Title: Social media marketing: exploring the user typology in Turkey

Authors: Mesut Çiçek; İrem Eren-Erdoğmuş

Addresses: Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Yalova University, Sarfan Campus, 77100, Yalova, Turkey ' Department of Business Administration, Marmara University, Anadolu Hisarı Campus, Anadolu Hisarı, Beykoz, 34810, Istanbul, Turkey

Abstract: Recent decades witnessed changes, opportunities, and challenges in marketing with the introduction of Web 2.0, the personalised, communicative form of the internet on which social media is based upon. Given the opportunities it provides, companies need to analyse and understand this new generation digital world and its users. Classifying diverse user behaviours into meaningful categories of user types can be a starting step. The objective of this study, therefore, is to classify the users according to social media usage preferences and determine their demographic profiles. For this purpose, a descriptive research was conducted in Turkey, which is considered as one of the most socially present emerging market nations. Cluster analysis, factor analysis, and ANOVA were applied on the data. The findings indicated that social media users in Turkey consist of five groups which are inactives (33%), sporadics (33%), entertainment users (12%), debaters (15%), and advanced users (7%). Implications are given for marketers who think about targeting one of these groups.

Keywords: social media marketing; cluster analysis; user typology; Web 2.0; Turkey; factor analysis; ANOVA.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTMKT.2013.055343

International Journal of Technology Marketing, 2013 Vol.8 No.3, pp.254 - 271

Received: 11 Dec 2012
Accepted: 09 May 2013

Published online: 28 Feb 2014 *

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