Day in the Life of an Academic #4: No, I am not on holiday

Classes ended last week and, already, I have lost count of the number of times someone asked if / said that I am now on holidays. So, I thought I should do a “day in the life” post, to give you a glimpse of what an academic gets up to outside of term time. … Continue reading Day in the Life of an Academic #4: No, I am not on holiday

Knowing when you can trust your gut

Working in digital marketing, you probably have situations where you have to make a decision, even though you really wish that you could collect additional data. Maybe you want to find a few examples of successful content ignition from your own market, rather than from another market that is only somehow related. Or you … Continue reading Knowing when you can trust your gut

Twitter conversations have the credibility of friends’ recommendations and the impact of online reviews

While we tend to discuss word of mouth in terms of traditional (i.e., face to face) vs. electronic, this paper by Thorsten Hennig-Thurau, Caroline Wiertz and Fabian Feldhaus indicates that this separation is two simplistic. The paper looks at the impact of Twitter conversations on the performance of new movies. It finds that customers … Continue reading Twitter conversations have the credibility of friends’ recommendations and the impact of online reviews

Book review: Creative Research Methods in the Social Sciences – A Practical Guide

The book ‘Creative Research Methods in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide’, authored by Helen Kara, introduces creative research methods to social science researchers. This is because, as the author puts it, ‘Doing research is an inherently creative activity at all stages of the process. The more methodological tools a researcher is able to use, … Continue reading Book review: Creative Research Methods in the Social Sciences – A Practical Guide

Handling social media crises

When problems happen and customers take to social media to vent their frustration, it may lead to a social media crisis like the one faced by United or Comcast. So, it is important to detect problems quickly, and act effectively. I recently published a paper, co-authored with Finola Kerrigan, Dirk vom Lehn, Cagri Yalkin, Marc Braun … Continue reading Handling social media crises

October 2015 round up

October was busy. Very busy. This included a lot of firefighting, which I tend to find very draining. My #5pm pictures show that I spent a lot of time at my desk. But, unfortunately, only a minority of that time was spent on writing or, for that matter, on anything remotely related to research. Instead, my month … Continue reading October 2015 round up

Spotted elsewhere: interview with co-founder of Instagram

What? A short interview with Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram, by BBC's Steph McGovern. Where? Spotted on the BBC website. So what? It is a short interview, but Steph McGovern and Kevin Systrom cover quite a bit of ground such as longevity on social media, Instagram's rivals, kids spending too much time on … Continue reading Spotted elsewhere: interview with co-founder of Instagram