With the emergence and bloom of microblogging, companies are showing their increasing interests in this platform and try to establish their own enterprise accounts (called as enterprise microblogs in this case) in it, which enables them to broadcast product information, interact with consumers, and promote their brands. Despite much work focusing on how virtual brand communities take effect on ...

Given the high value of the online search market, whether brand perception or quality of search results matters more for users is a highly salient question. This paper presents findings of the largest controlled, systematic preference elicitation study of search quality versus brand perception. We examine a total of 548 instances of sponsored and organic search results from the Google and Bing ...

Applying uses and gratifications theory (UGT), this study examined consumers’ use of one of four social networking sites (SNSs): Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat, for following brands, and their influence on brand community-related outcomes. Results (N = 297) indicated Snapchat users scored highest for passing time, sharing problems, and improving social knowledge, while Instagram user...

As online business thrives, a company’s Web presence holds enormous importance as a source of information, entertainment, and customer service for Internet users. Besides being user-friendly, a Web site should offer interesting and enjoyable content to attract online visitors in an ever-changing multimedia environment. Companies that operate globally must know how cultural differences influence...

With the emergence and bloom of microblogging, companies are showing their increasing interests in this platform and try to establish their own enterprise accounts (called as enterprise microblogs in this case) in it, which enables them to broadcast product information, interact with consumers, and promote their brands. Despite much work focusing on how virtual brand communities take effect on ...

This report describes an experimental investigation of two factors which are believed to influence users trust and willingness to engage in online commerce. The factors are: (a) reputation (a factor related to brand), and (b) personalisation. One hundred and seven users were logged on to a mock travel insurance website and asked to fill in insurance forms online, to make a decision as to whethe...

Trust is a concept that has been widely studied in e-commerce since it represents a key issue in building successful customer-supplier relationships. In this sense, social software represents a powerful channel for establishing a direct communication with customers. As a consequence, companies are now investing in social media for building their social digital brand and strengthening relationsh...