Social media marketing system: conceptualization, scale development and validation

Purpose: Understanding what organizational factors enable a successful social media presence is a relevant issue for academics and practicing managers. The purpose of this investigation is to thus develop and validate a scale to measure a social media marketing system (SMMS). Design/methodology/approach: This paper follows a rigorous scale development process based on three stages: item generation, measurement development and instrument testing. The validity and reliability tests were conducted using data provided by social media managers and the managers' supervisors. Findings: The results validate a 25-item multidimensional SMMS scale that exhibits adequate internal consistency, reliability, construct validity and nomological validity. The results also show that the SMMS scale positively correlates with outcomes that are key to firm success (social media strategy success and marketing performance). Originality/value: This paper conceptualizes SMMS through four dimensions, namely formalization, human resource management, co-creation and marketing planning, and the paper associates SMMS to important firm outcomes. The newly developed measurement instrument adds to the small repository of research scales relevant to social media and can serve as a springboard from which future work can understand social media from both an internal management perspective and an integrated outlook.