EDIT BNYAI
The primary aim of this paper is to give a comprehensive overview of social media marketing
solutions which can be used by companies. Many authors and researchers dealing with specialised
subjects examine certain areas of this topic and, in particular, with the influence of the social
media on marketing communication. An overview of current literature and practical solutions ena-
bled us to create a framework usable in the corporate sphere for creating a social media marketing
strategy and for measuring the efficiency of social media activity. The framework helps
companies to identify which social media solutions are worth taking advantage of to support their
business processes, how they are able to measure the effectiveness of social media and it also
provides a basis for the identification of additional research directions.
Keywords: social media marketing, social CRM, social branding, social media strategy
1. INTRODUCTION
The social media explosion created new sources of competitiveness for those
companies that are able to take advantage of this opportunity. The aim of this
paper is to discuss key challenges of marketing in the social environment.
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Companies may only be successful in the social media if they know precisely
the individual community platforms, the social media usage habits of their
respective target audience, and if they are able to support their decisions
regarding individual platforms with the efficiency and return ratios used for
conventional marketing tools. The effective integration of social media into
corporate mar- keting strategy requires answers to certain questions: Alongside
which values does social participation take place? How do the company, the
consumer and the members of the supply chain benefit from this? What
changes do the social media bring about in the companys internal and external
communication? What other organisational, in-process and cultural changes
may be triggered by social networking solutions and the new forms of contact?
What kind of new coopera- tion forms develop between market participants due
to Web 2.0 solutions and the social media? How can the efficiency of social
media activity be measured?
An overview of current practical solutions will help to answer the questions
above. The paper contributes to the literature in several ways. It organizes a
frag- mented literature by linking special characteristics of social media to the
core of marketing management. The framework for measurement could be used
to stimu- late a systematic investigation (on corporate and industrial level also)
into how social media should be integrated in corporate processes. And finally
the result of an explorative research on corporate social media activity is
presented.
Specific features of the social media and their unbelievable and rapid increasing
popularity have equally influenced marketing, companies and consumer behav-
iour (Mangold Faulds 2009; Powers et al. 2012). The corporate use of social
media is extremely widespread and it may serve as a resource with many oppor-
tunities and challenges. The social media have significantly re-shaped the forms
of communication between companies and their customers, enabling direct and
even real-time contact with consumers and partners. Since, compared to tradi-
tional communication channels, this is possible in a more cost effective way, the
various social networking solutions are worth applying not only by
multinational companies but also by SMEs and non-profit organisations.
The number of social media platforms is increasing, whilst newer variations
continue to emerge. Thus, the scientific literature mentions various groupings of
the social media. This article shows a classification which may serve as a good
starting point when creating social media marketing strategy.
The classification of Kaplan and Haenlein uses two dimension-pairs: the
rich- ness of the medium and the degree of social presence; on the other hand,
THE INTEGRATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA INTO CORPORATE PROCESSES 24
they consider self-presentation and self-disclosure as a differentiating factor2
regarding the platforms (Kaplan Haenlein 2010; see Table 1).
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Table 1. Classification of social media by social presence/media richness
and self-presentation/self-disclosure
Social presence/Media richness
Low Medium High
High Blogs Social networking Virtual social worlds
sites (e.g., Second Life)
Self-presentation / (e.g. Facebook)
self-disclosure Low Collaborative Content communities Virtual game worlds
projects (e.g., (e.g., YouTube) (e.g. Warcraft)
Wikipedia)
Source: Kaplan Haenlein (2010).
Collaborative projects are also applicable for corporate purposes. Nokia, for
instance, established an internal Wiki for its employees to update the status of
the individual projects and to exchange ideas on an ongoing basis, and this is
used by tens of thousands of employees.2
A blog is also an excellent tool for the benefit of a company; many managers
maintain blogs to represent their firms. Jonathan Schwartz, for instance, kept a
personal blog as the manager of Sun Microsystems in order to ensure transpar-
ency of the company; he then launched a blog as the former manager to disclose
information that he did not share as manager.3
Content-focused communities differ, depending on the shared content (text,
photographs, videos, presentations). From the perspective of companies,
content- focused communities may carry a risk through sharing protected
intellectual property. At the same time, their huge number of members makes
them very at- tractive for supporting their market and business activities.
Virtual realities and worlds are platforms which re-create our world in a
three- dimensional digital form, where users create their own avatar. These
platforms are usable for advertising through ads placed within the games.
The social media are a highly dynamically changing tool, their use can be
easily learnt and, in addition, it inevitably entails a strategic approach. In
addition to knowledge of the individual platforms and tools, this requires a
novel way of thinking. The need for something different from the traditional
way of thinking is triggered by fundamentally changed customer behaviour.
many established management methods are ill-suited to deal with customers
who no longer want to be talked at; instead, customers want firms to listen,
appropriately engage, and respond. (Kietzmann et al. 2010: 250)
2
See http://developer.nokia.com/ for more details.
3
See https://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/about/.
McKinseys research group examined the value the use of the social networking
technology can provide for companies (Chui et al. 2012). They identified 10 op-
portunities which are useful for the corporate functions, as detailed in Table 2.
Table 2. Ten ways social technologies can add value in organizational functions
within and across enterprises
Organizational Across entire
functions enterprise
Product 4 Derive customer insights1 9
development 1 Co-create products Use social
2 Leverage social to forecast technology to
Operations and and monitor improve intra- or
distribution 3 Use social to distribute inter-organizational
business processes collaboration and
4 Derive customer insights communication
Enterprise-wide
5 Use social technologies for levers
Marketing and marketing communication/ (Social as
sales interaction organizational
6 Generate and foster sales leads technology) 10
7 Social commerce Use social
8 Provide customer care via technology to match
Customer service talent to tasks
social technologies
Improve collaboration and
Business support2 communication; match talent to
tasks3
Source: Chui et al. (2012)
1
Deriving customer insights for product development is included in customer insights (lever 4) under market-
ing and sales.
2
Business support functions are corporate or administrative activities such as human resources or finance and
accounting.
3
Levers 9 and 10 apply to business support functions as they do across the other functional value areas.
Product development
Maybe one of the most important, but at the same time difficult to measure, im-
pacts of social media in corporate marketing is its contribution to product devel-
opment. The platforms of social media are perfect tools for obtaining consumer
insights. Companies can regularly track their followers and those sharing their
contents can analyze the connection network, and the information collected may
contain important input also for product development. A more targeted and
more effective solution is to directly invite members to share their ideas. There
are multiple possibilities for this: it can be either a competition, a game, or the
regular buyers of the given product (brand-lovers) can be invited to test their
products and share their opinions on an ongoing basis. Companies can join a
crowd-sourc- ing site or can create such a site themselves.
Marketing
In the social media world the content, timing, frequency and control over the
me- dium significantly reduced compared with the traditional communication:
name- ly, the companies have fewer opportunities to influence the consumer
decision. The main reason for this is that there are social media platforms which
are fully independent from the creator organisation or its representatives.
Although mar-
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THE INTEGRATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA INTO CORPORATE PROCESSES 24
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keting managers cannot control the spread of information through the social me-
dia, they do have the opportunity to direct the conversation towards the
adequate direction (Mangold Faulds 2009: 365.). Paid ads, displaying PR
messages, the creation of ones own profile, active participation in the
conversations, the organisation of events and games in the social media are
good means of achiev- ing this.
The social media provide opportunities for conducting market research and
gaining consumer insights. Interactions can be mapped and transformed into so-
cial graphs, from which we can learn, for example, whether or not a relationship
between individuals is mutual and what the social capital of the given person is.
In reality, consumers are interested in one another, and social media becomes
trustworthy by the fact that the pieces of information displayed here are control-
led by the other consumers. In this way, the followers of the companys profile
guarantee the restriction of a companys intrusive, unacceptable behaviour or its
taking advantage of hidden information. Each company must understand that the
use of social media requires from them awareness, honesty and flexibility.
Social media can forward messages to the consumers at a much lower cost
compared to the conventional communication channels. Although through the
so- phistication of activities the companies social media expenses are
increasing, the costs still constitute only a small part of their total advertising
expenses (Hoelzel 2014).
The most active users join brand communities. These online communities
have proved to be an effective tool in terms of influencing consumer behaviour
(Adjei et al. 2010) and provide opportunities for companies to know better the
thoughts and needs of their customers through monitoring the shared
information (Kozinets 2007; Williams Cothrel 2000). The social brand
communities play a significant role in the social media marketing, and it is,
therefore, worth taking a closer look at their role and impact.
Social media-based brand communities are special forms of online brand
com- munities. The social media allow people with a similar mindset to create
groups and share information or to keep contact within such groups. (Fournier
Avery 2011; Kaplan Haenlein 2010). The essence of brand communities is
sharing in- formation and sources (Muniz OGuinn 2001; McAlexander et al.
2002), and in the same way the essence of social media is creating and sharing
content (Kaplan
Haenlein 2010). Thus, due to their networks and social character, social media
are a perfect environment for brand communities (Habibi et al. 2014).
There are a number of effective brand communities on the various social me-
dia platforms. Outstanding is the Harley Davidson community with over 7 mil-
lion fans or the Coca-Cola Facebook community with nearly 96 million likers
(in January 2016).
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The brand personality reflects the life style and image of the customers
and this connection is more evident in the social media. The media extend the
brands social identity role and those writing and sharing brand stories become
part of this (un)intentionally. In the social media consumers voluntarily join or
follow a brand, and this influences the trustworthiness of a brand (Naylor et al.
2012). Fournier and Avery (2011: 194) use the metaphor of open-source
brand- ing, which implies participatory, collaborative and socially-linked
behaviours whereby consumers serve as creators and disseminators of branded
content.
Companies have the possibility to advertise their brands, to provide
immediate customer support, provide customer service and create a brand
community from enthusiastic fans. The conversations of customers, the shared
information about the brand provide the companies with cost-effective
possibilities to increase awareness and loyalty (Gensler et al. 2013; Erdogmus
Cicek 2012).
The stories and contents generated by users can, however, be equally positive
or negative. They reach the target audience much more efficiently than the
stories disclosed through traditional channels, as, owing to the use of social
media, they spread in digital form more quickly and visibly (Hennig-Thurau et
al. 2010).
Customers consider social media also as a service provider channel where
they can connect to the companies in real time (Leggat 2010). However, the real
time feature clearly influences the type of content. Customers value only up-to-
date information, and so the precise and relevant, valuable content is a central
ele- ment of brand management in the social media. The brand stories generated
by consumers either complement or enrich the stories of the company or
contradict them. The response indicates whether the company adopts an
observer or a con- versing role in the given story.
The question is why the members of the community tell brand stories, what
type of message they share and which network features contribute to sharing.
Based on the research of Muntinga (2013) the main motivator is the need for en-
tertainment and self-expression, connection to others and empowerment (when
a company invites active participation) (Labrecque et al. 2013).
The target market must be analysed and the company must appear on the
plat- form used most by them. In the case of global companies, the question is
how to display brand messages at national and at international level, as the
brand may have a different meaning in different countries.
The impact of social media on the user, contents, brand stories and brand per-
formances depends on multiple factors: characteristics of the market (the visibil-
ity of consumption and competition (Fischer et al. 2010)), the characteristics of
the company/brand (e.g. organisational structure, brand design) and the charac-
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THE INTEGRATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA INTO CORPORATE PROCESSES 25
teristics of the consumer-brand relationship. If the consumption is visible and0
can be made visible (e.g. a car purchase with a photograph) then the brand is
much
Social trading
Social trading uses social media applications for online customer interactions
and cooperation, and for the support of online sellers. This includes online
valuations (ratings and reviews), the purchase supporting applications, deal sites
and social shopping sites. At the same time, social shopping is a common
experience for buyers, as the main point is that buyers are in interaction with
one another when shopping, thus providing the opportunity to influence one
another. In addition, the risk factor in a purchasing decision can be reduced by
getting to know the opinions and experiences of others. With the help of the
social media we can learn the opinions, recommendations and suggestions of
users inside or outside our own social network, so getting closer to the most
rational and optimal decision.
The opinions of buyers (in the form of ratings and scores) are strong
influenc- ing forms of user content. However, not all ratings come from buyers;
some sites ask experts to form an opinion. Nevertheless, consumers are
primarily interested in the opinions of other consumers. Since ratings have such
power, the companies invite their customers to rate their product or service
hoping that their positive opinion will help them generate new customers.
Customers who take the time and rate a product are more likely to purchase
from the company again (Tuten Solo- mon 2013). In addition, ratings improve
the organic hits available in browsers and are sources usable also in market
research to learn consumers opinions.
Many companies are afraid of negative ratings, although these offer an op-
portunity in the sense that any feedback provides valuable information for im-
provement, whilst a page where negative comments appear must boost trust and
confidence in potential buyers.
In addition to this, companies can make use of the following possibilities:
pick list: item list such a wish list, they also offer a sharing feature;
popularity filters: list of most popular, most viewed products;
forums;
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THE INTEGRATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA INTO CORPORATE PROCESSES 25
group purchase opportunities, coupon sites. 2
More and more companies use the social media for keeping contact with their
customers. The real-time feature on the platforms, the quantity of information
and the speed of its flow produce many benefits and challenges. The motivation
of the members of the communities can be different (contacting, getting
acquaint- ed, self-expression, etc.), but one thing is common to all: they belong
to the pri- vate sphere, and so we are talking about a rather closed or cloistered
community facing the corporate sphere. The items of information provided by
users about themselves are casual and in terms of content they change, which
does not allow
or allows only limited systematic data collection. At the same time some
users of the social media accept the presence of companies and their content
indeed, they take advantage of the contact and can be activated.
The social media, therefore, could be a new channel for Customer
Relationship Management (CRM), although, due to their features, the platforms
significantly changed consumer behaviour, their willingness and ability to
communicate. The question is, how the media incalculable as they are can
be integrated into corporate CRM.
Social CRM (SCRM) does not replace conventional CRM systems, but it can
supplement them by creating value both for customers and the company.
The features of SCRM are shaped primarily by the characteristics of the
social media and the rules and habits that developed on the social networking
platforms. The challenge for companies is to become visible and trustworthy
enough to be trusted by customers and to be addressed on the social networking
sites, or, in the case of already established trust, to cause customers to become
ambassadors of the given company. SCRM can also contribute to this, since it is
a very good tool to gather precise insights and, due to this, efficiency improves
both in sales and customer relations.
The concept of SCRM was defined by Greenberg (2009; 2010), according to
which SCRM is a philosophy and business strategy supported by technological
platforms, processes and social features; its objective is to involve the customer
into a collaborative conversation that provides mutual value for both parties.
Corporate level
The above integration possibilities of the social media alone reflect that the in-
fluence it has on the individual areas spreads and changes the companys op-
eration and view. The social view can emerge also in other areas for instance,
social networks can be used by organisations also for recruiting new employees
(Shih 2011).
The social media not only change the relations between companies and their
customers, but the relations within the company also change. The social media
accelerate knowledge sharing within the company, instigates and promotes
inno- vation, common thinking, collaboration between the individual functional
units, thus improving productivity all of these certainly only if the company
uses the possibilities provided by the social media consciously. The boundaries
of the company widen, since the active members of the social media can even
take over tasks from the employees which were previously exclusively the task
of the company, e.g. fans and followers join in product development (crowd-
sourcing), or promotions. The type of collaboration can also change; it can be
more enter- taining, since playfulness (gamification) is part of social media
providing various solutions for putting games and technology into a new
context, as well as real time solutions introducing a competitive spirit.
Table 3. The possibilities for the measurement of corporate social media activity
Source: author
The most popular tool among the SMEs is Facebook, but the role of groups
is continuously increasing. Companies communicate with less and less notes,
organic access is losing its importance as Facebook drives companies towards
the paying solutions.
The second most frequently used social network besides Facebook is
YouTube, but the use of Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn is increasing too.
Instagram caught up with LinkedIn, and Pinterest is now considerably ahead
of it.
Due to the ever more complex tasks, companies use external professional as-
sistance at a growing number of tasks, especially in the handling of advertise-
ments.
The three most important goals of businesses in social media, in order of im-
portance, are as follows: getting new clients, brand building and keeping in
touch with the clients.
Despite the many changes, being present on Facebook is still worth it for the
businesses, but uncertainty is greater than it used to be (Lvai 2015).
For the planned qualiative interviews and before the use of the Neticle soft-
ware, I made qualitative interviews with professionals, and I analysed the social
media activity of the selected businesses, by the examination of their profiles
and two free measurements software. As a summary of the findings I state my
research questions and hypotheses for the further examinations.
In the opinion of the experts 5 we cannot see a direct correlation between the
market success of the companies, their offline marketing achievements and the
consciousness of their social media presence. Businesses appear on the social
media with the most diverse goals, in fact, several Hungarian businesses do not
even have any concrete goal, plan and budget when joining the social media. An
extremely large number of indices can assist their work, but the applied methods
and tools are not clearly dependent upon the size, character and sector of the
business. The quality of the use and measurement of social media still depends
in many cases on the commitment of the given marketing expert towards the use
of social media.
The selected sectors are the automotive and retail sector. This paper presents
the result of the research in the automotive industry; the brands examined are
BMW, Opel, Nissan, Citron and Suzuki. The automotive industry is made suit-
able for the analysis of social media activities by several factors. The brands in-
clude very conscious firms showing good examples for the right use of social
me- dia, and also companies that are still looking for their places. The survey of
CMO Council (2014) revealed that there is a strong potential in social media for
the automotive industry companies. Their research found that 38% of the
potential car buyers rely on social media as a source of information before the
purchase of the car. Twenty-three per cent of the customers share their purchase
experiences on social media platforms. Of all car buyers, 84% are on the
Facebook. Forty per
4
The Neticle system does a real-time examination of the whole of the Hungarian web, in-
cluding blogs, news portals, forums and social media platforms. The software automatically
analyses the texts appearing on different platforms and examines not only the quantity of the
mentions of key words but also their quality.
5
The three experts were Richrd Lvai of RG Stdi Ltd.; Pter Szekeres of Neticle and Balzs
Ofczianka of Erste Bank.
cent of the customers in the next 10 years will come from the Millennium
genera- tion who primarily use online sources of information (CMO Council
2014).
As a preliminary study I analysed 19 car brands and compared them on the
basis of simple parameters like appearance on popular social media, the size of
audience reached, the number of operating sites, and the frequency and form of
presence. The findings of the comparison show that these media are used with
uneven efficiency. Of the 19 brands I chose 5, of which one (BMW) is definitely
strong and outstanding, 3 (Citron, Opel and Nissan) are medium strong and
one (Suzuki) is very weak in social media usage, on the basis of the parameters
exam- ined. The five brands also allow the comparison of international and
Hungarian social media presence.
About the purpose of the use of social media we can get information from the
analysis of profiles, activities and notes, but the real objectives will be revealed
by the answers of the deep interviews. The analysis of the contents show that all
five companies use social media for branding, connections, or getting new
clients when introducing certain models, and BMW even has an application
(allowing the design of cars and the dissemination of the results in a playful
form) that pre- sumably serves product development and the collection of the
customers ideas. The analysis of the level of use was done by the simple score-
based comparison of market and social media activities for the international
official profiles of the five brands.
The following aspects were evaluated on a scale from 1 to 5:
Market role: the approximate average market share of the brand owner com-
pany (i.e. in the case of Opel it was the share of General Motors). The market
share of the mother company (possibly with many brands) on the average,
on the basis of 201415 data (1: around 0%; 2: 0.53%; 3: 35%; 4: 510%;
5: above 10%)
Brand value: brand value in the 2015 order of http://brandirectory.com. (5:
position 110; 4: position 1120; 3: position 2130; 2: position 3140; 1:
posi-
tion 4150)
Facebook popularity: the number of fans of the site compared to the site that
has the largest number of fans
Number of Instagram specific followers, i.e. the number of followers per one
remark (=number of followers/number of notes).
Frequency of appearance: average frequency of appearance (publication of
notes) on the major social media platforms. (1: less frequently than once a
week; 2: weekly; 3: every 3rd or 4th day; 4: every day or 2nd day; 5: several
times a day)
Table 4. Summary table for the comparison of the international social media activity
of social
Frequency of ap-
of the five car brands examined
platforms
Instagram popu-
Facebook popu-
pearance
Scores
Scores
Market role
Brand value
Scores
Scores
Scores
larity
Scores
Number
larity
Brand
media
BMW 3 3 2 5 19,039,498 5.00 2,283.56 5 5 5 8 5
Suzuki 1 1 7 3 1,968,795 0.52 171.35 0.38 2 2 7 4.38
Citron 4 4 22 3 9,062,912 2.38 39.85 0.09 4.5 4.5 8 5
Nissan 5 5 25 5 13,951,740 3.66 455.55 1.00 4 4 6 3.75
Opel 5 5 40 2 2,981,988 0.78 78.55 0.17 4.5 4.5 6 3.75
Source: Author.
Figure 1. Comparison of the international social media activity of the five car brands examined
Source: Author.
Number of the places of appearance: the number of social media where the
brand or company is present (this aspect will be important at the analysis of
the Hungarian profiles, as the use of social media is not complete there). See
Table 4 and Figure 1.
In the first phase of the explorative research, after the secondary research, the
implementation of qualitative interviews and the analysis of the international
and Hungarian profiles of the selected brands, the following research questions
can be asked for the research made with the Hungarian companies:
5. CONCLUSION
The levels of use of social media differ in respect of individual companies and
market sectors. The reason for this may be the social presence and activity of
the target audience, the features of the product or service and managements at-
titude. The need for integration is unquestionable; it is no longer an option for
companies. In order for a company to integrate social media successfully, it
must consider the following strategic issues:
Does the target market use social media? If so, how and for what purpose?
To understand the use of the different social media platforms and distribution
of resources accordingly to measure the return of the expenditure on social
media (change of client and brand value, shift in revenues).
To identify the key strategic indicators of social media marketing and to
elabo- rate the tactical steps needed to reach these objectives (use of ratings,
recom- mendations, expert validation and adequate incentives in order to
generate user content, etc.)
To establish a system for the measuring of efficiency (internal and external
measurements, definition of soft and hard indices). Establishment of the
specific measurement systems of the respective fields of use (for example, for
collecting product development ideas, or if the company wants to measure the
return of investments on community CRM system). At the same time, in the
case of social marketing communication, possibility to follow the activity of the
target audi- ence allows measurement and analysis opportunities never seen
before. There are dozens of efficiency indices available, in addition to the
classic ROI and ROMI indices. In fact, in this field businesses may find the
supply excessively large.
To adapt pioneer application of new social media solutions.
REFERENCES