Maria Teresa (2014) "Digital marketing and social media: Why bother?"

From Digital Culture & Society

Contents 1 Article Title: 1.1 Find Article: 1.1.1 Context: 1.1.2 Overview: 1.1.3 Strengths and weaknesses 1.1.4 Assessment and Final Thoughts:

[edit] Article Title:

Digital marketing and social media: Why bother?

[edit] Find Article:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2014.07.002

1. REDIRECT http://blog.mahanbs.com/Images/Weblog/blog/WeblogHtmlFile/1-s2.0-S0007681314000949-main.pdf

[edit] Context:

The purpose of this article is to emphasize the changing landscape of advertising and how firms are adapting to understand digital marketing and social media platforms. The author suggests there is a change in consumer behaviour where the average consumer is much more informed- due to this fact the majority of research is focused now on the consumer rather than the firm. The study conducted within this paper is a survey of marketing managers, in which primary data suggests there are many internal and external pressures to adopt a digital presence on social media platforms. By understanding what decisions managers are making, larger assumptions can be made for future marketing practices.

[edit] Overview:

Firstly this article asks the question of whether firms are being pushed or pulled into online platforms?-The answer was ‘pushed’ as the more consumer traffic going through these sites effectively pushes the firm to get involved marketing online in order to stay relevant. Following up this claim the author provided a survey conducted in July and August of 2011. The survey was an online and was concerned with marketing managers from the largest firms in Portugal. Of the 2,000 surveys administered, 170 were completed (response rate: 8.5%). Respondents worked for firms across a variety of industries. The findings suggested the following- “Managers rely heavily on digital marketing to build their brand (82% of surveyed managers rated it as important or extremely important), improve knowledge (78% of managers), and heighten communication flows (70% of managers)” (p.705).

Since online marketing is consider necessary by the majority on managers the next question this article addresses is resource allocation for digital marketing, basically how much should firms spend? The answer was that there is no one right way to spend, but with consumer engagement at an all time high firms will most likely increase their spending to allow for more consumer relationship. Fifty percent of respondents claim digital advertising as a priority area for investment.

“To evaluate how marketing managers go about measuring digital marketing effectiveness, survey participants were asked to rank several renowned measures according to their importance. Brand awareness (89%), word-of-mouth buzz (88%), customer satisfaction (87%), user-generated content (80%), and Web analytics (80%) were the most popular metrics. Rather than more-conventional metrics, it seems managers prefer those that promote engagement” (p.706) Lastly the user engagement matrix was explained in some detail. The final digital engagement matrix suggests four distinct digital marketing usage/benefits profiles- Engagement, Qualifications, discovery, and dead road. All of which describe different methodology surrounding digital marketing.

[edit] Strengths and weaknesses

The strengths of this article where in the systematic research on several similar but different topics regarding digital marketing. The survey provided concrete data that was used throughout the paper in order to promote different methodologies existent within the marketing industry. A large majority of the paper is quoted work, meaning that there is a number of other authors supporting the same claims providing many points of view regarding the same topic. The paper also did a fantastic job of deconstructing the topic and proving the underlying message of why social media and digital marketing is vital.

The weakness within this paper was mainly the small sample size of the survey with only an 8.5% response rate the data may not be entirely accurate with limited cross references.

[edit] Assessment and Final Thoughts:

Overall this paper was very informative and straight forward systematically exemplifying how the internet has empowered the average consumer. The author utilizes primary data from marketing managers well, supporting the overall message of the study ‘why bother?’. After having read this piece it is now more obvious how vital and quickly growing these online platforms are.