlighted that despite encouraging signs of effective use of SM for this purpose, the online corporate communication initiatives of more than a third of all companies are characterized as cautious. Corporate branding strategists are advised to adopt conversational forms of corporate communication, to expand the range of SM used and to involve a broad range of stakeholders in the dialogue. This study adds to the limited body of academic research into the use of SM as part of corporate communication and corporate brand-building strategy.
This study argues that service quality in retailing in 3D Collaborative Virtual Environments (aka Metaverses) is distinct from service quality in the more familiar 2D, mainly menu-driven, web internet store (e-SQ) and conceptualises the determinants of Metaverse Retailing service quality (MR-SQ) through a combination of focus groups and Critical Incident Technique with current users of Metaverse retail stores. The emerging set of four overarching determining elements of MR-SQ includes customer service, product dimension, store dimension and a 3D platform dimension. While some of these features are found in 2D e-SQ others are unique to MR-SQ such as human contact, emotional expressiveness, virtual trial and fantasy products, in addition to the 3D platform features. Thus, the CVE/Metaverse context presents opportunities for retailers to enhance social experience, responsive service and creative co-production opportunities. The study provides a framework for guidance for retailers to improve service quality in 3D Metaverse stores, as well as for future research.
Purpose – This paper aims at establishing a new stream of academic study for virtual brands. It explains the concepts of protobrands and reverse product placement and explores some of the managerial and academic implications.
Design/methodology/approach – Starting from the most recent definition of the brand construct, the paper establishes that the brand concept may now be detached from physical embodiment. The extension of application of the branding domain to the fictional and computer-synthesized worlds is extensively illustrated by examples of virtual brands from books, films, video games and other multi-user virtual environments.
Findings – Evidence suggests that purely potential brands (protobrands) initiated in the virtual world may possess strong consumer-based brand equity. The study shows that the equity of the protobrands may be leveraged in-world (and can acquire legal protection) or through reverse product placement and the launch of the physical embodiment of the protobrand in the physical world (the HyperReal brand).
Research limitations/implications – This is an initial conceptual paper on virtual and HyperReal brands. This study, which has no antecedents, highlights the need for further empirical inquiry. The reverse product placement phenomenon may result in academics and practitioners to revise the traditional models of building brands.
Originality/value – The paper introduces and defines virtual brands, both fictional and computer-synthesized, HyperReal brands and the reverse product placement phenomenon.
The objectives of this study were to understand that factors affecting consumer intention to shop in a virtual world and to analyze the relationships among these factors. Particularly, this study explored consumer innovativeness (consumer novelty seeking, consumer independent judgment making) as an external variable that influences consumer intention indirectly through its effects on consumer experiences with the virtual world application (ease of use, control, concentration, enjoyment). The findings indicated that consumers’ perceived enjoyment and control positively influenced their shopping intentions. While consumer novelty seeking had no significant effect on shopping intention consumer independent judgment making significantly affected consumers’ intention to shop in a virtual world indirectly through its positive effects on perceived control, enjoyment, and ease of use.
Several months ago, the virtual social world “Second Life” (SL) received considerable interest in both the popular and business press. Based on a series of 29 qualitative, in-depth interviews, this article investigates what types of behaviors consumers show within this environment and what business opportunities it offers for companies. The results indicate that users do not consider SL as a mere computer game but as an extension of their real lives. This has implications for how marketing managers can use this online application that go beyond those known from traditional computer or online games.
This chapter’s objective is to highlight the potential that virtual worlds and their best known ambassador Second Life offer
in the area of mass customization. After an introduction to virtual worlds in general, three case studies of companies (Dell,
Philips, and Sears) applying mass customization and related techniques in virtual worlds will provide an overview of the potential
of this new medium. Results show that both company representatives and virtual world consumers are excited about the idea
of virtual mass customization, but that several problems and limitations still have to be overcome.
