Social media metrics and analytics in marketing – S3M: A mapping literature review

A systematic review and meta-analysis of the relationship between youth drinking, self-posting of alcohol use and other social media engagement (2012-21)

BACKGROUND AND AIM

Social networking sites (SNS) are interactive internet-based social platforms that facilitate information sharing. A growing body of literature on exposure to, and self-posting of, alcohol-related content on SNS has examined the relationship between SNS use and alcohol consumption in young people. This study aims to synthesise the literature exploring the relationship between exposure (i.e. viewing or listening of alcohol-related media) and self-posting (i.e. uploading images or text of alcohol content) of alcohol-related media on SNS on alcohol consumption.

METHODS

A pre-registered systematic review was conducted in June 2022 within PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO and Web of Science. Original prospective and cross-sectional studies assessing youth and young adults (≤ 24 years of age) that measured exposure to alcohol-related media or posting of alcohol-related content on SNS and self-reported alcohol consumption outcomes were included. Meta-analyses were conducted on comparable methodologies.

RESULTS

Thirty studies were included (n = 19,386). Meta-analyses of cross-sectional studies showed both greater exposure (five studies; pooled β = 0.34, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.23, 0.44, i2 = 27.7%) and self-posting of alcohol-related content (six studies; pooled β = 0.57, 95%CI = 0.25,0.88, i2 = 97.8%) was associated with greater alcohol consumption. Meta-analyses of three prospective studies also identified that greater exposure predicted greater future alcohol consumption (three studies; pooled β = 0.13, 95%CI = 0.11,0.15, i2 = 0.0%). Narrative analyses of studies that could not be meta-analysed due to incompatible methodologies were also conducted. Most studies (all four prospective, one of two cross-sectional) identified positive associations between exposure to alcohol-related content and greater average consumption. Most studies (three of four prospective, four of six cross-sectional) reported a positive association between of alcohol-related self-posting and greater average alcohol consumption.

CONCLUSIONS

Both exposure to, and self-posting of, alcohol-related content on social networking sites are positively associated with current average consumption, problem drinking, and drinking frequency.

Estimating the causal effect of timing on the reach of social media posts

Modern companies regularly use social media to communicate with their customers. In addition to the content, the reach of a social media post may depend on the season, the day of the week, and the time of the day. We consider optimizing the timing of Facebook posts by a large Finnish consumers’ cooperative using historical data on previous posts and their reach. The content and the timing of the posts reflect the marketing strategy of the cooperative. These choices affect the reach of a post via a dynamic process where the reactions of users make the post more visible to others. We describe the causal relations of the social media publishing in the form of a directed acyclic graph, use an identification algorithm to obtain a formula for the causal effect, and finally estimate the required conditional probabilities with Bayesian generalized additive models. As a result, we obtain estimates for the expected reach of a post for alternative timings.

The Roles of Social Media in Information Services: Systematic Review and Expert Scrutiny

As useful tools in delivering information services, social media could create a wide range of opportunities and reduce communication costs significantly. The present study set out to initially identify the potential roles of social media in information services using a systematic review procedure. Using the meta-synthesis method, the identified roles were organized in a conceptual model and then prioritized through Shannon’s entropy technique. The results showed that the operational, financial, strategic, user-related, and informing roles ranked first to fifth, respectively. In the last step, the results of a survey of 30 experts active in online information services were analyzed using the weighted average method to be compared with the findings of the systematic review. The order of prioritization of the roles and indicators from the experts’ point of view showed financial, user-related, strategic, operational, and informing roles, respectively. The prioritization of roles in Shannon’s entropy method was similar to the results from the perspective of experts in terms of strategic and informing roles. However, experts have come to understand more about financial and user-related roles for social media. The only factor that had the greatest difference in ranks between Shannon’s entropy method and experts’ opinions survey was the operational role, which ranked first in Shannon’s entropy method and fourth in expert scrutiny. The present study is one of the first attempts to identify the possible roles of social media in information services that can be considered a pioneering research by related researchers.

A literature review on users' behavioral intention toward chatbots' adoption

Purpose

Despite the fact that chatbots have been largely adopted for the last few years, a comprehensive literature review research focusing on the intention of individuals to adopt chatbots is rather scarce. In this respect, the present paper attempts a literature review investigation of empirical studies focused on the specific issue in nine scientific databases during 2017-2021. Specifically, it aims to classify extant empirical studies which focus on the context of individuals' adoption intention toward chatbots.

Design/methodology/approach

The research is based on PRISMA methodology, which revealed a total of 39 empirical studies examining users' intention to adopt and utilize chatbots.

Findings

After a thorough investigation, distinct categorization criteria emerged, such as research field, applied theoretical models, research types, methods and statistical measures, factors affecting intention to adopt and further use chatbots, the countries/continents where these surveys took place as well as relevant research citations and year of publication. In addition, the paper highlights research gaps in the examined issue and proposes future research directions in such a promising information technology solution.

Originality/value

As far as the authors are concerned, there has not been any other comprehensive literature review research to focus on examining previous empirical studies of users' intentions to adopt and use chatbots on the aforementioned period. According to the authors' knowledge, the present paper is the first attempt in the field which demonstrates broad literature review data of relevant empirical studies.

A comprehensive review on the role of online media in sustainable business development and decision making

People are using platforms of social media like Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram as a regular way to reach very much targeted and new prospective customers. The role of online media is to facilitate the opportunity in making a connection with followers and fans every time they log in. Online media keep social posts informative and sometimes entertaining which the followers' glade to see the contents in their feeds. Online media facilitate with low commitment and easy way to prospective consumers for expressing attentiveness in the business you do for your services or product. Online media can offer a number of marketing opportunities for businesses of all dimensions. These opportunities include promotion of the brand, communication to the consumer about service or product, attracting customers, and building strong connections with available consumers. Apart from this, several other benefits can be gained from the business of online media such as the ability to target, broad reach, fast, personal, low cost or free, and easy to use. An overview of the existing approaches, tools, and techniques to present is the dire need of the modern business in order to develop novel ways and to present the business of services or products in an effective and efficient way. Therefore, this study has presented a comprehensive review of the existing literature associated with the techniques, tools, and approaches used for business with the help of online media and to decision making. Based on this study, new mechanisms will be provided for effective business.

Identifying and characterizing social media communities: a socio-semantic network approach to altmetrics

Altmetric indicators allow exploring and profiling individuals who discuss and share scientific literature in social media. But it is still a challenge to identify and characterize communities based on the research topics in which they are interested as social and geographic proximity also influence interactions. This paper proposes a new method which profiles social media users based on their interest on research topics using altmetric data. Social media users are clustered based on the topics related to the research publications they share in social media. This allows removing linkages which respond to social or personal proximity and identifying disconnected users who may have similar research interests. We test this method for users tweeting publications from the fields of Information Science & Library Science, and Microbiology. We conclude by discussing the potential application of this method and how it can assist information professionals, policy managers and academics to understand and identify the main actors discussing research literature in social media.

Examining the Factors Affecting SME Performance: The Mediating Role of Social Media Adoption

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have become a vibrant and dynamic sector of the world economy. Information technology plays a vital role in improving the productivity and competitiveness of SMEs. The dynamic business environment has brought fierce competition among SMEs and, therefore, requires the owners to interact with internal and external members actively. Hence, this study aims to investigate the impact of technology, organization, and environment as important factors in the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises. It also examines the mediating role of social media adoption. Items were developed to measure the various purposes of social media use in organizations, which contribute to increasing the measurement of social media usage. For the empirical investigation, this paper used a closed-ended questionnaire. Using a quantitative method, we observed 423 responses through structural equation modeling. The findings of the study indicate that technology, organization, and the environment play effective roles for SME performance. More importantly, social media adoption positively mediates the relationship between technology, organization, environment, and SME performance. The study also helps organizations realize the advantages of using social media and specifies the rationale behind an organization’s investment in social media.

The Use of Social Media to Increase the Impact of Health Research: Systematic Review

BACKGROUND

Academics in all disciplines increasingly use social media to share their publications on the internet, reaching out to different audiences. In the last few years, specific indicators of social media impact have been developed (eg, Altmetrics), to complement traditional bibliometric indicators (eg, citation count and h-index). In health research, it is unclear whether social media impact also translates into research impact.

OBJECTIVE

The primary aim of this study was to systematically review the literature on the impact of using social media on the dissemination of health research. The secondary aim was to assess the correlation between Altmetrics and traditional citation-based metrics.

METHODS

We conducted a systematic review to identify studies that evaluated the use of social media to disseminate research published in health-related journals. We specifically looked at studies that described experimental or correlational studies linking the use of social media with outcomes related to bibliometrics. We searched the Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), Excerpta Medica dataBASE (EMBASE), and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) databases using a predefined search strategy (International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews: CRD42017057709). We conducted independent and duplicate study selection and data extraction. Given the heterogeneity of the included studies, we summarized the findings through a narrative synthesis.

RESULTS

Of a total of 18,624 retrieved citations, we included 51 studies: 7 (14%) impact studies (answering the primary aim) and 44 (86%) correlational studies (answering the secondary aim). Impact studies reported mixed results with several limitations, including the use of interventions of inappropriately low intensity and short duration. The majority of correlational studies suggested a positive association between traditional bibliometrics and social media metrics (eg, number of mentions) in health research.

CONCLUSIONS

We have identified suggestive yet inconclusive evidence on the impact of using social media to increase the number of citations in health research. Further studies with better design are needed to assess the causal link between social media impact and bibliometrics.

Social Media University Branding

Globalization has increased the demands placed on higher education and increased competition among universities. In response, institutions of higher education have started to consider their online presence as a potential competitive advantage. The aim of this article is to analyze and compare Facebook activity and content created by the world’s top ten universities. The professional social media analytics tool Socialbakers is used to monitor activity and collect data for analysis. The world’s top ten universities are determined based on the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) University Rankings. The study results are divided into four categories: an analysis of the number of fans, of content, of style, and of post promotion. All of the studied universities upload a post at least once per day. Based on the study results, selected posts could be examples of best practice and serve to inspire other educational institutions to improve their brand image and communication on social networks. Social media provide a large amount of detailed data concerning the behavior of students and other stakeholders and on the effectiveness of promotional campaigns. To use social media effectively, it is necessary to collect the available data and evaluate them to gain insight on which to base an appropriate social media strategy