Marketing sport coaching services on social network sites: an examination of social influence and country-of-origin effect

Social network sites have been used to market a variety of products and services. The aim of this paper is to examine the marketing of sport coaching services on social network sites. A Facebook page of a fictitious sports coaching service was set up. The control group (n = 51) was exposed to a page with only minimal information on the coaching service. Experimental group 1 (n = 51) was presented with additional information on the wall page consisting of likes votes and positive comments about the coaching service. Experimental group 2 (n = 51) was presented with additional information on the nationality of the sports coach. The findings suggested that social influence on social network site could affect consumers' perceived quality and purchase intention for sports coaching services. However, information on the nationality of the sports coach did not statistically affect the perceived quality and purchase intention for the sports coaching service.