Title: Finding the optimal social media marketing mix to drive customer attraction and sales performance: an exploratory study

Authors: Ravi Narayanaswamy; Richard A. Heiens

Addresses: School of Business Administration, University of South Carolina Aiken, 471 University Parkway, Aiken, SC 29801, USA ' Department of Business Administration, University of South Carolina Beaufort, One University Boulevard, Bluffton, SC 29909, USA

Abstract: Prior studies confirm the influence of social media marketing on a variety of psychological dimensions. However, without tangible performance metrics, most of these studies have been unable to directly and conclusively measure the effectiveness of social media strategy. Utilising data from the 500 largest internet retailers in the USA, this study explores the relationship between social media marketing, customer attraction and sales performance. The results of our research show that the optimal combination of social media outcomes for enhancing customer attraction includes maximising the number of likes for Facebook, the number of followers for Twitter, and the number of views for YouTube. To improve sales performance, the optimal approach includes maximising the number of likes for Facebook and the number of followers for Twitter. Further findings reveal that customer attraction mediates the relationship between social media marketing and web sales.

Keywords: social media marketing; SMM; customer attraction; web sales; Facebook; Instagram; Pinterest; Twitter; YouTube.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEMR.2022.119248

International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing, 2022 Vol.13 No.1, pp.65 - 82

Received: 06 May 2020
Accepted: 24 Oct 2020
Published online: 30 Nov 2021 *

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