Unravelling the Academic Tapestry of Social Marketing: A Bibliometric Analysis and Research Agenda

Abstract

In today’s dynamic world, social marketing has become an effective means for inspiring behaviour change, supporting social causes and solving pressing societal concerns. In the past 10 years (2013–2022), research in social marketing has gained momentum owing to its growing popularity among scholars and practitioners. Using bibliometric analysis, this study provides insights into the influential aspects of social marketing in terms of prominent authors, leading journals and countries. We used VOSviewer and Biblioshiny software packages to conduct bibliometric research of 718 articles in social marketing retrieved from the Scopus database. The results indicate a considerable emphasis on social marketing campaigns geared towards adults, focusing on blood donation, health promotion, female-centric interventions and public health issues. Furthermore, Australia and the United States emerged as the leading countries in social marketing research. Also, the findings help us identify scientific collaborations of countries, which might assist future researchers in establishing partnerships with authors with similar research interests.