A Literature Review On The Business Impacts Of Social Network Sites

46 International Journal of Virtual Communities and Social Networking, 4(1), 46-60, January-March 2012
Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Keywords: Business Impacts, Marketing, Social Media, Social Network Sites (SNSs), Social Networking
INTRODUCTION
Thegrowingimportanceandroleofweb-based
technologies in supporting firm operations is
widely acknowledged both by practitioners
and academics (Hanafizadeh, Hanafizadeh,
& Khodabakhshi, 2010). One of the new web
bases technologies emerged recently is social
media. Social media can be defined as online
applications, platforms and media which aim
A Literature Review on
the Business Impacts of
Social Network Sites
Payam Hanaizadeh, School of Management and Accounting, Allameh Tabataba’i University,
Tehran, Iran
Ahad Zare Ravasan, School of Management and Accounting, Allameh Tabataba’i University,
Tehran, Iran
Ali Nabavi, School of Management and Accounting, Allemeh Tabataba’i University, Tehran,
Iran
Mohammad Mehrabioun, School of Management and Accounting, Allameh Tabataba’i
University, Tehran, Iran
ABSTRACT
Social network sites (SNSs) such as MySpace, Facebook, and Youtube have attracted millions of users, many
of whom have integrated these sites into their daily practices. There are hundreds of SNSs, with various
technological affordances, supporting a wide range of interests and practices. However, the impact of SNSs
is increasingly pervasive, with activities ranging from economic and marketing to social and educational.
Among the wide impacts of social network sites, they are, anecdotally, becoming increasingly important in
today’s businesses. Thus, the purpose of this study is to present a literature review of and classiication scheme
for research works in business impacts of SNSs, with the aim of clarifying the ways SNSs impact businesses.
The review covers 28 journal articles published from 2000 to 2011 and a few months of 2012. The 28 ar-
ticles classiied SNS applications in businesses into six distinct categories: the “marketing and advertising,”
“knowledge management,” “social capital,” “relationship management,” “e-commerce,” and “economic
model.” The indings reveal that “marketing and advertising” were the most frequently category has been
considered in the literature. This review provides a source for discovering business impacts of social network
sites and will help to simulate further interest in the area.
DOI: 10.4018/jvcsn.2012010104

International Journal of Virtual Communities and Social Networking, 4(1), 46-60, January-March 2012 47
to facilitate interactions, collaborations and the
sharing of content (Palmer & Koenig-Lewis,
2009). The term social media has tended to be
used interchangeably with the term “Web 2.0”,
andcanbeidentifiedbythefollowingprincipal
categories (Constantinides & Fountain, 2008):
• Blogs: encompassing individuals’ or en-
terprises’ online journals often combined
with audio or video podcasts.
• Social network:Applications allowing us-
erstobuildpersonalwebsitesaccessibleto
other users for exchanging content.
• Contentcommunities:Websitesorganizing
and sharing particular types of content.
• Forums:Sitesforexchangingideasusually
around special interests.
• Content aggregators: Applications allow-
inguserstofullycustomizethewebcontent
they wish to access.
The social media importance is on the
interaction between people and in the facilita-
tion of asynchronous, immediate, interactive,
and low-cost communications (Miller, Fabian,
& Lin, 2009). Social network sites (SNSs)
are considered the core of network resource
for organizations that link strategic value and
business performance (Zhou, Wu, & Luo,
2007). SNSs allow individuals to construct a
public or semi-public profile within a bounded
system; to articulate a list of other users with
whom they share a connection, and to view
and traverse their list of connections and those
made by others within the system (Boyd &
Ellison, 2007). On larger social network sites,
individuals are normally not looking to meet
newpeoplebutaremoreinterestedinmanaging
relationships by maintaining contacts with old
friends who are already part of their extended
social network (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). To
sum up, social network sites can be seen as
alternativecommunicationtoolswhichsupport
existing relationships and activities in a fun
and colorful way that can deepen the users’
experiences (Palmer & Koenig-Lewis, 2009).
Many social network web sites have emerged;
attracting especial groups of users based on
their demographics and some tend to commu-
nities with specific shared interests (Palmer &
Koenig-Lewis, 2009).
There is now a lot of evidence that social
network sites have become mainstream and it
has been reported that globally, these sites ac-
count for one in every 11 minutes spent online
(Jones, 2009). 54 percent of internet users
between 16 and 24 have set up their own page
or profile on a social networking site (Palmer
& Koenig-Lewis, 2009). Social network sites
haveaudiencemorethananyothersocialmedia
tools,today.Facebookreaches710millionusers
(Hanafizadeh & Behboudi, 2012). Meanwhile,
if Facebook were a country, it would be the
thirdlargestnationintheworld,laggingbehind
only China and India. Half of those “citizens”
log in every day and using the site on a daily
basis (Zarrella & Zarrella, 2011). The average
user has 130 friends and is connected to 80
community pages, groups, and events each
one spend an average of 46 minutes per day on
Facebook (Facebook, 2011).Also, 100 million
people take a social action on YouTube every
week and 800 million unique users visit this
siteeachmonth(Youtube.com).Socialnetwork
sites offer opportunities to connect with these
hard-to-reach audiences drifting away from
traditional media.
It can be implied that usage of social
networking is increasing at a tremendous
speed, and it is influencing how people share
knowledge across the globe. However, impact
of social networks is increasingly pervasive,
withactivitiesrangingfromtheeconomic(e.g.,
shopping) and marketing (e.g., brand building)
to the social (e.g., cultural and physiological
impacts) and educational (e.g., distance edu-
cation) (e.g., Pookulangara & Koesler, 2011;
Teo, Chan, Weib, & Zhang, 2003). Among the
wide impacts of social network sites, they are,
anecdotally, becoming increasingly important
in today businesses. It seems that some fac-
tors are driving this trend. First, regarding the
rapid rise in the popularity of social media,
the number of potential customers engaged on
SNSs was previously underestimated by many
organizations. Second, in the current economic

depression, where there are fewer customers in
general, finding and engaging them get higher
priorities. Third, there is now a “main street”
acceptance of SNSs as a powerful tool. Finally,
there has been a breakdown in traditional lead-
generation programs (Gordon, 2010).
SNS is getting a lot of media coverage as
well is a brand new topic for researchers due
to its relative novelty, but all the attention does
not necessarily make it easier to understand
whichfunctionsareactuallyusefulinbusiness.
However, despite its importance in the digital
economy, no comprehensive literature review
has been conducted in the field. Nevertheless,
there is a need for conducting this kind of re-
searchworks,becauseitwillserveasaroadmap
for both academics and practitioners. It will
also indicate the current state and direction
of research topics, and should be of interest.
So, the purpose of this study is to presents a
literature review of and classification scheme
forresearchworksinbusinessimpactsofSNSs
and with the aim of clarifying the ways SNSs
might have an impact on businesses. Hence,
this study provides managers and academics
with guidance in that area by measuring which
social media applications are being applied
right now in businesses. The review covers 28
journalarticlespublishedfrom2000to2011and
a few months of 2012. The reason for selecting
this time period is that the topic is fairly new
and most of the research on SNSs began to be
conducted only during this period.The paper is
organized as follows: first, the research meth-
odology used in the study is described; second,
thecriteriausedforclassifyingtheliteratureare
presented;third,thepapersareanalyzedandthe
classification results are reported; and, finally,
conclusions are presented and the implications
of the study are discussed.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Considering the nature of the research on busi-
ness impacts of SNSs, it would be difficult to
group the literature under any specific disci-
plines.Furtherevidenceofthiscanbeseenfrom
thefactthatpublishedarticlesarespreadacross
variousjournalsindisciplinessuchasbusiness,
educationandtraining,management,marketing,
social sciences and Information Systems (ISs).
Consequently, the following online databases
weresearchedtoprovideasamplebibliography
of the target literature:
• Science Direct;
• Emerald Insight;
• IEEE Xplore;
• Taylor and Francis;
• Proquest;
• Springer Link Online Libraries;
• Wiley InterScience.
Since the business impacts of SNSs and its
various aspects were not clear for the authors,
the literature search was based on the general
descriptor, “Online Social Network”, “Social
Network site”, “Social Network website”, and
“Social Media”. The search was conducted in
December 2011 and was limited to peer re-
viewedjournalarticlespublishedbetween2000
to 2011 and a few months of 2012. More than
270 articles were found in the initial search of
the literature. The full text of each article was
reviewed to eliminate those articles that were
not actually related to the business impacts of
SNSs. Many of articles were excluded because
theydid notmeettheselectioncriteria.Consid-
ering the nature of the research field, unrelated
papers (e.g., papers not related to business
aspects of SNS such as social, cultural and
behavioral impacts of SNSs) were excluded.
Also conference papers and textbooks were
excluded. So the search yielded 28 related ar-
ticles from 22 journals. Each of the 28 articles
was carefully reviewed and classified into one
of the six categories:
• Marketing and Advertising;
• Knowledge Management;
• Social Capital;
• Relationship Management;

• E-commerce;
• Economic models.
CLASSIFICATION OF
THE LITERATURE
As articulated above, reviewed articles are
classified into six categories and each of them
is discussed as follows.
Marketing and Advertising
Research by Forrester, has indicated that audi-
enceandattentionisshiftingtoonlinechannels
as52percentofEuropeansaregenerallyonline
athome.Around36percentofEuropeaninternet
users watch less TV, 28 percent have reduced
their newspaper reading and 17 percent have
diminished listening to the radio since going
online (Palmer & Koenig-Lewis, 2009). As a
result, conventional print and broadcast media
have faced major challenges in recent years,
with many newspapers facing closure and
television channels suffering loss in revenue.
An important effect of this phenomena, is the
migration of significant amounts of marketing
andadvertisingactivitiestoonlinechannelssuch
as social networks (Hanafizadeh & Behboudi,
2012).Itisobviousthatinteractivedigitalmedia
platforms are changing the marketing scene.
These platforms have empowered consumers
to connect, share, and collaborate, creating
spheres of influence that have deeply distorted
thewaymarketersengageininfluencingactivi-
ties (Hanna, Rohm, & Crittenden, 2011).
Social media platforms such as Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube, and numerous others have
beguntoalterthestateofmarketing,advertising,
andpromotions.Thisplatformhavetransformed
the Internet from a platform for information,
to a platform for influence which represents
an novel marketing chance for businesses by
reducingtraditionalmiddlemenandconnecting
businesses directly with customers. Social net-
workadvertisingoffersanonlinemarketingop-
portunity that narrowing the gap between sales
and advertising activities, which are obtained
from tracing consumer reactions (Hanafizadeh
& Behboudi, 2012). This is why nearly every
business is planning social media marketing
activities. According to a study surveyed over
3300 marketers with the goal of understanding
how marketers are using social media to grow
and promote their businesses, a significant
90% of marketers indicate that social media is
important for their business and the majority of
marketers (58%) are using social media for 6
hours or more each week, and more than a third
(34%)invest11ormorehoursweekly(Stelzner,
2011).Relatedtomarketingperformance,Mand
soonalfe’slawsuggeststhatthevalueofasocial
network raises in proportion to the square of
its connections (Hanna et al., 2011). Billions of
people form trillions of connections via social
networks every day (Hansen, Shneiderman, &
Smith, 2011) which build relations that result
in an immense social network. The advantages
of social media marketing are generating more
business exposure (88%), increased traffic
(72%) and improved search rankings (62%)
(Stelzner, 2011).
Knowledge Management
Knowledge can be defined as a fluid mix of
framed experience, values, contextual infor-
mation, and expert insight that provides a
framework for evaluating and incorporating
newexperiencesandinformation(Davenport&
Prusak,1998).Knowledgehasbecomethevital
sourceofcompetitiveadvantageforbusinesses
as a result of the rapid expansion of goods and
factor markets (Mutula, 2009). Organizations
compete with limited physical resources and
are thus forced to maximize their utilization
of knowledge and participation in knowledge
contributionbehavior.Proliferationofnetwork
access has facilitated the rapid growth of social
networksitesandvirtualcommunitiesandmany
ofthesecommunitiesareprofessionrelatedthat
supportorganizationalrequirementsandobjec-
tives (Chiu, Hsu, & Wang, 2006). Therefore,
social networks have been considered as an
important enabler for facilitating knowledge
sharing behavior among organizational mem-

bers and create learning opportunities contrib-
utes to building competitive advantage (Chai
& Kim, 2011; Hsu, Ju, Yen, & Chang, 2007).
Relationship Management
Outliningadialogicpublicrelationstheory,Kent
andTaylor(2002)presentedthatpublicrelations
could enhance dialogue by creating channels
for dialogic communication to occur. They
specifically identified online communication
asanidealopportunityforpromotingdialogue.
They recommended that organizations have an
opportunity to establish dialogic relationships
withstakeholdersthroughstrategicallydesigned
websites. Rybalko and Seltzer (2010) extended
theinvestigationofonlinerelationshipbuilding
by examining how Fortune 500 companies use
the Twitter to facilitate dialogic communica-
tion with stakeholders. Men and Tsai (2011)
investigated the social media relationship cul-
tivation from a cross-cultural standpoint. They
examined how companies use popular social
networksitestofacilitatedialogueswithpublics
in two culturally distinct countries; China and
the United States.
Social Capital
Relationships with people are vital both for
creatingofflinebenefits,generallyreferredtoas
socialcapital,andforpsychosocialdevelopment
(Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007). Social
capital is an elastic concept used to depict the
benefits one receives from one’s relationships
with others or relation between organizations
as strategic alliances. Such relationships have
many positive results such as entrepreneurial
and financial benefits (Adler & Kwon, 2002;
Pitt,Merwe,Berthon,Salehi-Sangari,&Barnes,
2006). Social capital has been implemented in
virtualcommunitiesassocialnetworksitesthat
disturbsthenotionthatactorsfunctionindepen-
dently,thattheymaketheirownchoiceswithout
consideration of the actors around them with
which they have ties or relationships.
E-Commerce
The major advantage of SNSs is its capability
toprovidegreatersocialnetworkingopportuni-
ties than the traditional social network across
different geographical, social, cultural, and
institutional settings. SNS does not replace
the traditional social network, rather comple-
ments it and initiates new social connections.
The disadvantage of SNS is that people have
low trust and often feel nervous or uncertain
in the virtual environment. SNS often provides
a low-level social connection by its nature. A
full adoption of SNS may have a long way to
go since people are more used to the traditional
socialnetworkandtheirbehavioralchangeoften
take time (Lee & Chen, 2011). Built upon Web
2.0 and 3.0 technologies, SNS has become a
popular online platform for individuals and
organizations to achieve their social and busi-
ness goals such as improving decision making,
increasing organizational effectiveness and in-
novation, and so on (Lim, Trimi, & Lee, 2010).
Organizations use enterprise social software,
also known as Enterprise 2.0, to recruit new
employees, improve working relationships,
provide customer support, expand the market,
search for business partners, manage organi-
zational knowledge, and so on (Lee & Chen,
2011). E-commerce is another field that ben-
efits from SNS (e.g., doing customer support,
marketing, customer involved product/service
design and innovation, and so on.) due to its
close connection to the online society. Many
studies have examined marketing service of
SNSine-commerce.Forexample,Kim,Ferrin,
and Rao (2008) empirically examined the ef-
fectsofsomeoperationalelementsofSNSsuch
as usefulness, trust, and commitment toward
SNS on the success of e-commerce marketing.
E-commerceismostlikelytoadoptSNSssince
it already has online presentation established.
However, many e-commerce businesses have
yet obtained benefits from using SNS. There-
fore,itisvaluabletoexplorewaystoeffectively
integrate e-commerce with SNS (Lee & Chen,

2011). Also, the user’s consumption intention
on SNSs has received a great deal of attentions
from e-commerce researchers. Some research
workssuggestthattheinterpersonaltrustcreated
by online social communications will make the
C2C e-transactions more effective (Clemons,
Barnett, & Appadurai, 2007; Isaías, Miranda,
& Pífano, 2009).
Economic Model
For the valuation of SNS, we refer to the
social network analysis, where the network
structure is perceived as a set of actors, which
are represented by nodes, and a set of edges
(ties) linking pairs of nodes (Adamic & Adar,
2003;Wasserman,1994).Thespecificnetwork
structure has to be considered when determin-
ing the economic value of SNS. For SNSs, the
economic valuation is too difficult, since users,
relationships between users, and the resulting
network effects represent a major part of the
firm value. Hence, the value of each user per se
andtheimportanceofauserwithintheSNShas
to be considered explicitly to get a reasonable
estimation for the firm value (Gneiser, 2010).
Regardingthisimportance,someresearchworks
in the field of SNSs belong to SNS’s business
and economic models.
RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
OF THE CLASSIFICATIONS
The articles were analyzed by year of publi-
cation, journal, topic area, and country. This
particular analysis will provide guidelines for
pursuing rigorous research on SNSs and on its
businessimpactsbyexplainingthechronologi-
cal growth of business impact of social media
over the years.The details are presented below.
Distribution by Year of Publication
The distribution of articles published by year,
from 2000 to 2011 and later is shown in Figure
1. It is clear from Figure 1 that the research
work in business impact of SNSs has increased
significantly in recent years. Meanwhile, since
2010,researcherspublishedatotalof22papers
(79 percent of the total).
Figure 1. Articles distribution by year

Distribution of Articles by Journal
In our result list, there were a total of 22 differ-
ent journals from various disciplines (e.g., IS,
IT, communication, tourism, and so on.) that
published articles about business impact of
SNSs. Table 1 lists the journals that published
those articles. 32 percent of journals were IT/
IS related and 35 percent covered business and
management topics. Public Relations Review
has the most published papers (3 articles or
10%oftotal).AsianJournalofCommunication,
Business Horizons, Decision Support Systems
and Journal of Interactive Marketing all ranked
as second (2 articles or 7% of total).
Distribution of Articles by Topic
The 28 articles classified SNSs applications
in businesses into six distinct categories: the
“marketing and advertising”, “knowledge
management”, “social capital”, “relationship
management”, “e-commerce”, and “economic
model”. As shown in Table 2, a majority of
articles (10 out of 28 or 35.7% of the total)
wererelatedtomarketingandadvertisingtopic.
A large proportion of researches conducted in
“electronic word of mouth”, “social capital”,
“knowledgesharingbehavior”,“SocialCapital”
and“Onlinepublicrelations”eachwith3papers.
Social media sites have begun to revolution-
Table 1. Distribution of articles by journal
Journal Number of Articles
Public Relations Review 3
Asian Journal of Communication 2
Business Horizons 2
Decision Support Systems 2
Journal of Interactive Marketing 2
Direct Marketing: An International Journal 1
European Management Journal 1
Fertility and Sterility 1
Front. Educ China 1
Inf Syst E-Bus Manage 1
International Journal of Information Management 1
Journal of Business Ethics 1
Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing 1
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 1
Knowledge and Information Systems 1
Online Information Review 1
Procedia Computer Science 1
Proceedings of GeNeMe 1
Service Business 1
Technovation 1
The Journal of Computer Information Systems 1
Tourism Management 1

ize the state of marketing, advertising, and
promotions. This revolution make a new form
of marketing such as electronic word of mouth
marketing,throughthiskindofmarketing,com-
munication can take place in various settings.
Consumers can post their opinions, comments
and reviews of products on weblogs, so advent
of this kind of communication encouraged re-
searchers to identify implications of electronic
wordofmouthwithinSNSs.Knowledgesharing
behaviorisanotherfieldofinterestforresearch-
ers because knowledge has become the vital
sourceofcompetitiveadvantageforbusinesses,
socommunicationpotentialembeddedinSNSs
make it as a new online communication tool
for businesses that is applicable for knowledge
sharing and increasing firms intangible assets.
Less published papers on some topics in
Table 2 reflect the fact that the related field is
a relatively new area of research. In the pre-
liminary stage of the development SNSs’busi-
ness impacts, researchers have attempted to
identifythemarketingandadvertisingpotential
ofSNSsanditsapplicabilityonpeople’sattitude
toward knowledge sharing. Also, it was a time
todevelopaclearresearchaboutSNSsbusiness
models and effective relationship management
that discussed in few articles. Table 3 summa-
Table 2. Distribution of articles by topic
Topics
Number
of Articles
% of
Topic
% of
All Topics
1. Marketing and advertising 10 100 35.7
1.1. Electronic word-of-mouth 3 30.0 10.7
1.2. Marketing Strategy 2 20.0 7.1
1.3. Consumer posting behavior 1 10.0 3.6
1.4. Direct marketing 1 10.0 3.6
1.5. Online information search 1 10.0 3.6
1.6. Online purchase intentions 1 10.0 3.6
1.7. Relationships in online communities 1 10.0 3.6
2. Knowledge management 5 100 17.8
2.1. Knowledge sharing behavior 3 60.0 10.7
2.2. Social network position 2 40.0 7.1
3. Social Capital 3 100 10.7
3.1. Social Capital 3 100 10.7
4. Economic models 3 100 10.7
4.1. Business models 2 66.7 7.1
4.2. Economic models evaluation 1 33.3 3.6
5. Relationship Management 5 100 17.9
5.1. Dialogic communication 1 20.0 3.6
5.2. Corporate social responsibility 1 20.0 3.6
5.3. Online public relations 3 60.0 10.7
6. E-commerce 2 100 7.1
6.1. Online social network services 1 50 3.6
6.2. Online Paying behavior 1 50 3.6

rizesallofthereviewedarticlesthatcorrespond
to the topic. This is a helpful resource for any-
one searching for business impacts of SNSs
related papers in a specific area.
Distribution of Articles by Country
The distribution of articles by country name is
shown in Figure 2. There is a tremendous dif-
ference between the number of publications of
USAandothercountries,sothatresearchworks
conducted in USA contains 12 articles or 42%
of total. China is ranked in second order.
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE
RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
Business impacts of SNSs have attracted the
attention of both practitioners and academics
and we believe that business impacts of SNSs
are becoming increasingly pervasive. The
Table 3. Classification of the reviewed articles
Topics
1. Marketing and advertising
1.1. Electronic word-of-mouth (Brown, Broderick, & Lee, 2007; Jalilvand, Esfahani, & Samiei, 2011; Mangold &
Smith, 2011)
1.2. Marketing Strategy (Hanna, et al., 2011; Zhiling, 2012)
1.3. Consumer posting behavior (Chen, Fay, & Wang, 2011)
1.4. Direct marketing (Palmer & Koenig-Lewis, 2009)
1.5. Online information search (Xiang & Gretzel, 2010)
1.6. Online purchase intentions (Pookulangara & Koesler, 2011)
1.7. Relationships in online communities (Sarah Quinton, 2010)
2. Knowledge management
2.1. Knowledge sharing behavior (Chai & Kim, 2011; Chiu et al., 2006; Nov, Ye, & Kumar, 2012)
2.2. Social network position (Wang, 2010; Zhao, Wu, Feng, Xiong, & Xu, 2011)
3. Social Capital
3.1. Social Capital (Pitt et al., 2006; Skoric & Kwan, 2011; Vergeer, Lim, & Park, 2011)
4. Economic models
4.1. Business models (Enders, Hungenberg, Denker, & Mauch, 2008; Hoegg, Martignoni, Meckel, &
Stanoevska-Slabeva, 2006)
4.2. Economic models evaluation (Gneiser, 2010)
5. Relationship Management
5.1. Dialogic communication (Rybalko & Seltzer, 2010)
5.2. Corporate social responsibility (Fieseler, Fleck, & Meckel, 2010)
5.3. Online public relations (Jungmi, 2011; Men & Tsai, in press; Omurtag, Jimenez, Ratts, Odem, & Cooper,
2012)
6. E-commerce
6.1. Online social network services (Lee & Chen, 2011)
6.2. Online Paying behavior (Bo Han, 2011)

paper reviewed 28 journal articles published
from 2000 to 2011 and a few months of 2012
and classified them into six distinct categories;
the “marketing and advertising”, “knowledge
management”, “social capital”, “relationship
management”, “e-commerce”, and “economic
model”. The findings of our study reveal that
“marketing and advertising” were the most
frequently category has been considered in
the literature.
The six identified categories are somehow
consistent with the four general functions of
social networks; sales, marketing, public rela-
tions, and internal communications as noted by
Gordon (2010) on a survey of 632 sample. It
is obvious from the data analysis that research
activities on business impacts of SNSs have
increased significantly after 2010. However,
this review does not claim to be exhaustive, but
it does provide a reasonable amount of insight
into the business impacts of SNSs research.
The reader should be noticed that the business
impactsofSNSsmightnotnecessarilylimitedto
aforementionedcategories,butthesecategories
were just among the research interest topics
of academics until the publication date of the
paper. The results presented in this paper have
several important implications:
• There is no doubt that research works on
business impacts of SNSs will proliferate
in the future. Academics have many av-
enues for conducting research on business
impacts of SNSs.
• It is not surprising that a large portion of
the reviewed articles in this study were
related to marketing and advertising, es-
peciallythe study of “marketingstrategy”,
“electronicword-of-mouth”,probablydue
to the fact that marketing and advertising
is becoming a mature business discipline
and SNSs provide facilities and tools to
enable direct marketing and advertising.
For instance, Facebook business account
allows businesses to build a simple busi-
ness presence by creating public business
pages. Nevertheless, they have limited ac-
cess to the profiles of people who interact
with or “fan” their page, as well as little
access to other features on the site. It was
not long ago that many organizations dis-
couraged employees from visiting social
media sites, with many of them blocking
access to sites outright. But today, 41.2%
of businesses have employees whose job
function includes spending time on social
mediasites,whileonly9%reportblocking
internal access for employees (Gordon,
2010). Hence, regarding the wide inter-
est of businesses in using SNSs, it is not
surprising that a significant part of the
reviewedpapersweredevotedtomarketing
and advertising category.
Figure 2. Distribution of articles by country names

• Although we did not find many articles on
“economic model”, this may not represent
theactualsituation.Webelievethatfinding
an appropriate business model for SNSs is
an extremely important strategic mission
for practitioners to survive in the market
where new SNSs continue emerging and
the competition becomes more intensive.
Several major SNSs attempt to attract and
encourage the users to pay by providing
enjoyable services, such as online social
games, music download, and so on. As
noted by Deb Sledgianowski (2009) these
new features could influence user’s inten-
tion for adopting SNSs, actual use and
consequentlypayingmoney.Tosumup,we
expect that the field of SNSs business and
economicmodelswillburgeoninthefuture.
• SNSs may facilitate collaborative sense
making among employees. Some popular
SNSs such as Facebook have been widely
used by the majority of USA students and
many use them for communicating with
their colleagues (Ellison, Steinfield, &
Lampe, 2007; Lampe, Wohn, Vitak, El-
lison, & Wash, 2011; Smith & Salaway,
2009).Also, some authors have found that
students employ SNSs as a way to discuss
academics (e.g., Greenhow & Robelia,
2009; Madge, Meek, Wellens, & Hooley,
2009; Selwyn, 2009). Drawing from
these studies, we believe that SNSs have
high capability in connecting people and
buildingaknowledgesharingenvironment
in organizations in a same manner. The
argument is supported by Gordon (2010)
who claimed that organizations can save
expense by using existing social networks
tocreateworkgroupswheredocumentsare
sharedcollaboratively.Inhisstudy,thetop
uses of social networks for internal com-
munications are “sharing documents” and
“maintainingcommunicationwithteams”.
Nevertheless, the point is overlooked in
organizationallearningcontextofresearch
works.Meanwhile,just17percentofallre-
viewedpapersbelongstoSNSscapabilities
in knowledge management which should
be consolidated in future research works
and investigate how can an organization
effectivelyuseanSNSstoshareandcreate
organizational knowledge.
• Alarge portion of the published papers on
SNSs and their business impacts belongs
todevelopedande-readycountries.Mean-
while, just 25 percent of all the reviewed
papers belong to less developed countries.
One might imply that there is a positive
relationship between e-readiness rank of
countries and their SNSs use in business
operations. Nevertheless, this argument
needs validation through further studies.
• The increasing business relevance of SNS
andnumerousrecentacquisitionspricedat
enormous amounts revealed the need for
adequate valuation models. However, tra-
ditionalvaluationapproachesarerestricted
in their ability to value young and fast
growingInternetcompaniessuchasSNSs.
• Since the applications of SNSs in busi-
nesses are ample ad miscellaneous, orga-
nizations have to do some arrangements
before they jump into social media.
In addition to the above implications, we
would like to offer the following suggestions
for further research in SNSs:
• Categories and sub-categories in the clas-
sificationframeworkwereidentifiedbased
on our observations from reviewing the
articles. We believe that with increasing
number of articles in this area more cat-
egoriesandsub-categoriesshouldbeadded
andupdatedintheclassificationframework
particularly in the area of “marketing and
advertising”,asmorearticlescanbefound.
• Investigating the features and functional-
ities of SNSs in supporting businesses in
doing economic operations is also highly
suggested for future works.

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Payam Hanafizadeh is an Assistant Professor of Industrial Management at Allameh Tabataba'i
University in Tehran, Iran and a member of the Design Optimization under Uncertainty Group
at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He was a visiting research fellow at the University of
Canberra,Australiain2010andavisitingscholarattheUniversityofWaterloo,Canadain2004.
He received his MSc and PhD in Industrial Engineering from Tehran Polytechnic University
and pursues his research in information systems and decision-making under uncertainty. He has
published in such journals as the Information Society, Systemic Practice and Action Research,
ManagementDecision,JournalofGlobalInformationManagement,TelecommunicationsPolicy,
Mathematical and Computer Modeling, Expert Systems withApplications, International Journal
of Information Management, and Energy Policy to name a few.

Ahad Zare Ravasan is a PhD student in Information Technology Management in the School of
Management and Accounting at Allameh Tabataba’i University in Tehran, Iran. He received
his M.A. in Information Technology Management from Allameh Tabataba’i University in 2010
and his BSs in Industrial Engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST) in
2007. He has published three books and some papers in acclaimed journals such as the Expert
Systems withApplications, Information Systems, International Journal of Production Research,
Scientia Iranica and International Journal of Enterprise Information Systems (IJEIS). His re-
search interests include ERPs, artificial neural networks applications, IT service outsourcing
and business intelligence.
Ali Nabavi is a PhD student in Information Technology Management in the School of Manage-
ment and Accounting at Allameh Tabataba’i University in Tehran, Iran. He received his M.A. in
Information Technology Management from Allameh Tabataba’i University in 2007 and his BSc
in Industrial Engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST) in 2003. His
research interests revolve around digital economy, ERPs, information systems project manage-
ment and e-banking.
Mohammad Mehrabioun is a PhD student in Information Technology Management in the School
of Management and Accounting at Allameh Tabataba’i University in Tehran, Iran. He received
his M.A. in Information Technology Management from Tehran University in 2011 and his BSs
in Industrial Engineering from Yazd University in 2008. His research interests include business
intelligence, information systems and soft operation research approaches.

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