Business Commons^™

Does Social Media Affect Consumer Decision-Making?, Patarawadee Sema

MBA Student Scholarship

Does social media affect consumer decision-making? Social media becomes an important communication tool that people use to connect to other people or organization. People use social media to share their experiences, reviews, information, advice, warnings, tips and/or any kind of issues that are interesting to their “connection” or friends. That information is a helpful source, which may influence consumer’s decision-making. Most of studies showed that people use information on social media as the guideline for their future purchase or planning their future trip. Also, social media is used as an advertising for the marketer. Marketers take this advantage and create …

Effect Of Social Media On Crowdfunding Project Results, Alexey Moisseyev

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Crowdfunding is a form of collaborative social media. Even though crowdfunding can function without social media, this phenomenon has developed greatly with the advance of social media. The studies in entrepreneurship and finance established connections between startup projects and social ties. However, the impact of social media on crowdfunding is still lightly studied in academic literature.

The purpose of this thesis is to define the influence of social media on crowdfunding. In particular, this research studies the connections between social media assets such as the social media followers and the social media seals of approval and crowdfunding results such as …

Utilization Of Social Media In Marketing Classes, Charlotte Allen

Faculty Publications

The goal of this paper is to highlight how instructors may integrate the different social media into various marketing classes. The paper will address the major social networks, and then follow with discussions of microblogging, media sites, and social gaming. Given that there is a great deal of research highlighting the effectiveness of utilizing social media in academic classes, this paper focuses on providing practical guidance as to how social media could be integrated into the classroom, homework, and project experience.

Digital Word-Of-Mouth And The Gender Implications, Deborah H. Lester, Andrew M. Forman, Dolly D. Loyd, Tyra A. Burton

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2013

Consumers can now easily access data and exchange sentiments regarding products and services on an unprecedented scale, and often in real time, through digital connections. The Internet and mobile technologies have made sharing of information and opinions among consumers easier than ever. The capacity of online participants to inspire and transform perspectives has been touted to surpass the radical potency of television when it entered the consumer’s province during the 50’s. Men and women use social media sites to learn about new products, to become smarter shoppers and to feel good about a purchase they might have already made. College …

Social Media In The Business Curriculum, Pauline Ash Ray, Jenny Swearingen

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2013

Due to the prolific development of Web 2.0 tools and the growing demand for their use in business this study explores the status of their inclusion in the business curriculum. Social media use is valuable, not only to marketing students, but also to all business students as well as the ability to build a personal brand to further their careers. There is a growing consensus to include social media in the curriculum but to what extent: A course, a major or a MBA specialization? A literature review for research of social media inclusion in curriculum is conducted for the current …

From Push To Pull — How Smartphones Are Changing Mobile Marketing, Julie M. Pharr

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2013

As “smartphones” have displaced traditional cell phones, mobile marketing—marketing via wireless handheld devices—has become increasingly more sophisticated. This paper highlights the dramatic shifts underway in the field of mobile marketing with the advent of mobile technology that simultaneously delivers web access, location information, and social networking capabilities. The paper makes a case for why smartphones may foreshadow the end of traditional push marketing, giving way to a new style of marketing that is location-based, context-specific and superior at initiating consumer pull.

The Role Of Media Richness Of Channels On Consumer Decision- Making And Channel Choice, Moutusy Maity, Mayukh Dass

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2013

With the increasing popularity of multichannel strategies, many retailers actively encourage their customers to undertake purchasing activities across various retail channels. Extant literature on multichannel strategies advances our understanding of why and how consumers select channels, but our knowledge is limited on how different channel characteristics affect consumer behavior, decision-making across channels and channel choice. In this paper, we focus on one such channel characteristic, called media richness of the retail channels, and investigate the effects of media richness of channels on consumer decision-making and channel choice. Media richness, as originally described by Media Richness Theory, is a set of …

Content And Design Characteristics Of Chinese Corporate Homepages, Lixuan Zhang, Sufen Tian, Patti Miles

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2013

Many Chinese companies have built their online presences; however few studies examine if the Chinese corporate websites follow recommended design guidelines. Through a content analysis of 487 websites of the largest Chinese companies, the study analyzes 55 content and design elements of the corporate homepages. A new coding scheme for Chinese web design is developed by utilizing existing schemes and identifying design elements unique to Chinese web including content, information architecture and usability, multimedia, and interactivity. In addition, the study also finds two unique design elements on Chinese corporate homepage. The differences in web design practices between American and Chinese …

Social Media In The Business Curriculum Panel, Pauline Ash Ray, Jenny Swearingen, Paul Wilkens

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2013

Social Media has grown from an auxiliary chapter in a marketing text to an entire course in the curriculum, an undergraduate major, or a MBA specialty. The controversy now appears to be the extent of the coverage of the Social Media area. The challenge in examining social media’s role in the business curriculum is that there is a lack of empirical research on this subject. The purpose of this panel is to undertake an exploratory review of how social media has been utilized in the business curriculum of participants’ schools in response to the demands of the changing business landscape. …

Understanding Online Brand Communities: Netnographic Study Of Apple Iphone Consumers, May Aung, Keija Wu, Laila Rohani, Khalil Rohani

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2013

This study extends the concept of brand communities. The netnography approach has been applied to two online brand communities, both central to Apple iPhone consumers. This study reveals two cultural manifestations with their own passions and communal norms not detected by previous research. This study, thus, enriches the conceptual understanding of brand communities. It also offers contribution toward understanding consumers of high technology brands, an area where few studies have been conducted to date.

Extended Consumer-Brand Relationship Theory, May Aung, Kapil Gurbani, Samuel Hip Seng Lei

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2013

This study examines online communities for two top brands: Apple iPhone and Blackberry smartphones. A number of online brand communities (online forums) such as the iPhone business affiliated website www.apple.com, iPhone consumers’ website www.everythingicafe.com, and the Blackberry consumers’ websites www.blackberry.com and www.crackberry.com were explored. This research extends the conceptual underpinnings of the existing consumer-brand relationship theory by incorporating the concept of sharing. This study offers insights for academia in the marketing and consumer behavior field as well as professionals in the high-technology industry.

A Calculated Model Of Linkedin Feature Usage Across Organizational Types: Large, Small, And Non-Profits, Joe Spencer, Lisa Witzig, Marcella Gallegos

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2013

Intensity of LinkedIn usage is examined by business type: Fortune 200, INC 200, and Fortune 200 Non-profit. The study of approximately 600 organizations finds, contrary to expectations, that non-profits and small businesses utilize the features of LinkedIn significantly less in intensity than large businesses. An eleven factor intensity model is presented and tested to evaluate intensity of usage among the three study groups. This study concludes that SMBs and non-profits need to better utilize the features of LinkedIn to better enable their organizational goals.