The Impact of Internet Content Regulation Policies on the Promotion of Targeted Consumer Behavior

This paper focuses on the impact of various Internet content regulation policies on the promotion of targeted consumer behavior. Humanity’s ability to connect and transmit across global boundaries, and the data economy that has grown up around that environment, has been so influential that governments worldwide are now struggling with whether to set limits for the extent of social media and social networks that has become so ubiquitous that few people would be capable of imagining their lives without them. At the same time, social media users are learning more about their roles in the data economy. Social and digital marketing provide organizations with considerable opportunities to drive lower costs, increase brand recognition, and boost sales. Recognizing the influence that Internet content has on consumers attitudes and decisions, brands have begun approaching social media influencers (i.e., powerful users of social media who have managed to generate large audiences of followers) and offering incentives for social media influencers (i.e., creating and sharing content related to the relevant, authentically-appearing brand, a practice known as influencer marketing). We determine long-run platform effects for both direct and spillover communication, by dividing the estimates for direct and spillover communications by the decline in intermedia engagement. We determine consumer engagement with brand activity on the Internet-based resources. Due to log–log specifications, estimates also reflect elasticities between the brand-generated content and the consumers engagement. Once the brand’s goal is decided, the team must talk with employees, partners, and customers to understand the employee’s interests in the social causes. Our results show that strengthening stakeholders’ relationships with the company by conducting a reciprocal corporate social responsibility initiative can be beneficial. Social impact by consumers engagement with network-based and small-group-based virtual communities can also be useful.