The remarkable growth of social media has proven to influence the publishing industry. Social media has become an important marketing tool for publishers and booksellers, and it has been increasingly used by customers and readers. The objective of this paper is to explore the role of social media in the customer decision-making process with regard to the purchase of books. Data were obtained from 313 customers of major bookstores in Vietnam. The results demonstrate that the majority of customers use social media to gather user-generated content, such as customer reviews and comments, and information about promotions. They also reveal that social media provides the buyers emotional values including fun and the feeling of engagement with the related buying community. Moreover, customers believe that social media plays an important role in the post purchase stage as its allow customers to share their opinions and experiences with others. The findings of this study provide important implications for publishers and book distributors both domestically and internationally. These findings would assist them in developing and implementing effective social media marketing strategies.

中文翻译：

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社交媒体在图书购买中的作用：来自越南出版业的经验证据

事实证明，社交媒体的显着增长对出版业产生了影响。社交媒体已成为出版商和书商的重要营销工具，并且越来越多地被客户和读者使用。本文的目的是探讨社交媒体在客户购买图书决策过程中的作用。数据来自越南主要书店的 313 名客户。结果表明，大多数客户使用社交媒体来收集用户生成的内容，例如客户评论和评论以及有关促销的信息。他们还透露，社交媒体为买家提供了情感价值，包括乐趣和与相关购买社区的互动感。而且，客户认为社交媒体在购买后阶段发挥着重要作用，因为它允许客户与他人分享他们的意见和经验。本研究的结果对国内外的出版商和图书分销商具有重要意义。这些发现将帮助他们制定和实施有效的社交媒体营销策略。