Background: Social networking mobile applications are designed to socially connect users among each other to consume but also to produce content. Especially because these apps represent a high potential to acquire revenue streams through advertisements, but also to gain customer insights, companies are interested in entering this market by creating new social networking apps. However, switching costs for users are high due to the varied user base of established social networking apps. Accordingly, marketing strategies need to be created to enter the market to target users’ interests. One concept to do so is distributing invitations for the social networking app that can be shared among users. The invite-only strategy has been successfully used to establish themselves in the market by for example Facebook, but also recently with the social networking app Clubhouse. To apply it effectively the motivators of the users to initially adopt invite-only social networking apps are important to understand.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to generate an in-depth understanding of the motivators that foster the initial user adoption of social networking mobile apps based on the invite-only strategy. To investigate the motivators, it is crucial for this study to gain knowledge from the user perspective. In that case, we will contribute our derived knowledge to the theory of technology acceptance, scarcity in digital marketing, and virtual social networking apps.

Research Question: Why do users initially adopt social networking mobile applications using an invite-only strategy?

Method: Ontology – Relativism; Epistemology – Social Constructionism; Approach –Inductive; Data Collection – 14 Semi-Structured In-Depth Interviews; Sampling –Purposive, Convenience, Snowball; Data Analysis – Grounded Analysis

Conclusion: As a result, a framework was derived depicting the main motivators for users to initially adopt invite-only social networking apps. Through our empirical data, we found out that Artificial Scarcity, Closed Network, and Social Influence motivate users to initially adopt invite-only social networking apps. Additionally, Contributing Factors were identified to influence the initial adoption, although they are not directly influenced by the invite-only strategy. The framework further describes the interrelations between the identified sub-categories affecting the initial adoption. We conclude that the main motivators are desire- and fear-driven. The framework can be used by marketers to design invite-only strategies more effectively and consistently to attract a large group of initial users and establish themselves in the market.