G. van Noort

Social connections and the persuasiveness of viral campaigns in social network sites: Persuasive intent as the underlying mechanism

Social media are increasingly popular. Consequently, marketers more and more recognize social network sites as a platform for commercial campaigns. Social network users forward these campaigns to their online connections. However, our understanding of the persuasiveness of these campaigns is scarce. This study takes on the perspective that social context plays an important role in explaining campaign effects, and investigates whether the social connection between the sender and the receiver of a viral social media campaign predicts its persuasiveness. More specifically, it is tested whether strength of tie between the sender and receiver of a campaign predicts receivers affective and behavioural responses, and whether perceived persuasive intent is the underlying mechanism. The results of a survey among social media users obtained support for this idea. Thereby, this study contributes to our understanding of viral marketing communications in social network sites. Implications for the prospect of marketing activities in social media are discussed.

Enhancing the effects of social network site marketing campaigns: if you want consumers to like you, ask them about themselves

This study assesses the consequences of consumers’ self-disclosing of identification information in interactive advertising campaigns on social network sites (SNSs), for brand, product and campaign responses. Building on social response and brand relationship theory, these effects are predicted and tested in an experiment in which consumers did or did not provide personal information to the brand by interacting with an SNS campaign, identifying consumer concern about disclosing personal information as a moderator. The results demonstrate that consumers’ self-disclosure to the brand elicits favourable attitudinal and behavioural consumer responses, especially for individuals who have relatively low online privacy concerns in the SNS context.

Party and Candidate Websites: A Comparative Explanatory Analysis

This study provides a systematic investigation of party and candidate websites across five countries. It examines three prominent features of current online political communication (interactivity, political personalization, and mobilization). Furthermore it assesses to what extent country, party, and source characteristics explain differences in the usage of these features. In total, 63 websites and 416 pages in Germany, Romania, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Great Britain were subject to a systematic content analysis. The findings suggest that differences in party and source characteristics explain variation in levels of mobilization, interactivity, and personalization, with, for example, party websites trying to mobilize citizens while websites belonging to politicians are used as a platform for self-promotion. In general, results show that the division of countries into East and West European is less important.