5.1 Theoretical Contribution
Nowadays, the analysis of consumer behavior is central for marketing success, especially since most potential
consumers are using the internet and different online socializing tools. The online audience is a booming market
worldwide, however giving its globalized nature a level of segmentation is needed cross-culturally. Regarding
the academic implications, our results contribute to the study of the field of Internet marketing.
The conclusions obtained from our research have important implications for the academic research, derived
principally from the analysis of four new types of social media consumers, namely Engagers, Expressers and
Informers, Networkers, and Watchers and Listeners. We used this new classification, other newly formed
variables (Positive reactions to online ads, Trust in information from personal sources, Trust in information from
foreign sources), continuous variables (Concern for privacy, Importance of social media), and categorical
variables (Experience using social media, Clicking the ad, Log in pattern, Time spent per login session) to
achieve a segmentation of social media users and observe different patterns which could be targeted to improve
the effectiveness and efficiency of online marketing activities. Therefore, this research presents new ways to
classify online consumers, which served as a basis for psychographic segmentation, based on respondents’
activities on different online platforms.