Social Media Marketing: A Literature Review and Implications

Abstract

This study carries out content analysis and systemizes articles on social media marketing in the Web of Science database. Forty-four studies were analyzed in accordance with a variation on the systematic review approach, involving synthesis-and interpretation-based assessment. The results demonstrate how most of the studies analyzed focus on the consumer perspective in terms of usage, share, and influence of social media on consumer decisions, and perceptions. The studies focusing on the firm's perspective centered not only on the usage of social media, but also on their implementation, optimization, and measurement of results. The majority of studies are quantitative and published in recent years. This study not only reached certain conclusions for both theory and practice, but also defined future lines of research according to the gaps detected by the study's results.

Consumer engagement on social media: Evidence from small retailers

“…Given its ease of use, cost-effectiveness and reach, social media marketing has gained an increasingly important role in integrated marketing communications (Alves, Fernandes, & Raposo, 2016;Constantinides, 2014;Dwivedi et al, 2015). In 2016, approximately 1.8 billion people spent time on social media and 77 per cent of them engaged with social media content by liking, commenting, sharing and clicking on links (Kanuri, Chen, & Sridhar, 2018).…”

Explanatory factors for efficiency in the use of social networking sites—The case of organic food products

“…technological innovation and development (Gil, García, & Mataveli, 2015). The greater market orientation of the wine sector can make it easier for companies to pursue commercial strategies such as viral marketing, enabling them to interact with a network of end customers (Alves et al, 2016;Ashley, and Tuten, 2015;Durking et al, 2013).…”

“…The greater market orientation of the wine sector allows it to take greater advantage of the commercial potential of SNSs, particularly for its organic production. One of the great potential advantages of these sites is that they can make it easier for companies to pursue commercial strategies such as viral marketing, enabling them to listen and talk to and interact with a network of end customers (Alves, Fernandes, & Raposo, 2016;Ashley, and Tuten, 2015;Durking, Mcgowan, & Mckeown, 2013) and to adapt the tone and style of the advertising message to the target public, owing to the considerable potential for audience segmentation. Consequently, the following hypothesis is proposed: H1: Market orientation as a commercial strategy for the organic products sector favors efficiency in activities on SNSs.…”

An overview of systematic literature reviews in social media marketing

“…In addition, some studies (e.g. [32]) conduct a count by theme, to support a subsequent discussion of the literature on a specific theme. organisation orientation, social power, cultural differences and impacts of social media.…”

“…Social media practice and strategy: Some authors focus on generic issues such as how companies use social media and how their social media marketing strategies differ [23,32], whilst others point to the importance of improving understanding of the critical success factors associated with the implementation of social media [24,28], whilst other authors propose more research into the impact of social media on firm performance [26]. Other SLRs also point to the importance of research into social media marketing evaluation [29,33] Finally, Lamberton and Stephen [22] suggest that research is needed into the relationship between social media and other marketing channels, and on differentiation on the basis of customer segments.…”