No abstract

In the present time of web-based social networking, visual communication assume a key job in business and public communication. Social networking with its astute features has the ability to pull in numerous to interface with others. Visual communication plays key role in engagement behavior on social media further adding to sales. The high quality visual improves visibility in Social Networking Sites and are being selected as organization's key activity. Thus, the present study proposes a theoretical model of how visual communications through consumer engagement on corporate Social Networking Sites pages influences the consumer-brand relationship. Structural Equation Modelling has been used and validated the effect of visuals with informative, entertaining and remunerative content on consumer engagement further leading to consumer-brand relationship. Uses and Gratifications Theory has been adopted to study the behavioral response of the customers in relation to consumer engagement in social media context. This is a pioneering work to measure the mediation effect of consumer engagement to check the dominance of mediation (consumer engagement) over direct relationship between independent (visual contents) and dependent variable (consumer-brand relationship) on Facebook. In future similar study may be conducted in other social media platforms.

Purpose YouTube has emerged as the most innovative social networking sites (SNS) with exclusive features at that time which allowed users to post, view, comment and link to videos on the site. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the way emotional appeals are being used in YouTube advertisements to promote their products by considering various big brands of different industries in emerging market like India. The advertisement that induces consumer’s emotions can cause subconscious reactions which supersede consumer’s logical and pragmatic responses to create the unbreakable bond with a brand. Design/methodology/approach The study has taken online video advertisements which were uploaded on YouTube by different companies. The advertisements considered for the study were selected on three criteria: having more than 1,00,000 subscribers; videos having Indian advertisements; and have released at least one popular advertisement of minimum 1,00,000 views monthly in the period January 1-December 31, 2016. Random sampling method was used. Content analysis of 150 video advertisements was done to assess the influence of positive and negative emotions on consumer engagement. Multiple regression method is used taking the stepwise method. Findings The present study focused on emotional aspects of the advertisement that induce consumer engagement through SNS. The marketing strategies mainly focus on rational aspects as well as emotional aspects. The study suggests that in emerging economy like India, people heavily rely on emotions rather than logical information regarding any goods or services; hence, we considered both positive and negative emotional aspects in the study so as to measure the influence of emotional appeals on consumer engagement. Positive emotional appeals like contentment, happiness and love have the positive influence on the consumer engagement. On the other hand, negative emotional appeals are negatively related to the consumer engagement. Originality/value The present study aims at measuring ripple effect of the emotional appeals on ads and also tries to compare the impact between positive and negative emotional appeals so that it becomes easy for the marketers to determine the context in which it can be applied. For this purpose, YouTube video ads from India have been taken as the object of study from different industries.

PurposeDigital technologies have become indispensable in businesses and are gaining attention in academic institutions context too. Digital technological ecosystems provide a platform to communicate and share their products and services to existing and potential customers. Entrepreneurial startups and companies face internal and external challenges utilizing social media technologies to commercialize their business ideas. The purpose of this paper is to identify opportunities and challenges faced by academic entrepreneurs' startups.Design/methodology/approachThis research has adopted a qualitative approach comprising of semi-structured in-depth interviews with academic entrepreneurs’ startups to find the main challenge they face using social media platforms. The purpose was associated with an exploratory type of study and also included a prominent unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and technological opportunism (TO) model. The research respondents were 23 academic entrepreneurs startups who were chosen applying purposive sampling. Respondents were given a set of a questionnaire consisting of close-ended questions that are five-point Likert scale. The questionnaire included various parameters to measure the social media challenges the academic entrepreneurs’ startups undergo in the initial phase of their businesses.FindingsThe study identified that business-to-customer relations, brand, reputation, competition and cultural and language influence digital technologies entrepreneurship. While, the findings discovered the extended research model has a positive influence on academic entrepreneurs' intentions to use digital technologies media platforms. The outcome of this paper has thrown more light on which issues are there in digital technologies entrepreneurship, the determinants and actual usage advantages from UTAUT model and TO model that could be properly employed to solve issues of digital technologies media platforms and the potential concerning the adoption and use of digital technologies.Originality/valueThe study of academic entrepreneurs' startups can be considered original in nature. There is dearth of standard literature in the upcoming area of academic entrepreneurship. Governments are taking initiatives to promote academic entrepreneurs' startups, and the findings will be able to give them a right direction.

Purpose First, this study aims to focus on the promotional part of the Indian handicraft products through various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Second, the study measures the effectiveness of social media marketing activities (SMMA) relating to handicraft products on brand awareness, brand image and brand equity. Third, this study also measures the impact of brand awareness and brand image on brand equity and consumers’ purchase intention and further brand equity on consumers’ purchase intention of handicraft products. Design/methodology/approach This study used an offline questionnaire to conduct empirical research and collected and analyzed data of 609 samples by using the structural equation modeling approach. Findings The findings of this study showed that SMMA relating to handicraft products had a very strong impact on creating both brand awareness and brand image in the social media environment. Additionally, this study also exhibited a positive and significant impact of brand awareness and brand image on brand equity and consumers’ purchase intention and further brand equity on consumers’ purchase intention of handicraft products in the social media environment. Practical implications The outcome of this research will definitely motivate the handicraft industry to have a strong social media presence on various platforms for promoting their products across India and outside. Further, the promotional activities in various social media platforms will help in creating awareness about the handicraft products and give brand recognition among other industrial competitive brands which will consequently lead to an increase in the demand for these products. Originality/value The novelty of this study is that it has made an initial attempt to study the marketability of handicraft products using various social media platforms and also has measured the probable impact of SMMA relating to handicraft products on brand awareness and brand image and their impact on brand equity and purchase intention.