Evidence from past research and insights from an exploratory investigation are combined in a conceptual model that defines and relates price, perceived quality, and perceived value. Propositions ab...

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Consumer Perceptions of Price, Quality, and Value: A Means-End Model and Synthesis of Evidence:

Background: There is currently a lack of information about the uses, benefits, and limitations of social media for health communication among the general public, patients, and health professionals from primary research Objective: To review the current published literature to identify the uses, benefits, and limitations of social media for health communication among the general public, patients, and health professionals, and identify current gaps in the literature to provide recommendations for future health communication research Methods: This paper is a review using a systematic approach A systematic search of the literature was conducted using nine electronic databases and manual searches to locate peer-reviewed studies published between January 2002 and February 2012 Results: The search identified 98 original research studies that included the uses, benefits, and/or limitations of social media for health communication among the general public, patients, and health professionals The methodological quality of the studies assessed using the Downs and Black instrument was low; this was mainly due to the fact that the vast majority of the studies in this review included limited methodologies and was mainly exploratory and descriptive in nature Seven main uses of social media for health communication were identified, including focusing on increasing interactions with others, and facilitating, sharing, and obtaining health messages The six key overarching benefits were identified as (1) increased interactions with others, (2) more available, shared, and tailored information, (3) increased accessibility and widening access to health information, (4) peer/social/emotional support, (5) public health surveillance, and (6) potential to influence health policy Twelve limitations were identified, primarily consisting of quality concerns and lack of reliability, confidentiality, and privacy Conclusions: Social media brings a new dimension to health care as it offers a medium to be used by the public, patients, and health professionals to communicate about health issues with the possibility of potentially improving health outcomes Social media is a powerful tool, which offers collaboration between users and is a social interaction mechanism for a range of individuals Although there are several benefits to the use of social media for health communication, the information exchanged needs to be monitored for quality and reliability, and the users’ confidentiality and privacy need to be maintained Eight gaps in the literature and key recommendations for future health communication research were provided Examples of these recommendations include the need to determine the relative effectiveness of different types of social media for health communication using randomized control trials and to explore potential mechanisms for monitoring and enhancing the quality and reliability of health communication using social media Further robust and comprehensive evaluation and review, using a range of methodologies, are required to establish whether social media improves health communication practice both in the short and long terms

A New Dimension of Health Care: Systematic Review of the Uses, Benefits, and Limitations of Social Media for Health Communication

As more and more marketers incorporate social media as an integral part of the promotional mix, rigorous investigation of the determinants that impact consumers’ engagement in eWOM via social networks is becoming critical. Given the social and communal characteristics of social networking sites (SNSs) such as Facebook, MySpace and Friendster, this study examines how social relationship factors relate to eWOM transmitted via online social websites. Specifically, a conceptual model that identifies tie strength, homophily, trust, normative and informational interpersonal influence as an important antecedent to eWOM behaviour in SNSs was developed and tested. The results confirm that tie strength, trust, normative and informational influence are positively associated with users’ overall eWOM behaviour, whereas a negative relationship was found with regard to homophily. This study suggests that product-focused eWOM in SNSs is a unique phenomenon with important social implications. The implications for research...

Determinants of consumer engagement in electronic word-of-mouth in social networking sites

Previous research on coupon proneness has measured the construct only in behavioral terms (i.e., consumers who are more responsive to coupon promotions are coupon prone). On the basis of the study ...

Distinguishing coupon proneness from value consciousness: An acquisition-transaction utility theory perspective.

This study employed a content analysis of the creative strategies present in the social media content shared by a sample of top brands. The results reveal which social media channels are being used, which creative strategies/appeals are being used, and how these channels and strategies relate to consumer engagement in branded social media. Past research has suggested that brands should focus on maintaining a social presence across social channels with content that is fresh and frequent and includes incentives for consumer participation (Ling et al., 2004). This study confirmed the importance of frequent updates and incentives for participation. In addition, several creative strategies were associated with customer engagement, specifically experiential, image, and exclusivity messages. Despite the value of these creative approaches, most branded social content can be categorized as functional.

Creative Strategies in Social Media Marketing: An Exploratory Study of Branded Social Content and Consumer Engagement

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Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix

Jn "The Concept of Quality and the Efficiency of Markets for Consumer Products," Hjorth-Andersen (1984) strongly condemns the use of overall productquality rankings, such as those published by Consumer Reports, as a basis for scientific research. His primary criticism is that creating an index of quality as a weighted average of subscores is usually misleading. He claims that this averaging process is unjustified except for brands that occupy approximately the same rank position on each attribute. This article reviews Hjorth-Andersen's arguments and identifies several important related questions on the use of published quality ratings in academic research. Statistical theory is developed to demonstrate that Hjorth-Andersen's conclusions are limited, and to examine the precise conditions under which his conclusions hold. Empirical evidence is presented that reveals the statistical frequency in real markets of the logical conditions deduced using our theory. Our conclusions differ significantly from those drawn by HjorthAndersen. A debate about the efficacy of quality indices is relevant not only to academic research but also to consumer welfare and strategic marketing planning. Consumer welfare and choice is affected by published quality ratings (Archibald, Haulman, and Moody 1983; Beales et al. 1981; Thorelli and Thorelli 1977). Commercial importance is evident from the widespread distribution of magazines like Consumer Reports. The consumer testing movement, started in 1927 by Chase and Schlink, has spread to agencies in more than 50 nations. These agencies are members of the International Organization of Consumers Unions (IOCU), and the combined circulation of their magazines is in the millions. Published quality ratings also influence academic research: our literature review' identified more than 30 studies that use objective quality ratings as data from which to draw inferences about price versus quality tradeoffs, advertising versus quality interactions, price versus quality changes over product life cycles, brand switching, market efficiency, and rational consumer judgments. Since this review concentrated on the marketing and economics literature, it is likely that the role of published quality ratings in academic research has been underestimated. In any case, academic researchers can and should assist product testing agencies in understanding sources of potential error in their quality scales. Strategic research, such as that conducted by the Strategic Planning Institute at Harvard University, has focused management attention on the influence of product quality on market performance measures like market share and rate-of-return on investment. For example, Phillips, Chang, and Buzzell (1983) indicate that product quality influences a firm's market share directly and its rate-of-return on investment indirectly through market share (see also Day 1986; Farris and Reibstein 1979; Urban et al. 1984). It is important that future research define coherently and measure accurately the construct of quality.

David J. Faulds

Papers

Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix

Indexing product quality: Issues, theory, and results.

The mobile shopping revolution: Redefining the consumer decision process

Perceptions of sales force automation: Differences between sales force and management

Why is my sales force automation system failing