Earticle

초록

영어

Companies operating in social network platforms continue to improve and expand their marketing techniques. This study examines the practice of “gating“, which involves virtual barriers between social network users and company content. Gates demand mandatory user endorsements, in the form of a Facebook ”Likes”, Twitter “retweets” etc., to gain access to company content, such as coupons and rewards,. Gating practices demand a mandatory endorsement before any content consumption takes place. Thus, while user endorsements are assumed to arise voluntarily from trusted known sources, gating practices would appear to violate this assumption. However, whether this violation lessens the effectiveness of gating practices still requires empirical validation. We investigate this question through the use of a unique panel data set that includes data on “like” endorsements obtained from a number of real-world Facebook business pages. Results of the study show that gating practices are effective for endorsement solicitation; however, gates may interfere with more traditional marketing activities.

목차

ABSTRACT
 Ⅰ. Introduction
 Ⅱ. Relevant Literature and Contributions
  2.1. Social Media Endorsements and Marketing Outcomes
 Ⅲ. Theory and Hypotheses
  3.1. Mandatory Endorsement Solicitation
  3.2. Company Self-Promotion
  3.3. User “Buzz”
  3.4. Control Variables
 Ⅳ. Methods
  4.1. Sample and Data Collection
  4.2. Empirical Analysis
  4.3. Robustness Checks
 Ⅴ. Discussion
 Ⅵ. Contributions and Implications
 Ⅶ. Limitations and Future Research
 

저자

• E. Mitchell Church [ Assistant professor, Information Systems in the E. Craig Wall Sr.College of Business Administration, Coastal Carolina University, USA ] Corresponding Author
• Samantha Passarello [ Undergraduate Student, Information Technology and Information Systems, Slippery Rock University, USA ]

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