Social Media in the Marketing Context

A State of the Art Analysis and Future Directions

Cherniece J. Plume, Yogesh K. Dwivedi, Emma L. Slade

• Publisher: Chandos Publishing
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780081017548
• eBook ISBN: 9780081017579
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Marketing
• Index: Business

Social media has provided endless opportunities for marketers, fuelling their desire to learn more about their consumers through this dynamic online environment. Yet many organisations are finding it difficult to create effective marketing strategies, making decisions that are based on research that is highly focused on the nature and boundaries of social media. The changing behaviour of consumers, variety of platforms and changing culture indicates that much of the research around this topic is still highly fragmented. Social Media in the Marketing Context: A State of the Art Analysis and Future Directions provides a comprehensive overview of the current literature surrounding social media and the marketing discipline, highlighting future development opportunities in both knowledge and practice. - includes extensive literature search on social media in the context of the marketing discipline - provides key areas for future research and recommendations for practitioners - shows the importance for marketers of understanding individual behaviour on social media

Chapter 1

Introduction

Abstract

Social media has effected both organizations and consumers, transforming how they communicate with each other. This chapter provides the context for why social media is so important for organizations and the marketing discipline. It also highlights how difficult the medium is to control, preventing progress on a strategic level. In addition to this it also introduces the importance online brand communities, culture and “self,” drawing attention to who will gain value from reading the book. The chapter ends by summarizing the following sections of the book, highlighting the focus of each chapter.

Keywords

Social media; strategy; marketing; knowledge; practice

The undeniable growth of social media has affected both marketing practices (Bernoff & Li, 2008; Constantinides and Fountain, 2008), and the behavior of the consumers who utilize this medium (Berthon, Pitt, Plangger, & Shapiro, 2012; Deighton & Kornfeld, 2008). Enabling the facilitation of interactive communication amongst its users, the social media environment provides value to consumers on a level they have not encountered before (Baird & Parasnis, 2011). Engaging and inspiring the individuals who utilize this medium, social media provides a mechanism for information dissemination and sharing that empowers today’s consumers (Hwang & Kim, 2015).

Organizations are finding it difficult to cope with the lack of control they now have in defining their own image, finding themselves at the mercy of consumers who are presenting their own perspectives, gathering information from one another as opposed to the organization or brand itself (Bernoff & Li, 2008). Despite attempts to gather adequate information from these social media sites, the vast amount of data that are produced pose problems for managers and marketers alike (Bello-Orgaz, Jung, & Camacho, 2016). The collaborative mechanisms consumers now have on these social media platforms make users more active participants in producing and disseminating content, adding to this data growth (Bouadjenek, Hacid, & Bouzeghoub, 2016). Collecting these data and understanding their meaning give brands and organizations the opportunity to personalize their product or service (Rust & Huang, 2014), allowing consumers’ needs to be more effectively met and thus providing value (Chung, Wedel, & Rust, 2016). A recent report by Stelzner (2015) found that marketers want more information in the areas of “tactics, engagement, measurement, audience, and tools” (Stelzner, 2015, p. 6), with 87% unable to provide answers to questions in these areas. Yet despite this finding, the same report also found that 92% of marketers place high importance on social media for their businesses, which is questionable given the evidence that they do not fully understand this environment. The challenge for marketers is to provide value to consumers in a new competitive marketplace that forces organizations and brands to adopt different approaches as a way of gaining an advantage and exposure (Baird & Parasnis, 2011).

The vast amounts of people who are now utilizing social media platforms have forced brands and organizations to develop complex strategies that allow them to engage with the public in a marketplace where they have been forced to communicate differently with a multitude of stakeholders (Appleford, Bottum, & Thatcher, 2014; Gruber, 2008). Enabling two-way communication, sharing, empowerment and coordination (Boyd & Ellison, 2008), the marketing discipline has undoubtedly felt the effects of this new and constantly changing environment. However, there is an undeniable problem of utilizing social media effectively for marketing purposes, with organizations and researchers alike failing to have a clear understanding of the medium (Appleford et al., 2014). The popularity of social media has meant that many organizations have been pressured into adapting to the various platforms without an effective strategy (Larson & Watson, 2011), with many organizations finding the task difficult (Bottles & Sherlock, 2011). Studies have highlighted the problem by trying to develop effective ways to analyze (e.g., Effing & Spil, 2016) and categorize (e.g., Winer, 2009) the social media environment. It is evident that developing any comprehensive understanding is difficult when critical metrics that are important for aiding understanding (Peters, Chen, Kaplan, Ognibeni, & Pauwels, 2013) are not available.

Social media has transformed the consumer decision-making process (Fulgoni, 2014), meaning understanding their behavior on this medium is critical for marketing success (Donthu & Garcia, 1999), as consumers are continuously utilizing the online realm to gain information to inform their purchasing decisions. However, the Internet and subsequent social media platforms mean that segmenting consumers and developing an effective typology is increasingly difficult (Barnes, Bauer, Neumann, & Huber, 2007), especially in an environment with increasingly heterogeneous consumers (Thomas, Price, & Schau, 2013). Individuals from varying parts of the world are now able to culminate together, sharing information and personal knowledge with others to affect decision making. Yet it can be argued that this poses many problems for marketers (Walters, 1997), with both culture and consumer behaviors playing important roles (Hofstede, 1994; Yavas & Green, 1992). The increasingly individualistic nature of consumers (Weijo, Hietanen, & Mattila, 2014) is making it difficult for managers and marketers to comprehend how they are going to both act and react to their marketing efforts within the social media environment. One way to understand the individual differences is by looking at how individuals typically regard themselves in relation to others and how they tend to interact with brands depending on its congruence with their “self” (Johnson & Eagly, 1989; Schembri, Merrilees, & Kristiansen, 2010; Schouten, 1991). The focus on how brands are used as extensions of the self (Belk, 1988), especially within the online environment (Belk, 2013), is readily understood within the traditional marketing context. However, extending the focus on individual utilization of these platforms may provide a beneficial way to identify behavioral patterns and thus effectively target consumers in a more effective way. With research into the social media environment relatively new to academia (Ngai, Tao, & Moon, 2015), the failure of many organizations and brands to fully understand and utilize the social media environment still needs to be addressed.

The main purpose of this book is to provide a comprehensive overview of social media from a marketing perspective by a thorough examination of the current literature and the identifications of future development opportunities in both knowledge and practice. This book will be of value to students, particularly postgraduate and PhD researchers, and university academics who have an interest in marketing, information systems, and business management. In addition, anyone with an interest in social media and marketing, practitioners, and academics from psychology and cross-cultural disciplines may also find this book useful.

The remaining sections of this book will be as follows:

Chapter 2—Discusses the social media environment and how this has affected marketers, with a focus on the development of research in this area in relation to the marketing discipline.

Chapter 3—Examines the concept of online brand communities and culminations of consumers, identifying how these are being utilized with the development of social media.

Chapter 4—Outlines the development of culture and how this has impacted the social media environment.

Chapter 5—Introduces the importance of self-construal theory when examining consumer’s involvement in the social media environment.

Chapter 6—Identifies current, developing, and future research, elaborating on methodological and sampling choice of researchers of social media and suggestions for further development.

Chapter 7—Provides closing remarks with a summary of the main points.

References

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2. Baird CH, Parasnis G. From social media to social customer relationship management. Strategy & Leadership. 2011;39(5):30–37.

3. Barnes SJ, Bauer HH, Neumann MN, Huber F. Segmenting cyberspace: A customer typology for the internet. European Journal of Marketing. 2007;41(1/2):71–93.

4. Belk RW. Possessions and the extended self. Journal of Consumer Research. 1988;15:139–168.

5. Belk RW. Extended self in a digital world. Journal of Consumer Research. 2013;40(October):477–500.

6. Bello-Orgaz G, Jung JJ, Camacho D. Social big data: recent achievements and new challenges. Information Fusion. 2016;28:45–59.

7. Bernoff J, Li C. Harnessing the power of the oh-so-social web. MIT Sloan Management Review. 2008;49(3):35–42.

8. Berthon PR, Pitt LF, Plangger K, Shapiro D. Marketing meets web 2.0, social media, and creative consumers: Implications for international marketing strategy. Business Horizons. 2012;55(3):261–271.

9. Bottles K, Sherlock T. Who should manage your social media strategy? Physician Executive. 2011;37(2):68–72.

10. Bouadjenek MR, Hacid H, Bouzeghoub M. Social networks and information retrieval, how are they converging? A survey, a taxonomy and ananalysis of social information retrieval approaches and platforms. Information Systems. 2016;56:1–18.

11. Boyd DM, Ellison NB. Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 2008;12:210–230.

12. Chung TS, Wedel M, Rust RT. Adaptive personalization using social networks. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Scie...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Dedications
• Authors’ Biography
• Foreword
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acronyms
• Chapter 1. Introduction
• Chapter 2. The New Marketing Environment
• Chapter 3. Online Brand Communities
• Chapter 4. Culture
• Chapter 5. Self-Construals
• Chapter 6. Synthesis and Discussion of Research
• Chapter 7. Conclusion
• Index