Social media and m–commerce

Mobile devices and social media constitute two rapidly evolving and expanding technologies, adopted and used globally, jointly contributing to shaping a dynamic and highly interactive mobile environment, where vendors can reach customers anytime anywhere. Thus, social media increasingly used on mobile devices emerge as a powerful tool for mobile commerce (m–commerce). This paper aims to investigate social media in the mobile setting and their use in m–commerce. Our objective is to enhance the understanding of customers' perceptions and behaviour regarding m–commerce and the use of social media on mobile devices and also to explore the potential of social media for m–commerce, leveraging the augmenting use of social media on mobile devices. In this direction, the paper presents an exploratory qualitative study on the use of smartphones and social media, in the context of m–commerce. Our results denote the factors that are important for m–commerce and social media adoption on mobile devices as well as for the integration of social media in m–commerce. The paper discusses theoretical and practical issues for the combined use of social media and mobile devices in this promising mobile business context.