Social media marketing
Course focus
Users -> medium -> effects
Users: How do the users (recipients) use the medium? Motivations + social community
Medium: How does the message impact the receiver? Persuasive intent, interactivity,
personalization, social entertainment, AI, social media influencers
Effects: How do the various media differ? Brand engagement + loyalty, social media monitoring
5 lectures, 2 guest lectures, 4 interactive seminars
Focus on discussion/ conclusion for papers
Interactive seminar -> research proposal -> groups opdracht presentatie van 7 min (pass/fail)
16-05-2024 aan de beurt
Powerpoint presentation, fair contribution, study literature for that week.
Research question, practical and scientific relevance, brief methodology
Assessment
- Individual assignment 30%
-> research proposal (deadline peer feedback 17th may 17.00, final deadline 17th june, 10.00)
-> Introduction (700 words), method (200 words)
-> third seminar individual assignment seminar 3 feedback moment
(tips for individual assignment in slides of week 2)
- Group assignment 25% -> Erasmus MC 5 minutes pitch
- Final exam 45% -> literature & lectures, multiple choice and open questions
,Preparation 1
Li, F. Larimo, J., & Leonidou, L.C. (2021). Social media marketing strategy: definition,
conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda. Journal of the academy of
marketing science, 49, 51-70
SMMS (social media marketing strategy). Social media has evolved from a single marketing tool
to imperative for marketiers to strategically use and leverage social media to achieve
competitive advantages and superior performance. The challenge is to combine social media
with their marketing strategy to engage customers in order to build valuable and long-term
relationships with them. Their is no clear definition or framework to guide the integration of
social media with marketing strategies.
1. Clearly define SMMS by blending issues derived from the social media and marketing
strategy literature streams
2. Conceptualize the process of developing SMMS and provide a theoretical understanding
of its constituent parts
Social media enables firms and customers to connect in ways that were not possible in the past.
The strength and spans of social ties determine whether they are strong or weak. Tie strength is
an important determinant of customer referral behaviors.
Social media has transformed the way firms and customers interact and influence each other.
Social interaction involves ‘actions’ whether through communication or passive observation, that
influences choices and consumption behaviors. -> WOM (word of mouth) effect. Peoples
connections patterns and the strength of social ties can signify the intensity of social
interactions.
The proliferation of social media data has made it increasingly possible for companies to better
manage customer relationships and enhance decision making in business. Social media data
can serve as an important source of customer analysis, market research, and crowdsourcing of
new ideas.
3. To provide a taxonomy of SMMS according to their level of strategic maturity
Marketing strategy consists of an integrated set of decisions that helps the firm make critical
choices regarding marketing activities in selected markets and segments with the aim to create,
communicate, and deliver value to customers in exchange for accomplishing its specific
financial, market and other objectives. Different marketing strategies can be arranged on a
continuum, transaction marketing strategy and relationship marketing strategy represents both
ends.
,From a strategic marketing perspective, social media entails a process that allows not only firms
but also customers to exchange resources. Customer-customer interactions are essential for the
higher level of engagement behavior.
SMMS definition: an organization's integrated pattern of activities that, based on a careful
assessment of customers’ motivations for brand-related social media use and the undertaking of
deliberate engagement initiatives, transform social media connectedness (networks) and
interactions (influences) into valuable strategic means to achieve desirable marketing outcomes.
Three differences between traditional marketing strategies and SMMS
- As opposed to the traditional marketing strategies, which pays peripheral attention to the
heterogeneity of motivations driving customers engagement, SMMS emphasize that
social media users must be motivated on intellectual, social, cultural, or other grounds to
engage with firms (and customers)
- The consequences of SMMS are jointly decided by the firm and its customers and tits
only when the firms and its customers interact and build relationships that social media
technology platforms become more real resource integrators.
- While customer value in traditional marketing strategies is narrowly defined to solely
capture purchase behavior through customer lifetime value, in the case of SMMS this
value is expressed through customer engagement, compromising both direct and
indirect contributions to the value of the firm.
The conceptualization of the process of developing SMMS is anchored on customer
engagement theory; this posits that firms need to take deliberate initiatives to motivate and
empower customers to maximize engagement. There are 4 different dimensions of customer
engagement; customer lifetime value, customer referral value, customer influence value,
customer knowledge value.
In social media context, this customer engagement value enables firms to capitalize on crucial
customer resources, of which the leverage can provide firms with sustainable competitive
advantage.
Based on the consumer engagement theory, we therefor conceive the process of developing
SMMS as consisting of four interlocking parts:
1. Drivers: firms social media marketing objectives and the customers social media use
motivations
2. Inputs: firms social media engagement initiatives and customers social media
behavior.
3. Throughputs: the way that firm connects and interacts with customers to exchange
resources and satisfy needs
4. Outputs: the resulting customer engagement outcome
, 4. To validate the practical value of this taxonomy using information derived from previous
empirical studies, as well as from primary date collections among social media marketing
managers
Four different mental models that guide SMMS:
- promote and sell
- connect and collaborate,
- listen and learn,
- empower and engage.
The direction of the social media interactions can take three different forms:
- one way interaction (traditional),
- two way interaction
- collaborative interaction (highest level of interaction that builds on frequent and
reciprocal activities in which both the firms and the customers have the power to
influence each other).
Types of SMMS
- Social commerce strategy: exchange related activities that occur in or are influenced by
an individual's social network whereby the activities correspond to the need recognition,
pre-purchase, purchase and post purchase stages of a focal exchange. Customers
exchange their monetary resources with the firm's potential offerings. Selling capabilities
are crucial in this strategy, requiring the possession of adequate selling skills and the use
of multiple selling channels to synergize social media effects.
- Social content strategy: the creation and distribution of educational and or compelling
content in multiple formats to attract or retain customers. This SMMS aims to create and
deliver timely and valuable content based on the customers needs, rather than