CONSUMER BEHAVIOR IN ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKS: REVIEW AND FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

Abstract

The number of online social users grows very fast and socialization became most important activity. Companies deploy online social networks, platforms, tools and services in various activities aiming to create better experience for consumers which suppose to lead for loyalty, better branding and increase of sales. As social media networks and platforms represent new phenomena to practitioners and researches, there are only few attempts approaching consumers’ behavior in online social networks. Researchers analyzes consumers engagement models, transformed cyclic consumer decision model, typology of engagement (types of user behavior) or factors affecting consumer behavior in online social networks. As there is growing number of research in this area paper aims to provide a systematic review of consumer behavior in social media research and to identify important research areas structuring current research approaches.