A Thematic Exploration of Digital, Social Media, and Mobile Marketing: Research Evolution from 2000 to 2015 and an Agenda for Future Inquiry

TLDR

Digital media platforms have transformed marketing by enabling new ways to reach, inform, engage, sell to, learn about, and serve customers, yet existing research has limitations that hinder its relevance and create gaps between academia and practice. This article tracks how scholars’ perspectives on digital, social media, and mobile marketing themes have evolved from 2000 to 2015 and proposes a future research agenda. The authors use keyword counts from leading general marketing journals to map the shifting importance of DSMM topics over time. They identify three emerging DSMM themes—facilitating individual expression, supporting decision making, and providing market intelligence—across successive five‑year intervals.

Abstract

Over the past 15 years, digital media platforms have revolutionized marketing, offering new ways to reach, inform, engage, sell to, learn about, and provide service to customers. As a means of taking stock of academic work's ability to contribute to this revolution, this article tracks the changes in scholarly researchers’ perspectives on three major digital, social media, and mobile (DSMM) marketing themes from 2000 to 2015. The authors first use keyword counts from the premier general marketing journals to gain a macro-level view of the shifting importance of various DSMM topics since 2000. They then identify key themes emerging in five-year time frames during this period: (1) DSMM as a facilitator of individual expression, (2) DSMM as decision support tool, and (3) DSMM as a market intelligence source. In both academic research to date and corresponding practitioner discussion, there is much to appreciate. However, there are also several shortcomings of extant research that have limited its relevance and created points of disconnect between academia and practice. Finally, in light of this, an agenda for future research based on emerging research topics is advanced.