Volume 12 (2024-25)

Each volume of Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing consists of four 100-page issues in both print and online. 

The articles published in Volume 12 are below.

Volume 12 Number 1

  • Editorial
    Simon Beckett, Publisher
  • Practice Papers
    How to increase response by triggering hardwired human behaviours
    Nancy Harhut, Chief Creative Officer, HBT Marketing

    Marketers constantly seek ways to optimise engagement and response rates. Yet they often overlook the scientific evidence that reveals how people actually make decisions. Research shows that although people think they know why they do what they do, very often there are other factors at play that influence their decisions — factors that customers and prospects are unaware of. This paper demonstrates how marketers can take advantage of this phenomenon by embedding proven triggers of human behaviour into marketing strategy and execution. By using behavioural science principles such as autonomy bias, reciprocity and loss aversion, marketers can prompt decision defaults and considerably increase the chance that people engage with and respond to their communications.
    Keywords: behavioural science; autonomy bias; reciprocity principle; loss aversion; decision defaults; engagement; response; consumer behaviour; human behaviour; marketing strategy; behavioural triggers

  • Instinct over strategy: The pivotal shift in social media marketing
    Tom Sweeney, Global Vice President, Influencer, Brainlabs, and Harriet Phillips, Founder, Turn the Tables

    Strategic planning on social is starting to give way to another tactic — instinct. With AI integrated feeds dominating platforms like TikTok brands must adopt a more fluid approach to marketing. Success in this arena is based on pace, the right creatives and collaboration. The brands that can quickly identify emerging trends (by detecting ripples) leverage them (by riding waves) will reap the benefits long term (with the power of tides). This paper details how to blend data analysis with the right creativity to help ‘manufacture luck’ on social and foster genuine connections in the new era of social media.
    Keywords: influencer marketing; social media marketing; marketing; social strategy; performance marketing; creative strategy; AI

  • Creativity: Firing on all generative AI cylinders
    Andrew Pearson, Managing Director, Intelligencia Ltd, Macau

    Generative AI is unquestionably having its moment in the digital sun. It is currently being used to build applications that can generate new content quickly, efficiently and responsibly, as well as to augment the skills of workers. As this paper will show, however, its ability to create text, images, music, animation, video and even build software code from simple, user-generated text prompts will simplify business processes in a multitude of ways. With generative AI having already demonstrated its ability to ‘see’, ‘hear’, ‘speak’, ‘move’ and ‘write’, the power of its creativity will be increasingly embraced. It will not only be associated for image, audio and video content creation, but will also help with content personalisation, content automation, coding creation and assistance, augmenting customer support, augmenting workers, product design and content repurposing. The potential support it can provide to business is almost limitless.
    Keywords: artificial intelligence; generative AI; Gen AI

  • Research Papers
    Female motorsport fan engagement on social media-based brand communities
    Elisabeth Lick, Software Engineer, Aston Martin F1 Team, Rashid Bakirov, Visiting Fellow, Bournemouth University, and Tauheed Ahmad Ramjaun, Principal Academic in Corporate & Marketing Communications, Bournemouth University

    This study explored the engagement of female motorsport fans within F1 team brand communities on Twitter (now ‘X’). Specifically, we sought to investigate why and how female fans were engaging with social media-based brand communities managed by F1 motorsports teams, and to gain better insights into the factors that encourage or deter female fan engagement within such communities. Our research methods combined online surveys and content analysis of Twitter posts. The investigation revealed that female fans seemed hesitant to engage actively within motorsports team brand accounts due to a fear of receiving negative reactions to their comments. The findings also identified differences between the participation activities of female and male fans, as well as interest in different content categories. This study recommends that motorsports team brand community managers or social media managers give greater consideration to the well-being of female fans interacting on their social media platforms and communities. They also need to be aware of gender-based differences in engagement as well as the specific issues faced by female publics.
    Keywords: social media marketing; Formula 1; motorsports; Twitter; online brand community

  • Segmenting e-sports players: Consumer profiles of generation Z e-sports enthusiasts
    Claudia Brauer, Professor of Business and Management, MCI Internationale Hochschule GmbH, Kirstin Hallmann, Director of the MSc Sport Management Programme, German Sport University Cologne, and Anita Zehrer, Head of the Family Business Center, MCI The Entrepreneurial School

    Generation Z people born between 1995 and 2006 cite gaming as their favourite media and entertainment activity. For this reason, e-sport continues to be developed as a key channel for interactive marketing. This study aims to segment generation Z e-sports enthusiasts and create meaningful consumer profiles. This exploratory study employed an online survey (n = 429) to collect data on generation Z e-sports enthusiasts. A two-step cluster analysis was conducted based on motives. Socio-demographic information and behaviours served as descriptor variables to create consumer profiles. Four clusters were revealed: excitement lovers, sportscape experience seekers, immersed players and spectators, and entertainment and excitement adorers. Differences across the clusters merged across age and gender, but also hours played per week, games played and watched, and other behaviours. This study adds to the still limited body of academic segmentation studies on e-sports consumers, focusing on generation Z.
    Keywords: market segmentation; e-sports players; e-sports motivation; buyer personas

  • Who shows more emotion when interacting with a company on social media? A study of political orientation and tweet sentiment
    Jong Seok Lee, Associate Professor, University of Tennessee, and Jeffrey P. Kaleta, Assistant Professor, Appalachian State University

    This study provides insights into how consumers interact with companies on social media. The study draws upon the theory of personality and political orientation to examine the relationship between consumers’ political orientation and the emotion used in their online interactions with companies. To provide additional understanding of this relationship, the study incorporates the political orientation of companies as a moderator. Leveraging Twitter (now known as ‘X’) as a research context, the study provides empirical evidence that more conservative consumers show less positive emotion when interacting with companies. The findings suggest that this relationship is weaker when the company involved has a more conservative (or less liberal) political orientation. Finally, the main effect follows a non-linear pattern that becomes stronger at an exponential rate among the most conservative consumers.
    Keywords: social media; consumer behaviour; consumer emotion; political orientation; Fortune 500 companies; tweet sentiment; congruence of political orientation.