scholarly journals Motivations for Virtual Community Participation in Social Commerce: Customers and Sellers in the Malay Lifestyle Blogging Community

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Syahida Hassan

<p>Although the field of social commerce has gained a lot of attention recently, there are many areas that still remain unexplored. A new phenomenon emerging within virtual communities is a blurring between social and commercial activities. To date, scholars in the social commerce literature have either focused on customers in the community or on medium to large scale businesses. There has been little research on social commerce communities which include micro-businesses despite their rapid growth in South East Asian countries.  This study explores a social commerce community of Malay lifestyle bloggers, who are a subset of the Malaysian blogosphere community. Bloggers begin by using the personal genre, some then move on to set up online businesses using their personal blogs as a platform. The characteristic of blogging’s ease of use means there are low barriers to starting a small business, merging blogging and commerce. This changes the nature of the community by bringing in a new relationship, as well as relationships between bloggers and readers, there are now also relationships between sellers and customers.  This study aims to understand the motivations for both sellers and customers, and how their relationships as bloggers and readers influence their participation in social commerce within the same community. To address the research objective, 20 sellers and 21 customers who also play a role as bloggers or readers were interviewed. In-depth interviews using laddering and semi-structured interview techniques were carried out to explore social commerce behaviour, the perceived consequences, and goals or values of participation. In addition, observation was also conducted on the platform used by the sellers. Data was coded using NVivo whilst the themes arising from the coding process were transformed into an implication matrix and hierarchical value map using Ladderux software.  This study found that strong ties within the community, influenced by homophily and the sense of virtual community, motivated the customers to participate in commercial activities in order to obtain their goals which included a sense of obligation, loyalty, satisfaction and self-esteem. The relationships influenced customers to trust each other, provide social support and made purchasing products more convenient. Sellers were influenced by the convenience of using social media and the social support provided by the customers which helped them to achieve their goals which are profit and business sustainability.  This study contributes to social commerce theory by highlighting an underexplored type of social commerce setting and addressing how trust can be transferred from social to commercial activities. The findings provide a useful insight for businesses, regardless of their size, to build an understanding of the need to create a good relationship with their customers. For macro-businesses, this model can be used to identify what is lacking in their social media marketing strategy.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Syahida Hassan

<p>Although the field of social commerce has gained a lot of attention recently, there are many areas that still remain unexplored. A new phenomenon emerging within virtual communities is a blurring between social and commercial activities. To date, scholars in the social commerce literature have either focused on customers in the community or on medium to large scale businesses. There has been little research on social commerce communities which include micro-businesses despite their rapid growth in South East Asian countries.  This study explores a social commerce community of Malay lifestyle bloggers, who are a subset of the Malaysian blogosphere community. Bloggers begin by using the personal genre, some then move on to set up online businesses using their personal blogs as a platform. The characteristic of blogging’s ease of use means there are low barriers to starting a small business, merging blogging and commerce. This changes the nature of the community by bringing in a new relationship, as well as relationships between bloggers and readers, there are now also relationships between sellers and customers.  This study aims to understand the motivations for both sellers and customers, and how their relationships as bloggers and readers influence their participation in social commerce within the same community. To address the research objective, 20 sellers and 21 customers who also play a role as bloggers or readers were interviewed. In-depth interviews using laddering and semi-structured interview techniques were carried out to explore social commerce behaviour, the perceived consequences, and goals or values of participation. In addition, observation was also conducted on the platform used by the sellers. Data was coded using NVivo whilst the themes arising from the coding process were transformed into an implication matrix and hierarchical value map using Ladderux software.  This study found that strong ties within the community, influenced by homophily and the sense of virtual community, motivated the customers to participate in commercial activities in order to obtain their goals which included a sense of obligation, loyalty, satisfaction and self-esteem. The relationships influenced customers to trust each other, provide social support and made purchasing products more convenient. Sellers were influenced by the convenience of using social media and the social support provided by the customers which helped them to achieve their goals which are profit and business sustainability.  This study contributes to social commerce theory by highlighting an underexplored type of social commerce setting and addressing how trust can be transferred from social to commercial activities. The findings provide a useful insight for businesses, regardless of their size, to build an understanding of the need to create a good relationship with their customers. For macro-businesses, this model can be used to identify what is lacking in their social media marketing strategy.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 74-83
Author(s):  
Amir Hidayatulloh

This study  aims  to  analyze  social  commerce  constructs, social  support,  and  individual  trust in the  community   in   social   commerce   activities.   Social   support   includes   emotional   support  and informational  support.  The population  was  social  media  users, while  the  samples were  social media users who had made purchase at least two transactions through social media. The sampling technique was convenience sampling. Totally, 162 respondents were involved. Hypothesis testing was  done using  Warp PLS. This study  reveals that individual  trust in  the community  can be built directly  through  the social  commerce  constructs. These  constructs affects both  emotional  support and information support, in which they will ultimately affect the individual trust in the community. Furthermore,  social  commerce  intention  is influenced  by  individual  trust in  the community  and emotional  support.  However,  information  support does not  affect  the social commerce  intention.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 268-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
İbrahim Kırcova ◽  
Yılmaz Yaman ◽  
Şirin Gizem Köse

Abstract Social media networks compete with each other, and they make an effort to increase their number of users while at the same time trying to create engagement. That is because a social media brand with high engagement creates high commitment and that leads to satisfying its business partners. This also increases the social commerce through that social media brand. Social commerce is defined as the commercial activities through social media channels, and it is a subdimension of online commerce. The new realities increased the interest towards social commerce through social networks and made it valuable to explore for both practical and academic environments. This study aims to investigate social media engagement regarding social media networks and explore the relationship between social media engagement and social commerce purchase intention. In the light of these objectives, a survey was conducted to collect the data and shared through social media networks. Hypotheses in the research were analyzed by using independent samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation, and multiple regressions. Results showed social media networks differ according to consumer brand engagement. Also, consumer brand engagement differs according to age, education level, and income level. Another result proves that consumer brand engagement differs according to social media usage frequency and time spent using social media. Furthermore, social commerce purchase intention differs according to the social media networks. Finally, the study found that there is a positive relationship between consumer brand engagement and social commerce purchase intention.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 279 ◽  
Author(s):  
İbrahim Kırcova ◽  
Yılmaz Yaman ◽  
Şirin Gizem Köse

Social media networks compete with each other, and they make an effort to increase their number of users while at the same time trying to create engagement. That is because a social media brand with high engagement creates high commitment and that leads to satisfying its business partners. This also increases the social commerce through that social media brand. Social commerce is defined as the commercial activities through social media channels, and it is a subdimension of online commerce. The new realities increased the interest towards social commerce through social networks and made it valuable to explore for both practical and academic environments. This study aims to investigate social media engagement regarding social media networks and explore the relationship between social media engagement and social commerce purchase intention. In the light of these objectives, a survey was conducted to collect the data and shared through social media networks. Hypotheses in the research were analyzed by using independent samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation, and multiple regressions. Results showed social media networks differ according to consumer brand engagement. Also, consumer brand engagement differs according to age, education level, and income level. Another result proves that consumer brand engagement differs according to social media usage frequency and time spent using social media. Furthermore, social commerce purchase intention differs according to the social media networks. Finally, the study found that there is a positive relationship between consumer brand engagement and social commerce purchase intention.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Said Jubran ◽  
Sumiyana Sumiyana

Internet technology has accelerated the development of communities from face-to-face into computer-mediated communications. Individuals who joined the virtual communities contributed greatly to building their knowledge by sharing their experiences. This study investigates the individuals’ knowledge sharing intentions using two approaches for the research model. The first approach is adopted from Hung & Cheng’s (2013) model that incorporates technology readiness, compatibility and acceptance. The second approach is a new model built specifically for this study which combines the social presence and compatibility into the technology acceptance. Furthermore, this study compared both models to identify their ability to explain the individuals’ knowledge sharing intentions.This study’s results show that the first model is not better than the second. In the first model, the technology readiness, as represented only by the innovative, is the only one having a positive effect on the technology acceptance. Meanwhile, the three other constructs, i.e. optimism, discomfort, and insecurity are not. In the second model, the social presence and compatibility that are integrated into the Technology Acceptance Model could actually positively affect the technology acceptance.In the technology readiness model, the ease of the technology is not the indicator which assesses the usefulness of the technology. Meanwhile, in the social presence model, the ease of use affects the usefulness of the technology. Furthermore, both in the technology readiness and social presence models, the perceived usefulness and ease of use affect the knowledge sharing intentions. The study finds that the social presence is able to explain the knowledge sharingintentions better than the technology readiness does. It implies practically that virtual community providers should make individuals be more active in their virtual communities. Then, the providers could facilitate the improvement of the individuals’ cognitive capabilities and competencies with their high motivation for knowledge sharing.Keywords: technology readiness, social presence, communications medium, compatibility, virtual community, online learning


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 184797901989974 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Adnan Al-Tit ◽  
Anis Omri ◽  
Tarek Bel Hadj

This study investigates the driving factors of the social commerce intention of online communities in Saudi Arabia by building a model that comprises two exogenous variables (social support and social commerce constructs (SCCs)), a mediating variable (trust), and one endogenous variable (social commerce intention). The study population comprises Facebook and Twitter users in the kingdom. A convenience sample of 500 social media users was chosen. Data were gathered via a questionnaire-based online survey. Our findings indicate that social support had a significant relationship with trust and social commerce intention. This relationship was significantly mediated by trust. SCCs also had a significant relationship with emotional as well as informational support and social commerce intention. Unexpectedly, the relationship between SCCs and social support dimensions was significantly mediated by trust. Consequently, it was concluded that social support, trust, and SCCs are key drivers of social commerce intention. These results invite social media retailers to consider such factors to increase social media users’ intention to purchase.


Author(s):  
Nick Hajli

Individuals perform social interaction with others through online communities, which support their decision behaviour on the Internet. These abilities are mostly due to the rise of social networking sites through the recent development in Web 2.0 technologies such as social media. The increasing popularity of social media and social networking sites has developed e-commerce to social commerce. Social commerce is a new stream in e-commerce, in which consumers use social media in their purchasing journey. In this social climate, the social commerce era, consumers provide social support for the network by not only persuading consumers to have more interconnectivity with their peers, but also by giving a number of unique opportunities to firms. In this chapter, the author discusses the way social commerce has been emerged. As social word of mouth is one of the key constructs of social commerce, social word of mouth as well as the applications of social commerce and social support theory in business context have been explained in detail in chapter.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1307-1322
Author(s):  
Nick Hajli

Individuals perform social interaction with others through online communities, which support their decision behaviour on the Internet. These abilities are mostly due to the rise of social networking sites through the recent development in Web 2.0 technologies such as social media. The increasing popularity of social media and social networking sites has developed e-commerce to social commerce. Social commerce is a new stream in e-commerce, in which consumers use social media in their purchasing journey. In this social climate, the social commerce era, consumers provide social support for the network by not only persuading consumers to have more interconnectivity with their peers, but also by giving a number of unique opportunities to firms. In this chapter, the author discusses the way social commerce has been emerged. As social word of mouth is one of the key constructs of social commerce, social word of mouth as well as the applications of social commerce and social support theory in business context have been explained in detail in chapter.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhibin Jiang ◽  
Fan Yang ◽  
Bu Zhong ◽  
Xuebing Qin

BACKGROUND The Covid-19 pandemic had turned the world upside down, but not much is known about how people’s empathy might be affected by the pandemic. OBJECTIVE This study examined 1) how empathy towards others might be influenced by the social support people obtained by using social media; and 2) how the individual demographics (e.g., age, income) may affect empathy. METHODS A national survey (N = 943) was conducted in China in February 2020, in which the participants read three real scenarios about low-income urban workers (Scenario I), small business owners in cities (Scenario II), and farmers in rural areas (Scenario III) who underwent hardship due to COVID-19. After exposure to others’ difficulties in the scenarios, the participants’ empathy and anxiety levels were measured. We also measured the social support they had by using social media. RESULTS Results show that social support not only positively impacted empathy, β = .30, P < .001 for Scenario I, β = .30, P < .001 for Scenario II, and β = .29, P < .001 for Scenario III, but also interacted with anxiety in influencing the degree to which participants could maintain empathy towards others, β = .08, P = .010 for Scenario I, and β = .07, P = .033 for scenario II. Age negatively predicted empathy for Scenario I, β = -.08, P = .018 and Scenario III, β = -.08, P = .009, but not for Scenario II, β = -.03, P = .40. Income levels – low, medium, high – positively predicted empathy for Scenario III, F (2, 940) = 8.10, P < .001, but not for Scenario I, F (2, 940) = 2.14, P = .12, or Scenario II, F (2, 940) = 2.93, P = .06. Participants living in big cities expressed greater empathy towards others for Scenario III, F (2, 940) = 4.03, P =.018, but not for Scenario I, F (2, 940) = .81, P = .45, or Scenario II, F (2, 940) = 1.46, P =.23. CONCLUSIONS This study contributes to the literature by discovering the critical role empathy plays in people’s affective response to others during the pandemic. Anxiety did not decrease empathy. However, those gaining more social support on social media showed more empathy for others. Those who resided in cities with higher income levels were more empathetic during the COVID-19 outbreak. This study reveals that the social support people obtained helped maintain empathy to others, making them resilient in challenging times.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ziwei Yang

Abstract Social media is a virtual community or network platform that the public uses to achieve self-creation and it’s sharing with others; under the social media environment, self-media channels become more abundant, and the autonomy and originality of content dissemination are also continuously enhanced. When tourism enterprises face increasing market competition, personalized and targeted promotional programs will, to a certain extent, have a certain appeal to competitors’ potential customer groups, thereby providing tourism enterprise customers with relevant benefits for oriental information, and also serving as an important way for companies to develop new customers. Based on the summary and analysis of previous literature works, this paper expounded the research status and significance of social media environment, elaborated the development background, current status and future challenges of customer-oriented information analysis for tourism enterprises, introduced the methods and principles of customer’s transfer value and life cycle and social media environment’s cognitive composition, proposed a sentiment model of tourist-oriented information analysis under the social media environment, and analysed the management strategy and scheduling platform of customer-oriented information, constructed an analysis system of customer-oriented information in social media environment, performed the reliability, validity, transfer and perception value analysis of customer-oriented information and finally conducted case simulation and its result analysis. The study results of this paper provide a reference for further researches on the customer-oriented information analysis for tourism enterprises under the social media environment.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document