Shaping social marketing research: a retrospective of the journal of social marketing

Purpose: This paper aims to analyse the publication trend and trajectories of the Journal of Social Marketing (JSOCM) from its inception in 2011 to 2020. Design/methodology/approach: The bibliometric approach is used to present publication characteristics. For so doing, the bibliographic data was extracted from the Scopus database. Findings: The results show an increasing trend in the publication and in the number of citations. Moreover, the findings also revealed that although JSOCM received publications worldwide, countries from the developed world such as Australia and the USA are the most productive countries. Originality/value: As the first retrospection of the journal, this study not only educates and enriches JSOCM’s global readers and aspiring contributors but may also be helpful to its editorial board, as it provides several inputs to navigate the way forward.