Social+media+and+it+influences+on+business



=__Social Media and its Influences on Business__= Social media is fast becoming a large part of everybody’s daily life style, since Facebook launched in 2004 it has had over 500 million users, on average 58 million tweets are sent every day and 55 million photos are uploaded to Instagram every day. Social media is defined by Dave Evans as “texts, word, pictures and the like created with the intent of sharing. In the context of a market place it is the thoughts and experience of participants- for example consumers- that relate to their experiences with the brands, products or services” (Evans 2008) media type="custom" key="25420940"
 * __Introduction__**
 * __Why Is Social Media a New Trend In Business?__**

One of the biggest reasons why social media has become a new trend in business is because it is one of the biggest trends in society. The rise of social media has taken place over the past 15 years; however the biggest rise has taken place since the late 2000’s. Since the advancement in technology and increase of smart phones social media has expanded and become a bigger part of everyday life as it can be accessed anywhere and everywhere. Companies were slow to make it a business tool but now it is an essential part of every modern business. To be able to access information about your customers and to target them with marketing techniques where ever they are is a massive opportunity for businesses. New job roles have been created for social media experts to join companies to ensure that the usage of social media is being done correctly and effectively. As social media expands it grows in to more areas of business, and now finding the next successful form of social media has become one of the biggest challenges for a business and a business in itself.

Social media can be used in many different ways in business, the most oblivious use is in marketing but as social media grows it has started being used as a data collection tool, for aftercare service and in recruitment.


 * __Social media in marketing__**

Social media marketing is the use of social media pages to gain traffic through websites and get recognition of a brand. The idea behind social media marketing is to be able to create content that is interesting and related to your target market with the intention to get the attention of the market you want to attract and for them to share it around others in that market. A key part to social media marketing is content creation, this doesn’t necessarily have to be advertising a product, it can be advertising the brand or be the creation of content with the intent on going viral. Pousttchi and weidermann describe viral marketing using mobiles as an example, “viral marketing as a concept for distribution or communication that relies on customers to transmit content via mobile communication techniques and mobile devices to other potential customers in their social sphere and to animate these contacts to also transmit the content” (Pousttchi and Weidermann 2007).

A great example of this is the 2012 campaign by Nike called the #MakeItCount campaign. Two video makers that had gained notoriety on YouTube were given the task by Nike to create a video of what they thought ‘Make It Count’ meant. They video had to promote the #MakeItCount hashtag. Here is what they created, media type="custom" key="25420962" The video has been viewed nearly 11 million times and Nike gained an 18% rise in profit after the video was released and shared across many different social media sites. Millions of customers tweeted using the hashtag and uploaded photos to Instagram using it too. This was a cheap way for Nike to get their brand to consumers and broaden their previous reach.

__**Case Study **__



In order to demonstrate how social media influences business and marketing, a case study will be provided below. The case study examines the use of Instagram in the commercial sector, focusing primarily on the fashion industry. The wiki has briefly looked into the use of Instagram, however, this case study will give further analysis on the influence it has on businesses. Instagram is a social media platform that allows the user to take a picture or video, edit the image using filters and then post it to their followers (Instagram, 2014). There has been a recent trend where businesses have been using Instagram to promote products or service to their followers. In turn, Instagram can influencing business. The following contribution will look at various social media campaigns on Instagram evaluating its successes and influences.

__ Businesses Using Instagram __ Instagram has launched its own webpage dedicated to educating and promoting the use of the network to businesses. [|http://business.instagram.com/#] Instagram claims that you can share you brand’s unique selling points on the site. The networking site has an engaged community that is open to new perspectives (Instagram, 2014). Instagram is a visual medium, promoting a beautiful environment that allows a business to promote their brand story in a creative and inspiring environment (Instagram, 2014).

__Why Should a business use Instagram?__  Instagram can influence business decisions in various ways.


 * Large target market
 * Global market
 * Active site

The above information shows that a business can use Instagram to influence the target market it is promoting to. It can also allow businesses to target outside of their domestic market. Furthermore, it is evident from the above statistics that a company will be targeting a large number of potential consumers.

__Instagram’s Influence on Marketing and Social Media Campaigns __ Ming and Yazdanifard (2014) state that successful companies can rely on Instagram to promote products online to a global market, supporting the above statistics. Therefore, Instagram influence business in their social media marketing campaigns. Sevinc (2014) has demonstrated that you can make products speak through photos that are posted on Instagram. Furthermore, Sevinc (2014) has shown the importance of using hashtags on this social media platform in order to influence marketing campaigns. Hashtags are like adding key words to your post, where a consumer can track activity. Funk (2012) states that hashtags can promote a trend and become a integral part to a social media campaign.

__Instagram’s Influence on Relationships with Consumers __ Bergström and Bäckman (2013) have shown that Instagram can be used to communicate with customers and in turn, this can lead to the development of a relationship. Furthermore, Instagram has provided a network in which consumers can strengthen their relationship with a brand or company (Bergström and Bäckman, 2013). Thus, this research has shown the Instagram has influenced both businesses and consumers in terms of their relationship development. In support of this, Kaplan (2012) has highlighted that sharing short information or pictures frequently can build a relationship with a consumer. Applying this notion to Instagram, it can be deemed that providing a company uploads pictures frequently onto the network, and then this will create a relationship with consumers.

__<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Instagram’s Influence on the Fashion Industry __ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Shiay (2014) has identified that fashion houses now have social media sites, such as Instagram, which are implemented into their social media campaigns. The introduction of Instagram has influenced businesses within fashion in terms of social media activity and campaigns. Instagram provides a visual platform and experience where the consumers can interact with a brand (Kontu et al., 2013). Furthermore, it has presented a unique opportunity for branding for clothing companies when they wish to distinguish themselves from others in the competitive and busy fashion industry (Kontu et al., 2013). In turn, fashion can be described as a visual art, and therefore is easily adaptable to social media sites, such as Instagram. A social media strategy that is successful needs to result in an increased attraction and desire to purchase a product, and should increase sales (Kontu et al., 2013). Instagram has enabled fashion houses to create this desire and increased attraction, and is potentially profitable for the company. Mohr (2013) illustrates that Instagram promotes connection with an audience or following, which can improve customer relationships. Mohr (2013) has found the use of Instagram within a social media strategy for fashion companies to be essential and important. This has been confirmed by Franziska and Carsten (2013), who undertook a study, founding that 56.7% of participants felt that Instagram was the most influential social media platform for fashion brands to use when undertaking a social media campaign. Furthermore, it was discovered that Instagram users check updates daily/weekly, demonstrating that it can be a form of regular communication for a brand and consumer (Franziska and Carsten, 2013). Therefore, it is important to note that the use of Instagram influences the fashion industry in various ways. Firstly, communication is enhanced; it can promote successful marketing campaigns and can increase profitability.

__<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Examples of Influence __



<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Topshop are very active on Instagram. They have over 2 million followers and have posted over 2000 images on the social networking site. They use Instagram to promote new products and trends that have been launched within their stores. From the above image, you can see that are active users of hashtags, allowing consumers to identify with the products and promote their social media platforms. Consumers are actively communicating with the company, and are therefore developing relationships. This has shown how Instagram has influenced business, through developing relationships with consumers and by promoting products online. ASOS are also very active on Instagram showing how it has influenced business, in particular the fashion industry. They have posted over 2,500 images and have over 1.5 million followers. This has shown that they are targeting a large audience when they are posting on social media. From the above Instagram post you can see that ASOS link product codes to their post, promoting what they are currently selling and what is trending. This is a direct link demonstrating how Instagram has influenced business, as ASOS are promoting their products to their consumers. This form of promotion may lead to increased sales and profitability.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">To summarise the case study, Instagram has influenced business is various way. Primarily, it has allowed a relationship to build between a brand or company and a consumer. Furthermore, it allows promotion and advertising of products. This has been demonstrated by applying this theory to fashion industry, focusing on high-street stores and online websites, Topshop and ASOS.

The first advantage is that it is cheap if not free. It is free to create accounts on most social media pages and with the viral nature of social media, and the ability for your target market to share your content, means that you can reach a large amount of people with low costs and relative ease. The next advantage is the ability to engage with customers quickly and on a direct basis. With social media you can directly talk to consumers and get opinions along with reviews on material, making it easier to target them directly. The use of two-way communication is something that traditional methods lacked and in previous years to get two-way communication companies had to spend a lot of time and money to gain any information. The use of social media now means you can obtain this information with relative ease and low costs all in a short amount of time.
 * __Advantages to social media marketing__**

The use of social media marketing increases you brand visibility. As social media is so accessible, consumer can see your content, brand and advertisement almost anywhere and everywhere. The brand therefore becomes more visible and you are more like reach more customers and expand your client and consumer base. Finally it’s a large part of modern culture, for companies that don’t use social media not only do you miss an opportunity but you also can have an brand perception of being outdated and that can have an effect on your company.


 * __Disadvantages__**

The fact that social media gives your consumer a chance to share around your information, products and company was an advantage however it can also be a negative. This can be shown by Waitrose, who in 2012 released a Twitter campaign called #WaitroseReasons. Waitrose asked its followers to tweet “I shop and Waitrose because….” and use their hashtag. This had a massive backlash with the majority of tweets mocking Waitrose. Examples include:

(Daily Mail 2012)

So the fact that social media is public and anyone can voice their opinions had a negative effect for Waitrose and found them having to do some serious PR work to get back on a positive track.

The next disadvantage links closely to the previous; the use of negative reviews being public and to be able to be seen by anyone and everyone, the views may only be held by a few customers however can be seen by all and will give a negative view for the brand. Some of these complaints went viral on Facebook creating a very broad and negative view of some brands. (http://www.dpom.co.uk/uimages/Blogs/Virg)

This image went viral after Jim Boyden tagged the Virgin Media page in a Facebook update apologising for is deceased father not paying his bill. The backlash and disgust towards Virgin Media was shared by over 65,000 people.

The last disadvantage is hackers, hackers can be a large threat to a brand on social media as if a hacker were to gain access to the account of a well-known brand they are able to post on behalf of the company and give off a negative image for the company. Most social media sites are very wary of hackers and have lots of systems in place to stop them however there will always be people with the ability to get around these and they will target large brands on social media.


 * __ Social media and Data collection __**

As social media grew companies started using is as a free source to collect data about their consumers and reviews of their products. Data collected from social media can tell you consumer demographics, consumer trends and feedback from current advertisements. Facebook is a great example of how data collected can be used. Facebook tells you the demographic of the people that like your page, they can tell you; age groups, gender, where they are from and the language they speak. Along with this it can tell you what posts and advertisement were most successful, when your most successful time to post is, the engagement you have with your consumer and the percentage increases of your reach from post to post and week on week. All of this data can be exported through Facebook on to spreadsheets and in to graphical form. With all this information a company can know exactly when and what material is best suited to target their desired audience, also as all this data is live data if a company wish to change its target market or which certain advertisement to certain consumers it can change accordingly to the data collected.


 * __Advantages__ **

(Prezi 2014)
 * Cheap/free source of information
 * Potentially global source of information with a trackable geographic location
 * Easy to collect data
 * Ability to collect large amounts of data
 * Ability to sample large populations
 * Immediate availability of information; ability to analyse events as they unfold
 * Ability to analyse virtual social interactions and networks, and link users
 * Ability to remain an anonymous observer

Collecting data in traditional methods is very time consuming and very expensive, however some social media sites will collect the data for you to analyse therefore whilst you are focusing on producing and managing you social media content the site is collecting data on its effectiveness and you target market as well. This can be done on a global scale. The advantage of collecting and analysing data is that you can target your advertisement more effectively creating a stronger brand image and a more effective campaign. This will also save on wasted campaigns where the chosen audience targeted.


 * __ Disadvantages __**

There are some disadvantages to using social media as a data source and most relate to reliability of the data; firstly the accuracy of the data is debateable. The theory of ‘real vs. online’ states that people act differently online that they would in real life and there for data collected online and through social media isn’t reliable. The fact that consumers ‘like’ your content doesn’t always relate to purchases, and especially now through the use of viral content, the people in your data aren’t necessarily there for your company but for the viral content therefore making your data inaccurate.

Next the issue of data being bias, for legal rights you can only collect data from consumers that have actively seeking you, this is useful to see how to target people wanting your products or knowing your company, however when breaking in to new markets and new customers where data is the most useful the data collected from a social media page becomes bias and therefore not useful.


 * __Social media and After Care and Customer service__**

Social media revolutionised the after care service companies can give by giving the customer the opportunity to contact a member of staff from a company at any point. Giving quick and useful after care service is now an essential part of any company’s use of social media. One of the negatives from social media marketing is that anyone can see negative reviews, however with an effective and quick after care system damage is often stopped and in some cases turned in to a positive as other consumers can see how you deal with problems and feel more secure in a company

The same goes for customer service, the first thing most modern day consumers do when a product goes wrong is jump on to a social media page and complain about. This creates a negative view of the company, however if a company has a effective customer service it can stop the negative view and protect the brand image. From a customer point of view if a company quickly responds to a complaint or problem then feel more secure with the brand and its products and repeat purchases are more likely. As social media grows customer service becomes more import part of a companies use as it is the quickest and easiest route to solve problems for customers.

Best Buy took customer service and after care to the next level by creating @Twelpforce, the twitter page designed simply for customer care. media type="custom" key="25421028"

There aren’t many negatives to using social media as a form of giving customer care and information however it has to be used effectively. Speed is large part as if it takes to long customers will go elsewhere to get information and feel that a company didn’t respond. The other issue is making sure that the information comes from a reliable source and from an official company page as there are fake company pages out on social media pages and if a customer were to seek information from a fake page and get wrong information then that would have a negative impact on the company. Most social media pages have a method of showing official companies on their pages to help them, consumer and the companies combat fake pages.


 * __Social media and Recruitment__**

The three main sites used in recruitment are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, the first two are mainly used to advertise jobs however LinkedIn changed the use of social media as a recruitment tool.

LinkedIn revolutionised the use of social media in the recruitment process. LinkedIn was launched in 2003 with a slow and steady start by 2006 it had 20 million viewers. As social media took to the lime light and increased in daily lives so did LinkedIn, as of 2013 it has registered nearly 260 million users in 200 different countries. LinkedIn is known as the ‘professional social networking site, the idea behind it is that you upload a professional profile of previous work and achievements plus information about yourself. Once a profile has been created the idea is to create contacts either with business’ on the site or other professionals, these contacts are labelled as ‘connections’ LinkedIn produce a list of can be done with connections. (LinkedIn 2014)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">A contact network is built up consisting of their direct connections, the connections of each of their connections (termed //second-degree connections//) and also the connections of second-degree connections (termed //third-degree connections//). This can be used to gain an introduction to someone a person wishes to know through a mutual contact.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Users can not upload their resume any more. This was a feature but became redundant in late 2012.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">It can then be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one's contact network.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Users can post their own photos and view photos of others to aid in identification.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Users can now follow different companies and can receive notifications about the new joining and offers available.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Users can save (i.e. bookmark) jobs that they would like to apply for.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Users can "like" and "congratulate" each other's updates and new employments.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Users can see who has visited their profile page.


 * __Advantages__**

Using social media as a recruitment tool broadens the reach of your recruitment search, therefore the possibility of attracting new talent is much greater. Business profiles allow companies to have a ‘careers’ section telling job seekers of your opportunities, and on upgraded versions you can have videos and other materials to attract potential employees. Following on from that using social media makes it easier for a business to get in contact with their favourite prospects. LinkedIn profiles allow business to find out more about their followers allowing them to determine whose is more suited to open positions.


 * __Disadvantages__**

The first disadvantage is getting the whole job across in only a few number of characters as most social media sites restrict you to a certain amount of characters or hide the rest over a limit so that applicants have to view more. You cannot contact members that you are not connected with, so you may find a perfect candidate but unless they accept a connection request there is no way on contacting them. Not everyone is on social media sites, so as it is an advantage to use it a company will have to use traditional methods as well and to do both is more time consuming than just traditional methods that can be accessed by most people. False information and accounts are a problem and cause time wasting in social media recruitment and it is a lot harder to spot them in social media recruitment than in traditional methods.


 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">__The effect Social Media has on Consumer Loyalty__ **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The consumer is at the heart of any business being successful, ensuring that they stay loyal and satisfied by the brand or service is key, or the businesses will find the consumer going elsewhere for that product or service.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Oliver (1999) defines customer loyalty as “a deeply held commitment to re-buy or re-patronize a preferred product or service consistently in the future, despite situation influences and marketing efforts having the potential to cause switching behaviors”. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5;">(Hallowell 1996) looks at how the way he defines consumer loyalty is more based on attitude, it looks at how a feeling is created about a brand or a service and one there is a relationship being formed the loyalty will automatically be there. (Hallowell 1996) follows this with the increased emotion and feeling towards a certain product or service means the loyalty with grow as well.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In a different perspective to just the definitions (Gounaris and Stathakopoulos 2004) have looked at four different types of loyalty, these are based on the emotional devotion to the brand, purchase, and social effect: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> No Loyalty: They are those who do not purchase and while they have no interest in the brand and social effects failed to orient to the brand. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Covetous Loyalty: They do not purchase but emotional tie to the brand is high and this tie was created by the social environment. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Inertia Loyalty: They have a tendency toward the brand for habit, convenience or any other reason without emotional tie with the brand and social effect. The customers having this nature of loyalty can make a systematic selection among other brands but while this selection has low level of emotional involvement and personal investment there is no devotion to the brand. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Premium Loyalty: If the emotional tie and social effect is high while the customer purchases at high level it is loyalty. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Gounaris and Stathakopoulos look at these types of loyalty and recognise if you are able to keep consumers at the premium loyalty level or convert Inertia loyalty to premium then you will have the most loyal consumers for your business.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Consumer loyalty is also influenced by Customer satisfaction, Customer satisfaction is often very closely related to consumer loyalty but consumer satisfaction is, and emotion or reaction felt from a brand or service (Westbrook, Newman, Taylor, 1978). According to (Grenson 1995) you will need five to six times more actual time to acquire a new customer than to retain old ones. Customer loyalty and the length of life one would have has a value that is ten times greater than the price paid for a single purchase. Customer loyalty is clearly an integral part to any business, be it a start up business or one that have been in operation for over fifty years, the customers needs to come first or it could be the downfall of the business.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Social Media allows us to always stay connected, this makes it easy for businesses to keep in contact and keep the relationship strong. Like Grenson 1995 says it is much easier to retain existing members than gaining new ones, so for the little amount of time it takes to reply or send some sort of communication it should be at the front of businesses thoughts to use social media to retain consumer loyalty.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It became very apparent to (Reichheld 1993) that consumer loyalty must come from ever aspect of the business. For an organisation to gain trust from its consumers it must show that it is trustworthy, this goes with consumer loyalty as well, the businesses must show they are loyal for the consumers to believe it and be loyal as well. Reichheld 1993 brought to light the concept he stated as the 'loyalty based system,', this was him recognising the relationship that employee and customer relationship, and this is what he identifies as the loyalty based system. Incorporating this ethos into the use of social media would be very beneficial for any business.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Social Presence Theory __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The social presence theory was developed by John short, Bruce Christie and Ederyn Williams, although it main ideas and thoughts have been said that it was taken from Isaac Asimov who wrote “the naked sun” in 1959. Social presence itself is hard to define as many researchers are not in full agreement as to how this can be defined. (Tu and McIssac, 2002 ) has defined social presence as “ a measure of the feeling of community that a learner experiences in an online environment”. This has been looked at and changed by many other researchers to define social presence as the awareness of others in an interaction combined with an appreciation of the interpersonal aspects of that interaction, which then became what is know known as the Social Presence theory by (Short, Williams, and Christie, 1976 )

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The social presence theory segments the different ways in which we communicative through social media. Simply, the social presence theory is the ability to use non personal communication to create and nurture a relationship with the consumer. This presence did happen before social media was around, this is just the communication between someone who works for the business and a consumer. The theory looks at the fact that the more social media presence that a consumer is exposed too, then they are far more likely to actually be a loyal and supporting consumer. Being able to replicate what happens in store when there is one to one communication between a employee and consumer, and channel that same level of trust and likability to hundreds or even thousands of consumers is the benefit that social media can play when connected with businesses.

There are so many advantages to be using social media as a business, and as modern trends continue a business will be at disadvantage for not using it. The fact that you can access you customer anywhere is a massive advantage to business and creating the right content is vital to success in doing this. Content should be created to draw a customer in. As stated throughout there are disadvantage, however these can be minimised through careful management and control. If not used properly social media can put negative images to you brand, but when utilised correctly it will create a strong brand image and help a business be profitable. When using social media business must stay on trend and up-to-date with current forms of media to make it an effective business tool. As social media develops there will be more ways to use it within business so staying on trend with it may be the opportunity needed by a business by being a leader in using social media to their advantage. Time and effort needs to be used to gain the advantage with business using social media, but the outcome if used correctly will change a business’ chances at being successful.
 * __Conclusion__**


 * __References__**

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Dave Evans (2008). //Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day//. Canada: Wiley Publishing Inc. 32-34

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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Key Pousttchi, Dietmar G. Wiedemann. (2007). Success Factors in Mobile Viral Marketing: A Multi-Case Study Approach. //MPRA//. 5736 (14), 14-22.

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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Best Buy - Twelp Force Campaign - YouTube. 2014. Best Buy - Twelp Force Campaign - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbkS8AnqNGU. [Accessed 20 March 2014].

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">2014. . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.dpom.co.uk/uimages/Blogs/Virgin%20Media.png. [Accessed 19 March 2014].

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">uk | LinkedIn. 2014. uk | LinkedIn. [ONLINE] Available at: https://uk.linkedin.com/. [Accessed 20 March 2014].

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Frederick F. Reichheld. (1993). Loyalty based management. Harvard Business Review. 71 (2), 64-73.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Gounaris, S. ve Stathakopoulos, V. (2004). Antecedents and Consequences of Brand Loyalty: An Empirical Study. Journal of Brand Management. 11 (4), 283-306.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Hallowel, R. (1996). The relationship of customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and profitability. International journal or service industry managaement. 7 (4), 27-42.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Oliver, Richard L. . (1999). Whence Consumer Loyalty. Journal of Marketing. 63 (1), 33-44.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Short, J. A., Williams, E., & Christie, B. (1976). The social psychology of telecommunications. London: Wiley.Tu, C. H., & McIssac, M.. (2002). The relationship of social presence and interaction in online classes. The American journal of distance education, 16(3), 131-150.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Westbrook, Robert A., Joseph W. Newman and James R. Taylor. (1978). Consumer Satisfaction in the Purchase Decision Process. Journal of Marketing. 42 (1), 54-60.

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