Editorial

Citation

Zahay, D. (2013), "Editorial", Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, Vol. 7 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jrim.2013.32507baa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, Volume 7, Issue 2

This is an exciting time for our journal. We are reviewing applications for our Editorial Advisory Board (apologies if this process is taking a long time but I received many excellent applications). The board will help raise the profile of our journal at international conferences and help facilitate the review process. Our time in review is much shortened and our acceptance rate is now around 25 per cent, just where we wanted it to be at this time.

In addition, I am pleased to announce that we have established a relationship with the Direct and Interactive Marketing Research Summit, sponsored by the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation (DMEF) to provide a $500 award for the second year in a row for the best research paper submitted to the conference. If you are not familiar with the conference, it is a two for one opportunity. Not only do participants get a specialized academic conference in our area of direct and interactive marketing, but the first academic registrants also may attend the annual DMA conference and have access to top-notch practitioner presentations and the exhibit floor.

Speaking of a two for one opportunity, the top papers submitted to the Research Summit will be given consideration for publication in a special issue of our journal on The Past, Present and Future of Interactive Marketing. The process is twofold. Submit papers for the conference here: http://bit.ly/YO1OvS. After receiving feedback from the conference, please then submit papers to our special issue on The Past, Present and Future of Interactive Marketing here: http://bit.ly/Z3D02T. We already have secured an update to the 2007 review article by Schibrowsky et al. (2007) published in the European Journal of Marketing by the original authors and Nadia Pamirleanu to lead that issue.

As the above graphic illustrates, we have come a long way in the 20 years or so since the term interactive marketing began to be used to describe a combination of internet technologies and messaging strategies so that marketing became more of a conversation and less of a one-way street. I remember when we use to discuss in class whether a company should go online. Now, a successful company looks to have a viable online presence and effective customer engagement strategy. Who knows what the future will bring?

I am also pleased to introduce the articles for this issue of the journal. Lead article authors Peltier and Schultz provide an overview of research on social media marketing and challenge our thinking in the area. In keeping with the social media emphasis for this issue, Ron Goldsmith provides a practical way that managers can help find good contributors to their social network sites. Ana Bareto’s timely article helps explain why Facebook might have recently allowed advertisements to be listed in the news stream. Jason Gabisch and George Milne round out the issue by looking at whether consumers are prevention or promotion-focused and how these orientations can be related to the willingness to provide information in the general internet marketing context; this research has applicability to social media marketing as well as the social media conversation requires the customer to reveal personal information.

Enjoy the issue and we look forward to receiving special issue submissions by 30 August 2013.

Debra Zahay