Social Media Use in the Wood Products Industry: Impact on the Consumer Purchasing Process

Authors

  • Iris B Montague Research Forester USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station and Forest Products Marketing Unit Starkville, Mississippi 39702
  • Kathryn Arano Gazal Associate Professor of Forest Resources Management West Virginia University Division of Forestry and Natural Resources Morgantown, West Virginia 26505
  • Janice K Wiedenbeck Forest Products Technologist USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station Princeton, West Virginia 24740

Keywords:

marketing, social media, wood products, purchasing decision-making process, natural resources

Abstract

Numerous studies have investigated the impact social media has had on business performance. However, until recently, there has been limited research regarding social media in the U.S. wood products industry.  In 2013, a mail survey was conducted of wood products suppliers to investigate the use of social media as a marketing tool and to examine the factors affecting the use of social media in the industry.  Although this research yielded valuable information, the consumer side of social media use was not studied. Thus, a follow-up study was conducted in 2017 through an online survey to determine how social media marketing impacts the decision-making process of wood products consumers.  The survey also examined how respondents use social media to gather information about natural resources and related activities.  Of 928 respondents, 58 percent indicated using social media to gather information before purchasing any wood products.  The top three social media outlets used for gathering data were Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Respondents also listed having information available on the internet and having prior knowledge or awareness of the brand as important factors that influenced their decision to purchase a wood product. 

References

Aguilar, F. X., & Cai, Z. (2010). Conjoint effect of environmental labeling, disclosure of forest of origin and price on consumer preferences for wood products in the US and UK. Ecological Economics, 70(2), 308-316.

American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR). 2007. Online Panels. Retrieved January 26, 2018 at: https://www.aapor.org/AAPOR_Main/media/MainSiteFiles/Online-Panels.pdf.

Arano, K. G. (2008, March). Electronic commerce adoption in West Virginia's primary and secondary hardwood industries: Preliminary results. In Proceedings of the 2008 Southern Forest Economics Workers (SOFEW) Annual Meeting (pp. 72-81).

Baird, C.H, & Parasnis, G. (2011). From social media to social customer relationship management. Strategy & Leadership, 39(5), 30-37.

Baskaran, S., Howe, N. C., Mahadi, N., & Ayob, S. A. (2017). Youth and Social Media Comportment: A Conceptual Perspective. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 7(11), 1260-1277.

Bronner, F., & de Hoog, R. (2014). Social media and consumer choice. International Journal of Market Research, 56(1), 51-71.

Bruner, G. C., & Kumar, A. (2000). Web commercials and advertising hierarchy-of-effects. Journal of Advertising Research, 40(1-2), 35-42.

Cai, Z., & Aguilar, F. X. (2014). Corporate social responsibility in the wood products industry: US and Chinese consumers' perceptions. Forest Products Journal, 64(3), 97-106.

Callegaro, M., Baker, R. P., Bethlehem, J., Göritz, A. S., Krosnick, J. A., & Lavrakas, P. J. (Eds.). (2014). Online panel research: A data quality perspective. John Wiley & Sons.

Chaffey, D. (2016). Global social media research summary 2016. Smart Insights: Social Media Marketing. Retrieved May 16, 2018 at: http://www.Smartinsights.Com/SocialMedia-Marketing/Social-Media-Strategy/New-Global-SocialMedia-Research/.

Chappuis, B., Gaffey, B., & Parvizi, P. (2011). Are your customers becoming digital junkies? McKinsey Quarterly. Retrieved on June 17, 2018 at: http://www.looooker.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Are-your-customers-becoming-digital-junkies.pdf.

Couper, M. P. (2000). Web surveys: A review of issues and approaches. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 64(4), 464-494.

Daugherty, T., & Hoffman, E. (2014). eWOM and the importance of capturing consumer attention within social media. Journal of Marketing Communications, 20(1-2), 82-102.

Esfahani, E. (2005). Why ‘buy’buttons are booming. Business 2.0, 36.

Frandsen, M., Thow, M., & Ferguson, S. G. (2016). The effectiveness of social media (Facebook) compared with more traditional advertising methods for recruiting eligible participants to health research studies: a randomized, controlled clinical trial. JMIR Research Protocols, 5(3).

Gao, H., Barbier, G., & Goolsby, R. (2011). Harnessing the crowdsourcing power of social media for disaster relief. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 26(3), 10-14.

Gazal, K., Montague, I., Poudel, R., & Wiedenbeck, J. (2016). Forest products industry in a digital age: Factors affecting social media adoption. Forest Products Journal, 66(5), 343-353.

Gunawan, D. D., & Huarng, K. H. (2015). Viral effects of social network and media on consumers’ purchase intention. Journal of Business Research, 68(11), 2237-2241.

Hajli, M. N. (2014). A study of the impact of social media on consumers. International Journal of Market Research, 56(3), 387-404.

Hays, R. D., Liu, H., & Kapteyn, A. (2015). Use of internet panels to conduct surveys. Behavior Research Methods, 47(3), 685-690.

Hudson, S., Huang, L., Roth, M. S., & Madden, T. J. (2016). The influence of social media interactions on consumer–brand relationships: A three-country study of brand perceptions and marketing behaviors. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 33(1), 27-41.

Hughes, A. L., & Palen, L. (2009). Twitter adoption and use in mass convergence and emergency events. International Journal of Emergency Management, 6(3-4), 248-260.

Imran, M., Elbassuoni, S., Castillo, C., Diaz, F., & Meier, P. (2013, May). Extracting information nuggets from disaster-related messages in social media. In Iscram. Proceedings of the 10th International ISCRAM Conference – Baden-Baden, Germany, May 2013 T. Comes, F. Fiedrich, S. Fortier, J. Geldermann and L. Yang, eds.

Kim, A. J., & Ko, E. (2012). Do social media marketing activities enhance customer equity? An empirical study of luxury fashion brand. Journal of Business Research, 65(10), 1480-1486.

Kim, E., & Drumwright, M. (2016). Engaging consumers and building relationships in social media: How social relatedness influences intrinsic vs. extrinsic consumer motivation. Computers in Human Behavior, 63, 970-979.

Köhler, C. F., Rohm, A. J., de Ruyter, K., & Wetzels, M. (2011). Return on interactivity: The impact of online agents on newcomer adjustment. Journal of Marketing, 75(2), 93-108.

Lamberton, C., & Stephen, A. T. (2016). A thematic exploration of digital, social media, and mobile marketing: Research evolution from 2000 to 2015 and an agenda for future inquiry. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), 146-172.

Leung, X. Y., Bai, B., & Stahura, K. A. (2015). The marketing effectiveness of social media in the hotel industry: A comparison of Facebook and Twitter. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 39(2), 147-169.

Luna, S., & Pennock, M. J. (2018). Social Media Applications and Emergency Management: A Literature Review and Research Agenda. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 28(2018), 565-577.

Lurie, N. H., & Mason, C. H. (2007). Visual representation: Implications for decision making. Journal of Marketing, 71(1), 160-177.

Mangles, C. (2018). Is marketing ready for VR / AR in 2018? Retrieved on April 3, 2018 at: https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-platforms/video-marketing/is-marketing-ready-for-vr-ar-in-2018/

Montague, I. B., & Wiedenbeck, J. (2012). Cultivating connections in 2012--web strategies used by forest products businesses in the southern US. In In: Aronow, Mary Ellen, ed. Proceedings of the 2012 Southern Forest Economics Workers (SOFEW) annual meeting; 2012 March 19-21; Charlotte, NC. Southern Forest Economics Workers: 112-124. (pp. 112-124).

Montague, I., Gazal, K. A., Wiedenbeck, J., & Shepherd, J. G. (2016). Forest products industry in a digital age: A look at e-commerce and social media. Forest Products Journal, 66(1), 49-57.

Nadeem, W., Andreini, D., Salo, J., & Laukkanen, T. (2015). Engaging consumers online through websites and social media: A gender study of Italian Generation Y clothing consumers. International Journal of Information Management, 35(4), 432-442.

Nielson, A. C. (2015). Global trust in advertising. NY: USA, Nielsen Media Research, ACNielsen. Retrieved on April 3, 2018 at: http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/2015/global-trust-in-advertising-2015.html

Olsen, N. V., & Christensen, K. (2015). Social media, new digital technologies and their potential application in sensory and consumer research. Current Opinion in Food Science, 3, 23-26.

Park, D. H., Lee, J., & Han, I. (2007). The effect of on-line consumer reviews on consumer purchasing intention: The moderating role of involvement. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 11(4), 125-148.

Phoon, A. (2017). Social Media and its stark influence on society. WRIT: GSW Journal of First-Year Writing, 1(1), 8.

Qualman, E. (2010). Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business. John Wiley & Sons.

Sarıkaş, R. A. A., Ceviz, I. N. Ö., Yayla, R. A. A., Tektaş, A. P. D. N., & Polat, R. A. Z. (2016). Impact of advertisements in social media on purchasing behaviour of associate students. Journal of Educational & Instructional Studies in the World, 6(4).

Shim, S. (1996). Adolescent consumer decision‐making styles: The consumer socialization perspective. Psychology & Marketing, 13(6), 547-569.

Shook, S. R., Zhang, Y., Braden, R., & Baldridge, J. (2002). The use of eBusiness in the Pacific Northwest secondary forest products industry. Forest Products Journal, 52(1), 59.

Sohn, D. (2014). Coping with information in social media: The effects of network structure and knowledge on perception of information value. Computers in Human Behavior, 32, 145-151.

Survey Sampling International. (2108). Retrieved on April 25, 2018 at www.surveysampling.com/ssi-esomar-28-questions.

Tardanico, S. (2012). Is social media sabotaging real communication? Forbes. Retrieved on April 3, 2018 at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/susantardanico/2012/04/30/is-social-media-sabotaging-real-communication/#a6dde4e2b62f.

The Statistics Portal. (2018). Retrieved April 25, 2018 at: www.Statista.com.

Thompson, M.E., Fong, G.T., Hammond, D., Boudreau, C., Driezen, P., Hyland, A., Borland, R., Cummings, K.M., Hastings, G.B., Siahpush, M. and MacKintosh, A.M. (2006). Methods of the International Tobacco Control (ITC) four country survey. Tobacco control, 15(suppl 3), iii12-iii18.

Uddin, K. S., Chowdhury, S. A., & Mamun, M. M. (2017). Problems and Prospects of Brand Communication through Social Media: Evidence in Bangladesh. Global Journal of Management and Business Research.

United States Census Bureau (US Census Bureau). (2016). Retrieved January 26, 2018 at: https://www.census.gov/.

Vilpponen, A., Winter, S., & Sundqvist, S. (2006). Electronic word-of-mouth in online environments: Exploring referral networks structure and adoption behavior. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 6(2), 8-77.

Vlosky, R. P., & Gazo, R. (1996). The Internet and the forest products community: The role of the Forest Products Society. Forest Products Journal, 46(5), 19.

Vlosky, R. P., & Smith, T. M. (2003). eBusiness in the US hardwood lumber industry. Forest Products Journal, 53(5), 21.

Vlosky, R. P., & Westbrook, T. (2002). eBusiness exchange between homecenter buyers and wood products suppliers. Forest Products Journal, 52(1), 38.

Vlosky, R. P., Westbrook, T., & Poku, K. (2002). An exploratory study of Internet adoption by primary wood products manufacturers in the western United States. Forest Products Journal, 52(6), 35.

Wang, X., Yu, C., & Wei, Y. (2012). Social media peer communication and impacts on purchase intentions: A consumer socialization framework. Journal of interactive marketing, 26(4),

Downloads

Published

2019-02-20

Issue

Section

Empirical Manuscripts