The Influence of Social Networks in Travel Decisions

Social networks are not the same as they were 10 years ago. Now, in addition to the role of “socialization”, their basic role, marketing has also intervened. Marketing can be defined as the art of identifying and satisfying customer needs while producing profit. Nowadays, through social media marketing, a company can promote itself or present products and services very easily, while being able to target exactly the desired people, which translates into making more profit. Our paper provides arguments on the influence of social media in travel decisions, and it’s based on a study of consumer behaviour in this field. The study began from our interest in the way social networks influence our personal decision to travel, to visit a certain area or a certain landmark, so we wanted to find out more information about how this “hypnosis” works. The main hypothesis of the study was that people are influenced by social networks in their travel decisions and according to the results, the hypothesis was confirmed. 91.35% of the total participants in the study were tempted to travel because of a photo seen on a social network, therefore, a good social marketing campaign could really make a difference in travel decisions.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DOVE CAMPAIGN FOR REAL BEAUTY IN AFFECTING CUSTOMERS’ PURCHASE DECISION TOWARD DOVE PRODUCTS

The emergence of social marketing campaign strategy has encouraged businesses to adopt it as their marketing strategy. However, although nowadays companies are continuously creating unique social marketing campaigns, many of them end up backfiring. Therefore, companies should create campaigns that are able to draw customers to participate and create purchase decisions. Dove brings a campaign that promotes women’s self-esteem through brand building and serves dual goals to make women feel more beautiful and sell more products, called Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. This study aims to analyze how the campaign affects customers’ purchase decisions toward the products. From the study, the factors in the campaign that affect customers’ purchase decisions toward the products will be identified. Finally, this study aims to develop marketing recommendations for the campaign to affect customers’ purchase decisions toward the products. This study uses semi-structured interviews and online survey methods to collect data and uses open coding and PLS-SEM to analyze the relationship between the variables. The results indicate that positive word-of-mouth significantly affects consumer-campaign (CC) identification, perceived cause-related marketing (CRM) motive significantly affects emotional attachment, and affective reaction, brand trust, and brand community significantly affect customers’ purchase decision through attitude toward the campaign, attitude toward the brand, and purchase intention. This study is expected to enhance marketer understandings of how the company could improve purchase decisions through social marketing campaign strategy.

Effective Social Marketing Campaign Can Promote Family Medicine Clinics Utilization: An Intervention Trial

BACKGROUND: Although it is well established that family medicine/primary care is the backbone of a successful healthcare system, family medicine clinics (FMC) services are still underutilized. Social marketing can be used as an effective approach to increase people’s awareness and change their attitude and behaviors related to primary care then promote service utilization. AIM: The objective of this study is to detect the causes of underutilization of FMC services and to study the role of a social marketing campaign on increasing the utilization of these services. METHODS: This is an experimental study where 1120 participants attending the primary health care center were interviewed pre- and post-campaign to assess the rates of FMC services utilization and the causes of underutilization. A 3 months social marketing campaign was held through internal and external marketing seminars then evaluating the campaign effect through service output indicators and comparing questionnaires’ results pre- and post-campaign. RESULTS: Underutilization of FMC services was caused mainly by the lake of knowledge about the presence of service (94.9%) and this decreased postcampaign to be (75.9%). The new patients attending the FMC increased from 61 to 2093, the frequency of weekly visits of the regular attenders increased by 32% and the number of new files opened post-campaign increased by 56%. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION: Social marketing is a successful technique to increase the utilization of the services provided by FMC. According to the results, it is recommended to promote social marketing activities to increase awareness of the FMC services and improve its utilization.

Social Marketing Intervention to Engage Older Adults in Balance Workshops for Fall Prevention: A Multicenter Quasi-Experimental Protocol Study

Background: Falls affects one of three people after 65 years old, and it can lead to serious consequences. Scientific evidence point out that physical exercise is the most efficient way to prevent falls among older adults.Objective: The main objective of this study is to determine if a social marketing program can increase the attendance rate of people aged 60 and over at group balance workshops.Methods: This quasi-experimental multicenter study is being conducted in three French Regions (Loire, Haute-Loire and Rhône) over a period of 18 months. The Social Marketing Campaign will be done in three ways. Firstly, a Communication Campaign will take place in the two Test Areas but not in the Control Area. Secondly, flyers have been designed to be distributed by local partners. Finally, conferences for older people will be organized in the areas of intervention in order to reach the target audience for the program. The study will include people aged 60 and older who want to participate in the Balance Program.Results: The Crédit Agricole Loire/Haute-Loire Foundation funded the study and the Jean Monnet University of Saint-Etienne reviewed it. The Ethics Committee of the University Teaching Hospital of Saint-Etienne approved and peer-reviewed it on September 6, 2019, under Reference Number IRBN622019/CHUSTE.Conclusion: The results of this first study will demonstrate whether or not social marketing for promoting group balance workshops in the elderly will increase their attendanceship in adapted physical activity sessions, especially those that prevent falls.Clinical Trial Registration:https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04136938, identifier NCT04136938.

The role of construal fit in threat appeal to persuade young drivers not to text while driving

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the effect of matching social distance and the concrete/abstract visual presentation of the threats of distracted driving in campaign design. Design/methodology/approach This study conducts a series of 2 (social distance frame: close vs distant) × 2 (visual rhetoric style: literal vs metaphorical) online experiments on the perspective of the construal level theory. Findings This study identified that a fit between social distance and visual rhetoric style of the threat enhances the effect of a social marketing campaign targeting young adults. A message framed in terms of socially proximal entities shows a favorable impact on young drivers’ threat perception and behavioral intention when the visual rhetoric depicts the threats of texting while driving more concrete. On the other hand, more distant social entities in the message show a better impact when the threats are visualized in metaphor. Originality/value This paper enhances the understanding of a threat appeal message design by adding empirical evidence of matching visual rhetoric style and social distance. The findings provide theoretical and practical implications for social marketing campaigns, regarding the strategic tailoring of messages, particularly in public service announcements that discourage texting while driving on young adults.

Public Response on Social Media to a Social Marketing Campaign for Influencing Attitudes towards Boating Safety

The purpose of this research paper is to assess the response on Facebook to a social marketing campaign for recreational boating safety. The campaign ran for the 2018 and 2019 boating seasons in British Columbia, Canada. Messages related to boating safety were delivered in multi-media formats, including ten Facebook posts. All public comments on the campaign Facebook page in response to the ads were included in the analysis. Comments were reviewed for tone and subject; those that related directly to the campaign or boating safety-related topics, such as alcohol use or enforcement, were labeled positive, negative or neutral in tone. Metrics such as likes and shares were also noted. The overall engagement rate (defined as engagements over people reached) was 4.1%. The posts were liked >7000 times and received 901 shares. A total of 219 comments were analysed. Almost half of the comments were positive (n = 106, 48.4%). Fifty comments were off-topic (22.8%), 45 were neutral (20.5%) and 18 were negative (8.2%). The majority of comments were positive, indicating that the campaign performed as planned and was generally well received by the people for whom it was intended. Comments illuminated prevailing attitudes towards risks, injuries and safety practices related to recreational boating. Positive comments valued safety as an aspect of having a pleasant experience, rather than a barrier. Negative comments were about perceiving reduced fun of boating, rather than objecting to the campaign itself. As a component of a multi-media social marketing strategy, Facebook can be a source of instant feedback from the campaign audience.