A comparison of social media marketing between B2B, B2C and mixed business models

This paper explores the implicit assumption in the growing body of literature that social media usage is fundamentally different in business-to-business (B2B) companies than in the extant business-to-consumer (B2C) literature. Sashi’s (2012) customer engagement cycle is utilized to compare B2B, B2C, Mixed B2B/B2C and B2B2C business model organizational practices in relation to social media usage, importance, and its perceived effectiveness as a communication channel. Utilizing 449 responses to an exploratory panel based survey instrument, we clearly identify differences in social media marketing usage and its perceived importance as a communications channel. In particular we identify distinct differences in the relationship between social media importance and the perceived effectiveness of social media marketing across business models. Our results indicate that B2B social media usage is distinct from B2C, Mixed and B2B2C business model approaches. Specifically B2B organizational members perceive social media to have a lower overall effectiveness as a channel and identify it as less important for relationship oriented usage than other business models

Can an electronic textbooks be part of K-12 education?: Challenges, technological solutions and open issues

An electronic textbook (e-Textbook) is a digitized (or electronic) form of textbook, which normally needs an endorsement by the national or state government when it is used in the K-12 education system. E-Textbooks have been envisioned to replace existing paper-based textbooks due to its educational advantages. Hence, it is of paramount importance for the relevant parties (i.e. national and state governments, or school districts) to draw a comprehensive roadmap of technologies necessary for the successful adoption of e-Textbooks nationwide. This paper provides a brief overview of e-Textbooks and subsequently an extensive discussion on challenges associated with e-Textbooks in the pursuit of replacing traditional textbooks with e-Textbooks. This paper further provides an extensive review on how the challenges have been approached using existing e-Textbook technologies, such as multi-touch technology, e-Paper, Web 2.0 and cloud computing. Literature review and interview have been conducted to identify the challenges of e Textbooks implementation in terms of e-Textbook usage levels and the reasons of its refusal. There were 180 students and 20 academic staff participated as a sample for interviews. Eight categories of key challenges were identified. Subsequently, assessment was performed on how the evolving e-Textbook technology has been applied to address the key challenges and problems. This article aims to provide a strong foundation for further investigations in e-Textbooks for successful adoption of e-Textbooks in school education

The Effect of Advertisement Frequency on the Advertisement Attitude-The controlled Effects of Brand Image and Spokesperson's Credibility

AbstractAdvertising has been playing a critical channel of communication between enterprises and consumers. To reinforce consumers’ impressions of advertising, enterprises, based on their brand image, strive for the right spokesperson for their products or service. However, in addition to brand image and spokespersons, advertising frequency that can impress general populace is also a factor to affect the consumers’ attitude to the advertisement. This paper discusses not only the effect of brand image and spokesperson's credibility but also the effect of advertising frequency on consumers’ attitude. This study was conducted by the experimental design. The study sample comprised 457 college students. Analysed by ANCOVA, the results showed that the brand image and the spokesperson's credibility both had a significantly positive influence on consumers’ attitude to advertising. Moreover, advertising frequency was significantly influential, too. Theoretical and practical implications of this study were stated for future study

Reputation methods for routing security for mobile ad hoc networks

Mobileadhocnetworkshaveinherentlyverydi#erentpropertiestoconventionalnetworks. Thesenewcharacteristics presentmajorsecurityvulnerabilities;inparticular,oneside e#ectoftheuniquewayinwhichroutingprotocolsoperate inadhocnetworksisthatmanynewthreatsarise.Selfishnodesarethosewhichdonotperformcertainopera - tionsthattheprotocolspecifiesthattheyshould,througha wishtoconservepower.Maliciousnodesmaydeliberately disruptthenetworkusingavarietyofattacks.Thispaper discussesreputationmechanismswhichhavebeensuggested asameanstomitigatethedetrimentale#ectofselfishand maliciousnodes.Thispaperrevealsreasonswhycomplex reputationsystemsmaybetooine#cienttouseinamobileadhocnetwork, whereresourcesarelimited.However, suggestionsarealsomadetoshowhowasimplereputation systemmightbeusedtoenhancetherobustnessofadhoc networks

Malicious attacks on ad hoc network routing protocols

The main purpose of an ad hoc network routing protocol is to enable the transport of data packets from one point to another. This paper examines the potential attacks on this transport service which arise from the realisation of threats from internal malicious nodes. The prerequisite of a routing service is a distributed mechanism for the discovery and maintenance of routes; network integrity and availability are required to ensure the correct operation of an ad hoc network. This paper also provides a qualitative analysis of how proactive and reactive protocols cope with malicious internal attacks, and whether one type of protocol offers inherently better resistance to the various attacks than the other

Conspicuous political brand interactions on Social Network Sites

Purpose Acquiring ‘Likes’ for a political party or candidate’s Facebook pages is important for political marketers. For consumers these ‘Likes’ are conspicuous, making their political affiliation visible to their network. Our study examines the roles of the undesired social-self and visibility (conspicuous vs. inconspicuous) in predicting consumers’ intention to ‘Like’ political brands. We extend knowledge on the undesired social-self, transference of theory from general marketing to a political domain and provide practical advice for political marketers engaging social network sites. Design/methodology/approach We gather data from two surveys run with Facebook using electorates in the run up to the UK 2015 and US 2016 elections (n = 1,205) on their intention to ‘Like’ political brands under different visibility conditions. Findings Data supports the theorized relationship of the undesired social-self with social anxiety intention to ‘Like’ when ‘Liking’ is conspicuous. However also indicates that all users - irrespective of proximity to the undesired social-self - prefer to ‘Like’ inconspicuously. Research limitations/implication The research is limited by the generalizability of the specific context and the use of self-report measures. Practical implications Political marketers should reconsider promoting conspicuous consumption for that which is more inconspicuous. Originality We provide the first examination of the undesired social-self in driving behavior under different visibility conditions. Furthermore we challenge the extension of existing knowledge of the self-concept within political marketing, based on the ‘norm’ for consumers’ to avoid disclosing political views publically

Algebraic Torsion in Contact Manifolds

We extract a nonnegative integer-valued invariant, which we call the "order of algebraic torsion", from the Symplectic Field Theory of a closed contact manifold, and show that its finiteness gives obstructions to the existence of symplectic fillings and exact symplectic cobordisms. A contact manifold has algebraic torsion of order zero if and only if it is algebraically overtwisted (i.e. has trivial contact homology), and any contact 3-manifold with positive Giroux torsion has algebraic torsion of order one (though the converse is not true). We also construct examples for each nonnegative k of contact 3-manifolds that have algebraic torsion of order k but not k - 1, and derive consequences for contact surgeries on such manifolds. The appendix by Michael Hutchings gives an alternative proof of our cobordism obstructions in dimension three using a refinement of the contact invariant in Embedded Contact Homology.Comment: 53 pages, 4 figures, with an appendix by Michael Hutchings; v.3 is a final update to agree with the published paper, and also corrects a minor error that appeared in the published version of the appendi