THE BATTLE FOR SINGLES’ DAY: HOW SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING CAMPAIGNS BOOST SALES

Numerous studies have shown that social media marketing strategies have positive impacts on the long-term financial performance of firms. However, whether short-term marketing campaigns have any influence on firm revenue remains unknown. This paper examines data from Singles’ Day, the world’s largest shopping event, revealing that firms’ social media efforts have a positive impact on product sales. Furthermore, we find that the two social media effort measures generally thought to have positive impacts on a firm’s long-term financial performance, richness and intensity, have no significant influence on the success of a firm’s short-term marketing campaign. Instead, relevance shows significant and positive impacts. Moreover, we compare the effects of social media marketing yields from company-owned accounts with those of employee-owned accounts, finding that employee-owned accounts have better marketing effects than company-owned ones

Some leading causes of emerging rural poultry small and medium enterprises failure in South Africa

This study examines the factors that cause failures of many South African rural small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in poultry business. The research method was qualitative phenomenology using in-depth, semi-structured interviews to explore the factors considered by rural chicken SMEs owners to be causes of their business difficulties. The study revealed that these entrepreneurships knew chicken business only from the home-grown chickens, and the local poultry was usually providing only meat. Compared to the local chickens that were cheap to acquire and nurture, the commercial ones had to be purchased, nourished with purchased foods, supported with electricity light at night, and still, some died. It was much cheaper to raise indigenous chickens. The results indicate that rural poultry SMEs owners did not know that buying a commercial chick carries benefits that range from eggs, feathers, meat, and other chicken products. Also, after purchasing each chick, there are more additional investments needed to maintain the market standard. The study enlightens chicken entrepreneurs that they should, first, learn the insight of business, the poultry industry, and the context of the business they wish to pursue. Keywords: competition, formal market, informal business, SMEs, poultry, rural, tax. JEL Classification: Q13, O1

THE IMPACTS OF CULTURAL VALUES ON ELECTRONIC WORD OF MOUTH : OPINION LEADERSHIP AND OPINION SEEKING

Purpose: The importance of electronic word of mouth has been proven in consumer-dominated communication. It is also one of the most effective ways to influence consumers when it comes to the purchase decision process. What is more, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are widely used in business research even though it has criticized. This study aims to explain the relationship be- tween Hofstede's dimensions and two flip-side of electronic word of mouth (opinion leadership orientation and opinion seeking orientation at the individual level. Method: This study will include two main steps which included (1) initial research and (2) official research. In details, qualitative and quantitative research methods would be used in the initial research. A deep interview with few samples was carried out to check the validity of the scales. Then, the initial survey was carried to confirm the reliability of the scale. In official research, quantitative research was used to identify the relationship between variables. Findings: This study is suggested that there is a positive relationship between opinion leadership orientation. Still, opinion seeking orientation is found to have a positive association with uncertainty avoidance and negative relationship with power distance. Value: Theoretically, this study confirmed that Hofstede’s dimensions could be measured at the individual level as well as find out the relationship between cultural values and two flip-side of electronic word of mouth. Practically, this study is to assist the firm in their viral marketing, especially in seeding strategies and behavior of the characteristic of recipient

Online reviews and consumers\u27 willingness to pay: the role of uncertainty

Empirical studies of online reviews have found that valence (average rating) has a consistently positive impact on consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP), but volume does not. Although two studies tried to explain this phenomenon using different perspectives (Wu and Ayala, 2012; Sun, 2012), neither study can fully accommodate the consumer behaviors observed by the other. This dissertation adopts a theoretical framework that can explain the consumer behaviors observed in both studies as well as the varying influence of review volume at the individual level. Specifically, several studies were conducted to investigate the relationship between bidirectional online seller reviews (e.g., the eBay review format) and consumers’ WTP. Essay 1 provides an extensive review of studies that investigate online consumer reviews at the market, product, firm, consumer, and message level; special attention is given to the outcomes of consumer reviews for both products and sellers. In addition, this essay establishes the importance of the current research topic. Essay 2 combines economic and behavioral theories of decision-making under uncertainty to develop a theoretical framework. The framework proposes that review volume and valence influence a consumer’s WTP through a weighting function of outcome probability. Consumers with different preferences towards uncertainty will have different preferences toward review volume, and for some consumers, such preference can change depending on the review valence. Based on this conceptualization, the framework reconciles the current literature by explaining the inconsistent influence of review volume both across and within individuals. The internal validity of the framework is tested with an experiment and analyses carried out at the individual level provide strong support for the proposed conceptual model. Essay 3 establishes the relevance of this research for managers by applying the framework to real market data. Due to the nature of the transactional data, a finite mixture model is used to estimate the weighting function, and hypotheses are tested at the group instead of the individual level. A simulation study demonstrates the validity of using a finite mixture model to estimate the weighting function and classify groups. The results of the hypotheses testing provide adequate support for the framework

Suullisesti paras! : Kuluttaja palautteenantomenetelmien valitsijana ja käyttäjänä päivittäistavarakaupassa

Tutkielmassa tarkastellaan kuluttajalähtöistä palautteenantoa päivittäistavarakaupalle: syitä palautteen antamiselle ja antamatta jättämiselle sekä eri palautteenantomenetelmien hahmottamista ja käytön mielekkyyttä. Markkinoinnin ja palvelun johtamisen kirjallisuuteen perustuen tutkielmassa rakennetaan käsitystä kuluttajasta palautteenantomenetelmien valitsijana ja käyttäjänä. Tutkimus on tehty toimeksiantona suomalaiselle kaupan alan organisaatiolle. Tutkimusaineisto koostuu 123 kuluttajan teemahaastattelusta. Haastattelut on toteutettu toimeksiantajaorganisaation kaupparyhmään kuuluvissa 20 päivittäistavarakaupassa pääkaupunkiseudulla sekä kolmessa muussa kunnassa Etelä- ja Länsi-Suomen alueella. Haastatteluaineisto on analysoitu teemoittelua käyttämällä. Aineistossa esiintyvät seuraavat palautteenantomenetelmät: palautteenanto suullisesti, puhelimitse, sähköpostitse, Internet-lomaketta ja paperista lomaketta käyttäen, elektronisella palautelaitteella ja sosiaalisen median kautta. Tutkimuksen mukaan palautteenantotavan valintaan vaikuttavat ennen kaikkea menetelmän käytön helppous ja nopeus sekä palautteen aihe ja kohde. Kielteisen palautteen ollessa kyseessä turvaudutaan monesti virallisiksi luokiteltuihin käytännössä kirjallisiin tapoihin, jotka myös mielletään vahvimmin palautteenantomenetelmiksi niiden pysyvän luonteen vuoksi. Internet-lomake ja sähköposti mahdollistavat palautteenannon etäältä niin ajallisesti kuin paikallisesti. Tämä on tärkeää etenkin aroille kuluttajille sekä niille, jotka haluavat hahmotella palautteensa huolella mahdollisten kielteisten tunteiden laannuttua. Myönteistä palautetta antamalla halutaan varmistaa, että palvelu säilyy hyvänä jatkossakin. Myönteistä palautetta on monesti helpompi antaa kasvotusten kuin kielteistä palautetta. Suullinen palaute halutaan usein antaa kauppiaalle, koska hänellä on mahdollisuus vaikuttaa asioihin. Suora palautteenanto mielletään myös reiluksi. Kuluttajat valitsevat suullisen vuorovaikutuksen ennemmin kuin jonkin muun palautteenantomenetelmän. Palaute jätetään antamatta, jos kaupassakäynnillä kaikki on mennyt odotusten mukaan tai palautteen aihe tuntuu kuluttajasta mitättömältä. Koettu ajan niukkuus ja laiskuus ovat myös keskeisiä syitä kuluttajien hiljaisuuteen. Elektroniset palautelaitteet ja sosiaalinen media ovat uusia palautteenantomenetelmiä, joilla voidaan tavoittaa aiemmin vaienneita kuluttajia. Palautelaitteet kannustavat etenkin kehujia sekä palautteensa mitättömäksi kokevia kuluttajia ilmaisemaan mielipiteensä. Toisaalta menetelmän käyttö koetaan jopa liian yksinkertaiseksi ja sen leikkisän ulkonäön vuoksi painikkeita saatetaan painaa väärin perustein. Sosiaalinen media on puolestaan yleisesti käytössä kuluttajien vapaa-ajan toiminnoissa ja tiedonhaussa, mutta palautteenantomenetelmäksi sitä ei vielä juurikaan hahmoteta