The Impact of Social Networking Websites to Facilitate the Effectiveness of Viral Marketing
International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications(IJACSA), (2010)Abstract
The Internet and the World Wide Web have become two key components in today&\#39;s technology based organizations and businesses. As the Internet is becoming more and more popular, it is starting to make a big impact on people&\#39;s day-to-day life. As a result of this revolutionary transformation towards the modern technology, social networking on the World Wide Web has become an integral part of a large number of people&\#39;s lives. Social networks are websites which allow users to communicate, share knowledge about similar interests, discuss favorite topics, review and rate products/services, etc. These websites have become a powerful source in shaping public opinion on virtually every aspect of commerce. Marketers are challenged with identifying influential individuals in social networks and connecting with them in ways that encourage viral marketing content movement and there has been little empirical research study about of this website to diffuse of viral marketing content. In this article, we explore the role of social network websites which has influence on viral marketing, and the characteristics of the most influential users to spread share viral content. Structural equation modeling is used to examine the patterns of inter-correlations among the constructions and to empirically test the hypotheses.