Mapping Social Media Tools For Sell vs Buy Activities Into Emerging And Developed Markets

Abstract

This paper studies usage patterns of global sellers and buyers using five forms of Web 2.0 social broadcast behaviors - blogging, micro-blogging, social networking, online video, and online photo uploading. A survey and analysis of the number of people using these tools to sell something (sellers), as compared those people using these same tools to buy something (buyers), is conducted on an “emerging” vs “developed” market basis. The data is obtained from an ongoing panel study and is a continuation of research already published in this area. Findings show that the tools are used quite differentially into emerging vs. developed markets. Social networking and micro-blogging platforms are used significantly more in emerging economies (regardless of sell or buy motivation) while the other three tools exhibit no consistent usage differences across economies. Findings also show that these same two platforms are favored for sell activities in emerging economies vs. developed economies. Blogging and micro-blogging are significantly favored tools of choice where buying is the motivation - blogging is favored by emerging economies and micro-blogging is favored by developed economies. Interestingly, photo uploading is the only tool which showed no differential usage across emerging/developed economies for any kind of sell or buy activity. Average sell/buy usage data for each social broadcast behavior is reported for each country in the emerging and developed markets. In order to better understand the eWOM implications of the current market participation conditions, some areas requiring further investigation are suggested.