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Contribution Details

Type Conference Presentation
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title Networking for Success
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Florian Stahl
  • Lucas Bremer
  • Asim Ansari
  • Mark Heitmann
Presentation Type paper
Item Subtype Original Work
Refereed Yes
Status Published in final form
Language
  • English
Event Title 2011 INFORMS Marketing Science Conference
Event Type conference
Event Location Houston, Texas
Event Start Date June 5 - 2011
Event End Date June 7 - 2011
Abstract Text The growth of online social networks and the decreasing effectiveness of traditional marketing have lead to a surge of interest in using such networks for marketing purposes. Actors embedded in such social networks are interested in understanding how to leverage the interactions and relationships among network members to increase their popularity and garner online success. In this paper we analyze how the network activities that an actor engages in influences the actor's egocentric positions within the network and how such activities in combination with these network positions eventually impact marketing success. In particular, we study how a network of music artists can drive music downloads by engaging in active communication and building of friendship activities. Our sample consists of a set of 440 music artists who actively operate profiles on two independent online social network platforms at the same time. Personal network information on both platforms is tracked monthly over a period of one year. As network positions are endogeneous, and instrumental variables are not available readily, we use a latent instrumental variable approach to model the endogeneity of multiple network influence variables. Our results indicate that online success is determined by both the social network structure and networking activities of the music artists rather than by their outside popularity.
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