Corporate Social Media: Understanding the Impact of Service Quality & Social Value on Customer Behavior

Companies are making major investments in platforms such as Facebook and Twitter because they realize that social media are an influential force on customer perceptions and behavior. However, to date, little guidance exists as to what constitutes an effective deployment of social media and there is no empirical evidence that social medial investments are yielding positive returns. This research provides two important and unique contributions to research and practice through the development and validation of a meaningful measure of the service quality effectiveness of the corporate social media environment, and through the development of an important mediator construct (Social Value) that can be used to capture the user experience of a social media community. These contributions and the resulting research model provide a strong theoretical basis for researchers interested in testing the impact of corporate social media service quality and social value on customers’ behavioral responses.