Usability perspective on social media sites' adoption in the B2B context

Ewelina Lacka, Alain Chong

    Research output: Journal PublicationArticlepeer-review

    144 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    While social media sites have been successfully adopted and used in the B2C context, they are perceived to be irrelevant in B2B marketing. This is due to marketers' perception of poor usability of these sites in the B2B sector. This study investigates the usability of social media sites when adopted for B2B marketing purposes in the one of world's largest social media market: China. Specifically, by extending the Technology Acceptance Model with Nielsen's Model of Attributes of System Acceptability, we assess the impact of usefulness, usability and utility on the adoption and use of these sites by B2B marketing professionals. The empirical investigation reveals that marketers' perception of the usefulness, usability and utility of social media sites drive their adoption and use in the B2B sector. The usefulness is subject to the assessment of whether social media sites are suitable means through which marketing activities can be conducted. The ability to use social media sites for B2B marketing purposes, in turn, is due to those sites learnability and memorability attributes.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)80-91
    Number of pages12
    JournalIndustrial Marketing Management
    Volume54
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2016

    Keywords

    • B2B
    • Social media sites
    • Technology Acceptance Model
    • Technology adoption
    • Usability

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Marketing

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