Guest editorial: Cutting-edge research in social media and interactive marketing

Social media marketing, once a relatively new area of academic exploration, is ubiquitous. Research over the past two decades has advanced the field of social media marketing beyond the embryotic stage of the research life-cycle, to a well-developed academic discipline (Veloutsou and Liao, 2023). As a field of inquiry, the social media marketing literature transitioned relatively quickly from conceptual and adoption-based research, to emergent and state-of-the-art theoretical and empirical investigations (Peltier et al., 2024a; Wang, 2024). Despite this impressive stream of literature, and the continued growth of research investigating this phenomenon, next generation, cutting-edge social media research is needed to foreshadow the next wave of high priority challenges and opportunities (Wang, 2023).

The purpose of this special issue is to identify cutting-edge research on social media and interactive marketing. For example, emergent research has focused on topics such as influencers (Mir and Salo, 2024; Sicilia and López, 2023), information sharing and e-word-of-mouth (Rodríguez-Torrico et al., 2023), decision-making (Zadeh et al., 2023a), personal selling (He et al., 2024) and corporate reputation (Kunz and Wirtz, 2024). From the perspective of social media technologies and digital analytics, recent research has investigated topics such as virtual reality and the metaverse (Barrera and Shah, 2023), livestreaming (Shao, 2024), social commerce (Joo and Yang, 2023; Ma et al., 2023), and artificial intelligence (Peltier et al., 2024b). Theory and scale development have also seen increased research attention, and specifically with regard to conceptual frameworks, research agendas, and scale development (Vo et al., 2024; Wei et al., 2024). Social media research revisiting existing topics and theories has focused on such areas as brand communities (Kwon and Ha, 2023; Luo et al., 2024), and consumer wellness, information privacy, and social cause marketing (Rhu, 2024). These are all important areas needing additional conceptual and empirical exploration.

The special issue had more than 80 submissions. Thank you to everyone who submitted a paper. Below we provide a brief synopsis of each of the ten accepted papers. As shown in Table I, we have aggregated the papers into four, non-exclusive thematic categories, (1) emergent social media platforms and technologies, (2) social media influencers, (3) consumer welfare and privacy, and (4) research frameworks and methods.

The special issue's first theme includes four articles addressing emergent social media platforms and technologies, including social commerce, live-streaming, and the metaverse/virtual reality(VR). In their article “Social commerce in the social media age: understanding how interactive commerce enhancements navigate app continuance intention,” Chong et al. (2024) explore the value of different interactive marketing enhancements within the context of social commerce apps. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), they examine how interactive commerce enhancements (e.g. haptic imagery and social presence), enhance user engagement via immersion, and ultimately motivate continued usage of social commerce apps. The findings suggest that integrating these interactive features can play a crucial role in retaining social commerce app users and encouraging repeat usage.

The article by Zhou et al.'s (2024) “The antecedents and outcomes of electronic customer-to-customer interaction: a PLS-SEM and fsQCA approach,” also focuses on social commerce, investigating antecedents and outcomes of electronic customer-to-customer interactions. In their study, Zhou et al. employ both partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identify relationships between consumer characteristics that include ability (perceived self-efficacy), motivation (intrinsic motivation), and opportunity (tie strength with other customers), and the outcome of customer stickiness to the social commerce app. The combined findings highlight the critical role customer-to-customer interactions have in enhancing users' continued social commerce usage.

Also part of the emergent social media technologies theme, in their article “Explaining the gift-giving intentions of live-streaming audiences through social presence: the perspective of interactive marketing,” Lin and Lee (2024) investigate how social presence influences the gift-giving behaviors of live-streaming audiences. Utilizing the theory of multidimensional social presence, Lin and Lee show that the sense of social presence significantly increases audience intention to engage in gift-giving behaviors directed toward their favorite live-streamers. The findings offer valuable insights to both platform managers and live streamers, highlighting the importance of fostering social presence in live-streaming platforms to enhance audience engagement and support.

Finally, in the article “Towards an inclusive metaverse: Maneuvering between acceptance of disability and need for uniqueness,” Farah and Ramadan (2024) discuss the challenges and opportunities of creating an inclusive virtual reality (VR) environment for people with physical disabilities. Examining how people with special needs perceive their disability in the metaverse, the authors investigate how people with physical disabilities develop emotional connections in the metaverse and how that attachment influences the individual's overall well-being. Notably, the findings address the complex nature of the interrelationships between virtual place attachment, disability acceptance, and need for uniqueness in the virtual world.

The social media influencers theme includes two articles, the first of which addresses vlogs as a social media influencer content strategy and the second which deals with a brand's use of virtual influencers. The article by Zhang et al. (2024), “Unintended” Marketing through Influencer Vlogs: Impacts of Interactions, Parasocial Relationships and Perceived Influencer Credibility on Purchase Behaviors social media influencers,” examines the nuanced impacts of influencer vlogs (video logs) on consumer behavior through a collaborative data collection effort with an active YouTube celebrity. The study reveals that vlogs can directly and indirectly impact consumers' purchase behaviors through enhanced parasocial relationships and perceived credibility of the influencer. The findings highlight the importance of interactions and emotional connections fostered through influencers' vlogs, which can lead to higher engagement and trust in influencer recommendations.

Marketers weighing whether to utilize human or virtual influencers are likely to find the article title “Virtual influencers and corporate reputation: From marketing game to empirical analysis,” of interest. In this study, Xin et al. (2024) focus on the impact of virtual influencers on corporate reputation and examine what may lead brands to favor virtual vs. human influencers. Employing game theory and empirical analysis, the study's findings provide insights into managing a social media influencer marketing strategy.

The special issue's third topical theme includes two articles addressing consumer welfare and privacy. In the article, “Not all sunshine and rainbows: Exploring the dark side of AI in interactive marketing,” Labrecque et al. (2024) explore consumer welfare social media and interactive marketing by examining the unintended negative consequences of AI technologies. Adopting a broad consumer welfare perspective, the authors review the existing academic literature as well as ethical principles from key technology companies and media reports to explore the negative outcomes of AI adoption. The resulting framework and research agenda provides marketers with an approach to further examine the dark side of AI that may allow marketers to maximize the benefits of AI while mitigating its risks to consumer welfare.

Meanwhile, the article “AI-driven technology and privacy: the value of social media responsibility” by Walker and Milne (2024), takes a more specific perspective on privacy in a social media context, addressing the relationship between AI-driven technologies and consumer privacy concerns. Through their review of the privacy issues discussed within the social media and AI literature, Walker and Milne propose a conceptual framework outlining the key privacy issues that companies must address in AI-enabled social media environments, introducing us to the concept of “social media responsibility.” In doing so, the authors outline how privacy is a responsibility and advocate for stronger (self-)regulatory frameworks and more responsible AI usage to protect consumer privacy and enhance trust in social media platforms.

The final thematic topic in the special issue includes two articles focused on research frameworks and methods. Building on the brand engagement literature, the article by Dong et al. (2024), “Negative online brand engagement: conceptualisation, scale development and validation,” develops and validates a new scale to measure negative online brand engagement. Across nine studies, they demonstrate the multidimensional nature of negative online brand engagement that entails cognitive, affective, online constructive behavior, and online destructive behavior elements. The scale offers a valuable tool for marketers and researchers looking to understand consumers' negative engagement across social media and other online communities.

Finally, Peltier et al. (2024a) provide a comprehensive review and research agenda in their article titled, “Cutting-edge research in social media and interactive marketing: A review and research agenda.” Synthesizing over 1,000 articles from over 25 journals, the study identifies eight social media content areas and offers key research needs to advance the social media and interactive marketing literature. The content areas identified in this extensive review encompass many of the themes and contexts found in the other articles within this special issue and include: (1) data sources, methodology and scale development, (2) emergent social media technologies, (3) artificial intelligence, (4) virtual reality, (5) sales and sales management, (6) consumer welfare, (7) influencer marketing, and (8) social commerce.

The intent of this special issue was to address cutting-edge issues in social media and interactive marketing. The ten articles contained in this special issue spanned an array of content areas and addressed important research questions. In Table I we offer a broad research agenda that we hope spurs conceptual and empirical research in what is an explosive and evolving area of academic and practical inquiry.

is one of the fastest growing areas in the social media literature. In this regard, Chong et al. (2024) convey the importance of future research that increases understanding of how interactive social media commerce affects consumer engagement and loyalty. Similarly, Zhou et al. (2024) urge research addressing the antecedents and outcomes of social commerce, and particularly with regard to electronic customer-to-customer interactions. Lin and Lee (2024) stressed the importance of research that examined the effect that live-streaming has on consumer behavior, not only in the for-profit space, but also for not-for-profit and cause marketing. Specific to artificial intelligence, Peltier et al. (2024a) outlined an important array of cutting-edge research opportunities, including social media analytics, AI-driven content, theory development, and consumer behavior. Although limited research exists, Farah and Ramadan (2024) offered future research support specific to the metaverse and virtual reality, and specifically for consumers with different needs.

Influencer research, for both live and virtual influencers, is an emergent topic in the social media marketing literature. Xin et al. (2024) spotlight the importance of research investigating virtual influencers from both a firm and consumer perspective. Zhang et al. (2024) argue that live influencer marketing remains a critical area of research inquiry, and especially given advancing communication technologies and social media theories.

Walker and Milne (2024), and Labrecque et al. (2024), urged research focusing on the positive and negative aspects of artificial intelligence.

In their paper, Peltier et al. (2024a) presented an extensive review of emergent cutting-edge social media research and presented a testable research framework. Each of the future research agenda themes noted in Table I were presented in the paper, as well as a number of other research need areas (qualitative and quantitative data sources, big data, personal selling and sales management. Lastly et al. (2024) highlighted the critical need for new social media scales, ones that focus on not only theory testing, but also for positive and negative outcomes as well.

James W Peltier

Department of Marketing, Univiversity of Wisconsin-Whitewater Whitewater,Wisconsin, USA, and

Andrew J Dahl

Department of Marketing, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater College of Businessand Economics Whitewater, Wisconsin, USA