Leaders' social media usage intentions for in‐bound customer communications

Purpose – This paper develops and tests a model depicting the drivers of organizational leaders' intentions to use social media for in‐bound customer communications in a political marketing context. This model improves practitioners and researchers understanding of what influence leaders' attitudes and intentions toward using social media to enhance marketing communications. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses mediated OLS regression analysis with survey data collected from a national sample of political candidates running for the US House of Representatives in 2010. Findings – Overall satisfaction with social media for marketing communications and customers' normative expectations that organizations use social media for marketing communications drive leaders' future intentions to use social media for in‐bound customer communications. Perceived ease of use, and perceived social media usefulness for in‐bound and out‐bound customer communications drive overall satisfaction with social media for marketing communications. Research limitations/implications – Leaders support social media as a tool to enhance marketing communications if they perceive relevant social influence and technical applicability. Whereas we find empirical support of our model in a US political context, future research should test our model in other cultural and organizational contexts. Originality/value – This paper addresses a gap between what research addresses in regards to new media and what is happing in practice. This paper adds to the body of research in marketing and other disciplines that explains the integration and use of social media for marketing communications.