Although personality and culture have been employed as independent predictors of emotion regulation, less is known about the interplay between them. Thus, the present study tests their interaction by focusing on the match between personality (public self-consciousness) and culture (valuing independence vs. interdependence) in modulating an emotion regulation strategy, namely, emotion suppression, on Facebook. Furthermore, relationship concern related to the expression of positive and negative emotions on Facebook is explored as a potential underlying mechanism. An online survey on Facebook users in the United States (n = 320) and South Korea (n = 336) was conducted through two professional survey companies. The results revealed that the positive association between public self-consciousness and emotion suppression was stronger among respondents who value interdependence (vs. independence), which led to a significant interaction between the two predictors. Furthermore, public self-consciousness was associated with emotion suppression through relationship concern for the expression of positive, but not negative, emotions. Furthermore, this mediated relationship was stronger among respondents who value interdependence (vs. independence). Lastly, the study discussed the importance of exploring the interplay between personality and culture and the implication of dialectic emotions.

This paper presents an in-depth analysis of a random sample of 100 consecutive Facebook posts by a specialist industrial firm which is its industry leader in terms of brand performance on Social Media. It demonstrates how the messages content, encoding, and interactivity strategies achieve the Page’s audience engagement.

Since social media has become an essential tool in the contemporary hotel industry, companies are now building social media communities to engage customers online (Leung & Bai, 2013) and to maintain satisfaction, trust, commitment, loyalty, and brand relationship quality (Harrigan, Evers, Miles, & Daly, 2017). Despite global hotel companies’ increasing adoption of social media platforms to promote customer engagement, research in this area is still sparse (Harrigan et al., 2017; So, King, & Sparks, 2014). To fill this gap, the authors developed a theoretical model incorporating two antecedents (hotel brand experience and customer involvement to social media) and a consequence (brand relationship quality) of customer engagement (CE) in the context of hotel brand communities embedded in social media. Additionally, the authors included hotel brand reputation (HBR) in the model as another predictor of brand relationship quality (BRQ). This study obtained data from a panel survey consisting of the responses of hotel customers who had stayed at one of ten famous hotel brands in the U.S. within the past 12 months and were simultaneously followers of the hotel brand’s page on Facebook. The findings reveal that both antecedents (ISM and HBX) positively and significantly influence CE and that hotel brand experience (HBX) has a stronger impact on CE than ISM. The findings also demonstrate that CE has the strongest, positive effect on BRQ, followed by HBX and HBR. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the relationship between HBX and BRQ is partially and significantly mediated by CE. This research provides theoretical and practical contributions to the field. First, unlike previous studies, the current study utilized the concept of CE with hotel brand communities embedded in social media as a mediator between HBX and BRQ and found partial and significant mediation effects. Second, the study identified two new and crucial antecedents of CE with brand communities embedded in social media—customer brand experience and customer social media involvement. Third, this study found brand relationship quality as one of the primary outcomes of customer engagement with hotel brand communities in social media. Lastly, the findings confirm that social media-based brand communities (i.e., Facebook) are one tool companies can use to build long-lasting customer-brand relationships.

Introduction In the context of online interactions, social media has becoming a crucial part of people‟s everyday lives, where they converge to exchange, debate, communicate and participate in any form of social interaction (Ryan & Jones, 2009). They post and share new content but also review and rate products/services and/or brands, share experiences and expertise and exchange opinions (Ryan & Jones, 2009). As a result, the growing popularity of social media, the competitors‟ presence on social networking sites and the cost reduction pressure derived from the financial crisis and consequent necessity to find cheaper solutions for brand promotion, motivated companies to use social media as part of their marketing and brand building activities (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014) and to create brand fan pages in different social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, among others. Due to this attractiveness, social media is becoming the media channel of choice across the world (Dong-Hun, 2010). However, traditional media still plays an important role for both consumers and marketers, being a central component of brands‟ communication strategies. Yet, several questions still remain unanswered regarding social media effectiveness and influence on consumer engagement. In the current study we intend that we intend to contribute to fulfil the second. Thus, the objective of the current study is to explore how brands create and maintain online relationships with consumers through their Websites, Facebook and Instagram brand pages . Theoretical development The concept of engagement was originally employed in different fields of study including psychology, sociology and organizational behaviour. Now is attracting marketers‟ attention especially in the field of relationship marketing (e.g., Brodie et al., 2011; Hollebeek, 2011). Accordingly, two central concepts consumer engagement and online brand engagement need to be defined. First, consumer engagement, refers to the intensity of a person‟s participation and connection with company‟s offerings and activities that can be initiated by the consumer or the organization (Vivek, Beatty, & Morgan, 2012). Online brand engagement, on the other hand, can be defined as a consumer‟s cognitive and affective commitment to partake in an active relationship with a brand on a website or other computer-mediated platform designed to communicate brand value (Mollen & Wilson, 2010). Online brand engagement measures how much and how frequently users interact with a firm‟s page and its social media content. When consumers make the effort to like, favourite or comment a brand‟s post, they are vigorously engaging with that content. Engagement metrics display audience action, an important feature for social media health and growth (Dunham, 2014). As social media provides numerous ways for users to get involved with organizations (Waters, Burnett, Lamm, & Lucas, 2009), marketers must find rightful strategies to nurture relationships with the public. Dialogue has been one of the topics under research by several scholars. Including this two-way form of communication is crucial to “understand how organizations can build relationships that serve both organizational and public interests” (Kent & Taylor, 2002: 21), thus several studies use dialogic communication to investigate the influence of online strategies for relationship building (Loureiro & Gomes, 2016). Three crucial strategies have been used in numerous studies (Waters et al., 2009; Loureiro & Gomes, 2016; Men & Tsai, 2012) to build and maintain relationships online: disclosure or openness, information dissemination, and interactivity and involvement. First, disclosure or openness refers to the companies‟ willingness to be transparent in their online communication activities. Waters et al. (2009) suggest that companies must provide information such as company‟s full description, its history and mission. Organizations should use hyperlinks connected to their websites and use logos and visual cues to enhance brand recognition. Information dissemination concerns posting photos and videos, announcements about products, as well as answering questions to address stakeholders‟ needs, concerns and interests (Men & Tsai, 2012; Loureiro & Gomes, 2016). Posting links to external news content related to the company and its business and including press releases and campaign summaries can maximize the impact of a company‟s online presence (Waters et al., 2009). Finally, interactivity and involvement can be seen as the most important strategy, out of the three, since it is essential to foster relationships with the public and represents one of the main advantages of using different social media platforms (Haigh, 2014). This strategy is often analysed as a whole, with no distinction between the two terms (Men & Tsai, 2012; Loureiro & Gomes, 2016) however, interactivity can be analysed separately from involvement according to research done by Haigh (2014). Involvement regards connecting with consumers. Providing information such as organizational contacts, giving users the ability to stay in touch with the company is one way to involve them. Interactivity, on the other hand, is often defined as “the extent to which users can participate in modifying the form and content of the mediated environment in real time.” (Steuer, 1992: 84). When considering computer-mediated environments, Liu (2003) also studied interactivity, developing a scale to measure interactivity on websites. According to the study, interactivity should be defined as "the degree to which two or more communication parties can act on each other, on the communication medium, and on the messages and the degree to which such influences are synchronized” (Liu & Shrum, 2002: 54) and three dimensions should be included when discussing this topic: active control, two-way communication and synchronicity. Active control regards users‟ capacity to voluntarily participate and usefully influence communications. Two-way communication concerns the bifacial flow of information. Synchronicity evaluates the speed of the interaction. This led to the definition of interactive communication: “communication that offers individuals active control and allows them to communicate both reciprocally and synchronously” (Liu, 2003: 208). Finally, human-to-content interactivity refers to the ability to contribute to the organizational online content by commenting on organizational posts and to reply to other users‟ posts. (Loureiro & Gomes, 2016; Men & Tsai, 2012). Thus, considering the above-mentioned, the following research question is proposed: RQ1: What strategies are Portuguese companies incorporating to create and maintain relationships with publics on their Websites, Facebook and Instagram pages? Research design We conducted an exploratory content analysis to investigate online relationship cultivation strategies by Portuguese brands (RQ1). Following Loureiro and Gomes (2016), first we retrieve a list of the 50 most valuable Portuguese brands of 2016 provided by Brand Finance, “…the world’s leading independent branded business valuation…” (The Brand Finance Group, 2016). This list is made with regards to the brand value (USD $ millions) and the brand rating in the year under analysis, therefore raking the top 50 Portuguese brands. Afterwards, from this initial sample of 50 companies, brands are analysed in terms of their presence in social media by verifying if they have an official website and brand fan Pages on Facebook Instagram. After examining their social media presence, the sample included 47 companies with a website, 28 companies with a Facebook page and 19 with an Instagram account. Pages without information or not maintained by the organisation were not considered. Coding categories used in this analysis are adapted from previous research (Waters et al., 2009; Men & Tsai, 2012; Haigh, 2014; Loureiro & Gomes, 2016). The categories coded are the same for Website, Facebook and Instagram pages. Based on Waters et al.‟s (2009) method for coding online relationship cultivation strategies, the website and social media pages are examined to identify the presence of items representing organizations‟ strategies of disclosure, information dissemination and involvement. The units of analysis are the website corporate profile page on Facebook and Instagram page. We evaluate whether each strategy and item occurred, hence categories are coded with „yes‟ or „no‟ depending if the information was present (Haigh, 2014). On websites, the first step is to go to the homepage and see if the website provided a site map to easily find the items belonging to each strategy. When site maps are not available, each tab inside the website would be inspected to look for the information needed for each strategy. Since websites are more complex, with information spread across them instead of reunited in one single page as in Facebook and Instagram the following analyses were simpler. On Facebook the first page of each corporate profile is studied. This is the page that users see after signing in and where they have access to all the main elements, including the photo album and the message board. The details examined on each page are items that are readily observable (Men & Tsai, 2012). On Instagram, the analysis is similar to Facebook. Here, most of the page is visually-based (photos and videos) with the exception of to the brief description below the profile picture or logo (where usually companies also insert the URL to the Website). Thus, we look to photos‟ descriptions to get more insights about the content shared and the cultivation strategies implemented. Users‟ comments are also considered to evaluate, whether or not companies reply to them and initiate conversations with consumers. Intercoder reliability was tested using Perreault & Leigh‟s (1989) formula. Main results and conclusions Websites perform better in the first two strategies (disclosure and information dissemination) by frequently displaying a brief description about the business as well as brand history, logo and visual cues, news links and information about achievements and awards. However, in what concerns the last strategy, interactivity and involvement, websites lack interactive features that allow firms to engage with consumers such as commenting and sharing opportunity. Generally, actions to foment online participation are not implemented. This could be explained by the fact that Websites‟ main purpose is, according to Keller (2009), to express ambitions, history, products as well as the firms‟ vision therefore they act more as sources of information than as sources of interaction. However they still have to be attractive enough to encourage repeated visits (Keller, 2009). By contract, brand fan pages on Facebook and Instagram disclose and disseminate less information about firms and their activities (more evident on Instagram) and perform better in the interactivity and involvement strategy. In accordance with (Jahn & Kunz, 2012), brand fan pages main goal is to promote a communicative and interactive channel that creates a bond between the user and the brand, therefore it is expected that the main strategy used to nurture relationships on these social networks is the one that enables interaction and encourages involvement. Finally, comparing the three SNS‟s, Facebook seems to be the more consistent channel to combine and implement the three strategies altogether, since it displays a better overall performance. However, each social networking site has its own role, therefore companies should consider which network works best for each strategy and for each type of consumer and build an overall plan that maximizes the potential to connect with consumers, remembering that the image they build online should present an accurate representation of the brand and should align with other marketing efforts to present consistent messages to customers. Regarding consumer engagement, brands should focus on creating interesting and captivating content instead of posting too regularly just to have an active online presence. Posting more often does not necessarily lead to online brand engagement. Moreover, having more followers is not necessarily good on its own. Fans need to feel connected to the brand and its content and usually, smaller audiences are more engaged with brands. Therefore, brands should work on strategies that allow them to grow their audience while keeping the perks of interacting with smaller audiences. Also, audience growth rate is a helpful measure to evaluate performance on each network, identify which one is generating the highest rates and investigate how to gain more followers on all networks. Additionally, it may be useful in tracking specific campaigns‟ success.

This study proposed an alternative model specification to increase accuracy of conceptualization of the definition of customer engagement and provided theoretical justification for the model in specific social media contexts. The proposed model is a formative construct based on theoretical contexts and observational data. The construct comprises six formative first-order dimensions, namely “influencing behaviors,” “participation in activities,” “customer knowledge sharing,” “feedbacks,” “helping other customers,” and “customer-to-customer interaction.” The study findings offer a basis for identifying indicators of distinct dimensions in the proposed construct. Three models with different conceptualization specifications were estimated and subsequently compared using survey data.

Consumers tend to relate to brands in similar ways as they relate to individuals and groups. However, relatively little is known about the attribution of human traits to brands in online contexts. The current research focused on whether perceived interactivity of CSR advertising leads to the attribution of moral, sociable, and competent brand traits, and which of these traits could in turn promote positive electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) intentions on Facebook. A Facebook CSR advertisement was presented to participants (N=174), after which perceived interactivity, perceived traits, and eWOM intentions were assessed. Higher levels of perceived interactivity were associated with stronger attributions of morality, sociability, and competence traits to brands. Yet, only perceived brand morality was associated with consumers’ willingness to endorse the brand and its CSR message on Facebook. These findings underline the importance of brands’ openness to dialogue regarding the promotion of CSR activities. Furthermore, these findings suggest that consumers are most likely to feel that brands can represent their identity when brand morality is considered to be high. Despite the importance of eWOM for corporate outcomes, few studies have addressed which processes might underlie the relation between interactive advertising and consumers’ eWOM intentions. The current research contributes to the literature in this field by considering the attribution of humanlike personality traits to brands as possible explanatory variables.

Over the last decade, the sharing economy that covers systems of organised sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping among communities of peers on Internet platforms has emerged as a major disruptive pattern in capitalist economies (Botsman and Rogers, 2010). Prior research on the sharing economy has mainly concentrated on young, well-educated urban users and therefore particularly underlined “noble” motivations for participation, such as hedonic, environmental, and political reasons. This research looks beyond this “hipster” view of sharing entrepreneurs and focuses on French deprived mothers who use peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms to survive. Drawing on the literature on subsistence markets in developing countries (e.g., Viswanathan et al., 2014), it investigates Facebook buy-and-sell groups as a new form of subsistence markets in developed countries. Using a multi-method approach involving in-depth interviews, netnography, and participatory observation on Facebook buy-and-sell groups, it more particularly explores how Facebook specific digital features participate in these emerging markets. The findings indicate that subsistence markets’ emergence in developed countries on Facebook is founded on new digital features that (re)create structural, cognitive and relational forms of social capital. This research thus offers interesting contributions and implications for public policy makers engaged in the regulation of the sharing economy.

Introduction Social media marketing is an attractive marketing method for fostering relationships with customers. About 30% of social media users find social networking sites important when searching for information about brands as well as showing their support towards them (Nielsen, 2017). This engagement with brands on social media is one of the factors driving company outcomes. For example, consumer engagement in social media brand communities is found to have a positive impact on purchase spending (Goh, Heng, and Lin, 2013), brand equity (Christodoulides and Jevons, 2012), and brand attitude (Schivinski and Dabrowski 2016). Consumer engagement involves both consumer interaction and co-creation of the content (Smith and Gallicano, 2015). In order to enhance engagement with brand content, marketers must persuade consumers to interact with those messages by sharing, commenting or liking them (Chang, Yu, Lu, 2014). Hence, interaction is the crucial step towards improving consumer engagement. While marketers rely on experimenting in order to find elements that drive consumer interaction, researchers use vast social media data in order to examine relationships between brand message characteristics and consumer interaction with those messages. For example, (Vries, Gensler, and Leeflang, 2012) studied the impact of post’s vividness, interactivity, content, position of a post and valence of comments on brand post popularity as represented by number of likes and comments. Other researchers such as (Wang et al ,2016) examined the impact of topic, tone and the length of post on social media engagement defined not only by the number of likes and shares, but also by the likability of characters featured in the post. Chang, Yu, and Lu (2014) studied how argument quality, post popularity, and post attractiveness can lead to consumer engagement. Similarly, (Lee and Hong, 2016) investigated the impact of emotional appeal, informativeness and creativity of a message on positive consumer behavior towards brand message. However, little is known so far about the effects of the frequency and spacing of brand-generated content on the dynamics of consumer interaction. Advertising research shows that advertising frequency has an impact on various consumer behavior and attitude outcomes and suggests that there is an optimum level of exposure to advertising that yields greatest results (Schmidt and Eisend, 2015; Broussard, 2000). Moreover, research on advertising repetition in traditional channels suggests an inverted u-shape relationship between ad repetition and message effectiveness. This happens because at a certain number of exposures negative factors, such as boredom and irritation (Heflin and Haygood, 1985), kick in and overweigh positive ones. As a result, the effectiveness of an ad starts diminishing. This effect is also known as the wear-out effect. On the other hand, (Lee, Ahn, and Park, 2015) suggest that inverted U-shape relationship between repetition and attitude towards the brand does not hold true in online environments. This is the case because users can control their exposure to advertising, therefore they do not expose themselves to the ad to the extent that they feel adverse toward it. As firm-generated brand content on social media is a form of advertising, it is interesting to examine, whether wear-out effect occurs in the context of social media and user interaction. In addition, the effect of advertising repetition is found to depend on the time period, or space, between ad exposures (Janiszewski, Noel, and Saywer, 2003). Spacing between exposures affect learning (Sawyer, Noel, and Janiszewski, 2009), attitude towards the brand (Schmidt and Eisend, 2015), purchase spending (Sahni, 2015), attrition rate and customer response (Dreze and Bonfrer, 2008). Moreover, recent study by (Wang, Greenwood, and Pavlou, 2017), who investigated the influence of posting on the propensity to unfollow the brand on the largest social media in China WeChat, found that posting leads to higher likelihood of unfollowing the brand, which in turn has a negative effect on the long term sales. However, WeChat may be considered to be more intrusive than Facebook because of the differences in how followers get notified about new brand posts. Therefore, it is interesting to examine whether the same effect of posting holds true on Facebook. Finally, viral marketing research suggests that the growth rate of interaction with the content depends on the rate of creation of other messages (Karnik, Saroop, and Borkar, 2013). Based on the findings from previous studies, it is evident that frequency and spacing may have a significant influence on the level and growth rate of user interaction. Furthermore, two-sided advertising research suggests that inclusion of negative information in product related messages can yield better results in terms of persuasive power than if no negative information is included (Eisend 2006). In addition, political communication researchers found that sentiment-carrying Twitter messages tend to be retweeted more often and more quickly (Stieglitz and Dang-Xuan, 2013). Therefore, it is suggested that the effect of message frequency and spacing on the level of consumer interaction is moderated by the sentiment of the message. In other words, the optimal level of message frequency is expected to be higher for emotionally-charged firm-generated brand messages as compared to neutral ones. Hence, the following research questions are proposed: RQ1: How does frequency and spacing of brand-generated content affect the dynamics of consumer interaction on social media and how is this effect moderated by the sentiment of the content? RQ2: How does posting on social media affect the unfollowing by brand followers? RQ2a: Does the spacing between messages help reduce the negative effect of posting on the unfollowing by brand followers (if such effect is present)? Research Design & Theoretical Development In order to answer these questions two data sets were gathered via Facebook’s API consisting of 6,471 and 932 brand posts respectively. Two separate data sets were needed to examine the frequency effects on the overall level of consumer interaction as well as on the growth rate of interaction. Therefore, post and page data for 7 international brands from 5 different product categories for the period of 2 years were collected to examine the frequency effects. To investigate the effect of posting on the growth rate of consumer interaction, 11 brands were tracked for the 7-week period in order to capture the development of the interaction. In addition, the impact of posting on the propensity to unfollow the brand was examined. Consequently, three separate regression models were built to test the hypotheses. Results showed that frequency of posting and the level of consumer interaction has an inverted u-shape relationship and that the level of consumer interaction is positively influenced by the space between the posts. Further, findings suggest that posting on social media is positively associated with unfollowing by followers and that the growth rate of interaction of the post depends on the rate of new message generation by the same brand. The conceptual model is presented below. Result and Conclusion The study has few theoretical and practical contributions. Answering to the call for research (Vries, Gensler, and Leeflang, 2012) to include the dynamic aspects of interaction, this study contributes to the social media literature by examining the effects of the rate of new message generation on the growth rate of interaction of the post. In addition, this study adds to the stream of research on the wear-out effects in online environments by including higher number of exposures and by testing the type of firm communication (social media communication) that previously has not been studied. Finally, this study contributed to the recent research (Wang, Greenwood, and Pavlou, 2017) by examining the effect of posting on the unfollowing by brand followers. As for practical contributions, findings of this study have implications for marketing managers with respect to the frequency and spacing of posting. This study provides evidence for a more moderate posting strategies in terms of frequency.

Festival branding is undergoing a revolution based on the consolidation of new communicative behaviours in virtual brand communities (VBC), above all channelled through social media platforms (Hudson & Hudson, 2013; MacKay, Barbe, Van Winkle, & Halpenny, 2017). Although generic literature (Dessart, Veloutsou, & Morgan-Thomas, 2015) has highlighted the role of user engagement in VBC, there are no in-depth analyses of how users modulate engagement attributes and behaviours and how they are related to festival branding, as well as other possible and sometimes interrelated drivers (social capital creation, place making). Thus, this paper aims to characterise these elements in festivals’ VBC to cover these shortcomings. This proposal performs a multi-platform, multi-period, multi-user and mixed-method analysis of nearly 2,150 references in the Twitter and Facebook VBC of one of the most prominent music festivals in Europe, Sónar (Barcelona). Results show the benefits for organisers (and other relevant users) of jointly understanding these elements (and their mutual relationships) with the aim of retaining various positive economic and social impacts.

In order to identify effective approaches for creating more viral Facebook posts, this research conducted an empirical content analysis of leading Korean brands' Facebook fan-pages (Samsung Mobile, SK Telecom, Kia Motors, and POSCO). Their distinctive visual storytelling and communication patterns were investigated as effective user engagement triggers. Through analysis of the research results, it was statistically proved that the different industrial attributes of the four brands, which are primarily characterized by their product (or service) types, affect their Facebook posting patterns by showing different engaging rates (measured by like, comment, and share metrics). In addition, the user engagement rates of the posts were influenced by their visual storytelling factors (i.e. ad objective, value scale, and visual media types). In line with these statistical findings, the distinctive visual storytelling strategies of the four brands were identified. Moreover, competitive and uncompetitive visual storytelling tactics were suggested according to the ad objectives and visual media types on Facebook.

This paper aims to examine the effect of live streaming, recently adopted by online clothing sellers to help sell clothes on the Facebook. Drawing on the literature in retailing, adoption behavior, and e-commerce, this paper proposes the framework to test the effect on customers’ perceived values, trust, and engagement intention. When shopping online, consumers are generally concerned with legitimacy of the vendor and authenticity of products or services (Chen and Dhillon 2002). Live streaming allows shoppers to view the seller’s face and expressions, background (e.g. clothes, furniture), as well as offered products that are not pre-recorded or edited prior to being presented in the online store. Due to the spontaneous, interactive nature of live streaming, viewers ask questions and receive answers from the page in almost real time (Wang et al. 2000), and the seller can use the feedback to respond to the need of customers better. Live streaming is expected to positively affect on customer’s perceived utilitarian value (authenticity, responsiveness). By merely viewing the seller showing, wearing, or putting different clothes on a mannequin can be fun and enjoyable like viewing the fashion show. Live streaming is expected to positively affect on customer’s perceived hedonic value (enjoyment). The act of shopping can also provide a symbolic benefit, as customers express their personal values, identity, self through the shopping experience (Chandon et al., 2000). Given that live streaming is not prevalent and used by general users, customers who participate in the live streaming may be perceived that they are innovative. Live streaming by possibly affecting customer hedonic, utilitarian, and symbolic value would be likely to positively affect trust and engagement intention. Trust can refer to the extent to which customers believe the web site is legal, ethical and credible and can protect their privacy(Wan, 2000). Trust can lead to positive feelings towards the online seller, and in turn can increase intention to revisit and purchase from the site (Chiu et al. 2009). Engaged people are generally those visiting the site frequently, spend substantial time on the site, and have many page views (Calder, Malthouse, and Schaedel 2009). The relationship of live streaming, and perceived values (customer hedonic, utilitarian, and symbolic value), trust, and engagement intention will be tested by conducting the survey with about 400 online shoppers. The data will be analyzed using the structural equation modeling. Results are expected to provide implications for the use of live streaming for online shopping. The study aims to examine the process underlying the effects of livestreaming on consumer trust and engagement. Livestreaming has potentials to bridge the gap between traditional and online shopping, allowing sellers and shoppers distant in space to interact and smoothening the online shopping experiences.

인터넷의 연결이라는 특징은 인터넷 서비스의 이용과 관련하여 필연적으로 관할과 준거법의 문 제를 야기하는데, 구글, 페이스북과 같은 외국의 인터넷 서비스 제공자들은 이용약관에서 외국에 전속적 재판관할권이 있다고 정하고 있어, 이와 관련하여 이용자의 보호가 문제된다. 위와 같은 조항에도 불구하고 국내에 거주하는 이용자들이 국내 법원에 소를 제기할 수 있는지 있는지에 관하여 최근 구글 Inc.(피고)의 전속적 재판관할합의 항변을 배척한 제1심 판결이 선고 되었다. 법원은, 구글 Inc.는 각종 구글 서비스를 국내 이용자들도 이용할 수 있도록 국내 이용자들 을 위한 별도의 도메인 주소를 운영하면서 한국어 로 된 특화된 서비스를 제공하고 있고, 대한민국 외의 지역에서 인터넷 등을 통하여 대한민국을 향 하여 구글 서비스에 관한 광고를 하는 등의 방법 으로 구글 서비스 이용계약 거래의 권유를 비롯한 영업활동 및 국내에서 활동하는 기업이나 개인들 로부터 광고를 수주하는 등의 방법으로 수익을 얻 는 영업활동을 영위하고 있으며, 국내의 구글 서 비스 이용자는 국내에서 인터넷망에 연결된 컴퓨 터 단말기 등을 이용하여 구글 서비스에 가입하여 구글 계정을 생성함으로써 이용계약을 체결하게 되므로 이는 국제사법 제27조 제1항 제1호에서 정한 소비자계약에 해당한다고 판시한 뒤, 미국 캘리포니아 주 산타클라라 카운티의 연방 또는 주 법원의 관할로 하도록 정한 것은 대한민국 법원의 국제재판관할권을 배제하기로 하는 합의에 해당 하고, 이러한 합의는 국제사법 제27조 제6항에 위반하여 효력이 없다고 판시하였다. 프랑스 파리 법원도 페이스북의 이용약관은 소 비자계약으로 소비자법의 적용을 받는데, 프랑스 법원의 국제재판관할권을 배제하는 내용의 페이 스북 Inc.의 약관은 상인과 비상인 또는 소비자 사이에 심각한 불균형을 초래하여 불공정하고 이 는 소비자법 R132-2, L132-1에 의하여 효력이 없다고 판시하였다. 위 각 판결은 각 사업자들이 무상, 즉 0원의 서 비스를 제공하고 있으나 광고 등의 수익을 얻고 있다는 실질을 지적하고, 위 서비스의 이용자를 소비자로 보아 소비자 보호의 관점에서 관할합의 의 효력을 판단하였다는 의의가 있다. 한편, 약관의 규제에 관한 법률은 국제적 강 행규정이 아니지만, 공정거래위원회는 준거법이 외국법인 경우에도 약관의 시정 명령 등의 행정 적 규제를 하여 국내 소비자들을 보호하고 있다. 최근 공정거래위원회의 약관심사로 인하여 페이 스북 아일랜드 리미티드, 트위터 인터네셔널 컴 퍼니, 인스타그램엘엘씨의 불공정약관이 개정되 었다.

This research examines the concepts of customer brand engagement (CBE) and perceived social presence (PSP) in a corporate Facebook context, and tests whether CBE and PSP have an impact on brand trust. CBE has well-defined sub-dimensions that are about behavioral, emotional and cognitive, and motivational aspects. The sample (n=461) is from Kuwait, and asks about use of corporate Facebook pages for smart phones. All three of the CBE sub-dimensions have a significant impact on brand trust. PSP influences the CBE sub-dimensions, and it also influences brand trust directly. Brand trust does impact brand loyalty in the corporate Facebook context.

Based on the collaborative and social characteristics, social networking services (SNSs) are growing platforms for consumer-to-consumer conversation including electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). eWOM is defined as ‘any positive or negative statement made by potential, actual, or former customers about a product or company, which is made available to a multitude of people and institutions via the Internet’ (Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh, & Gremler, 2004, p.39). Despite its academic and managerial significance, several preliminary studies have examined what determines effective eWOM in SNSs (e.g., Chu & Kim, 2011; Teng, Khong, Goh, & Chong, 2014). Extending these attempts, we empirically investigate what influences consumers’ evaluation of eWOM, especially on Facebook. We suggest a new perspective of focusing on the psychological stream of social identity (Tajel & Turner, 1986) which is a distinctive factor explicit on Facebook. Unlike conventional eWOM platforms like bulletin boards and online communities where the user information is limited due to anonymity or presented in restricted manner (e.g., reputation from ratings by other members) (Dou, Walden, Lee, & Lee, 2012), Facebook provides profile information about users including one’s social group membership (e.g., school, company). This implies that the perception of social identity on Facebook may influence how one evaluates the source and his/her eWOM message.

최근 페이스북 광고의 마케팅 가치가 증가됨에 따라, 기업들은 브랜드 및 상품 홍보를 위해 성공적인 페이스북 광고제작 방안에 관심을 두고 있다. 이에 따라 본 연구에서는 페이스북 광고에 대한 사용자의 시선과 관심에 영향을 미치는 요인을 도출하고, 효과적인 페이스북 광고 콘텐츠의 시지각 구성요소들의 특성을 규명하였다. 먼저 페이스북 광고에 대한 사용자의 반응에 영향을 미칠 수 있는 두 가지 변인 요인을 설정하였다: 페이스북 광고 콘텐츠 포맷 (Text, Text in Image, Movie)과 광고 제품 속성(관여도, 이성/감성). 이에 대한 이론적 논의를 바탕으로 시선추적과 설문조사를 접목하여 실험 연구를 진행하였다. 페이스북 광고 콘텐츠 포맷(Text, Text in Image, Movie)과 광고 제품 속성(관여도, 이성/감성)이 사용자 반응(시지각 인지, 사용자 구매 행동 반응)에 미치는 효과를 분석하였다. 그 결과, 광고 콘텐츠 포맷에 따라 차별화된 사용자의 시지각 인지 패턴과 구매 행동 반응이 나타났다. 반면, 광고 제품속성의 경우 사용자의 구매 행동 반응에만 영향을 미치는 것을 알 수 있었다. 마지막으로 본 연구의 주요 연구 결과를 토대 로 광고 콘텐츠 제공자 혹은 개발자들을 위한 효과적인 SNS 광고 제작 가이드라인을 제안할 수 있었다.

New professions, highly specialized in web communication, have therefore emerged lately, such as: blogger, copywriter, social media manager, especially in the fashion industry, where every detail is meaningful and consequently every word inevitably matters. The aim of this paper is to investigate the strategies used by luxury fashion brands on social media to construe their brand identity and build up global awareness. The empirical study presented is based on the analysis of a corpus of posts retrieved from internationally renowned luxury fashion brands’ Facebook fan pages selected according to an official global top list of luxury brands. Social networks are nowadays one of the most efficient tools to make a brand globally successful and luxury fashion brands owe their popularity to them, although at the beginning they were suspicious towards those media of communication (Okonkwo, 2010: 4). This was due to the fact that mass media, by definition, are characterized by features like wide accessibility and volatility that do not match with the peculiar exclusive, unique and timeless nature of luxury goods (Okonkwo, 2010: xviii). The following table (Table 1) compares luxury features with the Internet ones in order to show that they are two opposite worlds that do not share none of their characteristics. The presence of luxury online is then a paradox itself, this is due to the fact that the features attributed to luxury that can be summarized into the word “exclusiveness” do not match with the main characteristics of Internet that is a “mass” medium of communication where the main idea is that one formula fits all. The clear contrast between the features attributed to luxury and Internet is evident in the oppositions reported: for instance we have “niche clientele” versus “mass availability” to emphasize that luxury itself cannot satisfy everyone’s desire if it aims to maintain its status and in any case it is not a short time process (Rambourg, 2014); then “exclusivity” versus “mass accessibility” is to highlight the fact that luxury cannot be accessible to everyone; and the extremely relevant difference between luxury products that must or at least give the idea to be “made-to-measure” versus the “one-formula-fits-all approach” and “mass appeal”, typical of the mass media of communication, that distinguishes the use of Internet, where what you share is designed to be widely accessible from luxury that represents uniqueness and exclusiveness. The study conducted will try to identify if luxury brands have overcome this channel conflict and later investigate their performances on social media particularly focusing on the construction of the content. The analysis of the data will be run by taking into consideration marketing literature review, and the use of theoretical frameworks based on genre analysis, corpus linguistics and discourse analysis. Furthermore the analysis will be done with the support of statistical linguistic softwares Wordsmith and Wmatrix, and it will show how luxury fashion brands shape brand identity online through words. The results will offer an overview on the construction of content particularly used to rely on storytelling, heritage marketing, and “glocalization” strategies. Moreover, interesting insights will draw the attention to the specific strategies used to target different markets (Hollensen, 2007: 220-221) while taking into consideration the cultural differences and at the same time emphasizing the features directly connected to the “Made in” identity of the brand. A further section will focus on the interplay between different semiotic systems employed to construe the brand identity online, and on some examples of strategies specifically designed for emerging markets and created through transmedia communication (Jenkins, 2006). The evidence gathered, which also sheds light on the use of pronouns and verbs to stimulate the users’ engagement in brands’ life and in the production of the content, can provide interesting insights into web communication. Further interdisciplinary researches combining different approaches will develop significant strategies particularly interesting for the training of new professional profiles involved in the design of marketing strategies.

Nam, Sin-Hye. 2015. “The Discourse Functions of Code Switching on SNS texts : focusing on the case of Facebook”. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 23(1). 31~53. This study aims to figure out the discourse functions of code switching which appears in the texts posted on SNS, especially Facebook. In order to satisfy this purpose, this study observed and analysed several individual timeline pages whose owners have a plural language background, but live in a monolingual society. The results are as follows. First, a lot of code switching examples appeared in the observed texts, even though the writer lived in a monolingual society. Second, the unmarked code of the individual writers was their mother language and it was chosen when the posting was about the writer's everyday life and appeared as a longer passage. Third, when the writers chose their marked code, they had at least four particular reasons that were related to discourse functions; including or excluding a particular reader, using more effective words, emphasizing or watering down the implications of the text, and changing the speech act or topic. Finally, these results show that the community on SNS is closer to a plural lingual society rather than a closed monolingual community. On SNS, the users act as if they live in a multi lingual space and perform as plural linguals, although, in the reality, they live in a very monolingual society. And this is one of the important characteristics of a SNS discourse community.

This study investigated the relationship of fashion brand SNS characteristics, relationship quality (satisfaction, trust, and commitment) and purchase intention. The study focused on Facebook and also examined the difference between fashion involvement groups. This study targeted consumers who have used fashion brand Facebook and are aged between 20s and 30s. Data collection was conducted through surveys, and a total 205 questionnaires were collected for the final statistical analysis. The major findings of the study were as follows. First, three characteristics of fashion brand SNS, which were entertainment, interactivity, and providing information, influenced positively on SNS users' satisfaction. Entertainment had the greatest influence on satisfaction, and providing information and interactivity followed. Second, satisfaction for fashion brand SNS influenced positively on trust and commitment. Also, trust to fashion brand SNS demonstrated a positive influence on commitment. Third, trust and commitment on fashion brand SNS both influenced positively on purchase intention. Fourth, the fashion involvement groups showed differences in fashion brand SNS characteristics, relationship quality, and purchase intention. The high involvement group showed much higher results in all aspects then did the low involvement group. Based on the above results, this study has a significant value which suggests directions for future research. Also, this paper is expected to provide managerial implications to fashion companies which need to develop SNS marketing strategies.

By means of a field experiment, corporate brand posts on Facebook are analyzed regarding their effect on brand fans’ post recall capability, attitude toward the brand, and purchase intention. Results indicate that Facebook brand posts are able to positively influence fans’ attitude toward the brand. A significant interaction effect between the level of product involvement and the degree of brand posts’ interactivity and vividness is found. Implications for marketing research and practitioners are discussed.