Not too long ago, actually just a decade ago, we were able to see kids playing outside in the playgrounds, no matter if the sun were shining or rain was falling. Teenagers were hanging around corners, gossiping on the stairs of the monument in the centre of the city and young adults having conversations in the coffee shops. Today´s picture is upside down.
Read moreThe era of social training
It is widely known that sports are the most popular hobbies people cultivate around the world, jogging, golfing, cycling, swimming, surfing, triathlon and hundreds of other sports are practiced by ordinary people whose profiles vary as much as the modalities practiced. This leads to electronic gadgets, social media and the Web 2.0 that are transforming the landscape of the “weekend enthusiast” by empowering and connecting people from all around the world.
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 moreSocial Media Monitoring – 3 reasons why companies should do it Part 2
In the first part I provided three reasons why companies can benefit from Social Media Monitoring. In this part I will present well executed best practices that reinforce these reasons.
Best Practice 1: Old Spice listens to its audience and gets personal
In 2010 P&G’s brand Old Spice launched a campaign, which is a great example of how Social Media Monitoring can serve as a basis for interaction with the customer. It started with a spot called “the man your man could smell like”, which aired a few days before the big Super Bowl game on Youtube and Facebook. It was 30 seconds long and showed an attractive man who talked about how everything is possible with old spice body wash. The spot became a viral hit, capturing 76% of all online conversations about male body wash brands, and reached 10 million views on YouTube in a few months (Effie Awards, 2011).
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 moreYour Brand under Attack: Negative electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) and online Firestorms in Social Media Part 1
In 2012, just 39 cents were enough to trigger an ‘online firestorm’ that broke over McDonald's Germany. What happened was that the leading fast-food brand had raised the price of its cheeseburger by exactly that amount. As a consequence, many consumers expressed their unhappiness about the price increase by communicating their displeasure on McDonald’s Facebook wall (Frickel, 2012). This in itself does not seem to be unusual within the highly-connected online world in which many companies manage their own social media presences and respond to or interact with consumers. However, it becomes unusual if the number of ‘likes’ and comments on one critical social media comment rise to exorbitant levels. Within 48 hours 81,000 users clicked on the ‘like’-button and 6,800 users commented. The company responded one day later and announced that the price for the cheeseburger would not be raised in most restaurants (Frickel, 2012).
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 to use CRM in the era of social media – a case of Walt Disney Company
CRM, Customer Relationship Management, was around the turn of the millennium one of the brightest shining marketing concepts in the business world (Gummesson, 2004). Back then, the general perception and the use of CRM consisted of companies gathering extensive customer data, aiming to manage relationships with their customers. Furthermore, in this scenario the companies were viewed as the main actors and the customers as passive cast members (Malthouse, Haenlein, Skiera, Wege and Zhang, 2013). But the winds of change have blown strongly in recent years and the traditional view of CRM and its alleged success is constantly fading (Wind, 2008).
Read moreHow is eWOM becoming a part of marketing strategies? And what are the consequences? Part 2
In Part I of this article the eWOM types and their us by marketers has been discussed, meanwhile, laying the ground basis of understanding eWOM and its use for consumer advocacy. The paper identified a research gap in the consumers’ response to eWOMM. In other words, what is the reaction of internet users when marketers initiate advocacy with existing and potential customers through social media publications, blogs or video channels? The article identified a fit of the users’ response to eWOMM with the Cho and Cheon’s model (2004) of advertising avoidance on the internet. Moreover, the article will explore marketers’ implications for managing eWOM without causing marketing/advertising avoidance.
Read moreSocial Media Marketing for Building a Strong E-loyalty
In the past few years, we have seen radical changes and advances on the Internet, which has brought new opportunities and challenges in not only our lifestyle but also various business over the world. The Internet has a great power beyond imagination. Especially, The Internet is more meaningful when it comes to business performances. It is not optional anymore but mandatory to make use of the Internet in business perspective.
The start of the digital marketing is probably from the advent of web 2.0. People started to use the terminology, web 2.0, to illustrate a new platform whereby content and applications are not created and issued by individuals anymore, but instead are continuously updated and changed by all users on the Internet where people can easily access (Kaplin & Haenlein, 2010).
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