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. https://doi.org/10.1080/02642069.2015.1043277

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 Limitations 4 Assessment

[edit] Context

Social media is a highly powerful tool by many brands, companies and individuals. Within the last decade, brands have realized the influence of social media and have begun incorporating social media within their marketing and branding platforms. Proficiency and understanding of social media is a highly sought-after skill. Social media and the potential it holds, has begun impacting traditional marketing and services, as online platforms offer massive opportunity for growth. Businesses have the capability to reach new consumers and interact directly with current customers. Through the two-way communication possible with social media, brands can form meaningful and lasting impressions on their customers.

[edit] Overview

The article in study highlights the strides taken by major international companies to incorporate social media within their marketing and communication strategies. These brands exploited the potential of social media to their advantage. Two-way communication has become essential; it allows for brand-to-customer-to-brand and customer-to-customer communication. Many consumers have the ability to interact with brands directly and other consumers online via social media. Hence the article offers “nine-step ongoing process of examining, planning and implementing strategic opportunities for fostering relationships between online service brands and their customers on social media” (p. 531) These steps are as followed:

1. Identify target customer(s): A brand must identify the audience with which they wish to interact and communicate with.

2. Research existing conversations about the brand: Researching the existing narrative of a brand helps illustrate brand perception. Companies get an understanding of how consumers perceive their brand.

3. Find out competitors' social media activities: Once brands gain an understating of their brand on social media, they can begin evaluating their brand image and activity with other companies.

4. Set social media objective(s): To begin implementing a successful social media campaign, brands must strategize their objectives by constructing a plan of action.

5. Select social media platform(s): Once a social media objective has been determined, companies can decide which social media platforms will offer the most benefit to correspond with their objectives as not all social media platforms are the same. Brands must strategically evaluate the most optimal platforms to meet their needs.

6. Design social media interaction: Interaction conducted on social media is essential to successful brand perception. As the interaction determines the effectiveness of a brands social media efforts, designing a methodology to conduct social media communication is essential.

7. Actively manage social media interaction: Once the parameters have been set for social media interaction, ensuring the interaction methods certifies a consistent brand image.

8. Measure results: Once a company has implemented a social media campaign, they must gauge the effectiveness of their efforts. By tracking social media performance, companies gain insight into their performance.

9. Reflect on performance: Through measuring the results, companies can optimize their social media efforts. Brands can make the necessary changes within their platforms and further improve upon their social media activities.

[edit] Strengths and Limitations

One strength found within this article is the insightful analysis and differentiation of the various social media platforms available on the market. The article makes sure it distinguishes not all industries are the same and not all brands can utilize all social media platforms. Essentially, the concept of quality over quantity is implied. The strengths and benefits are highlighted in the article. One key factor of social media is that “not as an extension of the corporate website, but rather a complementary and supplementary online channel for building customer relationships” (p. 529). Understanding that social media allows for added benefit is essential to a successful campaign. However, these benefits come with a limitation. Although social media provides brands with marketing and communication benefits, the platforms are resource intensive and costly. Hence when deciding which platform to incorporate within a branding strategy, cost and investment analysis must be taken into consideration during the channel selection process. The article describes, “video-sharing and social network websites are the most resource intensive, as producing high-quality branded videos (e.g. story-boarding, script development, filming, editing, video promotion, etc.) and social network pages (e.g. concept plan, custom page design element programming, page promotion, etc.) is costly”. Therefore. It is essential to keep factors such as labour and cost into consideration.

[edit] Assessment

In conclusion, it is evident that the potential social media bares with regards to marketing and branding solutions. Hence, it is no surprise that traditional communication services are slowly becoming obsolete. Benefits such as efficient and effective brand-to-customer-to-brand and customer-to-customer communication are possible through social media platforms. It is encouraged that companies begin to invest in their social media efforts so to form a relationship with their consumers.

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Mnasir 15:00, 8 February 2019 (EST)