Honors Program Theses

Award/Availability

Open Access Honors Program Thesis

First Advisor

Matthew Bunker

Keywords

Social media and college students; Marketing; Customer loyalty; Coupons (Retail trade);

Abstract

Research for this honors thesis involved social media marketing (SMM), which is the utilization of social media channels to engage with online communities by building and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships. SMM exists as a subset of the field of integrated marketing communications (IMC). The primary goal of IMC is to synchronize marketing communications from all platforms to create a consistent and strong message. The inclusion of social media marketing in corporate IMC plans is occurring more and more often, as participation in social media sites continues to rise. According to a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 72% of 18-29 year olds used social networking sites in 2010 (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith, & Zickuhr, 2010). Further, three quarters of adults age 18 and older who used social networking sites in 2010 maintained a Facebook profile (Lenhart et al., 2010).

Year of Submission

2011

Department

Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship

University Honors Designation

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the designation University Honors

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

5-2011

Object Description

1 PDF file (21 pages)

Included in

Marketing Commons

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