“Social media marketing and customer purchase intention: Evidence-based bibliometrics and text analysis”

The rapid proliferation of social media platforms has sparked heightened interest among businesses seeking to leverage them to enhance customer purchase intentions. Consequently, there has been a surge in research exploring the intersection of social media marketing and consumer behavior. However, gaps persist regarding the primary themes within this research domain. This study analyzes 282 research papers spanning from 2012 to 2022, sourced from the Web of Science Core Collection, focusing on social media and customer purchase intentions. Leveraging Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) commands in STATA and VOSviewer software, the study investigates emerging trends and prevalent themes, visualizing the dataset. The findings indicate a notable increase in research output, particularly from developed countries, with significant collaboration between developed and developing nations. Moreover, the study identifies five principal research topics: 1) the impact of social media marketing on consumer purchase intention, 2) the consequences of online brand communities on purchase behavior, 3) factors influencing consumer purchase intention, 4) influencer effects on purchase intention, and 5) social media advertising and marketing strategies. Future inquiries should delve into various factors shaping customer purchase intentions, including the role of influencers, word-of-mouth dynamics, and advertising strategies while considering the diverse cultural contexts across different regions. This comprehensive analysis provides valuable insights for researchers and practitioners alike, guiding future endeavors in understanding and harnessing the power of social media in consumer decision-making processes.


INTRODUCTION
The prevalence of social media platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook has fundamentally transformed the digital landscape over recent years (Chen & Qasim, 2021).In addition to employing them for communication, companies also use them to sell their products and consider them indispensable for success in the Internet marketplace (Ebrahim, 2020).
Social media marketing represents a strategic approach wherein businesses leverage these platforms to effectively captivate online consumers.A multitude of brands have capitalized on the rise of social media to forge robust client relationships and enhance communication dynamics (Ibrahim & Aljarah, 2018).Most companies have developed social networking sites as a potent tool to connect with and reach their target audience (Luo et al., 2018), which can impact their purchasing decisions (Suraweera & Jayathilake, 2021).
Frequently, consumers utilize social media to conduct product and service research, read reviews, and engage with brands (Lim & Rasul, 2022).Businesses may establish credibility and brand loyalty, increasing purchase intention by providing entertaining and informative material on social media (Hanaysha, 2022).
Consumers increasingly rely on their engagement with social media platforms (Hutter et al., 2013).As the number of consumers using social media continues to surge and businesses strategically incorporate social media into their operational frameworks, these platforms facilitate meaningful interactions between consumers and companies.Social media provides an avenue for consumers to connect and engage with businesses and their fellow consumers (Hall-Phillips et al., 2016).
Social media marketing plays a pivotal role in shaping customer purchasing intentions.This strategic approach harnesses the potential of social media to cultivate awareness and foster positive engagement.Social marketing can heighten customer purchase intent by aligning with social values and fostering engagement through these channels.Furthermore, the impact of community reviews and feedback on social platforms cannot be understated, as these evaluations, whether positive or negative, wield substantial influence over purchasing decisions.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Social media marketing is the type of marketing that uses social media platforms, focusing on posting social media content to increase the sale of a product, service, or brand awareness (Davis, 2016;Sheela & Mohammad, 2018).It leverages the power of social networks to connect with a large and engaged audience.For businesses and organizations, utilizing social media marketing can significantly enhance brand visibility, foster customer engagement, and boost sales (Faisal & Ekawanto, 2022).Choosing the right social media platforms to reach and engage with customers through social media marketing effectively is essential (Agrawal & Trivedi, 2021).Regularly monitoring and adjusting your social media marketing strategy is critical to long-term success.
Purchase intention denotes a consumer's inclination or desire to acquire a product or service (Li et al., 2022).It is a crucial concept in marketing since it helps businesses and marketers understand what drives consumer behavior and how they can influence it (Morwitz, 2012).By understanding consumer purchase intentions, companies can tailor their marketing strategies to target better and engage their audience and ultimately drive sales (Agrawal & Trivedi, 2021).
Many studies have examined the correlation between social media marketing and purchase intention, with some favorable correlation (Emini & Zeqiri, 2021;Jamil et al., 2022).The positive relationship can be found in various industry and contextual settings, such as in Indonesia (Kusumo et al., 2021), Vietnam (Nguyen et al., 2020), and Saudi Arabia (Alfeel & Ansari, 2019).Organizations solicit stakeholder feedback using social media (Pang et al., 2018).Consumer evaluations are a significant part of social media that raises questions about the information's quality, legitimacy, and authenticity (Chen et al., 2011).A study by Swathi and Linus (2022) reveals that SMM increases customer-business engagement.Another study examines the elements influencing purchase intent in e-commerce transactions (Dachyar & Banjarnahor, 2017).
Existence review studies have been conducted in different fields.For instance, a survey by Vrontis et al. (2021) explores the current themes and research gaps in social media influencer marketing.Besides, Bryła et al. (2022) focus on the impact of social media marketing on consumer engagement.A study in 2022 conducted advanced social media marketing strategies and background research on social media marketing in various contexts (Swathi & Linus, 2022).However, there is a lack of comprehension of the most significant trends and themes in the research on purchase intention and social media marketing.
Besides, there have been several research using bibliometric measurement in marketing and purchase behavior.For instance, Li and Hassan (2023) seek to analyze the present state of research concerning the purchasing habits of Generation Z, delineate the progression of research into Generation Z's buying behavior, and pinpoint principal areas of research interest.Besides, Wu et al. (2022) delineate five prominent research themes of integrated marketing communications, including IMC theory and models, brand communication, media investigation, consumer analysis, and marketing.However, these studies did not use Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) commands to explore the topics of the dataset but VOSviewer.
In summary, social media marketing is effective in providing valuable content, engaging with customers, and building relationships with customers.Companies that are proficient in utilizing social media to cultivate trust and credibility with customers are more prone to experience a favorable influence on the intention to purchase.This study will examine the present academic discussion and attempt to identify the main topic and the publishing rate regarding social media marketing and purchase intention using bibliometric and LDA methods.

METHOD
Building upon the insights and gaps identified in the literature review, this study will now outline the methodology employed to address this research.
First, the terms "social media marketing", "purchase intention," and social media platforms, including "Facebook," "Twitter," "YouTube," "Instagram," "Zalo," "TikTok," "Google Ads," and "Google Adwords" were used as search terms.All papers contained those in the title, abstract, keywords, and keywords plus.The search terms were combined by using Boolean "AND" and "OR" (see Appendix A).
The Web of Science (WOS) database was applied for data download.This database outweighs others due to its convenience in data collection, including 1) wide-range coverage of the topic area, 2) reliable sources with high-quality journals, 3) providing sophisticated search options, and 4) fulltext article access (Pranckutė, 2021).
Second, the publication data were limited to 2022 because the search began in January 2023.Besides, there was no restriction on the initial date.The chosen papers were research articles and reviews written in English; any other types of papers written in different languages were eliminated.Data were downloaded separately to check consistency (see Appendix B).
The finished data were copied to STATA (version 16.0) for analysis (StataCorp., Texas, USA).The general information of the dataset included years of publishing, annual papers of each country, total citations until 2022, the average citation rate a year, the total number of downloads in the past six months and five years, and the average download times in the last six months/five years.
VOSviewer created a network graph illustrating the collaboration of countries and a co-occurrence network using keywords (Van Eck & Waltman, 2010).
Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) determined the five most popular topics.Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) is a technique for modeling themes that can find the primary subjects in a set of abstracts.Each abstract combines several themes, and each topic is a word distribution according to the LDA principle.Two researchers examine the abstract and identify subjects after determining the most popular topics.They resolved their disagreements by consulting with a senior researcher.
Below is a summary of analytical approaches for each data type (Table 1).

RESULTS
With the methodology in place, the findings will provide a comprehensive analysis of the data collected and shed light on the outcomes of the research efforts.
Table 2 provides an overview of the research output and impact of the publications over ten years.It shows the increasing trend in research productivity and influence, which can help evaluate the performance and impact of a research program or institution.
The number of papers published each year varies from 1 to 77, with an increasing trend from 2012 to 2022.The number of citations ranges from 29 to 1,316, with the highest number in 2020.The mean citation rate per year ranges from 3.6 to 1,540, with the highest rate in 2022.
The total download times in the last six months and five years range from 5 to 6,170 and from 53 to 3,132, respectively, with the highest usage in 2020.The average download times in the previous six months and last five years range from 3.5 to 25.0 and 5.0 to 73.6, respectively, with the highest mean use rate in 2012.Figure 1 shows the connections between various research areas in social media marketing based on their co-occurrence in scientific publications.
The dendrogram starts with a broad category of "environmental studies" and branches out into more specific subfields, including "computer science," "communication," "psychology," and "social sciences." Within the "social sciences" subfield, the dendrogram further divides into subfields such as "education" and "information science."The "communication" subfield branches into subfields such as "film, radio, television" and "sociology."Finally, the "computer science" subfield is divided into subfields such as "information" and "technology." The dendrogram (Figure 1) highlights the multidisciplinary nature of social media marketing research, with connections among social science, communication, and computer science.It also identifies specific areas of overlap and potential for interdisciplinary collaboration, such as the intersection of marketing and computer science in data mining.Moreover, research themes were also explored by the co-occurrence of keywords (see Appendix B).
The keywords characterize the scope of the studies.Three significant clusters emerged from 1,471 most frequent keywords that occurred together at least four times.Cluster 1 (red) refers to the impact of social media marketing on consumer purchase intention and the determinants associated with purchase intention, which include brand equity, brand community, or customer loyalty.Cluster 2 (blue) focuses on the technological acceptance model applied to social media marketing.Cluster 3 (green) focuses on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in Social Media Platforms (Youtube and Instagram).
In addition, countries' collaboration regarding social media marketing and purchase intention was illustrated (see Appendix B).There was a collaboration between England and African countries.The other clusters between the US and Asian countries (Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) were formed.The third cluster was among European countries (Germany, France, Italy), Australia, and Asian countries (Iran, Oman and India).The last one was the cooperation among Islamic countries (Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and Indonesia), Belgium, and New Zealand.The mentioned clusters showed the inter-national collaboration in social media marketing and purchase intention between developed and developing countries.

DISCUSSION
This study explores the development of research papers and popular topics regarding social media marketing and purchase intention.Applying bibliometrics, social media marketing, and purchase intention-related articles were evaluated.A gradual increase in articles was discovered from 2015 to 2022.The findings show a growing trend in research papers and the strong collaboration between high-resource and low-resource settings.
Based on the co-occurrence of keywords, most cited papers and LDA five popular topics were identified, including 1) determining factors to social media marketing and purchase intention; 2) influencers' impact on purchase intention; 3) Online Brand Communities and Purchasing Behavior Consequences; 4) Social Media Advertising and Marketing; and 5) The Effect of Social Media Marketing and Influencers on Consumer Purchase Intention in a Variety of Industries.
Research has observed the international collaboration between researchers in developing and developed countries.The most solid partnership was among the most developed countries (The US, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan), which is shown by the significant number of papers Figure 2 shows that this result was similar to previous studies using bibliometrics, which emphasized the US's leading role in research and development (Vrontis et al., 2021).This result also shows that In terms of the dendrogram research field, social media marketing emerges as a multidisciplinary area of study.Within the articles gathered for this investigation, the field encompasses aspects of business, marketing, computer science, and psychology.That connection provides a more holistic understanding of complex phenomena and generates innovative solutions that are more effec-tive than those developed by any one field alone.Business and marketing can provide insights into consumer behavior, market trends, and strategic decision-making.Computer science can contribute to developing algorithms and data analysis tools to extract insights from social media data (Zachlod et al., 2022).Psychology can offer theories and frameworks for understanding human behavior and decision-making in the context of social media (Constantino et al., 2021).
Based on the co-occurrence of keywords and the five most popular topics, the findings confirm that social media marketing and influencer marketing have recently gained significant attention from researchers, with a significant increase in published papers.Besides, the factors that influence consumer purchase intention and behavior on social media platforms and the impact of influencers on purchase intention in social media marketing are two essential subtopics within this field.This result is similar to that of Swathi and Linus (2022).
They confirm an upward trend in research related to influencer marketing.Noteworthy, the consequences of online brand communities on purchasing behavior and social media advertising and marketing strategies have received relatively less attention from researchers.Therefore, researching online brand communities' purchasing behavior is necessary.By engaging with like-minded individuals online, consumers can develop a sense of loyalty and attachment to a brand, leading to increased brand trust and advocacy.In an online brand community, consumers can share their experiences and opinions about a brand and its products, influencing others' purchasing decisions.The findings differ from the study by Swathi and Linus (2022).They confirm that there should be more scientific papers on social media tactics on the purchase behaviors of Gen Z customers.
The present study offers significant insights for both scholars and businesses.Initially, it stands as the pioneering bibliometric study on social media marketing and its influence on customer purchase intent.More precisely, this analysis outlines existing research from a multidisciplinary research area and the development of worldwide researchers.Second, applying an LDA methodology consolidates prior findings and examines the effects of social media marketing and influencer marketing on customer purchase intention.Moreover, the study also offers fresh perspectives that can steer future studies in this domain, warranting deeper exploration, such as online brand communities and the effect of influencers on customer purchase intention.This overview suggests that studies on both subjects are quickly gaining traction.Given this context, this study offers a crucial contribution to the literature by establishing a solid foundation for scholars to further develop investigations on online brand communities and the effect of influencers on purchase intention.
Finally, the overview highlights various areas lacking in research, offering promising directions for upcoming studies.Specifically, researchers should notice a more robust and more coherent between developing and developed countries.Additionally, better contextual situation understanding was needed by conducting more research in both emerging and developed countries.These points could serve as a founda-tion for future research endeavors, significantly enhancing and expanding both this research area and the broader marketing discipline.
The results of this study should be considered carefully with several limitations.First, this overview focused solely on English-language articles published in peer-reviewed academic journals.Consequently, materials like book chapters, conference papers, theses, and other non-peer-reviewed literature were not included.Second, one electronic database, Web of Science, was used.
Although it is a comprehensive research database providing access to a wide range of scholarly literature and tools for analyzing it, it might have yet to include articles relevant to our topic.A further study might apply more databases for analysis, such as Scopus data.Finally, a study gives an international perspective within the realm of social media marketing and customer purchase intention.An additional study might focus on specific regions or circumstances to explore the role of the contextual background.

CONCLUSION
This study explores the development of research papers and popular topics regarding social media marketing and customer purchase intentions.Applying bibliometrics and text analysis, the findings show a growing trend in research papers and the limited involvement of researchers from developing countries in this research field.The study also confirms that researchers have recently attracted considerable interest from social media platforms and influencer marketing.In contrast, the consequences of online brand communities on purchasing behavior and social media advertising and marketing strategies have received relatively less attention.The study provides important implications for researchers and enterprises, including the need for cross-platform comparisons of social media platforms and more research on online brand communities purchasing behavior.

Table 4 Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Dendrogram illustrating the overlap of research areas based on WoS classifications http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/im.20(2).2024.14Note:Thecolors of the nodes indicate research clusters.The length of the lines was determined by the intensity of the relationship between the two nations.

Figure B4 .
Figure B4.Co-occurrence of most frequent research keywords

Table 2 .
General indicators of studies

Table 3 .
Most cited papers

Table 4 . LDA topic Year Published Number of papers (topic_1) a Number of papers (topic_2) b Number of documents (topic_3) c Number of documents (topic_4) d
(Vose & Cervellini, 1983om developing countries in this research field needs to expand.The limitation in research may be in the human and financial capacity for conducting research(Vose & Cervellini, 1983).
Note: a The Impact of Social Media Marketing on Consumer Purchase Intention in various industries.bOnline Brand Communities and Purchasing Behavior Consequences.cFactors influencing consumer purchase intention and behavior on social media platforms.dThe Impact of Influencers on Purchase Intention in Social Media Marketing.eSocial Media Advertising and Marketing.the