Social Media Strategy For Online Service Brands, Ernest Osei

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Article Title: Mills, J., A., Plangger, K. (2015). Social Media Strategy For Online Service Brands, The Service Industries Journal, 35(10), pp. 521-536.

Find Article Online: DOI: 10.1080/02642069.2015.1043277

Contents

[edit] Context

FinTech, a portmanteau of the words “financial technologies,” is a term used to describe a broad range of technological innovations in the financial sector, such as cryptocurrency, online payment systems, and online banking. Global use of online banking has grown significantly since its advent during the 1990s, much to the detriment of brick and mortar banks.

Despite proliferating use of online banking services, there are persistent doubts about the impenetrability of the cyber-security protecting the private information of account holders from malicious hackers. Financial institutions can assure the vitality of their cyber-security bastion and earn the trust of customers through social media marketing. Social media enables service brands to build and enhance a customer’s trust in them.

[edit] Overview

"Social Media Strategy For Online Service Brands" by Mills & Plangger (2015) opens with the identification of two distinct, yet complimentary web-based technologies; branded websites and branded social media channels. The article supplements a considerable amount of pre-existing research in online service marketing literature regarding the co-existence of these media. The authors bring attention to disruptions in the stasis of marketing communications caused by social media.

The authors present an in-depth assessment of social media, as a mechanism essential to relationship building and trust enhancement between customers and service brands. Savvy social media marketing is indicative of a service brand's reputation and professionalism. The importance of social media presence to a service brand cannot be understated.

The article details the process undertaken by service brands of selecting a social media channel most appropriate for their intended use. Social media are active media channels, according to the authors. Taking advantage of the marketing potential of any given social networking site necessitates constant maintenance and content curation as well.

[edit] Strengths and Weaknesses

The authors use the financial services industry as an exemplar of an sector becoming increasingly digitized. Due to the highly sensitive nature of banking information, cynicism regarding the safety of one’s data in an online environment is inevitable. Through constant reassurance of secure banking in social media marketing efforts, financial institutions can fortify customer-brand trust. Social media provides opportunities for brands to mitigate perceived risk on the part of customer.

The authors took the broad spectrum of social media into account, as opposed to viewing social media as a monolith. The authors conscientiously distinguished blogs from social networking platforms, addressing the nuances of the latter. This consideration fortified the veracity of the article. The authors did not acknowledge social networking platforms that champion ephemeral content.

The study would be more convincing with the inclusion of conclusive evidence from a specific company that operates in a service industry where critical personal and private consumer information is of essence - healthcare, banking, or insurance for instance.

[edit] Assessment

The article is rich in information pertaining to the various affordances of social media. Social media radically transformed marketing, compelling brands to speak directly to customers en masse. The ubiquity of social media enables marketers to access previously untapped markets. The authors emphasize the centrality of human connections to social media and applied this premise to service brands of looking to create healthy relationships with customers.

--Eo13jq 16:57, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

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