Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jretconser

User engagement for mobile payment service providers – introducing the

social media engagement model
⁎
Purva Grover, Arpan Kumar Kar
Information Systems area, DMS, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Twitter is being used by mobile wallet firms for customer acquisition, relationship management, marketing and
Social media marketing promotional purposes. This study examines service advertisement and promotional tweets by mobile wallet
Digital payments firm's on Twitter. For this study, timeline data of top four mobile wallet firms of India, Paytm, MobiKwik,
Twitter analytics Freecharge and Oxigen Wallet were extracted from their Twitter screen (firm generated tweets). The user
Mobile wallets
generated tweets were also extracted, using the search terms as firm's name. This study proposes a Social Media
Customer engagement
Engagement model for understanding user dynamics. The study provides three interesting inputs for promo-
tional marketing tweets, firstly, firm should post mix of the tweets with respect to content type (i.e. informa-
tional, entertainment, remuneration and social). Secondly, a periodic campaigning is needed by the firms; and
lastly, firms should focus on increasing their network size. The implications of these findings can help firm's
managers and marketers in planning effective social media marketing campaigns.

1. Introduction
Technology has been transforming societies and creating new op-
portunities for the firms. Financial and technological firms are coming
together for new digital payment services (Puschmann, 2017). One of
the popular services offered by these firms is mobile payments or
wallets (Sha and Mohammed, 2017; Varsha and Thulasiram, 2016).
Platforms such as mobile wallets facilitate online payments between
users and retailers. Mobile wallets facilitate peer-to-peer direct transfer
through smartphones, overcoming geographical constraints (Kim et al.,
2010).
Users of such platforms need to register with mobile wallet firms for
using their digital payment services, they can use mobile wallets for
making payments to m-commerce, e-commerce or day-to-day purchases
(Shin, 2009). Each transaction involves a flat charges. Popular firms in
India offering digital payment services are Paytm (Gaikar, 2012), Mo-
biwik, Freecharge, and Oxigen wallet (Reserve Bank of India, 2018).
Mobile payment services adoption depends on three factors such as
perceived usefulness; social influence; mobility and reachability.
Therefore, there is the need for mobile wallet firms to advertise their
services so that users can use these services for their day to day pur-
chases (Schierz et al., 2010; Zhou, 2013).
In today's digital world where 45.17% of Asia's population using the
internet services (Internet World Stats, 2017), and global internet users
aged 25–34 years use social media daily for two hours and twenty one
minutes (Statista, 2016). Literature indicates 80% of social media users
had reported that they use social media for seeking information related
to sales, deals, products, events, businesses and self-education (Whiting
and Williams, 2013). A report reveals that around 46% of users trust
advertisements on social media partly or fully (Nielsen, 2015). If
companies need to target these users there is an urgency of doing
marketing on social media.
Social media marketing has been used for promoting products and
services across different industries (Alalwan et al., 2017; Dwivedi et al.,
2015; Kapoor et al., 2018; Shiau et al., 2017, 2018). Ashley and Tuten
(2015) pointed out 96.43% of firms used microblogs for social media
marketing. Twitter is another powerful social media tool for enhancing
business performance. Literature suggests American firms need more
than 200,000 followers on Twitter to impact their financial perfor-
mance through marketing (Paniagua and Sapena, 2014).
Social media marketing impacts firm's financial, operational and
social performance (Paniagua and Sapena, 2014). Social media mar-
keting supports two forms of promotions (Cvijikj and Michahelles,
2013; Mangold and Faulds, 2009): (i) traditional marketing promo-
tions, which refer to the communication driven by the firms towards
users, and (ii) social promotions, which is unique to social media when
users communicate to other users and spread the information.
Communication effectiveness plays an important role in building

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: groverdpurva@gmail.com (P. Grover), arpan_kar@yahoo.co.in, arpankar@iitd.ac.in (A.K. Kar).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2018.12.002
Received 5 September 2018; Received in revised form 5 December 2018; Accepted 5 December 2018
0969-6989/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Grover, P., Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2018.12.002
P. Grover, A.K. Kar
Table 1
Factors effecting mobile payment service adoption and usage.
Factor Literature Evidence
Perceived usefulness Amoroso and Ackaradejruangsri (2017)
Chen and Li (2017)
Kim et al. (2010)
Shaw (2014)
Social influence/Informal learning Qasim and Abu-Shanab (2016)
Murendo et al. (2018)
Shin (2009)
Singh et al. (2017)
Yang et al. (2012)
Mobility and Reachability Schierz et al. (2010)
Kim et al. (2010)
Slade et al. (2015)
Lu et al. (2017)
relationship between firms and users (Sharma and Patterson, 1999).
When user engages in an online community, users tend to focus on
product benefits more as compared to the cost (Zheng et al., 2015).
Literature points out in the Facebook app success user rating plays an
important role (Claussen et al., 2013). User engagement on social media
leads to brand loyalty (Zheng et al., 2015). Prior studies have con-
sidered user participation and user engagement as the factors while
examining social media engagement (Claussen et al., 2013; Cvijikj and
Michahelles, 2013; Dolan et al., 2016; Zheng et al., 2015), but we could
not find a study that has considered user retention as a factor to ex-
amine social media engagement.
To best of our knowledge, the existing literature lacks studies that
explore the following: (a) the impact of social media marketing on users
with respect to user participation, engagement and retention; and (b)
measuring user retention on social media through user participation
over the span of the time. To address this gap in existing literature, the
study proposes a Social Media Engagement (SME) model for under-
standing the dynamics of user engagement. The model had been sta-
tistically tested using the tweets posted by the mobile wallet firms of
India, Paytm, MobiKwik, Freecharge and Oxigen Wallet. The user
generated tweets were also extracted using the search terms as firm's
name.
Uses and gratification theory (Blumler and Katz, 1974) had been
used as the theoretical lens for the model. The theory states users of the
media are active audiences. The theory focuses on the use of the social
media by the users (Whiting and Williams, 2013) and firms for sa-
tisfying their own gratifications. The remaining sections are organized
as follows: Section 2 briefly illustrates the contextual background
needed for the study on mobile wallets; social media marketing; user
participation, user engagement and user retention; Section 3 introduces
the theoretical framework and hypothesis development for the study
along with defining literature gap. Section 4 illustrates the metho-
dology adopted for collecting and analysing the tweets. Section 5 pre-
sents the results and analysis of the study. Section 6 discusses the results
and future implications for social media marketing followed by the
conclusion, limitation of the study and future research directions.
2. Contextual background
The contextual background had been divided into the three sub-
sections as follows: mobile wallets; social media marketing; user par-
ticipation, engagement and retention. The first subsection introduces
the offers offered by mobile wallet firm and its impact on society. The
second subsection highlights the usage of social media marketing in
different industries for product and services promotions. The third
subsection defines user participation, user engagement and user re-
tention for the study.
2
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
Constructs
➢ Provides secure transactions.
➢ Highly convenient for the customers.
➢ One tap and quick payments for the purchases.
➢ Builds positive attitude towards services.
➢ Drives usage intention of the users.
➢ Builds the trust and endorses services among other users in the community.
➢ Increases mobility and reachability in rural areas.
➢ No geographical constraints.
➢ Needs a smartphone and internet connection.
2.1. Mobile wallets
Mobile wallet enables users to pay for goods and services using their
mobile devices (Bodhani, 2011; Kim et al., 2010). Mobile wallet facil-
itates transactions between consumer-to-consumer, consumer-to-busi-
ness, consumer-to-online and consumer-to-machine (Shin, 2009). For
using mobile wallet services, a smartphone with internet connection is
needed. The transactions through mobile wallets are highly secure and
convenient (Amoroso and Ackaradejruangsri, 2017; Chen and Li, 2017;
Kim et al., 2010; Shaw, 2014). A mobile wallet integrates various
payment methods into one application system (Ma and Yi, 2012).
Evidences indicate that extensive usage of mobile wallets, may lead to
cashless societies in the future (Bodhani, 2011).
Dahlberg et al. (2008) had pointed out constructs for mobile wallet
adoption among users: cost, convenience, context, compatibility, ease
of use, expressiveness, mobility, network externalities, observability,
privacy, risk, security, social influence, speed of transaction, system
quality, technology anxiety, trialability, trust and usefulness. Kim,
Mirusmonov and Lee (2010) had advised to group the adoption factors
into user-centric factors (personal innovativeness and knowledge) and
system characteristics (mobility, reachability, compatibility, and con-
venience). Reviews of literature in mobile commerce adoption
(Chhonker et al., 2017) had highlighted dominant theories in mobile
adoption which indicates factors like perceived usefulness, social in-
fluence, mobility and reachability have a dominant role.
On the basis of the literature, presented in Table 1, perceived use-
fulness; social influence; mobility and reachability factors affects mo-
bile payment adoption significantly in the society. Social influence
plays a great role in driving continuous usage intention of the users (Lu
et al., 2017; Qasim and Abu-Shanab, 2016). Size of the network is
positively related to influencing power (Murendo et al., 2018). Money
transfer through mobile wallets impacts social relationships at personal,
social and cultural levels as well (Fang et al., 2014; Shareef et al.,
2018a, 2018b).
2.2. Social media marketing
Social media is increasingly becoming important across the globe
for sharing information (Xiang and Gretzel, 2010), public relations
(Eyrich et al., 2008; Oh et al., 2017) and opinion propagation
(Valenzuela, 2013). Croft (2013) had described social media as net-
works of interpersonal relationships for adhoc groupings. In this era of
digital economy, all business leaders are utilizing social media for
marketing (Thackeray et al., 2008), brand management (Kim and Ko,
2012), product or service promotions (Neiger et al., 2012), customer
engagement (Heller Baird and Parasnis, 2011), and recruitment
(Henderson and Bowley, 2010).
Social media marketing influences user's attitudes towards products
(Kumar et al., 2013; Shareef et al., 2017), events (Lee et al., 2012) and
P. Grover, A.K. Kar Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 2
Highlight the usage of social media marketing.
Industry Product/Service Objective Literature evidence

Retail -clothing
Tourism and hospitality industry
Food and beverage industry
News and Journalism
Entertainment
Product For comparing brand communication influence on users. Smith et al. (2012)
Service For exploring the usage and impact of social media marketing for national tourism. Hays et al. (2013)
To investigate the usage of social media marketing for hospitality industry. Chan and Guillet (2011)
To explore the effectiveness of social media marketing for hospitality industry. Leung et al. (2015)
To measure the effect of online reviews on offline hotel occupancy. Xie et al. (2016)
Product To measure social media return on investment. Kumar et al. (2013)
Service For exploring the usage and impact of social media marketing for news and journalism Hong (2012)
industry.
Service To quantify the effect of broadcasting promotion through social media platforms. Chen et al. (2015)
To engage consumers for music records promotions on social media. Saboo et al. (2016)

services (Leung et al., 2015). Social media marketing had been used on user retention (Chen and Li, 2017; Bansal et al., 2004). Some studies
extensively for spreading word of mouth (Alalwan et al., 2017; Dwivedi indicate that social influence does not affect user retention (Lu and Lee,
et al., 2015; Godey et al., 2016; Kapoor et al., 2018; Kumar et al., 2013; 2010) whereas other studies indicate that social influence on user re-
Shiau et al., 2017; Nisar et al., 2018). tention decays exponentially over time (Nitzan and Libai, 2011).
Social media marketing studies in literature had explored firm and
user perspectives, both (Alalwan, 2018; Alves et al., 2016; Pacauskas
3. Theoretical framework and hypothesis development
et al., 2018; Rohm et al., 2013). Table 2 reveals social media marketing
had been used for product and service marketing in various industries
This study investigates user participation, user engagement and user
such as retail; tourism and hospitality; food and beverage; news and
retention using mobile wallet firms (Paytm, Mobiwik, Freecharge, and
journalism; and entertainment industry. Firms had focused on social
Oxigen Wallet) tweets. To fulfil the objectives of the study, on the basis
media marketing for consumer engagement; for increasing sales; for
of the literature review, we propose the conceptual model of Social
sharing and diffusing information among users; and for influencing
Media Engagement (SME) for the study, as illustrated in Fig. 1. The
users towards the brands, as illustrated in Table 2.
proposed conceptual SME model can be used to investigate user en-
Literature indicates strong branding increases trust in invisible
gagement by mining user generated content on social media platforms.
products and services among users (Aladwani and Dwivedi, 2018;
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first model which mines user
Berry, 2000; Kamboj et al., 2018; Shareef et al., 2018a, 2018b). Social
generated content to predict user retention based on user engagement,
media activities influences users purchasing behaviour (Saboo et al.,
user participation and content delivery dynamics over a period of time.
2016). Social media strategy can be segregated into six components
In this conceptual model, time had been regarded as the mediating
(Cawsey and Rowley, 2016) of: (a) selecting social media channels for
variable in social media marketing landscape and user retention. The
online presence; (b) content creation; (c) monitoring and listening; (d)
study tries to validate eight hypothesis, namely H1a, H1b, H2a, H2b,
empowering and engaging; (e) stimulating electronic word of mouth;
H3, H4a, H4b and H5. H1a tries to explore the relation between
and (f) measuring the impacts of social media marketing.
tweeting frequency of a firm with a user's sharing tendency of the tweet.
H1b tries to explore the relation between tweeting frequency of the firm
with user's bookmarking tendency of the tweet for future use. H2a tries
2.3. User participation, user engagement and user retention
to explore the relation between content type of the tweet with user's
sharing tendency of a tweet. H2b tries to explore the relation between
The success and survival of an online community relies heavily on
content type of the tweets with user's bookmarking tendency of the
active user participation (Kaur et al., 2018; Krasnova et al., 2017).
tweet. H3 validates the relation between user participation and firm
Continuous flow of information within online community promotes
generated tweet frequency in context to mobile wallet firms. H4a and
user participations (Choraria, 2012) and builds the trust among users
H4b tries to explore the relation between user participation and user
(Liang and Yang, 2017). Therefore authors of the study suggests and
engagement (likes and retweets). H5 validates the impact of the social
literature also indicates online presence of a firm can be improved by
media marketing on user retention with time as a mediating variable.
paying intention to the users reviews (Mangold and Faulds, 2009; Xie
This section had been divided into five sub-sections namely, uses and
et al., 2016) and if possible stimulating the users for social promotions
gratification theory, user engagement; content frequency and type; user
for the firm.
This study assumes, user engagement includes word of mouth, re-
commendations, reviews (Van Doorn et al., 2010), bookmarking and
many more. Within Twitter ecosystem, re-sharing of the information
can be tracked through retweet count. Social bookmarking can be
tracked through like count. Literature indicates interactive messages
enhances number of the likes (De Vries et al., 2012). User engagement
activities on social media platforms influences brand loyalty of the users
(Li et al., 2013; Zheng et al., 2015). User engagement is longer on Fa-
cebook, close to 427 min, as compared to Twitter, which is around
10 min (Zhou et al., 2014). Social media engagement affects customer
retention as well (Malthouse et al., 2013).
There is a need for mobile wallets firms for retaining their users for
continuance usage (Zhou, 2013). Literature indicates perceived use-
fulness is a key driver for retaining customers (Hong et al., 2008; Chen
and Li, 2017; Lin et al., 2011). Users who feel empowered using services Fig. 1. Conceptual relationship between content type, user participation, user
are committed to the service provider and are unlikely to switch engagement and user retention, proposed in our Social Media Engagement
(Vatanasombut et al., 2004). User satisfaction also has a positive impact (SME) model.

3
P. Grover, A.K. Kar
Table 3
Content type and its impact on users.
Content Type Literature Evidences
Informational Cvijikj and Michahelles (2013)
De Vries et al. (2012)
Dolan et al. (2016)
Le (2018)
Lee and Hong (2016)
Entertainment De Vries et al. (2012)
Dolan et al. (2016)
Luarn et al. (2015)
Remuneration Cvijikj and Michahelles (2013)
Dolan et al. (2016)
Muntinga et al. (2011)
Social Le (2018)
Luarn et al. (2015)
participation; and user retention. To develop hypothesis for the study,
uses and gratification theory (Blumler and Katz, 1974) had been used as
the theoretical lens.
3.1. Uses and gratification theory
Katz et al. (1973) highlighted how media serves the society by fa-
cilitating diversion, connections, surveillance, transmission and en-
tertainment. Uses and gratification theory (Blumler and Katz, 1974)
highlights how audiences act as active participants and media has little
power over audiences. The theory focuses on what people do with
media and highlights how audiences have control over the effect of the
media.
Audiences choose the media to gratify their own needs namely
cognitive, effective, personal and social needs. Audience's gratification
depends on three factors, media content; exposure to the media; and
social context of the situation (Katz et al., 1973). According to the uses
and gratification theory, audiences are important participants in the
consumption and promotion of the content provided by the media.
Literature indicates how gratification of users for using the social
media happen over a period of time. According to Whiting and Williams
(2013) social media had been used: (a) by 88% of the respondents for
social interaction; (b) by 80% of the respondents for seeking informa-
tion; (c) by 76% of the respondents for passing time; (d) by 64% of the
respondents for entertainment; (e) by 60% of the respondents for re-
laxation; (f) by 56% of the respondents for communicatory utility and
expressing of opinions, for each; (g) by 52% of the respondents for
convenience utility; (h) by 40% of the respondents for information
sharing; and (i) by 20% of the respondents for relaxation; for surveil-
lance or knowledge.
Social media usage among college students is driven by four cate-
gories of needs, i.e. emotional, cognitive, social and habitual (Wang
et al., 2012). Therefore, according to the literature social media mar-
keting is for everyone from defenders to explorers, from conservatism to
modernism, from networks to hierarchies and from autocracy to an-
archy (Felix et al., 2017).
3.2. User engagement
User engagement effects brand image and its perception (Chang
et al., 2015; Di Gangi and Wasko, 2016; Ibrahim et al., 2017). The
online engagement metrics can be measured by analysing the number
of retweets (shares) and likes (bookmarking) for the tweet. Literature
indicates users retweet content which they found useful (Leman, 2011).
The tweets that generate amusement were retweeted more, followed by
tweets invoking contentment, surprise, and anger (So et al., 2016).
Likes on Twitter indicates bookmarking of the tweet (Gorrell and
Bontcheva, 2016), whereas, a retweet on the other hand, is the next
level of the engagement where the person endorses the content and
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Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
Impact
• Important for user participation
• Motivates user for online engagement
• Contains information for brand product/services
• Attracts user's attention
• Provides aesthetic enjoyment
● Contains the benefits of consumption such as economic incentives or future rewards
• Spread information for betterment of society
• Facilitates online engagement among similar users
propagates it in his/her personal network.
3.3. Content frequency and type
Nowadays firms are actively using social media platforms for mar-
keting purposes. Content on social media influences user engagement
(Luarn et al., 2015) and impacts user reaction (Le, 2018). The timing
and the content of the tweet play a great role in affecting sales of firms
(Chen et al., 2015). Therefore hypothesis H1a proposes frequency of the
tweet is positively related to sharing of the tweets within Twitter eco-
system for mobile wallet firms, which signifies more the firm posts on
Twitter, more firm's posts will be shared on Twitter.
H1a. Tweeting frequency of the firm is positively related to sharing of
the tweet among users.
Hypothesis H1b proposes that the frequency of the tweet is posi-
tively related to the bookmarking of the tweet for future uses, which
signifies more the firm posts tweets on Twitter, more firms posts will be
bookmarked on Twitter.
H1b. Tweeting frequency of the firm is positively related to liking of the
tweet among users.
Therefore tweet content is the major component that influences
online engagement (Luarn et al., 2015). Literature indicates user reac-
tion highly depends on the content of the tweet (De Vries et al., 2012;
Le, 2018). On the basis of the literature, Table 3 tries to list the types of
the content along with its impact on users.
By referring to the literature the informational tweets can be
mapped to surveillance / knowledge need of the uses and gratification
theory and subsequently, entertainment tweets to diversion; re-
muneration tweets to personal benefit; and social tweets to society re-
lationship building. Literature indicates (Dolan et al., 2016): (a) in-
formational and remuneration content facilitates passive positively
valenced social media engagement; whereas (b) entertainment and
social content facilitates active positively valenced social media en-
gagement.
Therefore this study tries to explore whether different content types
are generating equal user engagement among public or different.
Hypothesis H2a assumes different content type such as informational,
entertainment, remuneration and social generates equal sharing among
users. Hypothesis H2b assumes different content type such as in-
formational, entertainment, remuneration and social generates equal
inclination among users for future usage depicted by liking of the tweet
(i.e. bookmarking).
H2a. There is no statistical difference in the sharing of tweets of
different content type posted by the firms (i.e. informational,
entertainment, remuneration and social content).
μ Rinformational = μ Rentertainment = μ Rremuneration = μ Rsocial
P. Grover, A.K. Kar
H2b. There is no statistically difference in the liking of different content
type tweets posted by the firms (i.e. informational, entertainment,
remuneration and social content).
μ Linformational = μ Lentertainment = μ Lremuneration = μ Lsocial
3.4. User participation
Literature indicates different types of user will post different types
of content on social media (Bellström et al., 2016). Social motives had
been significantly related to user engagement (Prentice and Loureiro,
2018). Low involvement users spend more time online as compared to
high involvement users (Krishnamurthy and Kumar, 2018) whereas
high involvement users help the firm in developing brand image.
Therefore, hypothesis H3 proposes more number of users participate in
social discussion on Twitter, more tweets will be generated in reference
to mobile wallet firms (social promotions).
H3. User participation in a month (in numbers) is positively related to
user generated tweets on firms within virtual ecosystem.
Literature indicates consumer's engagement in online brand com-
munities can lead to trust and loyalty for a particular brand which can
subsequently lead to strengthening user-brand relationships (Coelho
et al., 2018). Uses and gratification theory suggests value judgement in
the tweet can only be assessed by the audience (Blumler and Katz,
1974) through their reactions to the tweets, in terms of retweets and
likes. Therefore hypothesis H4a proposes more users participate (i.e. in
count) in the discussion related to firms, more the tweets related to firm
will be shared among public thus making a brand more popular. Hy-
pothesis H4b proposes more users participation will result in more likes
on the tweets.
H4a. Retweeting has a positive correlation with user participation on
Twitter.
H4b. Like count has a positive correlation with user participation on
Twitter.
3.5. User retention
User retention in the study had been defined as among all the users,
which had discussed about the firm in previous month on Twitter, and
out of them, how many had discussed about the firm in the present
month. For the firm to grow, user retention is required as acquiring new
customers is costlier than retaining existing ones (Zhou, 2013). This is
the first study which tries to explore the user retention on virtual
community. For this study data was extracted for four months and user
retention among users were tracked for four months using cohort
analysis for four different mobile wallet firms. The cohort is the group
of the users in a particular month. Hypothesis H5 proposes as the time
passes, the user retention on social media decreases with time.
H5. User retention is negatively correlated with time for firm's social
media marketing on Twitter.
4. Research methodology
For exploring the dynamics of social media marketing on Twitter, a
mixed research methodology has been adopted which includes social
media analytics, statistical testing and cohort analysis (Aswani et al.,
2018; Chae, 2015; Fan and Gordon, 2014; Grover et al., 2018a; Joseph
et al., 2017; Misirlis and Vlachopoulou, 2018; Rathore et al., 2017).
Social media analytics (Grover et al., 2018b) consist of four types of
analysis, descriptive, content, network and geospatial analysis. De-
scriptive analysis incorporates basic descriptive statistics for reporting.
Content analysis (Kassarjian, 1977) is the way for converting
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Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
qualitative data into the quantitative data. The conversion enhances the
reliability and validity of the analysis in order to apply statistical test
easily (Krippendorff, 2004). Network analysis analyses the structure of
the network, identifies the different community and flow of the in-
formation in the networks. Geospatial analysis mines the location spe-
cific opinions of the users to highlight geographically relevant in-
formation (Rathore et al., 2017).
For statistical testing, linear regression and anova had been used.
Cohort analysis is a subset of behavioural analytics. Cohort analysis
breaks the user base into small related groups. These users share a
common characteristics or experiences. In literature users had been
divided into cohorts on basis of gender (Loughran and Zissimopoulos,
2009), demographics (Lo et al., 2011) and generations (Jackson et al.,
2011; Parment, 2013). Cohort analysis had been extensively applied on
users of eCommerce platform. This study tries to explore social media
marketing impact on Twitter users. The study considers four mobile
wallet firms of India namely Paytm, Mobiwik, Freecharge and Oxigen
wallet (Reserve Bank of India, 2018). These firms have been chosen as
they are the most popular mobile wallets in India, in terms of usage.
Paytm is a mobile payment and e-commerce platform, founded in
2010. It has the headquarters in Noida, in India. When Paytm first time
started their business by offering mobile recharges and bill payments
but now they upgraded their services to full marketplace for consumers.
At present small groceries stores and even auto rickshaws has options to
pay their bill through Paytm. Paytm acts as an intermediary between a
cellular user and banks. MobiKwik is an online payment system and
mobile wallet. Users using cash, debit card, credit cards, net banking
and points can put the money into their respective accounts. Using
MobiKwik users can make payments with just one tap for their pur-
chases, bills, travel, entertainment, shopping, groceries and many more.
MobiKwik was founded in 2009 and had headquarters in Gurgaon,
Haryana. According to MobiKwik every users do 10–12 purchases over
the month from MobiKwik. Freecharge was started in 2010 and has
headquarters in Mumbai, India. Freecharge enables the users to re-
charge their mobile phone online and make the recharge free by pro-
viding the discount coupons of top Indian food joints and retailers,
equivalent to the recharge amount. The users saves the money from
eating outlets, gaming, movies, music grocery and more by showing
coupons. On Freecharge website, discounts available in the market are
displayed which may be availed by using the coupons. The payment
process on the website is safe and secure. Oxigen wallet was started in
2004. Oxigen wallet supports mobile recharges, money transfers, and
bill payments.
The methodology section consists of three subsections. The first
subsection illustrates the way data had been collected for the study,
followed by subsection on operationalization of the variables and the
way data had been analysed in the study.
4.1. Data collection
The data collection phase had been divided into two steps, mobile
wallet firm generated tweets (dataset 1) and user generated tweets
(dataset 2). First step identifies four mobile wallet companies of India
namely as Paytm, MobiKwik, Freecharge and OxigenWallet. These
companies have an account on Twitter. Tweets from their Twitter of-
ficial page were extracted through a python script. The tweets for the
period 1st February 2018 to 31st May 2018 were used to analyse firm's
social media marketing activity on Twitter. In twitter, timeline ex-
traction allows the latest 3200 tweets for any profile, and this approach
has been used to build dataset 1.
The second step focused on gathering user generated responses
within Twitter ecosystem for mobile wallet firms. For this step the
search terms, Paytm, MobiKwik, FreeCharge and OxigenWallet had
been used for extracting the user generated tweets for the mobile wallet
firms on daily basis from 1st February 2018 to 31st May 2018. For this
study 409,571 tweets were extracted for analysing the user perspectives
P. Grover, A.K. Kar
for mobile wallets firms. Among these tweets 401,913 tweets were in
English which had been used for further analysis.
4.2. Operationalization of the variables of SME
For this study independent variables were: (a) tweet frequency of
the firm within the month; (b) content type of the tweet, posted by the
firm; and (c) number of unique users participate on Twitter in firm
related discussions over a particular month. Using unique user parti-
cipation in a month, user retention was also computed. There are two
dependent variables considered in the study, retweet count and like
count of the tweets.
The online engagement had been measured by analysing number of
retweets (shares) and likes (bookmarking) for the tweet. Twitter had
been used for sharing purposes. Both retweet count and like count of
the tweet had been used for measuring the user engagement on Twitter.
For measuring tweet frequency and content type dataset 1 had been
used. For computing tweet frequency, for each firm the tweets within a
particular month are grouped together and counted. Subsequently
tweets retweet count and like count for a month had been grouped
together and sum. A set of tuple had been generated consisting of five
values, firm name, month, total tweets posted by the firm in a month,
total retweet count on the tweets posted by the firm in a month and
total like count on the tweets posted by the firm in a month. These
tuples had been used to statistically test hypothesis H1a and H1b.
Tweets in dataset 1 had been categorized into informational, en-
tertainment, remuneration and social types. For each firm each cate-
gory tweets were grouped together and subsequently retweet count and
like count had been grouped together and sum. A set of tuple had been
generated consisting of four values, firm name, category, total retweet
count on content type and total like count on content type. These tuples
had been used to statistically test hypothesis H2a and H2b.
For statistically testing of hypothesis H3, unique users within a
month were identified for each search term of the firm from dataset 2
and subsequently tweets within a month by these users were counted. A
set of tuple consisting of two columns were generated, first column
contains unique users in a month and second column contains number
of tweets generated by these unique users in a month.
For analysing the user participation, unique users within a month
were identified for each search term of the firm from dataset 2 and
subsequently their retweet count and like count were grouped together
on the month basis. A set of tuples were generated containing following
attributes firm, month, number of unique users in a month, total re-
tweet count of a month and total like count of a month. The set of the
tuple had been used for statistically testing H4a and H4b. For calcu-
lating user retention cohort analysis was applied on set of tuples gen-
erated from dataset 2 for statistically testing hypothesis H5.
4.3. Data analysis
For data analysis of dataset 1 and dataset 2, different types of
analysis had been applied such as content analysis (Kassarjian, 1977);
geospatial analysis; and cohort analysis and social media analytics
(Chae, 2015; Fan and Gordon, 2014). To present the reach of the social
media marketing on Twitter across India, a map for each mobile wallet
firm's user participation was constructed.
Content analysis had been used to categorize firm posted tweets into
informational, entertainment, remuneration and social types. For
Paytm, 372 firm generated tweets were extracted. For MobiKwik, 372
firm generated tweets were extracted. For FreeCharge, 372 firm gen-
erated tweets were extracted. For oxigenwallet, 34 firm generated
tweets were extracted. In total we had 1150 tweets, these had been
classified into four categories in total 4600 decision. Two independent
judges agreed on 4195 decisions and disagree on 405 decisions.
Therefore, the coefficient of reliability was 91.19%. Literature high-
lights, researchers are quite satisfied with 85% and above coefficients of
6
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
reliability for the studies (Kassarjian, 1977).
In this study users had been divided into cohorts on the basis of the
month of user participation. Cohort analysis helps in visualizing the
patterns across customer lifecycle. By seeing these patterns a company
can take strategic decisions. For statistical testing and validation linear
regression and anova had been applied.
5. Findings
This section had been divided into the three subsection. First, sub-
section illustrates the way Twitter handle being used by the mobile
wallets firms. Second, subsection presents the impacts of the firm
generated tweets on users. Third subsection, presents the results of the
cohort analysis for user retention in online community.
5.1. Content frequency and type
Both frequency and content of the tweet is important in social media
marketing campaigns. Literature indicates tweets directly affects the
sales (Chen et al., 2015) and reputation (Li et al., 2013) of the firm.
Hypothesis H1a proposes frequency of the tweet is positively related to
sharing of the tweet.
H1a. Tweeting frequency of the firm in a month is positively related to
sharing of the tweet among users.
A linear regression was calculated to predict retweeting based on
tweeting frequency of a firm in a month. Insignificant regression
equation was found (F(1, 14) = 0.202,p < .660), with an R2 of .014.
Tweeting frequency within a month by a firm according to the sample
collected in not related to sharing. According to the sample retweet
count is equal to 745.126 + 3.390 (Tweeting frequency of the firm in a
month). There is no linear relationship exists between tweet frequency
in a month and sharing of the tweets.
Hypothesis H1b proposes frequency of the tweet is positively related
to bookmarking of the tweet and subsequently using it for future usage,
which signifies more the firm post tweet on Twitter increases its con-
sideration for usage introduced in the tweet. Linear regression was
applied for validating H1b.
H1b. Tweeting frequency of the firm in a month is positively related to
liking of the tweet among users.
A linear regression was calculated to predict like count based on
tweeting frequency of a firm in a month. An insignificant regression
equation was found (F(1, 14) = 0.505; p < .489), with an R2 of .
0.035. Tweeting frequency within a month by a firm according to the
sample collected in not related to like count. According to sample like
count equal to 1831.290 + 12.854 (Tweeting frequency within a month
by a firm), p value is more than 0.05, therefore, the conclusion can be
made that no linear relationship exists between tweet frequency and
like count.
Dataset 1 reveals all mobile wallet firms had tweeted offers on
mother day which signifies mobile wallet companies are coming up
with special offers on special days. To give the overview of the tweets
posted by mobile wallet firms the word cloud was constructed and
presented in Fig. 2. Word clouds depicts Paytm is raising voices for
women empowerment. Freecharge is tweeting mobile wallet is
equivalent to piggybank. MobiKwik is using SuperCash instead of
cashback.
MobiKwik had used Twitter for one to one communication with the
users. The sample collected for the study had captured 177 instances,
where users on Twitter are asking queries related to service issues, RBI
guidelines, logins, OTP and many more from MobiKwik. Overall these
mobile wallets had posted 48.17% tweets related to remuneration;
29.17% tweets related to information; 13.21% tweets creating aware-
ness in society; and 9.45% tweets included entertainment content.
The dataset 1 indicates 52.80% of the retweets is of remuneration
P. Grover, A.K. Kar Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Fig. 2. (a) Word cloud on Paytm Twitter account; (b) Word cloud on MobiKwik Twitter account; (c) Word cloud on FreeCharge Twitter account; (d) Word cloud on
Oxigen Twitter account.

tweets; followed by 31.75% of informational tweets; 9.66% of social
tweets; and entertainment tweets were only 5.79%. The dataset 1 in-
dicates 53.96% of the likes in a sample is for informational tweets;
followed by 29.84% for remuneration tweets; 8.78% for social tweets;
and entertainment tweets had gathered only 7.42% of likes.
H2a. There is no statistically significant difference in sharing of
different content type tweets posted by the firms (i.e. informational,
entertainment, remuneration and social content).
μ Rinformational = μ Rentertainment = μ Rremuneration = μ Rsocial
The null hypothesis is that there is no significant difference in the
mean retweeting of different content type. The α = 0.05 (assumption),
degree of freedom is (k-1, n-k), where k is the number of sample
(k = 4); informational (Rinformational); entertainment (Rentertainment); re-
muneration (Rremuneration); and social (Rsocial); and n is the total number
of observation (n = 16). The degree of freedom for the sample is (3,
12). The decision rule states, if calculated value of F is greater than
table value of F, reject H2a. The table value of F at 5% level of sig-
nificance for degrees of freedom (3, 12) is 3.49. The F- statistic is the
ratio of the variability between groups to the variability within groups.
The calculated value of F- statistic for the mean retweeting for different
content type is 0.606 which is lesser than the threshold value of 3.49.
Therefore, H2a is not rejected. Hence there is no significant difference
in retweeting of different content type.
H2b. There is no statistically significant difference in liking of different
content type tweets posted by the firms (i.e. informational,
entertainment, remuneration and social content).
μ Linformational = μ Lentertainment = μ Lremuneration = μ Lsocial
The null hypothesis is that there is no significant difference in the
mean liking of different content The α = 0.05 (assumption), degree of
freedom is (k-1, n-k), where k is the number of sample (k = 4; in-
formational (Linformational); entertainment (Lentertainment); remuneration
(Lremuneration); and social (Lsocial); and n is the total number of ob-
servation (n = 16). The degree of freedom for the sample is (3, 12). The
decision rule states, if calculated value of F is greater than table value of
F, reject H2b. The table value of F at 5% level of significance for degrees
of freedom (3, 12) is 3.49. The F- statistic is the ratio of the variability
between groups to the variability within groups. The calculated value of
F- statistic for the mean liking for different content type is 0.619 which
is lesser than the threshold value of 3.49. Therefore, H2b is not rejected.
Hence there is no significant difference in liking of different content
type posted by mobile wallet firms.
5.2. User participation
Literature review on mobile wallet depicts social influence, mobility
and reachability plays a great role in adoption of mobile services. Using
the dataset 2, to get the view of user participation across country,
geospatial analysis was performed on author's location. Fig. 3(a) depicts
user participation across India on search term “Paytm” within Twitter
ecosystem. From Fig. 3(a) it can be derived Paytm is widely spread over
the whole country, with maximum number of users from Maharashtra
(2010 users in number). Fig. 3(b) depicts user participation across India
on search term “MobiKwik” within Twitter ecosystem. From Fig. 3(b) it
can be derived MobiKwik reachability within country is good, with
maximum number of users from Maharashtra (103 users in number) but
as compared to user participation for “Paytm”, MobiKwik user parti-
cipation is one-tenth on overall basis across all states. Fig. 3(c) depicts
user participation across India on search term “FreeCharge” on Twitter.

7
P. Grover, A.K. Kar Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Fig. 3. (a) User participation across India on Paytm within Twitter ecosystem; (b) User participation across India on MobiKwik within Twitter ecosystem; (c) User
participation across India on FreeCharge within Twitter ecosystem; (d) User participation across India on Oxigen within Twitter ecosystem.

From Fig. 3(c) it can be derived FreeCharge reachability within country
is good, with maximum number of users from Gujarat (200 users in
number) but compared to user participation for “Paytm”, FreeCharge
user participation is one-tenth and equivalent of MobiKwik, on overall
basis across all states. Fig. 3(d) depicts user participation across India
on search term “oxigenwallet” within Twitter ecosystem which is very
less.
H3. User participation in a month (in numbers) is positively related to
user generated tweets on firms within virtual ecosystem.
A simple linear regression was calculated to predict tweets on
Twitter for a mobile wallet firm in a month based on number of unique
user participation. A significant regression equation was found (F
(1,14) = 7740.847, p < .000), with an R2 of . 0.998. Tweets on Twitter
for a mobile wallet firm in a month can be predicted on user partici-
pation. Tweets with reference to mobile wallet firm in a month equal to
−39.463 + 2.023 (number of unique users participation). Tweets with
reference to mobile wallet firms can be increased for each 2.023 times
of unique user's participation in a month.
To investigate the degree to which user participation predicts re-
tweeting and like count. A simple linear regression was calculated to
predict retweeting and like count based on user participation.

8
P. Grover, A.K. Kar Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

H4a. Retweeting has a positive correlation with user participation on et al., 2010).
Twitter. Social media is useful in spreading information across the globe
(Berthon et al., 2012). Social media has been used for promoting pro-
A linear regression was calculated to predict retweeting based on
ducts and services across different industries from retail to tourism, as
user participation. A significant regression equation was found (F(1,
derived from Table 2. Therefore this study explores the usage of social
14) = 13.220,p < .003), with an R2 of .486. User participation pre-
media platform i.e. Twitter, by mobile wallet firms for advertising their
dicted retweeting is equal to 32,258.292 + 248.529 (user participa-
services and promotional offers among users. The action of the users on
tion), tweets sharing on Twitter when user participation is measured in
social media (Twitter) had been analysed on user participation and user
number of unique user's participation in a month on Twitter. Tweet's
engagement basis (i.e. retweets and likes). The data for the study was
retweeting increases 248.529 for each user participation on Twitter in
extracted from Twitter in two ways to statistically validate the SME
firms related discussions.
model. The hypothesis H1a, H1b, H2a and H2b from firm's perspective
H4b. Like count has a positive correlation with user participation on whereas hypothesis H3, H4a, H4b and H5 from consumer's perspective.
Twitter. H1a and H1b reveals that the diffusion of the firms’ tweets in a
society does not depend on tweeting frequency of the firms whereas
A linear regression was calculated to predict like count based on
earlier studies indicates continuous flow of information in online
user participation. A significant regression equation was found (F(1,14)
community promotes user participations (Choraria, 2012). Therefore
= 211.834, p < .000) with an R2 of .938. User participation predicted
the firms should not focus on increasing tweeting frequency much but
like count is equal to −2172.521 + 2.304 (user participation), like
periodic tweeting may help in maintaining stability of user engagement
count when user participation is measured in number of unique user's
(Chen et al., 2015; Grover et al., 2017).
participation in a month on Twitter. Like count increases 2.304 for each
Interaction between firms and users on social media is revolving
user participation on Twitter in firms related discussions.
around themes such as entertainment, brand engagement, information
and service responses, product information, and incentives and pro-
5.3. User retention
motions. Mobile wallets firms are actively promoting cashback, and
contest offers among users to entice their attention towards their ser-
Literature indicates there is a need for retaining the customers for
vices. This is in line with the literature which indicates top brands
financial sustainability (Zhou, 2013). Perceived usefulness had been
heavily rely on contests as compared to discounts (Ashley and Tuten,
positively associated with user retention (Chen and Li, 2017). To in-
2015).
vestigate H5 cohort analysis had been applied over dataset 2 for esti-
Remuneration tweets are highly shared and liked among the users.
mating user participation on monthly basis on Twitter for each mobile
According to the sample collected, for the study 52.80% of the retweets
wallet firm. Fig. 4, presents the results of the cohort analysis for mobile
of the sample is from remuneration tweet, and 29.84% of the likes of
wallet firms for user retention on Twitter.
the sample is from remuneration tweet. Literature indicates re-
H5. User retention is negatively correlated with time for firm's social muneration posts are highly influential and engaging, through likes but
media marketing on Twitter. there is no effect on sharing of the post (Luarn et al., 2015). The sample
had captured 177 instances of MobiKwik using Twitter for one to one
A linear regression was calculated to predict user retention based on
communication with users.
time. A significant negatively regression equation was found (F(1,38)
All mobile wallet firms are actively engaging users across geo-
= 5.124, p < 0.029) with an R2 of .119. User retention is equal to
graphically location through social media marketing as revealed in
10597.075–3233.450 times a month. User retention decreases for
Fig. 3. Firm posted tweets on Twitter were classified into informational,
3233.450 each month on Twitter for mobile wallet firms. Thus re-
entertainment, remuneration and social (Table 3). The tweets related to
gression analysis depicts user retention is negatively correlated with
different content type are being retweeted and liked in equal propor-
time for mobile wallets firm's social media marketing.
tion, as statistically validated by hypothesis H2a and H2b which is
different from the literature, where evidences indicate sharing of con-
6. Discussion
tent is strongly predicted by information giving; whereas liking of
content is strongly predicted by the entertainment elements in the
Mobile wallets facilitates online transfer of money between parties
content (Khan, 2017). Cvijikj and Michahelles (2013) had pointed out
directly through smartphone, without any intermediaries (Kim et al.,
entertainment content is the most influential content on Facebook as
2010). To avail the services a user should be registered with mobile
compared to information and remuneration content. Social posts ex-
wallet firms. As indicated by literature, perceived usefulness, social
hibited lowest level of liking and sharing (Luarn et al., 2015). Ac-
influence, mobility and reachability are the factors which affect mobile
cording to the uses and gratification theory, user use social media to
payment services adoption. For financial stability there is the need for
fulfil their needs. Therefore authors of the study suggests firm should
mobile wallet firms to advertise their services among users (Schierz

Fig. 4. Cohort analysis of the Twitter users on mobile wallet firms related discussion on Twitter.

9
P. Grover, A.K. Kar
post, mix of the tweet on informational, entertainment, remuneration
and social related content which had been suggested in literature by
Ashley and Tuten (2015) also, to the top brands for improving user
engagement on social media platforms.
H3 indicates user participation increases number of the tweets on
Twitter for the firm. Even Parra, Trattner, Gómez, Hurtado, Wen and
Lin (2016) had indicated communication to large number of the par-
ticipants is one of the driving factors for continuous user's participation
in the community. From H3 it can be derived more users within the firm
network, more social promotions can be supported for the firm.
H4a and H4b indicates as user participation increases the retweet
count and like count also increases for the firm. User participation is
strongly related to like count (R2 =0.938; p < .000) as compared to
retweet count (R2 =0.486; p < .003). Therefore our results is in line
with literature which indicates success of an online community heavily
relies on active user participation (Kaur et al., 2018; Krasnova et al.,
2017). Authors of the study feels large active user participation can lead
to increase in social promotions for the firms. Akcura et al. (2018) had
also indicated that retweets within virtual communities generates
awareness along with positive attraction for the users.
Therefore this study suggests to expand their network on social
media, in order to increase number of the users in direct contact and for
social promotions. This will increase the reach of the firms to more
users. Thus firms can strengthen their online presence by both tradi-
tional marketing promotions (promotions facilitated by the firms) and
social promotions (promotions facilitated by the users). Firms should
strategically use their Twitter handle because followers of the firms can
act as an intermediaries in spreading the information to other users
(social promotions).
This is the first study in literature which had tried to examine the
dynamics of user retention in a virtual community on Twitter. The
study measures user retention in terms of users. One cohort is group of
the users in a particular month. Cohort analysis tries to investigate
among all the users which had discussed about the firm in previous
month on Twitter, and out of them how many had discussed about the
firms in the present month. H5 depicts user retention is negatively
correlated to the time which is in line with the literature which in-
dicates social influence on user retention decays exponentially over the
time (Nitzan and Libai, 2011). Dataset 2 depicts every month new set of
the users engage on Twitter while retention of engagement is lower.
A mobile wallet facilitates transactions between consumer-to-con-
sumer, consumer-to-business, consumer-to-machine and consumer-to-
online (Shin, 2009) leading to a cashless society (Bodhani, 2011). The
study depicts both the firms and users actively participates in promo-
tions of services on Twitter. Indian government can think about en-
hancing mobile payment services and lessening the regulation. The SME
model depicts using social media analytics how Paytm had reached
almost in very part of India. Fig. 3, indicates mobile payment mobility
and reachability is tremendous in the country.
6.1. Theoretical contributions
As the theoretical contribution, this study has two contribution,
firstly, study introduces the conceptual model of SME which can be
operationalized using social media data for user participation, user
engagement and user retention. Secondly, this study elaborates how
cohort analysis can be applied in social media scenario for examining
the user retention patterns.
Social influence is a key factor in adoption of mobile payments,
therefore social media data had been used to analyse the tweets influ-
ence on users. The SME model had been validated using Twitter data in
context to mobile wallet firms marketing. The social media marketing
landscape encompasses of the following elements, content frequency,
content type, user participation, user engagement and user retention.
Literature indicates for a firm to grow there is a need for user retention
(Zhou, 2013), this study introduces the methodology which can be used
10
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
by the firms for tracking the user retention on Twitter. Using cohort
analysis the firms can build the strategy for increasing their direct
contact with users. This study tries to contribute to the existing litera-
ture of traditional marketing and social promotions.
6.2. Implications for practice
Uses and gratification theory (Blumler and Katz, 1974) indicates
users use media for four types of the needs, i.e. cognitive, affective,
personal and social. Therefore this study suggests online presence of the
firm (Xie et al., 2016) can be improved by paying attention to custo-
mers’ needs. Firms should strategically plan their marketing campaigns
for social media platforms in order to fulfil these four basic needs of the
users, in order to increase user participation and user retention on so-
cial media. Hypothesis H3, H4a and H4b indicates user participation
increases the user generated tweets, shares and likes on Twitter for the
firm. Therefore this study suggests to all firms to expand their network
size, for increasing social promotions for the firm's services in the so-
ciety. This will increase the reach of the firms to more users, subse-
quently leading to more sales, more revenue and better return on in-
vestments.
Firms should consider special days while promoting their services
and offers. Some users come in one month and some go away. The Fig. 4
depicts overall the percentage of the users over the period of time is
consistent. Therefore firms should focus on periodic campaigning (Chen
et al., 2015; Grover et al., 2017) and try to bind these consistent users.
In brief, study suggests firms should focus on (a) fulfilling basic needs of
the user's; (b) periodic campaigning; (c) expanding network size; and
(d) special days, i.e. mother's day, father's day, friendship day and many
more for promotion campaigns.
7. Conclusion
This study tries to explore the dynamics of social media marketing
in terms of content type, content frequency, user engagement, user
participation, and user retention for mobile wallet firms marketing on
Twitter. The dynamics had been explored from both firm's perspective,
of introducing advertising tweets in online environment, and user's
perspective. This study introduces the conceptual model and tries to
statistically validate the same using Twitter data. The study reveals the
frequency of content does not matter but the content does, therefore
firm should post mix of informational, entertainment, remuneration
and social content. The user participation increases social promotions in
online community. Therefore firms should try to increase network size
on Twitter and should strategically use their Twitter handle, because
followers of the firms can act as an intermediaries in spreading the
information to other users, subsequently leading to social promotions.
User retention decays exponentially over the time, therefore periodic
campaigning is needed by the firms. This is the first study which had
explored the dynamics of the user retention on social media (i.e.
Twitter) and same methodology can be used by the future researchers
and firms for evaluating the user retention on online community. The
summary of the finding of the study is presented in Table 4.
8. Limitation and future work
The presented conceptual model is purely validated by using social
media data for operationalizing the constructs and establishing re-
lationships between participation, engagement and retention. A com-
plementary perspective of theoretical development could have emerged
from a survey based approach for understanding the linkages among
participation, retention and engagement. However, such an approach
would be less dynamic in capturing the actual behaviour of the users.
Another limitation of the study is Twitter allows only limited amount of
the tweets to be extracted on daily basis, so may be this study had not
been able to analysed the whole data related to mobile wallet fims but
P. Grover, A.K. Kar Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 4
Summary of findings.
Objective Results Implication

To study the impact of social media
marketing on users with respect to user
participation and user engagement
To study the user retention on social media
over the span of the time
(a) No linear relationship exists between tweet frequency in a (a) Frequency of content does not matter but the content does.
month and sharing of the tweets. According to the uses and gratification theory user use social
(b) No linear relationship exists between the tweet frequency media to fulfil their needs. Firm should post, mix of the
and like count. content on informational, entertainment, remuneration and
(c) There is no significant difference in retweeting of different social.
content type. (b) Firms should focus on increasing their network size of the
(d) There is no significant difference in liking of different users / consumers in direct contact. These first level nodes of
content type. consumer's increases presence of the firm on Twitter and thus
(e) User participation in a month (in numbers) is positively help in social promotions.
related to user generated tweets by firms on virtual (c) Firms should strategically use their Twitter handle during
ecosystem. Tweets with reference to mobile wallet firms special days.
can be increased for each 2.023 times of unique user's
participation in a month.
(f) Retweeting has a positive correlation with user
participation on Twitter. Significant linear relationship
was found.
(g) Like count has a positive correlation with user
participation on Twitter. Strong significant relation was
found.
User retention is negatively correlated with time for firm's A periodic campaigns is needed by the firms because user
social media marketing on Twitter. A significant regression retention on social media is negatively related to time.
relation was found.

only a sample. This study had collected the data for four months, future
studies can run the same study for longer period as well. For the future
studies mobile wallets follower's network can be taken into the con-
sideration. The companies can explore relationship between purchase
behaviour and social media activity, in future studies. In this study,
both content type and frequency of firm generated tweets, have been
considered but for measuring their impact only unique users partici-
pation and retention had been considered. Future studies can do the
same anlyze using user generated content. By categorizing the user
generated tweets and by accordingly deriving the usage patterns among
users. Literature indicates personality traits significantly correlate with
user retention (Karumur et al., 2017). Theorefore relationship between
personality traits and user retention can be explored. Future researchers
can focus on exploring content type with user retention.
Source of funding
This project is funded by SEED Division, Department of Science and
Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India,
India, [SP/YO/048/2017(C)].
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Purva Grover is a research scholar in Information Systems at DMS, Indian Institute of
Technology, Delhi. Her research interests are in big data, social media, business analytics
and technology management. She has published peer reviewed research articles which
are available in Elsevier, IEEE and Springer. She had earlier served at Indian Council of
Medical Research as Scientist B. Prior to that, she has two years of experience at
Absolutdata Research and Analytics.
Arpan K. Kar is Associate Professor in the Information Systems area in DMS, Indian
Institute of Technology Delhi, India. His research interests are in the domain of digital
transformation, social media, analytics, machine learning and technology management
and has published extensively in these domains. He has edited five books in Springer and
Taylor & Francis. He is also Associate Editor of Global Journal of Flexible Systems
Management and a Guest Editor of Information Systems Frontiers. He has earlier worked
for IIM Rohtak, IBM Research Laboratory, and Cognizant Business Consulting. He has
handled major research and consulting projects for private and public MNCs/
Governments. He has received a lot of awards from reputed organizations like AIMS, PMI,
IIMR, TCS etc.