Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how source, network, relationship, and message/content factors affect how consumers respond to a word‐of‐mouth (WOM) communication in an online social network. Design/methodology/approach – Hypotheses were addressed using two online...

Purpose The purposes of this paper are to propose a different profitability metric (i.e. anchor category profits) at the category level based on the concept of anchor categories and to illustrate how such a metric can be calculated in field settings to offer a balanced view of profit structure...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the legal concepts and theories that are useful in protecting a brand from harmful and unauthorized social media use by third parties. Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative research of articles, news stories, court decisions and statutes...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relative impact of brand communication on brand equity through social media as compared to traditional media. In a juxtaposition of different industries it aims at: investigating whether both communication instruments have an impact on...

Purpose – The blogosphere is an active arena for the communication of topic‐area claims by marketer and non‐marketer sources. Determinants of influence in the blogosphere have not been well documented. The purpose of this paper is to investigate trust in bloggers, in a framework involving...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test the effectiveness of the mere integration of social network applications to provide a signal concerning the “trustworthiness” of an unfamiliar e‐vendor in order to enhance subsequent purchase intentions. Design/methodology/approach – To...

Purpose – Customer engagement is a concept that has emerged recently to capture customers' total set of behavioral activities toward a firm. The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of customer engagement behaviors on perceived relationship benefits and relationship outcomes....