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Encyclopedia of
E-Commerce
Development,
Implementation, and
Management

In Lee
Western Illinois University, USA
Published in the United States of America by
Business Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global)
701 E. Chocolate Avenue
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Names: Lee, In, 1958- editor.
Title: Encyclopedia of e-commerce development, implementation, and management
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Description: Hershey : Business Science Reference, 2016. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015043744| ISBN 9781466697874 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
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Subjects: LCSH: Electronic commerce--Encyclopedias.
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2144 Category: Social Media

Social Media Marketing:

Psychological Insights, Managerial Implications,
and Future Research Directions

Carolyn A. Lin
University of Connecticut, USA

Philipp A. Rauschnabel
University of Michigan-Dearborn, USA

INTRODUCTION

Since the early 2000s, new Internet technologies have significantly influenced multiple aspects of human
societies worldwide. Social media technologies are one of the most recent examples of the continuing
interactions between people and technologies that are changing societies. Li and Bernoff (2012) use
the term “groundswell” to describe a social trend, in which people use social media technologies to get
the information they want from other social media users, instead of the typical professional or public
sources. This new communication behavior – mostly driven by new digital technologies, new business
models, and consumer needs – is associated with a wide variety of implications for marketing com-
munication management.
In this chapter, we address the question of how social media can contribute to the achievement of
corporate goals from a marketing perspective. We first provide a brief overview of social media plat-
forms and discuss the most important unique characteristics of these marketing venues relative to other
online modalities. Then, we present social media users as audiences who seek and utilize social media
platforms to obtain a set of cognitive, affective and behavioral gratifications. Following that, we illustrate
social media users as consumers by explaining their consumption behavior via a set of relevant theories,
which reflects a typology incorporating social, hedonic and utilitarian perspectives.

SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

We use the term social media to describe web-based platforms that allow users to:

1. Consume and publish content,

2. Engage in dialogues with other users, and/or
3. Interact with brands and companies – in real time or sequentially, independent from the users’
physical location (Hennig-Thurau et al. 2010; Kaplan & Haenlein 2010).

The most important forms of social media platforms are social networks, blogs, opinion platforms,
and content sharing platforms. To access these social media platforms, desktop computers, laptops,
smartphones and tablets are currently the typical interface technologies. Emerging interface technolo-
gies such as Smart Watches are focusing on wearable modalities. Augmented reality technologies, such

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9787-4.ch154

Copyright © 2016, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
 Category: Social Media

as Google Glass and Microsoft’s Hololens, are aimed at integrating, melting, and “bending” physical
and digital information into a simulated reality experience (Rauschnabel, Brem & Ivens, 2015). All of S
these technologies can be utilized to achieve various marketing objectives, including branding, customer
service, product testing, relationship marketing and the like.
Rauschnabel and colleagues (2013) argue that social media platforms can be utilized by marketers
in a proactive and reactive way. The proactive use of social media describes how companies use social
media platforms to achieve corporate goals such as brand building, customer relationship management,
sales, employer branding, or public relations. A core topic of proactive social media marketing is enabling
consumers as disseminators of the company’s marketing message via electronic word of mouth (eWOM)
or ‘word-of-mouse’ (Sun et al 2006). By utilizing social media marketing in a reactive way, organizations
can institute social media monitoring, which reflects the collection, analysis, aggregation, interpretation,
and storage of brand-related user-generated content. User-generated content can encompass what users
post, share or publish on the Internet, including text, data, memes, images, photos, videos, and audio
files. Social media monitoring offers organizations quick access to valuable information about users’
consumer profiles, brand awareness/interest/ liking/preference and user ability to understand the brand.
Table 1 summarizes the functions and activities of major social media platforms.

Social Media Audience Behavior

Researchers have measured the degree to which individuals engage in passive (e. g., reading other users’
content) and active (posting one’s own content) behaviors when using social media (Hinsch, 2011; Pagani,
Hofacker, & Goldsmith, 2011). For instance, Muntinga and colleagues (2011) found three user-behavior

Table 1. Major consumer-driven social media platforms

Platform Platform Type Usage Context Main Activities Marketing Opportunities Marketing
(Proactive) Opportunities
(Reactive)
LinkedIn Social Network Professional Socializing Networking, Socializing, Applicant
Recruiting Screening
Facebook Social Network Private Socializing, Branding, Customer Monitoring,
Sharing personal Relationship Management, Applicant
Content Applicant screening Screening
WordPress, Tumblr, Blog Private or Content Sharing Creating corporate blogs Monitoring of
Twitter professional (private) blogs
Glassdoor Opinion Platform Professional Information Employer branding Employer brand
sharing monitoring
Instagram Content Sharing Private Content Sharing Storage of brand related Monitoring
Platform pictures
YouTube Content Sharing Private Content Sharing Storage of brand related Monitoring
Platform videos, branding
Pinterest Content Sharing Private Content Sharing Storage of brand related Monitoring
Platform pictures
Wikipedia Content Sharing Private Content Sharing Public Relations Monitoring
Platform
Yelp Opinion Platform Private Content Sharing Consumer complaint Monitoring
management

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Social Media Marketing

dimensions: consuming, contributing, and creating. Consuming refers to the most passive behaviors,
such as reading text, viewing photos, watching videos, or listening of audio podcasts via a social media
platform. Creating, in contrast, covers the most active behaviors, including the creation of text postings,
videos, or audio files in social media. Contributing describes a moderate level of interactivity in social
media, such as commenting on other social media users’ postings, following brands (by interfacing
with branding content), or “liking” the content supplied by other users or brands (Rauschnabel 2014).
Similar to the approach adopted by Muntiinga et al (2011), Heinonen (2011) developed a 3x3 Matrix
consisting of consumption, participation, production; consumer motivations (positioned on the y-axis),
in particular, include entertainment, social connection, and information.
Uses and gratifications (U&G) theory provides a theoretical framework to explain why people use
social media. The theoretical thesis of uses and gratifications (U&G) contends that individuals’ media
content choices depend on the social or psychological needs that they wish to satisfy (Katz & Blumler,
1974). Even though U& G theory is not without its critics (Ruggiero, 2000), it remains one of the most
widely applied theories in human communication research (Rubin, 2002). As pointed out by Lin (1996),
U&G theory enables researchers to study “mediated communication situations via a single or multiple
sets of psychological needs, psychological motives, communication channels, communication content,
and psychological gratifications within a particular or cross-cultural context” (p. 574); user gratifications
also motivate repeat and continued media use. Although media-use needs may vary across audiences
with different personal characteristics, they can generally be classified into the following five categories
(Katz et al., 1973, pp. 166-167):

1. Cognitive Needs: Information gathering, surveillance and understanding;

2. Affective Needs: Aesthetics and emotional experiences;
3. Personal Integrative Needs: Confidence building and credibility;
4. Social Integrative Needs: Relationships with friends and family; and
5. Tension-Release Needs: Escapism and diversion.

A large number of studies have referred to Uses and Gratification Theory (UGT) to explain the driv-
ers and barriers of using social media. For instance, Papacharissi and Mendelson (2011) identified the
following user motives for Facebook use – expressive information sharing, habitual passing of time,
entertainment, companionship, professional advancement, social interaction, and forming new friend-
ships – as relevant to fostering social capital. Hunt, Lin and Atkin (2014) found that individuals who
engaged in greater photo-messaging activity within their online social communication networks demon-
strated stronger motives for personal relationship formation and relationship maintenance. Sejrup (2009)
reported three dimensions of gratifications associated with Facebook use: diversion, personal motives
(i.e., self-presentation and impression management), and informational motives.
Baumgarner (2007) emphasized the importance of satisfying an individual’s social needs as major
drivers of Facebook use. Coursaris, Yun and Sung (2010) found that perceived diversion, relaxation and
mobile accessibility could explain whether the users will continue or discontinue their use of the Twit-
ter service. Johnson and Yang (2009) reported that information gathering is an important gratification
derived from Twitter usage. These findings were generally in line with the psychological gratification
dimensions for social media use conceptualized by Joinson (2008), which include social network surfing,
social investigation, social connection, shared identities, and content and status updating.

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 Category: Social Media

Social Media Consumer Behavior

S
If we treat social media space as a holistic marketing management environment, it is important to recog-
nize that the virtual space occupied by a social media platform is unlike any other traditional advertising
media spaces for displaying marketing messages. Specifically, even though they don’t have any real
ownership of the “space” that they occupy on a social media platform, consumers could or will treat
that virtual space as if it is their own. Take Pinterest users, for example, they claim a virtual space to pin
their projects. When Pinterest users share their “projects” with others on the same social media platform,
their followers can “watch” the progression of the project, make comments/suggestions about the proj-
ect and/or be solicited to participate in working on the projects together. Through this virtual exchange
process, both the project sharers and followers may obtain social, hedonic and utilitarian gratifications.
From a marketer’s perspective, Pinterest projects typically feature a set or multiple sets of brands/
products; consumer experiences with those brands/products as well as comments and recommendations
about them are made to share among project owners, sharers and followers. The Pinterest example illus-
trated here suggests a close parallel between a consumer’s social-media use as well as product preference,
purchase and use behavior. Specifically, consumers may make purchase decisions and share product-use
experience by deriving and sharing the social, hedonic and/or utilitarian values of this consumption be-
havior with others. The following discussion is dedicated to theorize this social media use phenomenon
to help explain how social media users may also behave as socially connected consumers.

Social Consumption Behavior

In the era of social media, it is essential to consider consumer behavior in the context of social influ-
ence. The awareness of other people in consumption settings has been investigated in various areas of
marketing, such as shopping (Strizhakova, Coulter, & Price, 2008) or brand communities. Specifically,
when consumers are simply passively reading a marketing message, they may still feel as if there is a
‘sense of community’ (Bergkvist & Bech-Larsen, 2010) or group identity (Strizhakova, Coulter, & Price,
2008). This phenomenon can be explained by Social Identity Theory.
The concept of social identity (Tajfel, 1978) asserts that when individuals develop their self-concept,
they tend to seek and identify themselves with a social group. Through this process of self-concept
development, individuals also develop a social identity. An individual’s social identity could motivate
social comparison to help reinforce his/her intra-group identity and between-group differences, which
is a phenomenon that often exits between different social groups (Hogg & Ridgeway, 2003).
Individuals who embody a stronger social identity with a social group are more likely to conform
to the perceived group norms associated with the group, through the process of social comparison with
other individuals who are considered to belong to the same group. As such, those individuals who feel
more strongly about positioning themselves favorably in comparison to the perceived group norms may
also be more likely to model the behavior of their peers in the group through social learning. Perceived
group norms usually encompass two dimensions: descriptive vs. subjective norms. While descriptive
norms are typically conceptualized as the perceptions one has about others’ behaviors, subjective (or
injunctive) norms are often operationalized as the perception one has about the behaviors endorsed by
important others (Cialdini, Reno, & Kallgren, 1990). According to Smith-McLallen and Fishbein (2008),
perceived descriptive norms and injunctive norms could interfere with each other and the impact of
subjective norms could be mediated by descriptive norms. Meta-analyses have suggested that subjective
norms, when studied in conjunction with theory of reasoned action and theory of planned behavior, is

2147
Social Media Marketing

a weak predictor of behavior intention relative to descriptive norms (Armitage & Conner, 2001; Hag-
ger, Chatizisarantis, & Biddle, 2002). By implication, an individual’s perception of social-group norms
could have a stronger influence on one’s behavior than the opinion of one’s close friends and family.
Empirical research has yet to explore the influence of social identity on the outcomes of social media
marketing in the context of social influence via descriptive and/or subjective norms. Relevant preliminary
research has shown that peer influence is a significant predictor of attitude toward social media use and
gender is a strong moderator for male as opposed to female social network use behavior (Taylor, Lewin
& Strutton, 2011). Another study indicates that social influence (from friends, family, acquaintances or
others with similar interest) is a strong predictor of an individual’s blog advertising use (Yang, 2011). A
recent study on smart glasses, for example, likewise has shown that people who expect that their peers
will also be using smart glasses in the near future are more willing to be early adopters of Google Glass
(Rauschnabel, Brem, & Ivens 2015).
Existing research on eWOM, which is “social” by nature, has primarily studied the effects of message-
related factors – such as message valence or persuasiveness – on consumer product attitude (Podnar
& Javernik, 2012), willingness to recommend products to friends (Lee & Youn, 2009) and/or product
purchase intent (Sen & Lerman, 2007). Research is still needed to examine how eWOM, which exhibits
descriptive norms online, could be an important social influence on consumer attitudes and/or behaviors
within a social media context. Strutten, Taylor and Thompson (2011), for instance, found Linkedin, Face-
book and personal emails to be the most commonly used venue for passing eWOM advertising messages
within the social networks for Gen X’ers and/or Gen Y’ers. They also reported that killing time was
discovered as the strongest motivation for forwarding eWOM advertising messages; this motivation was
stronger for Gen Y than Gen X. As killing time is an activity that is related to consumer affect or mood
management, the discussion below will examine how consumer affect and emotion play a role in their
social media consumption behavior and the implications for social media marketing.

Hedonic Consumption Behavior

The literature on hedonic consumption behavior has shown that consumer motivations can include a
range of emotion- and affect-related factors. For instance, gaining instant gratification by purchasing
something on an impulse is not uncommon for many. At other times, products are purchased to divert
one’s attention or serve as an emotional escape. Furthermore, many consumers purchase products in
order to fulfill the need to lift or change their mood. In addition, consumers also make purchases because
the experience of shopping can be stimulating and fun, which is a break from the doldrums of the daily
grind. Whatever the motivations might be, hedonic motivations have been widely linked to hedonic
consumption behavior in the literature (Arnold & Reynolds, 2012). These hedonic motivations are said
to be associated with consumer affect and emotions that facilitates the cognitive appraisal process and
influences consumer purchase decision-making.
Research has shown that emotion plays a role in consumer decision-making in several different
ways. Scholars have considered consumer emotions by focusing on positive or negative post-purchase
assessment (Taylor, 2009) as well as the impact of such emotions on future purchase decision-making
(Khan, 2010; Morris & Luce, 2007). Other theories maintain a more categorical approach and describe
a discrete set of context-specific emotions such as fear, anger, shame, gilt, joy, etc. (Izard, 1977; 2009).
Lazarus (2001) considers emotions a cognitive appraisal process that can involve such elements as goal
relevance/congruence, self-esteem/social esteem, moral values, ego-ideals, life goals as well as blame,
coping capability and future expectations. The thesis of appraisal theory also reflects emotional experi-

2148
 Category: Social Media

ences as sequential cognitive processing, which changes with each stimulus appraisal (Scherer, 1984).
This appraisal sequence typically begins with an encounter of an attention-captivating novelty or change S
in the environment as well as an individual’s readiness to respond to such stimulus (Ellsworth, 1994;
Kagan, 1991), which is followed by a reaction of pleasantness/unpleasantness (Zajonc, 1980) and con-
tinuous cognitive appraisals and affective responses to subsequent encounters with additional stimuli.
The cognitive and affective processes associated with hedonic motives and emotions –when seeking
and responding to social media stimuli – can be evaluated with the uses and gratifications theory. The
uses and gratifications theory is a paradigm that has been widely applied to study the process of audi-
ence/user cognitions, motivations and affects when encountering choices of message channels, message
content and product preferences. In particular, the U&G theory contains both ritualistic and instrumental
gratification dimensions (Rubin, 1984) that are conceptually similar to hedonic and utilitarian motives,
respectively. Based on these two U&G dimensions, individuals who are motivated by more ritualistic
gratifications may tend to seek entertainment, diversion, escape, relaxation, passing time and the like,
when they choose to spend time with social media platforms as well as process and utilized the content
on those platforms. For these social media users, the marketing content associated with the products
that appeal to their ritualized gratification motivations – via self-brand connection – may also facilitate
more positive affects and emotional responses toward those product and increase greater purchase inten-
tions (e.g., Chang, 2012). Instrumental gratification motivations, on the other hand, drive social media
users to take a more functionally oriented approach to select and process the content for exposure and
its subsequent uses. These uses, for instance, can include seeking product evaluations via eWOM (e.g.,
consumer product reviews) or sharing advice/tips for product purchases from other social media users,
in addition to building social capital or consumer communities (e.g., Taylor et al., 2011).
To wit, hedonism can be a strong motivator for social media use. Hedonic motivations can also be
linked to hedonic emotions and gratifications – that social media users may experience – when they en-
counter word-of-mouth mentions of products or services (e.g., user-generated product reviews on Yelp),
promotional messages embedded in story lines (e.g., on a Facebook page), eye-catching display ads (e.g.,
a viral YouTube video), and the like. Past research has found that affective reactions to ad messages
will influence product judgments that are driven by hedonic feelings instead of utilitarian-based evalu-
ations (Adaval, 2001). Hence, it is logical to assume that strategically tailored social-media marketing
messages could potentially stimulate consumers’ hedonic motives to derive ritualistic gratifications via
their social media uses and interactions.
In sum, when consumers encounter a brand image or message in a social media environment, they will
experience a spontaneous appraisal of the brand that could be either negative or positive. This cognitive
appraisal will elicit an affective reaction, which will influence consumer evaluation of the brand (e.g.,
negative or positive brand attribute associations) even before they learn about any detail associated with
the brand itself. By implication, any negative appraisal of product images or messages that are incongru-
ent with the hedonic motives, positive emotions or gratifications-sought will then have a negative impact
on consumer attitude and purchase decision-making toward the product. As purchase decision- making
typically would also derive from consumer cognitive processing, the following discussion will address
the role of utilitarian cognition in influencing such behavior.

Utilitarian Consumption Behavior

Consumer evaluation of their shopping experiences in general contains both hedonic- and utilitarian-value
dimensions that are conceptually distinct from but complementary to each other (Senecal, Gharbi., &

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Nantel, 2002). While hedonic motives for consumption are linked to emotional and affective responses,
utilitarian motives for consumption are associated with task- and utility-oriented outcomes (Eggert &
Ulaga, 2002). Past research indicates that cognitive shopping orientation is related to a consumer’s
context-specific motivation and process goals (Van Osselaer et al, 2005). Specifically, consumers driven
by utilitarian shopping motives are influenced by their task-oriented cues to maximize their shopping
productivity; consumers oriented with hedonic shopping value are more influenced by a more stimulat-
ing and entertaining shopping environment (Büttner, Florack, & Göritz, 2013). Hence, stronger utilitar-
ian shopping motivations may prompt consumers to focus on the task at hand – and seek instrumental
gratifications in their exposure to and appraisal of marketing messages and products – in order to make
a consumption decision with greater efficiency. By contrast, stronger hedonic shopping motivations
may attract consumers to browse and be exposed to a potentially larger variety of marketing messages
and products for fulfilling a more ritualized set of gratifications (e.g., escape, diversion, passing time,
mood management, etc.).
Research has shown that task-oriented (or utilitarian) shoppers derive more instrumental gratifications
from a low-arousal environment, which enables them to focus on achieving their shopping goals and
positively influences their purchase intentions (Kaltcheva & Weitz, 2006). By comparison, experiential
(or hedonic) shoppers derived more affective and ritualized gratifications in a shopping environment that
elicits greater cognitive arousal through more vivid environmental cues such as bright colors, attractive
layouts and eye-catching displays at a retail outlet (van Rompay, Tanja-Dijkstra, Verhoeven, & van Es,
2012). Likewise, researchers have also found that advertising messages promoting a more efficient shop-
ping environment are more favored by utilitarian shoppers; those messages that highlight a more arousing
and stimulating shopping environment are more attractive to experiential shoppers (Büttner et al., 2014).
Social media platforms thus offer consumers the opportunity to reward their instrumental gratifica-
tion motivations by enabling them to achieve such goals as connecting with new friends, enhancing
existing social bonds, establishing social standing, expressing their views/themselves, keeping up with
news/information, dispensing advice to others (including products and brands), organizing events and
sharing user-generated content via eWOM (e. g., Rauschnabel 2014; Muntinga et al., 2011). Considering
utilitarian consumption motivations in a social media marketing environment, consumers who prefer the
task-oriented aspect of online shopping may come to appreciate the more targeted and tailored market-
ing messages embedded in social media platforms that enable them to conveniently seek and evaluate
product information before arriving at an efficient purchase decision.
Previous research has shown that utilitarian value was more strongly related to consumer preference
toward online retailing channels and purchase intentions than hedonic values (Overby & Lee, 2006).
Additional research evidenced that while online shopping was found to be unrelated to hedonic cognitive
flow, utilitarian cognitive flow demonstrated a positive influence on online shopping behavior (Bridges
& Florsheim, 2008). For example, Yelp.com is a platform that provides consumers the opportunity to
share their brand experiences with others online; other consumers who read these band reviews can
then utilize these reviews to aid their own purchase decision-making. In particular, Luca’s (2011) study
reported that a one-star increase on Yelp could lead to a 5 to 9 percent increase in a restaurant’s revenue.
Additional research also suggested that time, convenience and user control factors can affect utilitarian
value perception, which in turn can influence purchase intentions toward mobile-phone based marketing
channels (Kleijnen, de Ruyter, & Wetzels, 2007; Lin, 2012).
As 69% of Facebook’s fourth-quarter advertising revenue (Laffe, 2015) and 81% of Twitter’s third-
quarter revenue (Stambor, 2014) in 2014 were generated by their respective mobile phone venues, the

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role of mobile media in contributing to social media marketing success seems undeniable. Similar to the
outcomes social media uses and gratifications, mobile media use has also been found to provide affor- S
dances of hedonic and utilitarian values (Kolsaker & Drakatos, 2009) as well as cognitive and affective
gratifications to consumers (Wei, 2008). Hence, embedding social media content on mobile platforms
may prove to be a productive social-meets-personal cross-pollination opportunity for marketers to offer
consumers shopping values via experiential stimulation and task-oriented efficiency. This combination
then presents two digital media venues in one to offer consumers hedonic and/or utilitarian values by
enabling marketers to further tailor their messages to target social mobile media users.

Social-Media Consumer Culture

The first generation of consumers that grew up with the “original” social communication network Face-
book are now twenty-something young adults. As an online social communication network, Facebook
is a virtual gathering place for people who wish to join a community of acquaintances, friends and/
or families to stay connected. Hollenbeck and Kaikati (2012) showed that individuals tend to present
themselves on Facebook by liking particular brands for the purposes of presenting their

1. Actual self, as motived by self-maintenance,

2. Ideal self, as motivated by self-enhancement, or
3. Ideal self-presentation based on others perception, as motivated by self-protection.

Social network communication is thus uniquely different from other online forums (e.g., discussion
groups, newsgroups or support groups) that are primarily accessed for achieving utilitarian functions by
those users who are typically socially unconnected individuals. For example, Twitter and YouTube are
two platforms that consumers utilize to generate and share content with numerous unconnected users
across national boundaries.
Amidst this non-apologetic self-presentation fervor and at times narcissistic self-absorbed culture
among many and especially younger social network users, how do consumers react to social media
advertising that is clearly tailored for and targets them individually? Preliminary research has shown
conflicting results on the topic of consumer privacy in the social media environment. For example, some
researchers found that tailored social media ads are seen as a privacy concern (Young & Quan-Haase,
2013). Other researchers discovered that if tailored online ads are perceived as high in utilitarian value,
then consumer privacy concern decreases and positive attitude increases toward the ads (Schumann,
von Wangenheim, & Groene, 2014).
Another privacy-related topic on social media advertising is consumer perception of advertising
message intrusiveness. Past research has evidenced that when customized online advertising increases,
it could increase consumer perception of intrusiveness (van Doorn & Hoekstra, 2013). Increased per-
ceived intrusiveness is said to increase negative attitude toward the website (McCoy, Everard, Polak, &
Galletta, 2008) and decrease adverting effectiveness (Saxena & Khanna, 2013). Intrusiveness concern
notwithstanding, the ability of mobile ads to generate significant revenues for social media giants such
as Facebook and Twitter is an indication that consumers might have become accustomed to and less
concerned with these types of intrusions in the virtual environment. This could be especially true, if
consumers are getting the free content that they want and/or if the customized ads are seen to be associ-
ated with desired utilitarian values.

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Social Media Marketing

Managerial and Research Implications

As the social media culture and relevant research is evolving, the conceptual framework explored herein
forwards an integrated theorizing effort to explicate this complex phenomenon. Specifically, this con-
ceptual framework proposes that we examine social media marketing from the perspective of social,
hedonic and utilitarian consumption behaviors.
In terms of social consumption behavior, Pahnila and Warsta’a (2010) study on the habit and value
of online shopping suggested that social factors or normative beliefs have a strong impact on shaping a
consumer’s online shopping habit; this is especially true, if such habit is not yet firmly established and
the habit in turn has a significant influence on attitude. Even though the role of normative beliefs in
consumer behavior has not been fully explored, preliminary research has shown that perceived descrip-
tive norms of technology adoption (e.g. smart glasses) and content use (e.g., podcasting) in one’s online
social network has a strong and significant effect on consumer attitude and intention toward adoption
(Mou & Lin, in press; Rauschnabel et al., 2015).
With regard to hedonic and utilitarian consumption behavior, Pahnila and Warsta’a (2010) findings
also confirmed that both hedonic and utilitarian values play an important role in consumer affect and
behavior in an online shopping environment. As the uses and gratifications of social media use have
been validated by a large body of preliminary literature (e.g., Joinson, 2009; Raacke & Bonds-Raacke,
2008), it is logical to assume that positive consumer affect elicited by social media use could also be
transferred to generate positive consumer emotion and heuristic toward those customized advertising
message. In other words, affective responses toward social media use could enhance both hedonic and
utilitarian values of the brand attributes appearing in social media advertising, which in turn, could
enhance positive consumer attitude and purchase intentions toward the brands.
Based on the theoretical explications provide above, we have proposed a set of managerial implications
to be integrated into this theoretical framework to help guide effective marketing management practice
in the social media age. In particular, we provide an overview of managerial strategies for companies on
how to satisfy social, hedonic, and utilitarian motivations of social media consumers via three important
organizational objectives: 1) Branding and Publication Relations, 2) Consumer Relationship Manage-
ment (CRM) and Sales, and 3) Market Research. Table 2 presents an integrated typology to illustrate
the marketing synergy that can be generated by cross-fertilize social media consumer motivations and
managerial strategies.
In considering the concept of branding, it is useful to visualize a brand image as the mental associations
consumers have with a particular brand (Keller, 1993); this image can be operationalized as functional
brand attributes (e.g., perceived product quality, price level), symbolic attributes (e.g., fun, emotions,
brand personality), or the image of particular users and/or user groups (e.g., Strizhakova, Coulter, &

Table 2. Social media consumer motivations and managerial strategies

Branding CRM and Sales Market Research

Social Fostering user-to-user interactions Generating dialogues with Understanding social needs and
consumers and between consumers wants of consumers
Hedonic Strengthening symbolic brand Strengthening consumer-brand Identifying perceived actual and
attributes relationships ideal symbolic brand attributes
Utilitarian Strengthening functional brand Providing customer service via Ascertaining actual and ideal
attributes Social Media functional brand attributes

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 Category: Social Media

Price, 2008). Active brand communities in Social Media could provide an entry for companies who wish
to establish and increase a sense of community among consumers who share a social group identity via S
social, hedonic and/or utilitarian brand associations. From a branding perspective, by offering entertain-
ment- (e.g., free music or games) or utility-oriented content (e.g., product demonstrations) via the affor-
dances of social media, brands could also mentally linked consumers with social, hedonic or utilitarian
brand attributes. CRM and Sales focus on strengthening customer-firm relationships and increasing sales.
To enhance CRM and Sales, a company could consider establishing a presence on social-media based
service platforms, where the company, brand communities and/or other user-generated services can ef-
ficiently answer queries, help solve problems or respond to service requests from consumers. Aside from
satisfying social motivations through interactions between consumers themselves or between consumers
and the company, this social media strategy could also help strengthen consumer-brand relationship and
cost-efficient customer service utility. In terms of market research, companies could gather the consumer-
generated data about their own interests, activities and opinions to build knowledge about consumers’
social needs/wants as well as develop the playful and functional values of their brands.
Social media have opened up a window for marketers into observing cognitions, attitudes, behaviors
and lifestyles of consumers first hand. With continuing introduction of new digital technologies such as
smart watches to the consumer market, we also witness a rapid increase in a company’s ability to col-
lect and cross-reference user-generated demographic, psychographic, geodemographic, physiological
and other personal information about its consumers. Even though this scenario sounds like a marketing
intelligence bonanza, the societal risks associated with information security breach and the “big brother”
fear should not be ignored. Future research that studies social media marketing should carefully consider
corporate social responsibility and ethical implications on consumer welfare and public interest.

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

Consumer Behavior: Brand evaluation, attitudes and purchase intentions in response to marketing
messages that are embedded in social media venues.
Consumer Motivations: Hedonic and utilitarian motivations that drive consumers to access and
respond to marketing messages delivered through social media platforms.
Marketing Management: Managerial strategies for companies that utilize social media channels
for brand marketing.
Social Media Consumer Culture: The social media use culture that influences how consumers
respond to marketing strategies employed for social media channels.
Social Media Marketing: The different marketing functions that are serviced by major social media
platforms.
Uses and Gratifications: Cognitive, affective and behavioral gratifications that consumers seek via
social media use.

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