Special Issue: Social Media

Call for Papers (Deadline: 15 September 2010)

Special Issue of Recherche et Application en Marketing (RAM)

Guest Editors: Andreas M. Kaplan and Michael Haenlein

Social Media are defined as a group of Internet-based applications, that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content. Using theories from media research (social presence, media richness) and social psychology (self-presentation, self-disclosure), several different types of Social Media applications can be identified: collaborative projects (e.g., Wikipedia), Blogs and Micro-blogs (e.g., Twitter), Content communities (e.g., YouTube), Social networking sites (e.g., Facebook), Virtual game worlds (e.g., World of Warcraft) and Virtual social worlds (e.g., Second Life).

The increasing importance of Social Media is undeniable. Wikipedia, launched in 2001, today contains more than 13 million articles in 200 different languages. Facebook, founded in 2004, helps more than 300 million members all over the world to stay in touch. If Facebook were a country, it would rank 4th based on its size. The youngest member in the family of social media, Twitter, has only been created in 2006 and currently shows a monthly growth rate around 1,400 percent. Social Media are no longer limited to the Generation Y. They start to affect everyone, consumers as well as corporations.

Recently, Social Media have also started to be subject of research in the marketing area and more and more articles have been published over the last years. Nevertheless, there are still may important questions that remain open ? which lays the ground for this Special Issue. Exemplary research questions include:

• How can firms use social media to communicate with their current and potential customers ?
• How can the effectiveness of social media be measured? What is the Return-on-Social Media?
• What is the diffusion curve of user generated content within and across social media types?
• How can traditional and social media be integrated in an overall communication strategy?
• What is the impact of social media on Word-of-Mouth and viral marketing?
• How can companies actively use social media to influence consumer attitudes and behaviour?
• Can social media be used to distribute products and services, similar to traditional e-Commerce?
• How can netnography and market research in general be extended to social media applications?
• What are the legal issues involved with managing, monitoring and using social media?
• How can social media be applied to build up and strengthen brand equity?
• What is the value of social media in an overall relationship marketing/ CRM strategy?

This Special Issue is open to all types of research, conceptual or empirical (qualitative or quantitative), in French or English language. Acceptable formats include research papers, research notes, comments and review articles. All submissions will be subject to the usual peer-review process of RAM and should respect the general publication guidelines of the journal. All submissions should be sent in electronic format until September 15th 2010 to the two Guest Editors invited for this Special Issue Andreas M. Kaplan (kaplan@escpeurope.eu) and Michael Haenlein (haenlein@escpeurope.eu).

Founded in 1986 RAM (Recherche et Applications en Marketing) is the leading academic journal for the French speaking marketing community, issued by the French Marketing Association (AFM). Over the past 20 years, RAM has published hundreds of high-quality research articles, that are available in electronic format in the EBSCO Business Source Complete database.