Tweeting as a Marketing Tool: A Field Experiment in the TV Industry
© 2017, American Marketing Association. Many businesses today have adopted tweeting as a new form of product marketing. However, whether and how tweeting affects product demand remains inconclusive. The authors explore this question using a randomized field experiment on Sina Weibo, the top tweeting...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
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SAGE Publications
2019
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/120756 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1635-3797 |
| _version_ | 1811093965905068032 |
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| author | Gong, Shiyang Zhang, Juanjuan Zhao, Ping Jiang, Xuping |
| author2 | Sloan School of Management |
| author_facet | Sloan School of Management Gong, Shiyang Zhang, Juanjuan Zhao, Ping Jiang, Xuping |
| author_sort | Gong, Shiyang |
| collection | MIT |
| description | © 2017, American Marketing Association. Many businesses today have adopted tweeting as a new form of product marketing. However, whether and how tweeting affects product demand remains inconclusive. The authors explore this question using a randomized field experiment on Sina Weibo, the top tweeting website in China. The authors collaborate with a major global media company and examine how the viewing of its TV shows is affected by (1) the media company's tweets about its shows, and (2) recruited Weibo influentials' retweets of the company tweets. The authors find that both company tweets and influential retweets increase show viewing, but in different ways. Company tweets directly boost viewing, whereas influential retweets increase viewing if the show tweet is informative. Meanwhile, influential retweets are more effective than company tweets in bringing new Weibo followers to the company, which indirectly increases viewing. The authors discuss recommendations on how to manage tweeting as a marketing tool. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:53:28Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/120756 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:53:28Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| publisher | SAGE Publications |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1207562022-10-02T04:54:17Z Tweeting as a Marketing Tool: A Field Experiment in the TV Industry Gong, Shiyang Zhang, Juanjuan Zhao, Ping Jiang, Xuping Sloan School of Management Gong, Shiyang Zhang, Juanjuan © 2017, American Marketing Association. Many businesses today have adopted tweeting as a new form of product marketing. However, whether and how tweeting affects product demand remains inconclusive. The authors explore this question using a randomized field experiment on Sina Weibo, the top tweeting website in China. The authors collaborate with a major global media company and examine how the viewing of its TV shows is affected by (1) the media company's tweets about its shows, and (2) recruited Weibo influentials' retweets of the company tweets. The authors find that both company tweets and influential retweets increase show viewing, but in different ways. Company tweets directly boost viewing, whereas influential retweets increase viewing if the show tweet is informative. Meanwhile, influential retweets are more effective than company tweets in bringing new Weibo followers to the company, which indirectly increases viewing. The authors discuss recommendations on how to manage tweeting as a marketing tool. National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71372045) National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71602033) 2019-03-06T16:49:24Z 2019-03-06T16:49:24Z 2017-12 2019-03-06T15:48:47Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0022-2437 1547-7193 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/120756 Gong, Shiyang, Juanjuan Zhang, Ping Zhao, and Xuping Jiang. “Tweeting as a Marketing Tool: A Field Experiment in the TV Industry.” Journal of Marketing Research 54, no. 6 (December 2017): 833–850. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1635-3797 http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/JMR.14.0348 Journal of Marketing Research Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf SAGE Publications Other repository |
| spellingShingle | Gong, Shiyang Zhang, Juanjuan Zhao, Ping Jiang, Xuping Tweeting as a Marketing Tool: A Field Experiment in the TV Industry |
| title | Tweeting as a Marketing Tool: A Field Experiment in the TV Industry |
| title_full | Tweeting as a Marketing Tool: A Field Experiment in the TV Industry |
| title_fullStr | Tweeting as a Marketing Tool: A Field Experiment in the TV Industry |
| title_full_unstemmed | Tweeting as a Marketing Tool: A Field Experiment in the TV Industry |
| title_short | Tweeting as a Marketing Tool: A Field Experiment in the TV Industry |
| title_sort | tweeting as a marketing tool a field experiment in the tv industry |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/120756 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1635-3797 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT gongshiyang tweetingasamarketingtoolafieldexperimentinthetvindustry AT zhangjuanjuan tweetingasamarketingtoolafieldexperimentinthetvindustry AT zhaoping tweetingasamarketingtoolafieldexperimentinthetvindustry AT jiangxuping tweetingasamarketingtoolafieldexperimentinthetvindustry |