Fashion blogs emerged in the beginning of the 2000s and have grown exponentially ever since. Over time, the fashion blogosphere evolved from early non-commercial amateur street styles, inspirational blogs and personal diaries to successful lifestyle brands with celebrity bloggers, such as Hanneli Mustaparta or Chiara Ferragni. These style icons are now regular guests at the runway shows of the big fashion houses (Figure 1) and sit in the front row next to the global style authorities Anna Wintour and Suzy Menkes (Titton, 2010; Crewe, 2012).
Read moreOnline word-of-mouth and its key characteristics to manage it effectively
Online or electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) has been defined as “any positive or negative statement made by potential, actual, or former customers about a product or company, which is made available to a multitude of people and institutions via the Internet” (Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh & Gremler, 2004, p. 39). Moreover, eWOM also includes opinions and share of information not only about products but also about services and brands (Jalilvand, Esfahani, & Samiei, 2011). In this post I will address the question: what are key characteristics of eWOM that companies need to know in order to manage it effectively?
Read moreYour Brand under Attack: Negative electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) and online Firestorms in Social Media Part 2
Although the importance of this topic seems to be extremely high, research is still in its infancy. There is a wide variety of academic articles available that describe the changing paradigm of word-of-mouth, yet there is only limited literature available that examines how brands can deal with negative electronic word-of-mouth and online firestorms within the social media context. This may be connected to the fact that its emergence, its development and its consequences happened in a rather short period of time. However, from popular press articles, Thomas et al. (2012) gathered and analyzed a variety of company examples. Thereby, they identified five general coping strategies, delay, respond, partner, legal action, and censorship, which will be illustrated with cases below.
Read moreHow Brands Should Deal with a Social Media Crisis. United Airlines case
With the huge rise of Social Media over the last decade, a new era has begun in the web environment. The presence of social media such as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter etc have utterly changed the online scene for brand managers and marketers (Fournier & Avery, 2011). Billions of people were now connected and were able to express their thoughts, write articles, share images and videos.
Social media brought the world closer by providing a platform where everyone and from everywhere could join. Just to take a picture and understand the massive size of social media; Facebook statistics in 2014, showed that their monthly active users are 1.39 billion people, while Youtube users account for more than 1 billion as well (Facebook, 2015; Youtube, 2015).
Read moreHow is eWOM becoming a part of marketing strategies? And what are the consequences? Part 1
Customer advocacy is defined by marketers’ attempt on building mutual “transparency, dialogue and partnership” (p. 5) and is becoming an essential part of a marketing strategy (Lawer and Knox, 2006). However, the marketers’ presence in the user’s activities online can been seen as avoided or causing irritation (Cho and Cheon, 2004). Therefore, the following paper sets the question of how can marketers influence customer advocacy and word-of-mouth (WOM), without causing irritation or avoidance. As a result, the paper will begin by identifying the problem of advertising avoidance on the internet and the three main reasons for it (Cho and Cheon, 2004), followed by e-word-of-mouth marketing (eWOMM) as a phenomenon and eWOM types. The aim of the paper is to give the ground understanding of who talks online – the marketers, the influencers or the end users. Part II would provide a follow up on the topic, which will explore the notion of avoidance in eWOMM and the theory in practice, meanwhile providing implications for building customer advocacy while minimising the threat negative response.
Read moreSocial media has changed the marketing landscape and enabled consumers to be more interactive – what can marketers do to better adapt to this new landscape?
With the emergence of social media the marketing landscape have changed, and marketers have to develop a new approach to there marketing strategy. Traditional media such as TV, radio and newspapers are now challenged by social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and YouTube. Social media has also enabled consumers to be more interactive through different platforms, where they create and share information, opinions, thoughts and experiences about a specific brand or in a consumer community with other consumers. This paper will highlight how consumers now have more power to influence marketing activities and what marketers should do to better adapt to this new marketing landscape.
Read moreThe Power of Personal Branding in Social Media Part 2
To illustrate the opportunities social media present to individuals I would like to look at some examples where everyday people have been able to create strong personal brands and become new type of celebrities- celebrities of social media. Lets first look at second biggest social media platform YouTube, it has more than a billion users, every minute more than 300 hours of videos are uploaded on the site and everyday people watch billions of videos (youtube, n.d.).
Read moreUsers’ 5 Needs When Seeking eWOM in Online Travel Communities Part 2
With its online travel communities Flying Blue Club Africa and Flying Blue Club China, the Dutch airline KLM offers its business travelers a digital meeting place to connect and network with fellow travelers. On the platform #1 social needs are addressed as customers can share experiences, either travel- or business-related, maintain valuable contacts as well as learn from others’ insights into the Chinese/African business world. The stimulated knowledge exchange fosters the required reciprocity and social ties. By starting discussions, the airline attempts to promote communication and the integration of members. This form of active moderation needs to be considered critically, though as users might feel disrupted in their freedom of posting travel experiences or opinions and thus, possibly perceive the brand community as an implicit advertising tool. The airline places strong emphasis on stimulating #2 intellectual needs. KLM considers its online travel communities as rich sources of expertise which allow the exchange of invaluable experiences and knowledge (KLM, 2015). Several steps are taken to ensure high-quality: the continuous monitoring of user-generated content as well as the airline’s effort to thoroughly check travelers’ subscription first in order to keep the brand communities’ nature of exclusivity and expertise.
Read moreThe Rise of Social Media - A Double Sided Coin for Marketers
The development of Web. 2.0 technologies and rise of social media have taken most of us by surprise, marketers included, with the unexpected power shift and empowerment of consumers. The rise of social media and resulting power shift has turned the world upside down for marketers, requiring immediate adjustment to their mindsets, alteration of their strategies, and rethinking of their business approach to marketing.With the new interconnected era comes a new set of opportunities and challenges for marketers, which are to be examined shortly along with the areas in which marketers have experienced empowerment or disempowerment.
Read moreDeterminants of the Perceived eWOM Review Credibility Part 2
Several studies, in the past few years, have demonstrated that eWOM review credibility is a basic requirement for the adoption of the eWOM message (Lis, 2013). Indeed, according to the author, the more the recipient perceives the message as credible, the greater is the chance that the message information will be adopted and used. This is the reason why it is crucial, in order to understand the effects of eWOM reviews on the purchase decision process, to gain a better understanding of all of the determinants which lead the review to be perceived as credible by the reader.
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