From Digital Culture & Society

Article Title: Mills, A. J., & Plangger, K. (2015). Social media strategy for online service brands. Service Industries Journal, 35(10), 521–536.

Find article online: https://proxy.library.brocku.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=fsr&AN=102991181&site=eds-live&scope=site

doi: 10.1080/02642069.2015.1043277

Contents 1 Context 2 Overview 3 Strengths and Weaknesses 4 Assessment

[edit] Context

Social media is one of the newest aspects of technology that allows users to post various types of content. This form of media is great for businesses as they get the chance to promote themselves on many different platforms. Therefore reaching numerous potential customers in new and different ways. “Over the past 40 years, there has been a radical shift in how business in conducted and how people cooperate.” (p.4445) All companies use social media is different ways, which can be seen by the audience through what businesses they interact with on each platform. Each company is using social in such a diverse way and catering to their unique customer base. Business is forever changing and especially how marketing is done. As social media is not only Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram but everything from a website to a blog, YouTube video, and Pinterest post. Each platform allows the business to reach a different consumer.

[edit] Overview

This article focuses on how major companies have strategized and change their marketing needs to focus on social media.This article goes into detail about companies such as IBM, Dell, Starbucks, Burger King, PepsiCo, Levi, and Ford and how they use social media to their advantage. For example, IBM does not only promote on social media, but owns more than 100 different blogs, Twitter accounts, YouTube accounts and SlideShare.

“Dell has tapped the power of social media with its hugely popular IdeaStorm website, where users add thoughts for new creation lines and enhancement, choose them up or down, and comment on submission. Because of the site, Dell has ongoing to ship computers with Linux install, and has added community carry.” (p.4445)

Like Dell, Starbucks also has created their own idea site, MyStarbucks Idea Site, where customers are able to share their ideas, vote on ideas, and also comment on others ideas. Burger King on the other hand has taken a different approach to their use of social media. “The burger chain offered Facebook users a free Whopper coupon if they would "unfriend" 10 of their social network connections.” (p.4445) And each company notices these different platforms and the differences between them and picks the platforms that best suit their marketing needs.

[edit] Strengths and Weaknesses

My favourite concept within the article is, “Social media is about ordinary people taking control of the world around them and finding creative new ways to bring their collective voices together to get what they want.” (p. 4452) This quotation embodies what social media is all about which is creativity.All of these companies use social media and creativity to benefit them.

A great aspect of this article is showing what platforms companies use to their advantage. The author goes over all of the different platforms/applications that can be considered social media and how they help businesses market their products. The features certain applications have, such as Facebook, and how companies can use them. For example, Facebook has promotions, crowd sourcing, check-ins, games, and social shopping. In my opinion one of the best free marking aspects of Facebook is check-ins. It allows the customer to share the fact that they are at your establishment therefore allowing their friends to gain this information and widen your audience reach.

A strength of this article is with the research shown. The user percentage on each social media platform allows the reader to further grasp the understanding of how companies and marketing and which age range is it intended for. The highest being Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. They oddly did not show Instagram.

The article also goes into detail about blogging and the benefits of them for social media marketing, “Blogs influence roughly one in five readers at important purchase decision stages… blogs help consumers discover products and services, refine choices, get support and answers, and decide on a specific product or service.” (p.4446)

The article also touches on the idea of, “interacting with or attracting the interests of current or prospective customers through the channels of social media” (p 4451), which is one of the greatest aspects of social media. Companies are able to interact to potential customers through using social media.

Throughout the article I was very surprised to only have Instagram mentioned once, and briefly. Instagram is one of the main applications where small businesses do their marketing. It is a free app and enables businesses to post and reach out to anyone they desire. Instagram is one of the best ways to interact with your potential customers because you can view their profile, like their photos/ comment on them, or respond to their comments on your own post.

[edit] Assessment

The author went over thirteen different types of applications that can be considered social media and broke down the benefits and uses or each type of social media. While the article goes over all of the different social media platforms it allows the reader to understand the important information on how each platform can benefit different marketing strategies. For example when discussing media sharing sites they expressed that, “ Online marketing is about providing current and potential customers with interesting, informative content. This includes images. Because many photo sharing sites are free, a business's biggest investment is time.” (p. 4448) Therefore allowing each business to use the social media platform that best suits their product.