Consumer activity in social media: Managerial approaches to consumers' social media behavior

ABSTRACT Today, consumers are involved in a variety of activities, ranging from consuming content to participating in discussions, sharing knowledge with other consumers, and contributing to other consumers' activities. With the enormous interest in social media sites, such as YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, and Wikipedia, consumers are assumed to be actively contributing to marketing content. However, despite the rich opportunities for contributing, recent academic research indicates that consumers are not necessarily as active online as has been believed. The aim of this paper is to conceptualize consumers' activities in social media by examining the motivations behind the activities. By offering a more detailed…