With the rapid development of e-commerce and social media in China, user-generated short video ads through social media have become very popular. However, the unique elements and phenomena for user-generated short video ads through mobile platforms have not yet been investigated. Therefore, a theoretical framework is proposed to explain the effect of user-generated social media short video ads on product sales from the perspective of advertisement sociability and vividness attributes, especially considering the moderation effect of advertisement content generators, including influencers, sellers and buyers. An empirical study using data from the Douyin platform and the Taobao e-commerce platform was conducted using dynamic panel models. The results indicate that the number of comments as one of the advertisement sociability attributes and female vividness and music vividness as two of the advertisement vividness attributes have consistently positive effects on product sales. The moderating effects of the influencer and the seller are positive for the effect of sociability on product sales, whereas the moderating effect of the buyer is positive for the effect of vividness on product sales. Thus, the best strategy to promote products through user-generated short video ads on mobile short video sharing platforms is for buyers to publish short video ads with music and a female or both a male and a female together; moreover, having a large number of comments increases product sales.

This study investigates the differences in traveler information-seeking behaviors between United States (US) American and Chinese travelers. A Chi-Square statistical analysis of 700 US and 352 Chinese questionnaires showed that age and educational level were significant factors in both cases. There were significant differences in terms of how the two groups sought travel information as well as in their respective travel behaviors. American travelers relied heavily on the internet while the Chinese preferred word-of-mouth recommendations. These findings are critical to tourism marketers at a time when managers are being held accountable for their marketing budgets. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Virtual communities (VCs) have developed rapidly, with more and more people participating in them to exchange information and opinions. A virtual community is a group of people who may or may not meet one another face to face, and who exchange words and ideas through the mediation of computer bulletin boards and networks. A business-to-consumer virtual community (B2CVC) is a commercial group that creates a trustworthy environment intended to motivate consumers to be more willing to buy from an online store. B2CVCs create a social atmosphere through information contribution such as recommendations, reviews, and ratings of buyers and sellers. Although the importance of B2CVCs has been recognized, few studies have been conducted to examine members' word-of-mouth behavior within these communities. This study proposes a model of involvement, statistics, trust, “stickiness,” and word-of-mouth in a B2CVC and explores the relationships among these elements based on empirical data. The objectives are threefold: (i) to empirically test a B2CVC model that integrates measures of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors; (ii) to better understand the nature of these relationships, specifically through word-of-mouth as a measure of revenue generation; and (iii) to better understand the role of stickiness of B2CVC in CRM marketing. The model incorporates three key elements concerning community members: (i) their beliefs, measured in terms of their involvement assessment; (ii) their attitudes, measured in terms of their satisfaction and trust; and, (iii) their behavior, measured in terms of site stickiness and their word-of-mouth. Involvement is considered the motivation for consumers to participate in a virtual community. For B2CVC members, information searching and posting have been proposed as the main purpose for their involvement. Satisfaction has been reviewed as an important indicator of a member's overall community evaluation, and conceptualized by different levels of member interactions with their VC. The formation and expansion of a VC depends on the willingness of members to share information and services. Researchers have found that trust is a core component facilitating the anonymous interaction in VCs and e-commerce, and therefore trust-building in VCs has been a common research topic. It is clear that the success of a B2CVC depends on the stickiness of its members to enhance purchasing potential. Opinions communicated and information exchanged between members may represent a type of written word-of-mouth. Therefore, word-of-mouth is one of the primary factors driving the diffusion of B2CVCs across the Internet. Figure 1 presents the research model and hypotheses. The model was tested through the implementation of an online survey of CTrip Travel VC members. A total of 243 collected questionnaires was reduced to 204 usable questionnaires through an empirical process of data cleaning. The study's hypotheses examined the extent to which involvement, satisfaction, and trust influence B2CVC stickiness and members' word-of-mouth. Structural Equation Modeling tested the hypotheses in the analysis, and the structural model fit indices were within accepted thresholds: χ²/df was 2.76, NFI was .904, IFI was .931, CFI was .930, and RMSEA was .017. Results indicated that involvement has a significant influence on satisfaction (p<0.001, β=0.809). The proportion of variance in satisfaction explained by members' involvement was over half (adjusted R²=0.654), reflecting a strong association. The effect of involvement on trust was also statistically significant (p<0.001, β=0.751), with 57 percent of the variance in trust explained by involvement (adjusted R²=0.563). When the construct “stickiness” was treated as a dependent variable, the proportion of variance explained by the variables of trust and satisfaction was relatively low (adjusted R²=0.331). Satisfaction did have a significant influence on stickiness, with β=0.514. However, unexpectedly, the influence of trust was not even significant (p=0.231, t=1.197), rejecting that proposed hypothesis. The importance of stickiness in the model was more significant because of its effect on e-WOM with β=0.920 (p0.001). Here, the measures of Stickiness explain over eighty of the variance in e-WOM (Adjusted R²=0.846). Overall, the results of the study supported the hypothesized relationships between members' involvement in a B2CVC and their satisfaction with and trust of it. However, trust, as a traditional measure in behavioral models, has no significant influence on stickiness in the B2CVC environment. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on B2CVCs, specifically addressing gaps in the academic research by integrating measures of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in one model. The results provide additional insights to behavioral factors in a B2CVC environment, helping to sort out relationships between traditional measures and relatively new measures. For practitioners, the identification of factors, such as member involvement, that strongly influence B2CVC member satisfaction can help focus technological resources in key areas. Global e-marketers can develop marketing strategies directly targeting B2CVC members. In the global tourism business, they can target Chinese members of a B2CVC by providing special discounts for active community members or developing early adopter programs to encourage stickiness in the community. Future studies are called for, and more sophisticated modeling, to expand the measurement of B2CVC member behavior and to conduct experiments across industries, communities, and cultures.

Purpose: This study aims to understand how different levels of streamer channels influence luxury brand sales in live streaming commerce. This study also seeks to understand the conditions under which luxury brands may benefit more from different level streamer channels.Design/methodology/approach: Panel data were collected from 17 international luxury brands on the Douyin live streaming platform in an 18 week period from August to December 2020 and analyzed by using a two-way fixed effects model.Findings: The authors compared different mega-, macro- and micro-streamer channels within live streaming commerce and found that the densities of mega- and macro-streamer channels had significant positive impacts on luxury brand sales in live streaming commerce. Moreover, the effects of the density of streamer channel on luxury brand sales were moderated by such variables as product line breadth, product line depth, product type (star/non-star) and product price (high/low). The authors found that product line breadth and depth could reduce the positive impact of the densities of mega- and macro-streamer channels on luxury brand sales. For star products and high-priced products, the relationship between the density of mega-streamer channel and luxury brand sales was more likely to be observed than for non-star products and low-priced products. The relationship between the density of macro-streamer channel and luxury brand sales was more likely to be observed in low-priced products than in high-priced products.Originality/value: The findings make important contributions to the literature in that the authors expand the influencer-brand fit theory by proposing a new model of effects of the densities of mega-, macro- and micro-streamer channels on sales performance across different luxury products to improve our understanding of the fit among influencers, brands and products. This helps luxury brands make basic decisions of “who sells” and “sells what” when engaging in live streaming commerce.

The literature on the role of enterprise social media (ESM) utilisation in driving the innovation profiles of organisations has not provided an understanding of the mechanisms of this positive relationship. By conceptualising ESM as including internal and external social media use, this study examined the mediating role of market orientation strategies in the link between ESM use and product innovation. The results of structural equation modeling, among a sample of organisations based in South Africa, show that ESM use positively affects the market orientation strategies of companies and these have a positive effect on product innovation. While inter-functional coordination does not mediate the external social media–product innovation link, it does so in the internal social media–product innovation link. These results imply that organisations that wish to pursue product innovation (and perhaps strategies of differentiation) should use ESM, leveraging their value in knowledge generation and assimilation.