BUSINESS COMMUNICATION ASSIGNMENT

LITERATURE REVIEW

SOCIAL MEDIA IN MARKETING COMMUNICATION

Laili Abdullah,
Section C,
Roll Number 326

ABSTRACT
Web 2.0 represents an ensemble of technological platforms, which allow the interaction of
the users by creating and sharing information and other different online materials. Web 2.0
represents a new version of the World Wide Web in the Internet network, characterized by
novelty, interactivity, and possibility to continuously adapt. The social media is distinct from
the physical media, with integrated marketing efforts social media can create value for a
business.
This value is in the form of knowledge transfer and information capital that
act as tools for planning Marketing communications. The success of Social media marketing
however depends on the perception of the users. User acceptability of mobile devices can
thus be capitalized by marketers creating new functions for social media through mobile
social marketing.
This review seeks to explore the relevance of social media in marketing communication,
identify its peculiarity from traditional marketing and study the value addition that online
presence creates for a company. Further, the application of mobile social media and its
prospects for marketing is also studied. The role of social media for Small and Medium
Sized Enterprises as a new marketing strategy tool is analyzed through a case.

1. Introduction
Every modern organization seeks to communicate successfully to reach their target
audience. Communication is the means to connect with customers and build strong
customer relations. In order to distinguish themselves, companies continuously widen
communication channels and new possibilities to communicate with target groups is
identified. Lauer (2007) states that all marketing communication means will work to its

maximum capacity only if they will be part of integrated marketing communications plan,
i.e. in case selected communication means will be concerted and unified and constant
information about an organization and its products and services is disseminated. Another
aspect of successful communication is the two-way dialogue that involves engaging the
customer through comments and feedback. Social Media provides just that platform that
integrated marketing communications needs.
Web 2.0 represents an ensemble of technological platforms, which allow the interaction of
the users by creating and sharing information and other different online materials. Web 2.0
represents a new version of the World Wide Web in the Internet network, characterized by
novelty, interactivity, and possibility to continuously adapt. The Social Media phenomenon
has been made possible only because of the Web 2.0. The User Generated Content refers to
the information the users upload on different sites the examples are personal videos on
You Tube channels, photos on sites such as Facebook, Flickr or Instagram, personal views
summarized in short texts and posted on Twitter or published on individual or group blog or
microblog pages such as the touristic impressions people post on sites such as
tripadvisor.com.
Social media has become a means to overcome cultural barriers and to connect people
around the world over a network according to Klaus Nicholas Schmidt and Kamakshi S.
Iyer. They state that the bond of trust is crucial in the success and impact of social media on
people.
Mircea Georgescu and Daniela Popescul estimate that the Social Media revolution is not only
on the way to the business environment, but it is also seen in the organizations worldwide
due to the incredible speed it enters all the fields of social and economical life. The use of
social media to promote a business has developed from being a rarity to now being a norm
for businesses that want to reach a large number of audiences in a short period of time. The
role of social media can arguably be more of creating awareness about a product or service
or business model than about selling the same.
2. Peculiarities Of Social Media
Increase in informational literacy and development of Internet technology along with
accessibility to Internet and social media have been detrimental in shaping contemporary
communication. Social media has brought to focus virtual communication and enabled
integrated marketing communication to be handled online.
The essential differences distinguishing social media from the traditional media are
characterized by the higher involvement of the consumer: stimulating consumer activity,
openness to participation, involvement (voting, commenting and sharing information), twosided communication between information sender and recipient, the possibility of quick
formation of various communities with distinctive interests.
Indr Jucaityt and Jrat Mainskien state that scientific literature emphasizes that qualitative
and effective communication of business organizations with target groups is one of key
factors helping business organizations to compete in the market successfully. However,
strong competitive advantage can be achieved by a company only if all marketing

communication forms and messages it applies has to be concerted interdependently, i.e.

business organizations have to apply integrated marketing communications in their
activities.
The authors, Indr Jucaityt and Jrat Mainskien, conclude that the prinicples of traditional
marketing are not applicable to social media due to the tendency of people to cluster on the
basis of their mutual interests. Social media renders the consumer more powerful than ever
by enabling to access other customers and influence them.
3. Knowledge Transfer And Information Capital
The use of Internet leads to substitution of physical proximity with virtual proximity for
standard transactions. Morgan (2004) warns that this is not viable for the transactions with
a high degree of complexity and ambiguity, starting from the premise that normally, within
organizations, knowledge is found in a tacit form and decoding and spreading knowledge
require the physical proximity and keeping personal relationships between the economical
agents. Mircea Georgescu and Daniela Popescul state that if we consider the organizations
as sums of knowledge flows, we notice the major role played by individuals as generators
and consumers of knowledge. The features of the modern organizations, based mainly on
knowledge (namely the intangible character of input and output, the constant interaction
with clients and the different kinds of partners, the strong interdependence of experts and
their personal judgment, innovation in the sense of constant renewal and widening of the
product and service portfolio, informational asymmetry) have increased the need but also
the possibilities to make quick informational and knowledge transfers. The knowledge
transfer is a key and critical factor in a business. The importance of knowledge transfer is
more relevant in the global and dynamic business environment that is faced today. In their
view, the socializing networks play their role in diminishing the barriers that might come up
in the way of knowledge transfer. Mircea Georgescu and Daniela Popescul also claim that
the habit of using technology in our daily lives have made social media more accessible to
us, in a friendly and accepted environment, unstructured information from multiple sources
is made available, opening channels for knowledge transfer. This knowledge and information
transfer enables creation of positive externalities, they state that network externalities
appear when the last person connected to the network, due to his/her participation, ensures
the increase in utility for all the users. This can be seen in sites like olx or quickr, where
more the users offer and ask, the greater will the chances for other customers to choose
from a variety of products leading to a greater volume of transactions.
Mircea Georgescu and Daniela Popescul also state that natural resource dependence in
businesses is gradually replaced by the intellectual ones. Informational capital is as
important as financial capital to reach targets, in the age of knowledge based economies,
attempts are being made to include the intellectual capital in the balance sheets due to
their enormous influence on the bottom line.
Social Media supports the informational capitalization by spreading the information about
the organization with ease as well as by acquiring valuable information and in considerable
quantity about employees, suppliers and clients. The social networks can be a source of
information about a certain business for the consumers. They might offer essential data
about a business without the need to pay expensive publicity.

4. Perception Of Social Media

Social media can be a value addition to a brand, however the success of social media
depends on the impact it creates on the consumers. Much like the physical world, brand
loyalty in the online world also requires a relationship of trust. Electronic commerce research
has found trust to be strongly related to information disclosure (Metzger, 2004). Trust is also
a central component of social exchange theory (Roloff, 1981). Social exchange theory
presents a cost benefit analysis with respect to social interaction. If the exchange is
perceived to be beneficial, then the individual is likely to enter into an exchange
relationship. Trust is believed to be used in the calculation of perceived cost. High trust
would lead to a perception of low cost, and vice versa. Studies of interpersonal exchange
situations confirm that trust is a precondition for self-disclosure, because it reduces
perceived risks involved in revealing private information (Metzger, 2004).
In a study conducted by Klaus Nicholas Schmidt and Kamakshi S. Iyer to assess the social
media participants perception of authenticity and trustworthiness of online advertising a
total population of 400 students from a French and American university were chosen and
given a questionnaire. The questionnaire contained a total of 21 items with a focus on the
perceptions of reliability, credibility, and accuracy of both brand communities and
advertising on social media. The questions focused on trust in Facebook brand communities
and their perception toward online advertising.
Their study showed that out of two items only two had showed significance based on
nationality. The believe that Internet and social media have proven to make the world a
more even playing ground for all participants and removed earlier barriers is well known.
The findings of this study, makes this belief more factual. The first finding that there is
significant differences between nationality and perception of trust implies that it has
become important for companies to have an online presence and to collect online data of
customers.
The second question, was regarding the differences in perception of trust of brand
communities versus advertising efforts on social media. Of the 10 pairs, a total of 8 showed
statistically significant differences, indicating that the trust, validity, and credibility put into
social media brand communities rated higher than the advertisement efforts of companies
on social media. The implication of the second result is that companies, which are close to
customers and are able to interpret their customers needs, are more successful than those
merely placing advertisements online. By engaging customers in brand communities, a
sense of belongingness is created, giving the company a greater credibility. Public relations
are an area of marketing which is highly dependent on consumer perception. Online public
relations must reflect the needs and wants of the customers and only then will the use of
social media be relevant.
In order to measure the success of using social media, it is important to keep in mind that
mere likes and retweets is not an indicator of success. A company must go beyond metrics
such as number of viewers, hit rates, click throughs etc. According to Dilhan ztamura and
Ibrahim Sarper Karakadlarb there are 2 kinds of metrics that worth examining;
engagement metrics (followers, fans, comments) and sentiment metrics (positive and
negative comments of the customers).
It is these results that will help in crisis

management, and also reflect the brand sentiments among customers.

5. Mobile Social Media
Mayank Yadav, Yatish Joshi and Zillur Rahman in their paper Mobile social media: The new
hybrid element of digital marketing communication mark that smartphones and other
mobile devices have given birth to new functions to the social media platforms. With real
time accessibility to consumers on the move, it has become easier than ever to reach target
audiences in an efficient manner. Beginning with the humble Personal digital assistants to
the present smarter-than-ever mobile phones, mobile technology has revolutionized the way
people and businesses communicate. According to Andreas M. Kaplan (2012, p. 130)
Mobile marketing as any marketing activity conducted through a ubiquitous network to
which consumers are constantly connected using a personal mobile device. The classic
example of a mobile device referred to in this definition is the mobile phone.
The major contribution of mobile social media to marketing is the information it provides
about consumers, offline consumer habits can be inferred from their online actions. Firms
have access to check in details of consumers, their online reviews and feedback on products
they used. This data can be compiled efficiently with the help of data mining software giving
the company the power to manage its business better. User generated content is the most
powerful source of information related to customers which can be generated from social
media. It is possible to learn about customers interests, tastes and preferences from the
data they provide online.
The data generated is useful to improve the quality of marketing communication. As
Mayank Yadav et al give an example to B2C social media mobile communication is the
promotion of an album titled Messy Little drops in 2010 by Cheryl Ann Cole with the help of
Facebook Places (Hosea, 2011). When people used to pass from 114 poster locations in
Coles hometown and London, they were asked to check-in at billboard. When customer
checked-in at that billboard location, they were directed to Cheryls page on Facebook and
were offered two free tickets for her X-Factor shows. Apart from this the checked-in location
was shared on artists timeline as well as on the users timeline, which could be seen by the
friends of the user. This technique is a definitive case of viral marketing promotions.
Mayank et al see the role of mobile devices in sales promotion as revolutionary. The mobile
era has brought ability of customizing promotions for specific customers at specific time
periods. Giving the example of Virgin America, they explain how mobile media applications
have changed the idea of promotions. When it launched its California-Cancun service it
started a promotional campaign using mobile social media that consumers checking-in
through Loopt from one out of three selected Border Grill Taco Trucks in San Francisco and
Los Angeles from 11AM to PM, August 31, 2010, had the opportunity to have two tacos at a
price of $1 and could also get 50% discount on Mexico flights. More 1300 people checked in
just a window of 4hours, 80% out of these purchases tickets from Virgin America (Olson,
2011, Quinton, 2010). In a similar fashion a Barista Badge was offered to consumers if five
different locations of Starbucks were checked-in by them.
Mobile social media has played a crucial role in integrating the virtual and real loves of
individuals, creating an innovative way of communication which is bing well exploited by

businesses. Most Businesses today have presence on Facebook, Twitter and other social
media along with their own websites. While company websites may not see a great footfall,
but social media pages have a higher turnover with the ability to engage consumers in
discussions and offers over the social media websites. Social networking sites emerge as
the most powerful media for advertising across the globe. Companies are shifting a larger
pie of their advertising budgets towards social networking sites to better reach customers
(Saxena & Khanna 2013).

6. A Case Of Small And Medium Enterprises

Dilhan ztamura and Ibrahim Sarper Karakadlarb in their paper Exploring the role of social
media for SMEs: as a new marketing strategy tool for the firm performance perspective
analyzed the Social Media presence of two medium sized fashion retail industry one in USA
and one in Turkey.
The Fashion company from USA had interesting content on their Facebook page for their
target customers. They posted often, about surveys, contests and questions in order to
attract their customers attention. They gave tips about fashion in general, and promoted
their own products alongside. Their wording in posts, unlike other pages, was not formal and
had storytelling style, which was perceived as sincere by customers in their feedback. They
shared their daily activities and about their designer crew as well to create a bond with
customers. They were also very interactive in their posts, and replied to all queries and
posts of customers.
On the other hand the Turkish company often shared photos of their collections on their
business page, they also posted about discounts they offered. They too maintain two way
communication, whenever a customer asks a question about a size or color of an outfit;
they always reply and suggest a solution or if a customer complains about the quality of an
outfit; they immediately report the problem and proceed to solve it. However unlike their US
counterparts, they use the formal wordings in their social-media communication and the
replies are also in a formal tone.
When the authors compared the two companies social media profiles, they have similar
strategies in terms of the richness of the content. Both pages shared pictures, surveys and
contests and so were fashion tips. However, there was a difference in the tone of
communication of the two companies. While the American company was sincere and unique
in its communications, the Turkish company was found to be rather formal and distant
according to the authors. In conclusion both the companies used Social Media as a tool to
promote their businesses.
According to their findings they concluded that the American companies are more prone to
apply the required strategies and the factors as compared to social media use by Turkish
companies. Dynamic industries such as fashion-retail chains strive more on social media
medium and this affects the number of their followers. They found that the enterprises

which are analogous according to their size and scope; may have different approaches to
strategic use of social media and these discrepancies become obvious when a systematical
comparison is made between them. They suggested that for SMEs, planning to use social
media mediums as a competitive marketing tool; is that they should spend time to create
rich contents on their social media accounts to attract their target customers attention.
Comparative table showing the data from the two companies:

7. The Downside Of Social Media

Social media distinguishes itself from traditional media in its allowing all members to create
and upload information. It has enabled user content generation, meaning that
communication is allowed two-way. Along with the opportunities that two-way
communication creates, the threat of misuse is also there.
The ability of consumers to freely communicate with other consumers threatens the
companies by making consumers stronger than ever. They are able to voice their negative

opinions easily and their comments are accessible by other consumers leaving the company
helpless. Indr Jucaityt and Jrat Mainskien conclude that it has become more important that
ever to monitor consumer insights and improve their performance on the basis of consumer
feedback.
Acknowledging the benefits and importance of social media in businesses today Mircea
Georgescu and Daniela Popescul also caution of the serious social and ethical consequences
of it.

The ease of use makes it possible to neglect its dangers; inability to separate personal and
professional life on social media can also prove to be detrimental, social and physical
isolation, weakened cognitive processes (Greenfield, 2009).
Beyond the negative aspects highlighted by Mircea Georgescu and Daniela Popescul,
Brookes (2011) mentions the change in profile of the future employees. The level of
expectations as regards the technology and equipment provided at work (iPad, smart
phone, laptop, and tablet) is much higher among the generations born and raised on the
Internet. This supports the mirroring effect of technology, as teenagers seek to replicate
the tools and communication channels they already use at home, when they move into the
workplace.
From the ethical point of view, Social Media allows the proliferation of plagiarism, piracy,
hacker attacks. Web 2.0 can be seen as a global village with millions of inhabitants where
the ill-doers be invisible giving way to more and more advanced fraud techniques.
8. Conclusion
Review of the literature on social media integration into marketing communication revealed
that social media is a world-wide-web tool that enables users to become active creators of
the content, to communicate with each other easily, create and exchange information. The
key aspect of social media is that Internet enables individuals to become not only passive
users of content but content creators as well.
Social media is an especially useful tool for small and medium enterprises. With the
budgetary limitations of these enterprises, social media marketing is a lucrative option for
them. Customer engagement and relationship building are the common goals behind using
social media networks.
With constant innovation in the world of social media, it has become imperative to adapt
marketing communication to meet the demands of the consumers. Not only is it important
to be present on social media, value addition must be gained from the online presence.
Measuring online success requires going beyond the numbers and analyzing the negative
and positive impact of the comments of customers on social networks.

References
Articles Reviewed
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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814060479
2. Mayank Yadav, Yatish Joshi and Zillur Rahman, Mobile social media: The new hybrid element of
digital marketing communications, XVIII Annual International Conference of the Society of Operations
Management (SOM-14). Retrieved from:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042815020224
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and Business
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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212567115000751
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Associated Organized Marketing Strategies. Retrieved from:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042815017437
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new marketing strategy tool for the firm performance perspective, 10th International Strategic
Management Conference. Retrieved from:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814051167
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