Potential Of Social Media Research Articles

LUXURY BRANDS AND SOCIAL MEDIA IMPLICATIONS AROUND NEW TRENDS IN SELLING LUXURY PRODUCTS. A STUDY ACROSS DIFFERENT PRODUCT CATEGORIES

Despite its innovative and avant-garde reputation, the luxury industry initially began showing a very low commitment to new online marketing tools and it held a conservative approach to selling when compared to other sectors. Nowadays, the context has dramatically changed and luxury brands are approaching with an increasing interest social networks as well as the online selling. This research aims to clarify the current strategic approaches of the players in the different luxury markets towards the social commerce phenomenon, from both a theoretical and an empirical point of view. The purpose is to test a framework that can be used to classify luxury companies’ strategies regarding social media adoptions based on actual theories on social media. Four strategies related to the social media adoption by luxury brands have been identified: the Social brand ambassadors strategy class (low promotional content percentage and low social commerce score) includes those brands that use social media for entertainment and user engagement; the Social showcases strategy (high promotional content percentage and low social commerce score) includes those brands that use their social accounts as online catalogues; the Social infotainers strategy (low promotional content percentage and high social commerce score) includes those brands that scored high in social commerce, mainly because of the provision of informative content and brand–consumer interactions, but they were linked to more entertainment-oriented actions rather than product-related ones. Finally, the Social sellers strategy (high promotional content percentage and high social commerce score) includes those brands that have integrated social commerce into their online strategies and have subsequently exploited the potential of social media to drive online and offline sales. The database is built using original data from a content analysis of 100 luxury brands’ postings on five different social media platforms – namely Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest. The total final sample included 12,132 Facebook posts, 21,216 tweets on Twitter, 1,105 YouTube videos, 10,138 Instagram pictures/videos, and 117,359 Pinterest pictures. The main findings are the following: luxury brands adopt at this stage the Social brand ambassadors and Social showcases approaches; brands belonging to the perfumery, cosmetics, jewelry and watches markets show a more developed attitude towards the social commerce; in other luxury markets, such as wine and spirits, brands still adopt a Social Brand Ambassador strategy, while managers should increase the promotional content in order develop the social commerce. The Fashion & Accessories brands show a positive relationship between the percentage of promotional content and social commerce score. This means that social commerce adoptions depend on the single brand’s strategic choices, ranging from low adoption to best practices. In general, social commerce is still not widespread; many luxury fashion brands, while presenting new collections during fashion weeks, focused on fashion shows, backstage events, and celebrities, rather than really promoting the new product lines with materials, availability, and purchasing indications. This social media approach is mainly focused on increasing brand awareness rather than increasing social commerce. If managers aim at increasing social commerce they should add direct call to action and link the contents to e-commerce market place. Automotive brands are concentrated in the Social showcases area; This sector encounters natural limitations in the introduction of social commerce due to the difficulty of selling products through the digital channel; many brands have, however, devised strategies to approach their users during the purchasing process prior to the actual transaction to take advantage of the increasing ROPO phenomenon. Conversely, the Perfumes & Cosmetics sector shows a highly fragmented approach to social commerce. The content analysis based on single post contents has shown that actually the contents are based on pictures of the products, or the brand, information on events, and a large and increasing presence of video posts based storytelling about the history of the product and the brand heritage; the most social commerce oriented posts are picture or video focused on the product. The commercial contents that aim at developing the see now, buy now approach are mainly based on video shows.

The Eurosceptic Europeanization of public spheres: print and social media reactions to the 2014 European Parliament elections

The present study tests the theoretical claim that Eurosceptics contribute to the Europeanization of national public spheres. Although advocating a renationalization of European politics, Eurosceptic parties can engender public media debates of transnational or European relevance. Through a comparative research design of two national cases (Sweden and Denmark), we examine the public discourse on the day following the 2014 European Parliament elections across three media: print, Twitter, and Facebook. Separating the discussions of Eurosceptic issues and actors from other topics of the election coverage, we find that the discourses about Euroscepticism exhibit a higher degree of Europeanization in four of the six media analyzed. Moreover, while we detect significant differences in valence between the Swedish and Danish press when reporting about the Eurosceptics, such national variation is much less pronounced on the social networking sites. The findings suggest, firstly, that Eurosceptics’ contestation of the EU may have the unintended effect of giving national media debates a stronger European dimension. Secondly, the study warrants moderate optimism for the Europeanization potential of social media vis-a-vis traditional media structures: Print media was more Europeanized in scope, whereas social media publics were more aligned in their sentiment toward Euroscepticism.

Social Media Monitoring of Discrimination and HIV Testing in Brazil, 2014\u20132015

Big data can be used to assess perceptions about public health issues. This study assessed social media data from Twitter to inform communication campaigns to promote HIV testing and reduce discrimination related to HIV/AIDS or towards key populations to the HIV epidemic, and its potential utility to evaluate such campaigns through HIV testing uptake. Tweets from Brazil were collected from January 2014 to March 2015 and filtered by four categories of keywords including discrimination, HIV prevention, HIV testing, and HIV campaigns. In total over 100,000 geo-located tweets were extracted and analyzed. A dynamic online dashboard updated daily allowed mapping trends, anomalies and influencers, and enabled its use for feedback to campaigns, including correcting misconceptions. These results encourage the use of social networking data for improved messaging in campaigns. Clinical HIV test data was collected monthly from the city of Curitiba and compared to the number of tweets mapped to the city showing a moderate positive correlation (r = 0.39). Results are limited due to the availability of the HIV testing data. The potential of social media as a proxy for HIV testing uptake needs further validation, which can only be done with higher frequency and higher spatial granularity of service delivery data, enabling comparisons with the social media data. Such timely information could empower early response immediate media messaging to support programmatic efforts, such as HIV prevention, testing, and treatment scale up.

Social media as space for peace education: Conceptual contours and evidence from the Muslim world

In this research, we present a conceptual framework to examine the potential of social media as an educational space for peace education. In particular, we examine the characteristics and dynamics of social media that set it apart from other traditional media and educational spaces. Specifically, we conceptualize features of social media such as: social media as ‘knowledge commons’; imagined communities of purpose; public and private voice; civic engagement; and the experts’ gaze. Finally, we provide empirical and discursive evidence from social media in the Muslim world with specific examples from the Pakistani blogosphere in support of the conceptual framework drawn earlier.

Increasing the Capacity of Social Media to Extend Your Outreach

To increase audience size and maximize use of Extension materials and information, Extension professionals can capitalize on the potential of social media. They can broaden their use of social media beyond what is familiar to sites they have not used previously. They can expand the functionality of social media sites they use by adding share and follow buttons, inserting widgets, and embedding videos and slides. And they can increase traffic to sources of Extension information by linking from wherever possible to Extension materials on social media sites and elsewhere online. Use of the tips provided in this article can result in thousands of additional exposures to Extension materials.

Interpersonal Goals and Political Uses of Facebook

Many have noted the immense potential of social media as a catalyst for political engagement. While we know a great deal about the people who use social media for politics, and even why they do it, we know very little about when, or under what conditions, political uses of social media actually occur. In this article I extend interpersonal goals theory to examine when political social media use happens. Results suggest that, above and beyond cognitive political engagement, interpersonal goals contribute significantly in explaining political behaviors on Facebook. I find that political posts entail greater affective and interaction-related risks than following political pages or updating one’s profile, while “liking” political posts affords users a low-cost/low-reward strategy for managing interactions. As such, this study provides evidence that political expression on Facebook takes several distinct forms.

Web-Based Financial Reporting: An Interpretative Model for Corporate Communications on Social Media

This paper aims at contributing to financial reporting literature by proposing a conceptual interpretative model to analyse the corporate use of social media for financial communication purposes. In this perspective, the FIRE model provides a framework to study social media shifting the focus on the distinctive features that might enhance web investor relations. The model highlights these features through four building blocks: (i) firm identity (F); (ii) information posting (I); (iii) reputation (R); and (iv) exchange and diffusion (E). They represent key aspects to explore corporate communication activities and might offer a framework to interpret to what degree corporate web financial reporting exploits the potential of social media. Accordingly, the paper proposes metrics based on this model aimed at capturing the interactivity of corporate communications via social media, with a particular focus on web financial reporting. It tries to show the potential of this model by illustrating an exploratory empirical analysis investigating to what extent companies use social media for financial reporting purposes and whether firms are taking advantage of Twitter distinctive features of interaction and diffusion.

An analysis of the social media practices for sustainable medical tourism destination marketing

Despite the numerous studies investigating the wide adoption of social media by tourists and tourism providers, literature focusing on the analysis of social media strategies in the context of medical tourism is still limited. This research investigated the usage of social media for the marketing and promotion of four medical tourism destinations in Asia. Contents of corporate websites and social media platforms used by 70 international medical care providers in the region were examined. Findings suggest that most of the medical tourism providers are not fully utilising the potential of social media for tourism marketing. Medical tourism marketers should initiate more interactive forms of communication and promotion through social media and other online platforms. Online visitor's comments, reviews, and queries must be monitored, and adequate responses have to be posted promptly to generate a positive destination image among medical tourists, residents, travel and tourism operators and other stakeholders to ensure sustainable growth in this sector. The study contributes to both theory and practice by examining the utilisation of social media in medical tourism, a rapidly growing segment of the tourism and hospitality industry.

Social Media and Authoritarianism

An analysis of the purported potential of social media as a democracy catalyzer is performed, paying attention to its role during the Iranian Protests and the Arab Spring. Then, the different ways in which authoritarian regimes can tamper social are explored.Social media is not a democratization force and authoritarian regimes can exploit it to their advantage. Moreover, there is a trend towards authoritarianism with regards to social media in a number of countries including Western democracies.This paper dispels the idea that social media may be a democratization catalyzer and shows that, instead, social media is considered a problem by many countries including full democracies. I argue that the combination of war on terror, economic crisis, contentious politics and populism bodes badly for liberal democracies with social media regulation being an early advice of future democratic erosions.

The Formation of Transnational Knowledge Networks on Social Media

ABSTRACTTransnational knowledge networks provide organizations with information useful in addressing shared problems. Social media may enable the formation of those networks, yet their role in the process has received little attention. This article examines the structure and antecedents of two networks facilitated by the microblogging platform Twitter operating in the policy domain of emergency management. One network includes national-level government agencies responsible for disaster response and recovery operations; the other includes nongovernmental organizations in the form of Red Cross and Red Crescent national societies. We use a logistic regression quadratic assignment procedure to test hypotheses derived from related literature. While findings indicate that shared language and geographic proximity shaped network formation, both networks exhibit boundary spanning behavior in which organizations sought out information from high-profile, resource-rich organizations. Those organizations helped to connect otherwise regionally bound clusters and demonstrate the nascent potential of social media to create global transnational knowledge networks.

Pharmacovigilance potential of social media

Pharmacovigilance potential of social media

“I don’t Wear Blinkers, All Right?” The Multiple Meanings of Civic Identity in the Indignados and the Role of Social Media

The global upsurge in collective action has highlighted the extensive use of social media by social movements. Yet the extent to which citizenship is enacted and potentially transformed by social media use within these movements remains under-explored. This study employs a cross-country comparative analysis of the relationship between social media, movement mobilisation and civic membership within the Indignados movement in Greece and France. Through interviews with Indignados members and content analysis of activist discourses in the movement’s Facebook groups, we critically evaluate the potential of social media in (re)defining the meaning and practice of civic membership. The study reveals that civic membership plays a significant role in activist self-identification because the “citizen” category unites subjects despite differences in their political identities. However, social media’s role in the construction of civic and collective identities is highly ambivalent. While on Facebook different subjectivities are brought together under a shared civic identity, in specific Facebook groups users re-enact their partial (nationalistic) identities, creating digital enclaves that host a distinct “we” within the broader Indignados movement. These findings problematise the notion that Facebook has an intrinsic capacity to facilitate online communities which transcend given boundaries; social media can equally sustain existing boundaries of exclusion.

English

The emergence of social media has created a sudden shift in the dynamics of societal structure. It is no more a physical, aural and visual attribute to meet, communicate or gather at a given time and place. It is the age of online, and the social media is hogging the limelight to capture as many as ‘netizens’ to indulge and express their thoughts and ideas through social media. Keeping this broad spectrum in mind, this paper focused on how social media has overcome transnational communication barriers and has eroded the concept of territorialization. Emphasis was also laid on emergence of social network as a medium and how it has transcended beyond boundaries. Apart from this, it examines the kind of identity it constitutes with widening of social networking sites. Finally, this study exemplified the potential of social media websites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to proliferate and propagate messages to large number of netizens. Key words: Trans-nationalism, social media, facebook, twitter.

Social media as public sphere: a stakeholder perspective

Purpose This paper aims to examine major stakeholders’ communication preferences in eParticipation initiatives and discuss how this affects the public sphere. Despite the potential of social media, it has proven difficult to get people actively involved in the decision-making processes. There is a need for more research on how stakeholders manage and use social media to communicate. Design/methodology/approach The study was conducted as a qualitative case study. Data sources include interviews, social media content, document analysis and field notes. Findings Communication preferences of stakeholders vary according to their salience level. Stakeholders with higher salience are less likely to participate in social media, whereas those who are less salient will use every available medium to gain influence. This challenges the opportunity to create a traditional public sphere in social media. Research limitations/implications The authors contribute to a better understanding of who participates in social media and why. Stakeholder salience analysis shows that in the case of citizen-initiated eParticipation, social media cannot be seen as a Habermasian public sphere. Practical implications The authors suggest two approaches for government officials’ handling of social media: to treat social media as a channel for input and knowledge about the concerns of citizen groups and to integrate social media in the formal processes of decision making to develop consultative statements on specific policy issues. Social implications The study shows that power and urgency are the most important salience attributes. These findings indicate that social media may not be as inclusive as early research indicates, and less active social media users may have power and influence through other channels. Originality/value The findings extend current knowledge of the public sphere by adding the stakeholder perspective in addition to existing evaluative models of the public sphere.

Community (in) Colleges

Objective: This study explores the relationship between online social network involvement and academic outcomes among community college students. Prior theory hypothesizes that socio-academic moments are especially important for the integration of students into community colleges and that integration is related to academic outcomes. Online social networks offer a forum for socio-academic contact and integration on 2-year campuses. Is involvement with online social networks positively related to academic outcomes? Method: This study draws on institutional and online network data. We qualitatively code text from the network ( N = 8,749) to examine the extent of socio-academic interaction. Using logistic and multiple regression, we examine the relationships between socio-academic exchanges, other forms of online network involvement, and student academic outcomes in a large sample of students ( N = 27,040). Results: Participation in socio-academic exchange is associated with higher grade point average. In addition, the prior academic outcomes of a student’s online friends are predictive of the student’s own outcomes after joining the network, suggesting the possibility of peer effects. Other network behaviors are not significantly related to the academic outcomes we study. Contributions: This study is the first to consider online social networks as a forum for socio-academic integration at a community college. Our study fills a gap in the research literature with respect to understanding the socio-academic integration of community college students and the potential of social media to foster integration. Through our findings, this study offers strategic ways for practitioners to think about implementing social media to benefit students academically.

Social media and nurse education: an integrative review of the literature.

The exponential advance of social media has touched all areas of society, no exception for the professional and personal lives of healthcare people. The issue to be considered is not whether or not social media are being used, but how they are used. The line between proper and improper use, and even abuse, of social media is a subtle one. Thus, the key issue is to be aware of the tool that is being used and this should be supported with suitable training for healthcare professionals and, at an even earlier stage, for students at healthcare training institutions during their studies. To describe, through an integrative review of the literature, the use of social media by teachers and students during teaching activity and practical training courses. An integrative review of the literature was conducted in October 2014. The literature search was performed by consulting the main biomedical databases: PubMed, CINAHL and Embase. The literature search brought up a total of 854 citations. 804 abstracts were excluded as they were not relevant. Of the remaining 50, 31 were excluded for not meeting the general criteria and, hence, only 19 articles were included. Two aspects emerged from the works selected: the use and potential of social media in nursing education and the ethical and professional implications of their use. The analysis of the literature reveals two areas for further investigation: evaluating the level of moral awareness in nursing education with regards to the use of Web 2.0 communication tools and implementing teaching methods to promote the construction and development of moral reasoning in professionals.

Social Media and Nurse Education: An Integrative Review of the Literature

The exponential advance of social media has touched all areas of society, not least the professional and personal lives of health care professionals. The issue to be considered is not whether or not social media are being used, but how they are used. The line between proper and improper use, and even abuse, of social media is a fine one. Thus, the key issue is to be aware of the tool that is being used and this should be supported with suitable training for health care professionals and, at an even earlier stage, for students at health care training institutions during their studies. To describe the use of social media by teachers and students on training courses through an integrative review of the literature. An integrative review of the literature was conducted in October 2014. The literature search was conducted by consulting the main biomedical databases: PubMed, CINAHL and Embase. The literature search brought up 854 citations. 804 abstracts were excluded as they were not relevant. Of the remaining 50, 31 were excluded for not meeting the general criteria and, hence, only 19 articles were included: 6 evidencebased documents and 13 non-evidence-based documents. Two aspects emerged from the works selected: the use and potential of social media in nursing education and the ethical and professional implications of their use. The analysis of the literature reveals two areas for further investigation: evaluating the level of moral awareness in nursing education with regards to the use of Web 2.0 communication tools and implementing teaching methods to promote the construction and development of moral reasoning in professionals.

The Potential of Social Media and Internet-Based Data in Preventing and Fighting Infectious Diseases: From Internet to Twitter.

Health threats due to infectious diseases used to be a major public health concerns around the globe till mid of twentieth century when effective public health interventions helped in eradicating a number of infectious diseases around the world. Over the past 15 years, there has been a rise in the number of emerging and reemerging infectious diseases being reported such as the Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2002, HINI in 2009, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2012, Ebola in 2014, and Zika in 2016. These emerging viral infectious diseases have led to serious public health concerns leading to death and causing fear and anxiety among the public. More importantly, at the moment, the prevention and control of viral infectious diseases is difficult due to a lack of effective vaccines. Thus having real-time reporting tools are paramount to alert relevant public health surveillance systems and authorities about taking the right and necessary actions to control and minimize the potential harmful effects of viral infectious diseases. Social media and Internet-based data can play a major role in real-time reporting to empower active public health surveillance systems for controlling and fighting infectious diseases.

Diversification of Expectations and Buying Behaviours of Internet Users in the Context of Brand Activities in Social Media

The growing power and potential of social media is testified by the number of active users. Spending time on social media is one of the most popular things people do on the Internet. Social media has changed the landscape of enterprises functioning on the market. Communication with customers has taken new forms and has created the possibility of relationships. Presented article shows the results of studies on the behaviour of Internet users in social media. Respondents indicate satisfaction with the presence of brands in social media. Users of social media want to chat, search for information and spend time with friends. They are there not for to follow companies. But as companies are present in social media internauts want some interactions with them. At the same time, it appears that the most desirable actions by companies are those associated with benefits for the involved Internet users (discounts, access to exclusive promotions). More than half of the respondents (56%) expect access to special offers and promotions. It is difficult to determine the impact of social media on increased purchases. At the same time one can notice the importance of recommendations and negative comments in social media. 43% of surveyed people confirm that being a fan of a particular brand in social media causes that they recommend a product to friends. And over half of respondents would not buy a product after reading a negative review or comment about it. It cannot be ignored by companies. And although these are only declarations of respondents any company cannot underestimate such statements. Companies need to take care of the reputation and their presence in social media must be a result of a well prepared strategy.

The state and potential of social media in bladder cancer.

Social media sites and services have become intimately woven into our interpersonal communications and have begun to stake a visible place in healthcare. Disease-specific Twitter hashtags, online patient groups and participation by patients, practitioners and advocacy groups are emblematic of this new paradigm. A literature review and summary of resources and publications on bladder cancer and social media. A majority of Western patients have access to and use the Internet for health information. Urologists and oncologists have used bladder-cancer-specific messaging at international meetings infrequently as compared to prostate and other non-urologic cancers. An active community does participate in online discussion, with differences between medical practitioners and patients/advocates. Advice is given with the aim of unifying this discussion.