Who's behind the screen? Segmenting social venture consumers through social media usage

Abstract With the growing popularity of social media as a tool for marketing social causes and the increasing significance of social ventures in today's market economy, it is important to understand the heterogeneous nature of social venture consumers in regard to their social media usage. Using cluster analysis of survey responses from 305 consumers of various social ventures, four distinct segments of consumers who support social ventures were identified – social observers, active contributors, social connectors, and moderate contributors – based on three dimensions of social media site usage: creating content, connecting with others, and control over the user experience. Further analysis of survey results revealed that these four segments of consumers show significant differences in supporting behaviors

[1]  D. Hoffman,et al.  Why Do People Use Social Media? Empirical Findings and a New Theoretical Framework for Social Media Goal Pursuit , 2012 .

[2]  Raymond Dart,et al.  The legitimacy of social enterprise , 2004 .

[3]  Elizabeth A. Minton,et al.  Sustainable Marketing and Social Media , 2012 .

[4]  Andrew T. Norman,et al.  The Pass-Along Effect: Investigating Word-of-Mouth Effects on Online Survey Procedures , 2006, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[5]  Jonathan A. Obar,et al.  Advocacy 2.0: An Analysis of How Advocacy Groups in the United States Perceive and Use Social Media as Tools for Facilitating Civic Engagement and Collective Action , 2011, Journal of Information Policy.

[6]  John Peloza,et al.  Self-Benefit versus Other-Benefit Marketing Appeals: Their Effectiveness in Generating Charitable Support , 2009 .

[7]  Kristina Heinonen.  Consumer activity in social media: Managerial approaches to consumers' social media behavior , 2011 .

[8]  Jung P. Shim,et al.  Social Networking Service: Motivation, Pleasure, and Behavioral Intention to Use , 2011, J. Comput. Inf. Syst..

[9]  M. Strahilevitz,et al.  Donations to Charity as Purchase Incentives: How Well They Work May Depend on What You are Trying to Sell , 1998 .

[10]  Adrian. Sargeant,et al.  ‘Don't forget to say thank you’: The effect of an acknowledgement on donor relationships , 2010 .

[11]  Mei Liu,et al.  Using the Facebook group as a learning management system: An exploratory study , 2012, Br. J. Educ. Technol..

[12]  Stacy Landreth Grau,et al.  Cause-Related Marketing (CRM): The Influence of Donation Proximity and Message-Framing Cues on the Less-Involved Consumer , 2007 .

[13]  Hye-Shin Kim,et al.  Consumer profiles of apparel product involvement and values , 2005 .

[14]  J. Mair,et al.  Social Entrepreneurship Research: A Source of Explanation, Prediction, and Delight , 2006 .

[15]  P. Leeflang,et al.  Popularity of Brand Posts on Brand Fan Pages: An Investigation of the Effects of Social Media Marketing , 2012 .

[16]  Adesegun Oyedele,et al.  Customer typology: 3D virtual world , 2011 .

[17]  Charles F. Hofacker,et al.  The Influence of Personality on Active and Passive Use of Social Networking Sites , 2011 .

[18]  Marialaura Di Domenico,et al.  Social Bricolage: Theorizing Social Value Creation in Social Enterprises , 2010 .

[19]  Rolph E. Anderson,et al.  Multivariate Data Analysis (7th ed. , 2009 .

[20]  Neeli Bendapudi,et al.  Enhancing Helping Behavior: An Integrative Framework for Promotion Planning , 1996 .

[21]  James J. Chrisman,et al.  Toward a Theory of Community-Based Enterprise , 2004 .

[22]  D. Hoffman,et al.  Can You Measure the ROI of Your Social Media Marketing , 2010 .

[23]  Angella J. Kim,et al.  Do social media marketing activities enhance customer equity? An empirical study of luxury fashion brand , 2012 .

[24]  J. Dees.  Enterprising nonprofits. , 1998, Harvard business review.

[25]  Jo Pierson,et al.  Co-creation and user-generated content-elderly people's user requirements , 2009, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[26]  Richard D. Waters,et al.  Engaging stakeholders through social networking: How nonprofit organizations are using Facebook , 2009 .