How to Engage Consumers through Effective Social Media Use—Guidelines for Consumer Goods Companies from an Emerging Market

This study aims to establish actionable guidelines and provide strategic insights as a means of increasing the social media effectiveness of consumer brands. Post-related factors in addition to the contextual and temporal factors influencing consumer engagement (i.e., reposting, commenting on or liking posts), as an indicator of social media effectiveness, are considered in detail in the research model. Moreover, the model considers differences between industries as well as social media platforms. A total of 1130 posts made by four brands, two each from the durable goods and fast-moving consumer goods sectors, were collected from Facebook and Twitter in Turkey. Through predictive analysis, four different machine learning algorithms were utilized to develop easy-to-apply plans of action and strategies. The findings highlight the significant impact of videos, images, post frequency and interactivity on engagement. Furthermore, social media platforms and the brands themselves were found to be instrumental in influencing engagement levels, indicating that more than one formula is needed for effective social media management. The range and depth of the post-related factors (e.g., image type, video length, kind of interactivity) considered go far beyond those found in the significant majority of similar studies. Moreover, the unique setting and the novel data analysis algorithms applied set this study apart from similar ones

Harnessing Hollywood Hype: Film Marketing Meets the Challenges and Opportunities of the 21st Century

Marketing is a vital commercial activity and source of competitive advantage within the Hollywood film industry, serving to create, circulate and translate symbolic meaning around a film and its ancillary products, construct and target key audience segments, guide audience expectations and viewing choices, and mitigate financial risk. Marketers thus play an increasingly central role in all stages of the filmmaking process. To examine the often overlooked structures and practices of Hollywood’s marketing arm, this study adopts a media industry studies approach, employing interviews, fieldwork, and textual analysis to explore the social, technological, organizational, economic, and spatial forces that shape the contemporary context of Hollywood marketing materials’ creation. In the early 21st century, Hollywood studios face profound challenges and opportunities wrought by the dual forces of globalization and digitization. In response, marketers have developed a novel view of their audience: as increasingly global and empowered. Globalization and digitization are thus treated as centrifugal forces, diffusing production and meaning-making capabilities across geographic space and media platforms, and threatening the centralized control traditionally held by Hollywood studios. Marketers are incentivized to embrace these decentralizing forces and the cultural labor now provided by third party marketing agencies, international distributors, and audiences. However, Hollywood studios’ institutional inertia, risk aversion, and inclination to maintain firm control of their marketing messages and intellectual property preclude a whole-hearted embrace of these changes. Studio marketers thus act with deep ambivalence toward these outside players, attempting to capitalize on their cultural labor while simultaneously acting to circumscribe their power

Explicit disclosure in retail communication: Impact of undetermined social network site relationships on branded identity

One of the most impactful technologies to emerge from Web 2.0 developments has been the social network site. In traditional models of branded identity, it is assumed that there is a distinction made between the retailer and consumer (de Chernatony, 1999; Kapferer, 2008). However, social network sites allow for the formation of undetermined relationships in which the underlying role of a party may be unknown.;As social network sites continue to shape retail practices, a gap in knowledge exists regarding how models of branded identity need to be modified to meet the demands of these undetermined social network site relationships. Through the exploration of one social network site, this research provides the basis for understanding how a traditional branded identity model is affected by varying levels of disclosure on the part of both retailer and consumer.;Grounded theory provided the methodological framework for a deductive content analysis of manifest data (Elo & Kyngas, 2007; Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). Qualitative coding of images, videos, and the inclusion of unique comments supplemented the quantitative data. Four features from de Chernatony\u27s (1999) model - brand vision and culture, brand positioning, brand personality, and brand reputation - served as the basis for deduction of themes from the retailer of study, Gap Inc., corporate literature. Representation of keywords in each theme accounted for the modification of deChernatony\u27s (1999) model.;Results suggest that branded identity functions around the feature of relationships on social network sites, which allows for multi-directional communication between identity functions. Findings also suggest that consumer control on social network sites has created a two-way communication channel by which the retailer becomes an equal to all members. An amended version of de Chernatony\u27s (1999) model represents the key features and themes associated with social network site relationship formation

Repetitive Financial Ads on Social Media Shape Next-Gen Future Financial Experience: Why Financial Experts Should be Alert?

Social media platforms allow financial institutions and advertisers to reach a broad audience and promote their offerings. Consequently, financial ads have become a common feature in social media feeds. Nevertheless, more knowledge is needed regarding the effects of these ads on the Next Gen customer journey (age and culture), who navigates through the complex financial ecosystem trying to make sense of these repetitive financial ads combined with the interference of social media influencers. This qualitative research explores the impact of repetitive financial advertisements on social media and their influence on the general perception of various age groups that compose the Next-Gen. The methodology consisted of an in-depth content analysis of financial influencers on social media and 15 in-depth interviews of participants from different demographic and culture groups who shared their detailed customer journey experiences, including attitudes and perceptions toward repetitive financial ads. The results of this study contribute to providing a better understanding of a) how exposure to repetitive financial ads shapes the customer’s attitude towards financial products and services, b) how variations in perceptions may depend on the customer’s age groups and cultural background, and c) how social media influencers combined with social media platforms selection may impact the customer’s financial literacy and perception on financial products and services. From a managerial perspective, the power of influencers and social media platforms within financial services should be evaluated beyond robotic information gathered by big data. Although the qualitative research limits the aggregate results based on the snowball recruitment and the number of interviewees, it enriches the perspective of putting the human first by listening to the storytelling; it is possible to grasp how the customer engages in sharing, reading, and commenting about financial services and products on various social media platforms, and how the customer is influenced by “financial experts” who promote their expertise on these platforms. Ethical guidance is needed at all levels (e.g., customers, financial institutions, financial advertisers, marketers) to develop and achieve social media efficacy while tailoring educative financial communication strategies toward specific age and cultural groups

Processing spam: Conducting processed listening and rhythmedia to (re)produce people and territories

This thesis provides a transdisciplinary investigation of ‘deviant’ media categories, specifically spam and noise, and the way they are constructed and used to (re)produce territories and people. Spam, I argue, is a media phenomenon that has always existed, and received different names in different times. The changing definitions of spam, the reasons and actors behind these changes are thus the focus of this research. It brings to the forefront a longer history of the politics of knowledge production with and in media, and its consequences. This thesis makes a contribution to the media and communication field by looking at neglected media phenomena through fields such as sound studies, software studies, law and history to have richer understanding that disciplinary boundaries fail to achieve. The thesis looks at three different case studies: the conceptualisation of noise in the early 20th century through Bell Telephone Company, web metric standardisation in the European Union 2000s legislation, and unwanted behaviours on Facebook. What these cases show is that media practitioners have been constructing ‘deviant’ categories in different media and periods by using seven sonic epistemological strategies: training of the (digital) body, restructuring of territories, new experts, standardising measurements (tools and units), filtering, de-politicising and licensing. Informed by my empirical work, I developed two concepts - processed listening and rhythmedia - offering a new theoretical framework to analyse how media practitioners construct power relations by knowing people in mediated territories and then spatially and temporally (re)ordering them. Shifting the attention from theories of vision allows media researchers to have a better understanding of practitioners who work in multi-layered digital/datafied spaces, tuning in and out to continuously measure and record people’s behaviours. Such knowledge is being fed back in a recursive feedback-loop conducted by a particular rhythmedia constantly processing, ordering, shaping and regulating people, objects and spaces. Such actions (re)configure the boundaries of what it means to be human, worker and medium

“Everyone in the realm has a voice”: Game of thrones, twitter and television fan engagement

With the broad adoption of Twitter and other social networks, the concept of social TV has sought to explain emerging viewing behaviours of active audiences to use social media alongside television to connect with like-minded fans and discuss televised content online. TV programmes on their part took the opportunity to engage fans in these online spaces to drive live viewing. This dissertation will examine how fan engagement practices are leveraged by the HBO series Game of Thrones on Twitter, raising the fundamental question of the nature of interaction between television professionals and viewers and whether Twitter indeed is the catalyst for discussion and open exchange the service likes to portray itself as. For this specific case study we combined both qualitative and quantitative methods and applied them to collected Twitter data, mainly focusing on a content analysis of transcribed tweets sent by the official Game of Thrones Twitter account between May 2014 and April 2015. Based on the results of this analysis, we argue that in the case of Game of Thrones meaningful exchange and engagement is kept at a minimum and Twitter’s potential is not fully exploited, but rather used as another one-to-many communication channel for promotion alongside others. For future research the question is raised whether other television programmes operate equally and whether Twitter as a medium might not be suited for extended discussion.Com a adoção generalizada do Twitter e de outras redes sociais, o conceito de Televisão Social veio explicar comportamentos de visualização de audiências ativas que utilizam as redes sociais, juntamente com a televisão, para que se faça uma ligação entre fãs com o mesmo tipo de gostos e discutam o conteúdo televisivo online. Os programas de televisão, por seu lado, retiram partido desta tendência e aproveitam a oportunidade de agarrar os fãs nos espaços online disponíveis, que proporcionam uma visualização em direto do programa de televisão. Esta dissertação vai analisar a forma como o compromisso dos fãs aumenta na série Guerra dos Tronos, da HBO, através do Twitter, levantando a questão fundamental da natureza da interação entre os profissionais de televisão e os telespectadores e a forma como o Twitter pode ser catalisador de discussão e partilha aberta, tal como o serviço gosta de se intitular. Para este estudo de caso específico combinámos ambos os métodos de análise qualitativa e quantitativa e aplicámos os mesmos aos dados recolhidos através do Twitter, focando a atenção, principalmente, na análise de conteúdo dos tweets transcritos que foram enviados pela conta oficial do Twitter da Guerra dos Tronos entre Maio 2014 e Abril 2015. Baseados nos resultados desta análise, argumentamos que, no caso da Guerra dos Tronos, o impacto da partilha e o compromisso é mínimo e o potencial do Twitter não é explorado ao máximo, mas sim utilizado como um canal de comunicação e promoção de um-para-muitos. Para investigação futura, a questão prendese com a forma similar como outros programas de televisão operam e até que ponto é que o Twitter, como meio de comunicação, pode não ser adequado a discussões prolongadas

Main contribution of iconic attractions towards increasing popularity of tourism destinations: an analysis of twitter posts and locations

The social media platforms, due to their universal and comfortable interface, have become the real enablers of a microblogging services. Moreover, with the evolution of online reviews, consumers feel comfortable to express their opinions and share their personal experiences not only about the brands, but also about the travel destinations. Henceforth, social networks such as, Twitter, became important source of information. In this study, author analyzes 4,000 Twitter posts about 2 popular and 2 less popular locations and associated derived sentiments. The study demonstrates that there is a certain difference in perception of locations with a different popularity rank. In terms of information exposure, more popular locations tend to have a higher message diffusion activity, with most of them being of neutral polarity. Additionally, results showed that negative affection is observed more for less popular locations, providing valuable insight for Destination Marketing Organizations. In addition, for both groups, role of followers’ base was ineffective, demonstrating that topic of message sentiment and diffusion are key in tourism domain. Thus, from a methodological point of view, the main contribution of this research is the usage of random and unstructured data in Twitter to the measurement of the perception of the potential visitors of tourist attractions based on the sentiment analysis of posts associated to them. From theoretical point of view, using the sentiment orientation, the study relates to the user exposure and affection of the iconic attractions by the perceived difference in their popularity in accordance with external destination ranking.As redes sociais, devido ao seu interface universal e confortável, tornaram-se reais facilitadores de serviços de microblogging. Por conseguinte, a evolução dos reviews on-line, conferiu aos consumidores maior conforto para expressar as suas opiniões e partilhar as suas experiências pessoais, não apenas sobre as marcas, mas também sobre os seus destinos de viagem. As redes sociais, como o Twitter, tornaram-se importantes fontes de informação. Neste estudo, o autor analisa os sentimentos derivados de 4.000 publicações do Twitter acerca de 2 locais turísticos mais populares e 2 menos populares. O estudo demonstra que há uma certa diferença na percepção dos locais em função do seu grau de popularidade. Em termos de exposição, os locais mais populares tendem a ter uma maior atividade de difusão nas suas mensagens, sendo a maioria delas de polaridade neutra. Adicionalmente, os resultados mostraram que o sentimento negativo é mais partilhado em locais menos populares, fornecendo informações valiosas para Organizações de Marketing. Não obstante, para ambos os grupos, a dimenção da base de seguidores foi irrelevante, demonstrando que o tema da mensagem sentimento e difusão são fundamentais no domínio do turismo. A nível metodológico, o principal contributo desta pesquisa é a análise do sentimento de dados aleatórios e desestruturados do Twitter para a medição da percepção acerca de atracções turísticas com base na. Do ponto de vista teórico, o estudo relaciona-se com a exposição do usuário e o sentimento das atrações icônicas pela diferença percebida na sua popularidade de acordo com um ranking de destinos externo

The Impact of internet social networking websites on the gay community: Behavior and identity

The hypothesis of this thesis is that social networking website design can exert a mediating influence upon the culture of a site by supporting certain behaviors more than others; this influence can be analyzed in an active and structured way that takes into account the culture of the community it addresses. Evidence will be offered by case study, demonstration of specific mediations, and analysis. This hypothesis will be tested with specific reference to the gay male community. The scope of this paper will be limited to the analysis of gay-oriented social networking websites as new media, in general and through specific examples. I will present frameworks for categorizing and analyzing these websites that consider the mediating influences associated with site design. In the last chapter, I will propose community-enhancing design. The method of analysis first takes into account the nature of new media. It then discusses the concepts of cultural mediums and mediators in terms of site-wide typology and specific forms of mediation. It then identifies common elements of gay social networking sites and their associated usage as well as the design decisions that are related to them. Next user goals and site goals are correlated to these design decisions. Virtual personas and real communities are discusses as a concept. Using the proposed methodology, gay.com and other sites are analyzed and compared. Conclusions are drawn from the results of this analysis and evidence presented. The impact of social networking websites upon sexual activity is discussed. Finally, conclusions are summarized and recommendations are cited related to what these sites could be

Improvised Marketing Interventions in Social Media

Online virality has attracted the attention of academics and marketers who want to identify the characteristics of online content that promote sharing. This article adds to this body of research by examining the phenomenon of improvised marketing interventions (IMIs)—social media actions that are composed and executed in real time proximal to an external event. Using the concept of quick wit, and theorizing that the effect of IMIs is furthered by humor and timeliness or unanticipation, the authors find evidence of these effects on both virality and firm value across five multimethod studies, including quasiexperiments, experiments, and archival data analysis. These findings point to the potential of IMIs in social media and to the features that firms should proactively focus on managing in order to reap the observed online sharing and firm value benefits