Strategic use of social media on companies’ e-commerce sites

Abstract

Objective: This study assessed the Fortune 500 largest U.S. companies’ strategic use of social media for e-commerce and industry  differences. Background: Social media have changed the traditional communication landscape and empowered consumers to play active roles in economic activities as they are no longer merely passive recipients in the business transactions. While the importance of using social media for business becomes obvious, no nation-wide study has been identified in the literature on how companies use social media strategically. Therefore, an empirical study is needed. Method: The study used the web content analysis for data collection and analysis of a sample of 217 Fortune 500 e-commerce sites. Results: The findings showed that seven popular social media tools were available only on around 50% of the 217 sites for consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-company online interaction, communication, networking, and collaboration. Less than 50% of the consumers were actively engaged in using social media tools for posting ideas and comments. Conclusions: E-commerce administrators need to consider offering more social media tools and motivate consumers to actively communicate with the companies via social media. The study also recommended topics for further research.