Online consumer’s acceptance of social networking sites as potential shopping’s guide

Abstract

The emergence of social media has significantly altered the strategies that companies use to communicate with customers ( Lee, Xiong, & Hu, 2011). As social media moves from “buzz word” status to strategic tool, more practitioners are developing skills related to this online communication technology (Eyrich, Padman, & Sweetser, 2008). With the development of networks, especially electronic commerce’s appearance, consumers enter a new environment of trade, therefore, with the high degree of price dispersion in the online market, for example, customer information, search behaviour also changes (Guan & Cheng, 2009). In fact, with the rapid development of Web 2.0 technologies, such as Ajax and XML, a great number of social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Renren, MySpace, Kaixin, and LinkedIn) are emerging, which makes mass users interactions easier and more convenient (Yanli, Yi, & Yuli, 2010). These social media tools allow users to search, organize, share, annotate and contribute to contents in a collaborative way. For example, Curtis et al. (2010) found that social media techniques are becoming more abundant as public relations practitioners become mindful of their effectiveness in respect of reaching target audiences, promoting a specific cause, and further developing communication strategies. More than half of America’s teens and young adults send instant messages and use social networking sites, and more than one-third of all Internet users engage in these activities (Correa, Hinsley, & de Zúñiga, 2010).