PAJAIS special issue on Social Media and Social Commerce

Since its emergence in the last decade, social media has rapidly moved from a purely socializing tool to a key professional application (Cummings et al., 2009). Social media and social networks use in commerce has become ubiquitous and is changing the way we communicate, market, sell, and trade (Boyd and Ellison, 2007). The popularity of social networking sites (SNSs) and the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies have brought new developments in e-commerce, which enable individuals to interact with their peers in online communities via social platforms (Liang & Turban, 2011). The social connections and interactions of individuals on the Internet, especially in SNSs, have enabled the expansion of e-commerce to include social commerce (Zeng et al., 2009).