Skip to main content

2013 | Buch

Handbook of Social Media Management

Value Chain and Business Models in Changing Media Markets

herausgegeben von: Mike Friedrichsen, Wolfgang Mühl-Benninghaus

Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Buchreihe : Media Business and Innovation

insite
SUCHEN

Über dieses Buch

Digitization and Web 2.0 have brought about continuous change from traditional media management to new strategic, operative and normative management options. Social media management is on the agenda of every media company, and requires a new set of specialized expertise on digital products and communication. At the same time, social media has become a vibrant field of research for media economists and media management researchers. In this handbook, international experts present a comprehensive account of the latest developments in social media research and management, consistently linking classical media management with social media. The articles discuss new theoretical approaches as well as empirical findings and applications, yielding an interesting overview of interdisciplinary and international approaches. The book’s main sections address forms and content of social media; impact and users; management with social media; and a new value chain with social media. The book will serve as a valuable reference work for researchers, students and professionals working in media and public relations.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Introduction

Frontmatter
The Social Media Management Chain, How Social Media Influences Traditional Media

Digitization and Web 2.0 have brought about continuous change from traditional media management to new strategic, operative and normative management options. Social media management is on the agenda of every media company, and requires a new set of specialized expertise on digital products and communication. At the same time, social media has become a vibrant field of research for media economists and media management researchers. In this handbook, international experts present a comprehensive account of the latest developments in social media research and management, consistently linking classical media management with social media. The articles discuss new theoretical approaches as well as empirical findings and applications, yielding an interesting overview of interdisciplinary and international approaches. The book’s main sections address forms and content of social media; impact and users; management with social media; and a new value chain with social media. The book will serve as a valuable reference work for researchers, students and professionals working in media and public relations.

Mike Friedrichsen, Wolfgang Mühl-Benninghaus

Management with Social Media

Frontmatter
Traditional Media Companies in the U.S. and Social Media: What’s the Strategy?

Traditional media companies continue to deal with change brought about by technology, forcing many firms to embrace “new” media with the introduction of the Internet, smart phones, and other distribution technologies. Now, social media has become another platform available to engage consumers. Social media has been widely adopted by consumers, and media companies have had to follow suit by developing their own social media efforts. Clearly, every media company needs a social media strategy.

But how are these traditionally-based companies addressing this strategic challenge? What are they doing to implement and integrate social media as part of a comprehensive digital strategy? How is success being measured? Are there areas where social media is being monetized? Are there new business models emerging?

This chapter addresses these questions by conducting a case study using a sample of traditional media companies based in the United States to understand how social media is being used and integrated in their operations.

Alan B. Albarran, Terry Moellinger
Social Media in Companies. Integrated Approach for a Social Media Strategy

Given the increasing number of members and participants of social networks on the internet a complete new scope of communication and interaction with millions of stakeholders all over the globe is at hand. Since organizations tend to prioritize the built up of long-term relationships with their customers and other stakeholders than focusing on short, transactions-oriented relations, social media offers tools and concepts to establish effective relationships alongside traditional communication channels.

Effective relationship marketing and management is leading to world-class products and attracting the most valuable customers. Hence, German media companies need to establish presence in social networks and actual use social media to preserve and extend their competitive edge. However, the social media landscape’s miscellaneous characteristics demand an integrated approach.

Within the scope of this chapter a concept for a strategic blueprint in a corporate environment is developed to use the capabilities of social media. The concept outlines strategic planning methods, key performance indicators and accommodates changing trends in the social media domain that my lead to an effective enterprise 2.0.

Mike Friedrichsen
Some Economics of New Media Content Production and Consumption, and Strategic Implication for Media Companies

This chapter discusses the economic condition of the content production for new digital platforms. I consider both entertainment and informative contents and the possible relationship with traditional media. News there is an obvious centre of interest since the whole society benefit from the dissemination activity of the media. On the economic side, in the market the benefit of the competition requires that every agent has access costless to relevant information, to prevent information rent for more informed part. On the same wave in democratic system only informed voters can monitor and eventually sanction politicians at the election.

Technological innovations and redefinition of media landscape enable new entrants to unbundle traditional media contents and to offer specific information component to selected targets or general public. Therefore traditional cross-subsidiation patterns collapse and media organization need to evolve quickly in order to remain in the market.

Declining production costs that characterize many information market reduce scale economies especially in new production organization making possible more flexible way to create and aggregate information contents.

Marco Gambaro
How (Social) Media Can Change “Change” in Organizations

Global, fast-moving markets also require companies to provide increasingly flexible structures and thinking patterns. Transformation has become an omnipresent accompaniment of internationally operating companies. Thus leadership and, above all, communication advance to the decisive indicators in the change process.

However, the role of internal communication will shift its focus in the future from a top-down communication to an interaction less controlled by management like Web 2.0. Apart from classical internal media like the employee newspaper their equipment comprises computer-based instruments like the intranet and today increasingly social media tools.

The results of these findings will illustrate:

1.

The past: how change communication has been realized in former years within the organization;

2.

The present: how first little attempts to introduce Web 2.0 has already made the process much more interactive—and much more successful

3.

The future: how a real broad introduction of Social Media in the change process (which is so far only discussed, but not decided) could change the nature of change management as a whole within multinational firms.

Some data are based on two former studies of the authors, done between 2000 and 2005; in addition, new data from 2011 will show the current perspective

Holger Sievert, Astrid Nelke
Employees’ Conceptions of How Management Can Operationalize Employee Involvement

The global recession and its subsequent negative consequences have led managers of media organizations consider changes to the way they manage their organizations, aiming for greater efficiency and effectiveness. One of the changes considered was the achievement of employee involvement towards organizational decisions and operations.

Despite long-standing recognition on the importance of gaining employee involvement for implementing change successfully, we know almost nothing about how employees think about the way management can work to gain employee involvement. The purpose of this research is to eliminate this lacuna.

From a theoretical perspective, there has been a great deal of literature on the importance of gaining employee involvement in order to implement change. Even though these theoretical views are helpful, outstanding issues remain. More specifically, the existing theoretical views have not dealt adequately with how the employees think about the way management can work to achieve employee involvement. Also, there is little empirically grounded theoretical account of how employees think about how management can operationalize employee involvement.

In order to address this gap this study explores how employees think about the way management can operationalize employee involvement. As a result this research contributes towards a richer theory on the process behind the implementation of employee involvement, highlighting the importance of the recruitment process and the achievement of employee creation, innovation and confidence that their involvement is true and valid.

Stavros Georgiades
Book Industry Business, Concentration, Internet and Social Media of Management and Marketing

This chapter’s centrality lies on the identification of some disruptive elements and on the analysis of some trends, particularly from the business strategy point of view, including the business concentration movements, as well the changes operated in the value chain and in the book business model and the role of social media in marketing and promotion practices. Adopting a more systematic overview, we can say this work was developed with the aim of finding possible answers to two research questions: RQ.1—Is it possible to identify trends and characterize the business tendencies in the book sector, including the business concentration? RQ.2—Which are the main challenges and disruptive elements that publishers have to face in terms of their corporate governance and business models? In addition to the identification of some of the most frequent strategies, the Ansoff matrix (Ansoff, Implanting strategic management, Prentice-Hall International, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1984) was applied to the book sector; simultaneously, possible revenue sources associated with the book business were identified and systematized. In order to analyze the strategies and quantify the levels of ownership concentration in the publishing market, two indexes (the “Herfindahl–Hirschman Index”—HHI and CR4) were applied, based on the Portuguese market. Overall, the research methodology was largely based on documentary research, namely scientific articles, press articles, books on the sector, industry reports, etc. Taking into account that one of this chapter’s authors is an editor and a partner of a book publishing company, participant observation was also applied.

Paulo Faustino
New Venture Creation in Social Media Platform; Towards a Framework for Media Entrepreneurship

Media is one of the most important agency of influence on minds, thus it is not surprising if plays a deterministic role in entrepreneurship development in societies. The chapter focuses on Media Entrepreneurship as a modern consequence of digital media technologies and acceptance of entrepreneurship as an economic school in many societies. Following a concise literature review on Media Entrepreneurship, the concept defines and then social media investigated as a fair platform to foster entrepreneurial activities. Based on to the research conducted in Iranian media entrepreneurs, a five categorical framework has been proposed consist of four controllable classes of factors; product-related, strategy-related, enterprise-related and resource-related factors and one environmental; consist of infrastructural-related factors. The chapter concluded that social media is an opportunity for economic growth in developing countries, but they need to develop business attitude and knowledge in the first step. The proposed framework prepared a tool to create a balance among different aspects and provide a basis for next studies in media entrepreneurship.

Datis Khajeheian
New Marketing Communication in Social Media Business

There is always this debate going on about what delivers the greater ROI traditional media or social media? Which one delivers greater results? Which one costs more? Which one is worth your time? It appears that traditional media and social media are at war with one another and that’s not the way it should be. Marketing and relationship strategies appear to be fragmented. Traditional and social media are not working together, but they should be.

Old-school marketing techniques don’t work as well as they used to and will never be able to target as precisely as social media marketing. Many marketers are attracted to internet network marketing and social media because of the reduced costs compared to expensive television, radio and newspaper ads. Also, today’s internet users want personal interactions with those they do business with before they make a buying decision. Social media marketing, which taps into a familiar concept called attraction marketing, lets you build relationships with your targeted audience. Social media sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter can help establish your presence in a number of different places on the Web. Just imagine the social media profit you can have in being able to recruit people from different places.

Wolfgang Mühl-Benninghaus
Social Networks as Marketing Tools for Media Companies

This chapter will explore how media companies can use social networks for selling their products and services. We will suggest that the Web 2.0 is an efficient way to create and protect brand recognition, but it cannot be used as a substitutive of traditional marketing channels.

First of all, we will analyze the nature of social networks: what are the reasons for their success, what are their competitive advantages and how they built entry barriers.

Then, we will look at the expectations of networks' members, considering different typologies: frequent users vs. occasional users, "focused" networks vs. non specialized networks, young audiences vs. old audiences…

After that, we will study how some of the most innovative companies are using social networks as a new option of their marketing mix. We will pay attention to cases of success but we also describe some failures and we will try to understand the reasons for those different results.

Finally, we will show how media companies can make an efficient use of the most popular social networks to foster the value of their brands and also to avoid a possible spiral of negative opinions from unhappy consumers.

We will use descriptive and qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews with managers of companies.

Alfonso Sánchez-Tabernero, Julián Villanueva, José Luis Orihuela
Managing New(s) Conversations: The Role of Social Media in News Provision and Participation

Predictions of the imminent death of once-powerful printed newspapers have grown louder in many developed countries, where structural changes fuelled by shifting consumer demand and the rapid growth of networked digital technologies have battered the sector. Nonetheless, most publishers are still in operation, albeit with shrinking readerships and advertising revenues. In response, many have launched news websites and applications for mobile devices and tablets with the aim to make their content and services accessible anytime, anyplace and through any device. The rise of Web 2.0 practices have further challenged publishers to engage with users in so-called participatory- and citizen journalism practices.

This chapter scrutinizes how the leading newspapers in each of the UK’s 66 cities have employed interactive technologies to include users online, on mobile and on tablets. The study draws on three longitudinal data sets to provide unique and empirically-based insights into how the social media practices of newspapers are paying off.

François Nel, Oscar Westlund
Social Media: Managerial and Economic Opportunities and Challenges

Social media allow media companies to nurture and develop conversations, improving trust; understand demands; sense environmental and societal concerns, assess risks, and, in general, be part of the public debate. Thus provide an opportunity to accomplish media’s broad social responsibility and increase value creation. This chapter tries to understand the profile or people using social networks and how social media help to communicate and accomplish social and individual needs. It investigates both attitudes and the cultural and market implications of social media. It uses two quantitative telephone surveys with a structured questionnaire and a literature review of the field as research tools.

Our research suggests that higher usage and gratifications are associated with sharing music and video content. Social media and the rest of “online media” are different: markets have become conversations, with far-reaching consequences. The emphasis is again in person-to-person communication. An individual that reads something and shares it with others is both a communicator and a contact point in the media network

Francisco J. Pérez-Latrel, George Tsourvakas

New Value Chain with Social Media

Frontmatter
Social Media, Aggregation and the Refashioning of Media Business Models

The mass media model has been based upon integrated value chains in which the function of aggregation has been the lynchpin, drawing audiences to content and providing the point of engagement between content consumption, the generation of income and the realisation of value accrued (Porter.

Competitive advantage

. New York, NY: Free Press; 1985).

Following the pioneering work of Ramirez and Normann (1993) value in enterprises has come increasingly to be seen as being co-produced by a multiple actors, collaborating in a network of relationships in which value is created and rewards are secured in a variety of ways.

Such network models are particularly suited for the study of social media models and media organisations in which content is crowdsourced or generated by users and where production is decentralised and devolved rather the centralised and controlled.

Arguably, on demand modes of consumption compound the tendencies to disaggregation inherent in such networked and distributed models. This chapter argues, however, that aggregation, in its various forms, remains and will continue to remain central to the success of media business models. In doing so it explores the nature of aggregation, explores in various dimensions and attributes, and examines examples of how this function is changing within current media services.

Charles Brown
How Media Companies Should Create Value: Innovation Centered Business Models and Dynamic Capabilities

Globalization, deregulation, technological innovation and the convergence of previously separated industries such as media, entertainment, information, and consumer electronics industries, have changed the media landscape into a turbulent environment. As a consequence of these developments, many media firms are experiencing severe challenges, as content proliferates, audiences change behaviors, advertising revenue erodes, and new competitors emerge. Media firms operating in this rapidly changing environment have to make adequate adaptations to these fast moving changes and respond quickly to create or to sustain their competitive advantage. They are generally confronted with the fact that existing resources and capabilities are no longer sufficient to deal with the new demands and requirements (Oh, Telecommunications Policy 20(9): 713–720, 1996). In order to adjust to the new environment, the media companies need to obtain, integrate, and reconfigure resources and capabilities in order to adjust to the new environment.

Creating social, ecological and financial values for stakeholders is the key to long-term survival. This requires new concepts, new idea and new managerial approaches. Two important questions that arise are what kind of business model do they need to create multiple values, and how should the company transform its old business model into a new model. In this chapter, we will attempt to contribute to the creation of multiple values by media companies. In the next section, we present the main characteristics of the old and the new business models for the media companies. In the following section, we will discuss the main corporate social responsibility (CSR) challenges that media companies face when they become a network organization. The closing section presents some conclusions that can be drawn from this contribution.

Hans van Kranenburg, Gerrit Willem Ziggers
Media Management and Social Media Business: New Forms of Value Creation in the Context of Increasingly Interconnected Media Applications

Media companies are facing the problem of modeling the increasingly volatile and complex forms of emergent media use and of channeling them through their services in order to create a sustainable business model. Anticipating these patterns and converting them into stable forms of use allows for companies to identify new ways of value creation.

The authors argue that concepts other than the value chain are necessary to model this type of value creation. Although it has seldom been used with regard to media as of yet, especially the value network is considered to be relevant in this context. In times of digitization and convergence, media companies become increasingly granular and depend on strategic co-operations within networks, e.g. regarding production and marketing. Moreover, the consumers become an active part in value creation as “prosumers”.

This chapter attempts to investigate the manifold points of contact between media use and corresponding concepts of value creation in networks of micro business models. For that purpose, the authors combine approaches from media management and media studies.

Reinhard Kunz, Stefan Werning
Managing Social Media Value Networks: From Publisher (Broadcast) to User-Centric (Broadband-Narrowcast) Business Models

The author argues that the media value networks in the twenty-first century have shifted from a traditional publisher (broadcast) to more innovative and digitally based user-centric (broadband-narrowcast) business models. Accordingly, in order to attain the sustainable competitive advantage of the user-centric business models media executives and companies are required to strategically adopt, implement and utilize increasingly interactive, mobile, wireless, pervasive, augmented, immersive, ubiquitous and digital business models of production, distribution as well as consumption. Furthermore the future of the media appears to be specifically oriented towards the establishment of networked, 3D, on-demand, broadband and unicast as well as multimedia and hypermedia models of distribution, communication and content creation. Thus, specific financial, technological, advertising, consumer and economic applications that need further implementations include: Micropayments; VoD, PPV—Pay-Per-View model, B2C and B2B marketing; 3D TV; sharing and usability of media content; mass personalization (customization) including more interactive and accessible as well as wireless and mobile user interfaces; long-tail economics; experience economy; market nicheization; tipping point; crowd sourcing; mesh company strategy; media content repurposing and UGC—User Generated Content (question–answer databases, digital video, blogging, podcasting, mobile phone photography and wikis).

Zvezdan Vukanovic
Two Faces of Growth: Linking Customer Engagement to Revenue Streams

Contemporary understanding of social media activities is facing two major obstacles—measuring customer engagement and analyzing social media financial performance. These two questions have different attributes and are predominantly interpreted by wide variety of disciplines and analytical frameworks. In terms of the interpretation of the value creation in media two focal points could be distinguished that are interpreting the demand side and the supply side of the social media activities.

Business models and business model design in social media put an extreme emphasis on the demand side of the media product—value of the media is becoming a function of its network valuation dependant on the number and perceived value of its users. This has led to proliferation of open source strategy and cooperation games played online that pulled the integration of loyalty business models within network effect models. Central point in these models is the measurement of customer engagement.

As we understand the social media activity in the light of consumer engagement and demand side economies what is the effect on social media core value in pure financial terms. If the main assets of social media companies are its ingenious competence to constitute loyal consumer base and gather data through new technologies—how much are they worth? If we rely on intangibles and analyze social media past financial results, we will find poor accountant statistics. However, the revenue growth the social media are experiencing makes these financials to have low predicting power. Growing global online advertising market and social media consumption renewed the optimism.

Biser Zlatanov
Keys to Monetize Social Media in the Audiovisual Business

Media companies have started paying especial attention to online media. During many years, they have been the audience leaders, so they have got enough advertising revenue to be profitable. However, they are suffering nowadays from the competition of Internet, social media and new electronic devices.

We want to look at the differences among the management of traditional media and the new ones based on the digital technology; we will also analyse the peculiarities that online media management has and we will try to outline what traditional media should do to adapt to them. We will first review, from a theoretical perspective, the existent literature on monetizing social media in the audiovisual business. Secondly, two main Spanish broadcasters, which have integrated social media with television shows, will be analysed in depth; in addition, other relevant examples where social media have been developed along with television programmes will be mentioned. And finally, the key indicators of efficient use of social media in television shows in terms of profitability will be outlined, and a conclusion will be raised about the new meanings of profitability for media companies.

Mónica Herrero, Mercedes Medina
Digital Hollywood: How Internet and Social Media Are Changing the Movie Business

The history of Hollywood runs in tandem with the history of technological development. The inclusion of sound, followed by that of color, along with the need to adapt to new audiovisual media (television and video), are milestones in the history of the largest entertainment factory in the world. Each of these forms of technological development in turn marked a growing pain or turning point at the time of its invention, by which the Hollywood industry was ultimately strengthened.

However, the changes over the last ten years have been both more fast-paced and more far-reaching than anything that came before. The digital revolution and globalization have transformed the film and TV industry in ways which could never have been foreseen. The big Hollywood studios have been forced to respond to the uncertainty—and potential for profit—prompted by the popularity of the Internet and the success of new digital platforms, especially among young people.

This article is an attempt to trace the framework of present and future challenges facing the entertainment industry, as a step forward in relation to previous researches. First, I will examine the defining features of the emerging consumer profile and address the most significant elements of the new digital economy, epitomized by the ‘long tail market’ model. Secondly, I will described the Hollywood reaction to this new digital scenario and discuss on the business models adopted by major American studios in relation to the downloading of films and TV programs. Thirdly, I will approach the substantial changes in the movie value chain. Finally, I will draw some concluding remarks to frame the changing physiognomy of the entertainment industry and the search for the right business strategies.

Alejandro Pardo
Distributing Audiovisual Contents in the New Digital Scenario: Multiplatform Strategies of the Main Spanish TV Networks

The audiovisual entertainment business is undergoing a key moment due to several reasons: the Internet boom, its convergence with television, the prominence of the user as well as the digitalization of the production and distribution processes. Although this phenomenon was initially originated by technological factors, its consequences affect to the whole audiovisual industry and, more specifically, to the very core of the business—contents.

In this context, fiction and entertainment contents must be developed since its first stage for a multimedia and interactive consumption in order to be enjoyed by the audience on a wide range of platforms. From this perspective, successful contents demands capability to be multi-platform distributed and customized by the consumer. In this regard, its interactive options, its potential to create a prestigious brand and a profitable business model, and, last but not least, its power to tell an original transmedia story.

This chapter tries to figure out the most innovative trends in production, distribution and commercialization of multi-platform contents in the case of the main television networks in Spain. In this sense, we are presenting a comparative analysis of their different multi-platform strategies following a two-step methodology: firstly, a descriptive study of their respective websites, online players, mobile apps and social networks’ profiles; secondly, questionnaires to the multimedia managers of the chief networks together with some personal interviews.

The preliminary results of this research prove that, in the Spanish case, the convergence of television and the Internet is revolutionizing the production and commercialization of audiovisual contents, although it is also clear that is still in a challenging first stage.

Enrique Guerrero, Patricia Diego, Alejandro Pardo
Facebook: A Business Perspective on the Power of Intelligent Networking and Social Media

Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with more than 900 million active users around the world. In a few short years, Facebook has become one of the principal giants of the digital age challenging companies like Google and Amazon with its vision of the Internet tied together by personal relationships and recommendations, rather than by search algorithms. Facebook is available in over 70 languages. Its users flood the social network with their thoughts, commentaries and photos on a daily basis. While Facebook is first and foremost a social medium, it has also become an important business tool. Facebook has proven to be an essential communication and marketing strategy for those organizations that wish to operate in today’s digital media environment. Central to this idea is that social media like Facebook provide a low cost platform with which to market and promote a company’s brand. Secondly, it provides an excellent way to recommend products, services and ideas based on advice and support coming from someone the user knows. This chapter provides a case study analysis of Facebook with special attention given to the power of intelligent networking and social media.

Richard A. Gershon
Multimedia Strategies for FM Radio Stations in Moscow

Development of digital technologies gives the media an opportunity to provide on a single platform multiple types of content and distribute that content through various digital devices. This phenomenon helps to increase the audience of media providing additional features for receiving and perception of the information. We analyzed a number of Moscow FM radio stations’ multimedia strategies, and ways of their implementation. This research leads us to the following conclusions:

Multimedia platforms in the Moscow radio stations in FM spectrum are on absolutely different stages of development.

Implementation of multimedia is the result of not spontaneous, but strategic process.

We can reasonably say that the active use of multimedia technologies and features can significantly increase the audience of radio web sites and, apparently, the audience of radio stations themselves.

A positive financial effect of implementing multimedia strategies can be obtained—that was confirmed by radio stations during our research.

The importance of multimedia is recognized by representatives of professional Russian radio community, and it leads to creating special strategic plans of development.

The current level of implementing new methods of media management on the basis of convergence in the offices of Moscow radio stations cannot be considered high. But in the near future, this should become if not generally used practice, then at least a little more widespread one.

Elena Vartanova, Mikhail Makeenko, Andrei Vyrkovsky
Social Media in Russia: Its Features and Business Models

Today users from all over the world integrated on the social media. In the middle of 2010 the global audience of social media showed 72.5 % of the whole number of Internet users. Russia has the most engaged social networking audience worldwide. In 2010, according to official data, 34.5 million of Russian users (74.5 % from the whole number of Internet users in Russia) are members at least one of social media. Russians spent on average twice the amount of time within social networks as their global counterparts, racking up nearly 10 h per month. According to unofficial data, the social media audience coincides with 98 % of general Runet audience.

This research is focused on Russian social media, especially: Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki and Mail.ru—MoiMir, which are the first ones on Russian social media market and the most popular in Russia. These three social media belong to the one media holding Mail.ru Group.

We explored features and shew business models and monetization of those web-sites. The business model in niche social media advertising works rather effectively than the model of general interest web-sites, in spite of less audience.

Marianna Blinova
China’s Media Industry: Landscape and Development

Although there has always been criticism of limited media ownership and high concentration in Western nations, “ownership and concentration” has not been considered a central issue for discussion in China for many years, largely due to the fact that most traditional media were state-owned. However, in recent years, the emergence and development of new media has brought opportunities for media commercialization. With the wave of market deregulation, more attention has been paid to media concentration issues. People have begun to discuss the impact of limited ownership on media commercialization, noting that a high concentration may create a hindrance to professionalism and ethical standards of journalism.

Insightful investigators believe that a check on media concentration would be a blessing to the people and a more diversified media would enable people in the country to have a clearer picture of the world as it really is.

This article presents an endeavor to study market concentration and ownership in China. The author has conducted surveys on different media sectors over the past few years, and the chapter will present data from the study and discuss media development and concentration in China.

Min Hang

Forms and Content of Social Media

Frontmatter
Social Media Strategies and Practices of Integrated Media Companies

Media companies are increasingly active on all kinds of different platforms—combining print and broadcast already was developed in the US more than several decades before. From the mid nineties on media companies expanded by launching websites, often with content coming from other platforms like newspapers, magazines or TV. In the last years—as social media emerged—these platforms multiplies as professionals were expected not only to publish for different media but also to communicate with users, readers, viewers and listeners on their platforms.

The obvious rationale for media companies to integrate the efforts on different platforms is that there is synergy in combining content, personal and resources. Theoretically this indeed offers cost cutting options and chances for more efficiency. On the other hand it goes against the idea that people and organizations are specialists and have a competitive advantage because of their specialization. Integration—in other words—could result in either more efficiency and better performance but also in inefficiency and underperformance.

With the importance of social media increasing the challenge for media professionals and management increases as well. In this chapter we will focus on how companies deal with the integration issue—especially when it comes to activities in social media by these companies. We will use examples from integrated companies but also from companies that disintegrated their offline and online efforts.

Piet Bakker, Sanne Hille, Marco van Kerkhoven
“Telekom hilft”: Customer Service in the Social Web

“Telekom hilft” (meaning “Telekom cares”) is a program instigated by Sales & Service at Telekom Deutschland GmbH and is a flagship project in the company-wide Enterprise 2.0 initiative. These efforts aim to explore new communication channels for customer service in the social web. This innovative offering of support in public is paying dividends for brand and reputation management, as well as employer branding for the business. Reactions to initial customer contact points on Twitter and Facebook have been overwhelmingly positive. This best practice case describes how the program developed, the theoretical framework behind social customer relationship management, and the concept that went into service design, as well as our findings so far. Above all, there are clear signs that customer service staff will need to develop brand new skills in the next few years, if they are to provide value-adding service communication where connected customers in the community are treated as equals.

Andreas H. Bock
Online Radio: A Social Media Business?

The phenomenal success of ‘viral’ videos like KONY 2012 has attracted even greater attention to the potential of social media for distributing traditional media content. Social media platforms appear to enable exponential increases in global audience reach via automated distribution mechanisms like “frictionless sharing” and architectures based on “social design”. But have social media really revolutionised media distribution and consumption?

The chapter examines the experience of UK online radio providers in using social media, and Facebook’s “frictionless sharing” in particular, to distribute radio content. The study results from the author’s involvement in the RadioConnected R&D project, involving UK radio’s main online platform Radioplayer, and so provides a rare insight into the development of the social media strategy of major broadcasters. The chapter first proposes a new framework for analysing the behavior of traditional and online media providers and then applies the framework to analyse the social media strategies of UK online radio providers.

Paul Dwyer
Platform Leadership in Online Broadcasting Markets

One of the most prominent changes in today’s industry is the far-reaching integration between traditional broadcast content with broadband delivery platforms. Over-the-top television (OTT) services allow companies to go directly to consumers, bypassing traditional network gatekeepers and access providers. Additionally, the intermediary role broadcasters used to fulfill is pressured by content owners’ opportunity to directly target consumers. One of the major strategic issues currently at stake in broadcasting is either the risk of losing or the opportunity of establishing a direct customer relationship, which is essential in developing audience intelligence and building relationships of trust and loyalty. In this context, social media outlets provide companies with popular and often freely available instruments to engage with audiences, and are regarded extremely valuable information gateways for marketers and product developers. The chapter explores how television companies position themselves favourably in the OTT value network and discusses the key resources for achieving platform leadership.

Tom Evens
Ad Addressability and Personalized Content in IPTV Markets

The formation of Internet based TV channels denotes an elementary change in media markets. By combination of traditional broadcasting and interactive networks, television can be transformed from a mass medium into a customized service. In view of virtually unlimited channel capacity and addressable audiences, content will increasingly be adjusted to viewer preferences.

In this submission ad addressability and personalized content are discussed as the relevant options to customize IPTV services. We consider a two-sided market framework with an ad averse audience. The impact of ad addressability and personalized content on the TV market is analyzed in case of a monopoly channel and for the duopoly case. In both settings ad addressability enhances the equilibrium advertising level and increases channel profits. The program location on the preference spectrum and the audience share remains equal with ad addressability.

This submission contributes to the theory on two-sided markets especially Anderson and Gabszewicz (2006, Handbook of the economics of art and culture. Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 567–614) and Armstrong (The RAND Journal of Economics, 2006;37:668–691). Further it contributes to the theory of free TV markets (Gabszewicz et al. European Economic Review 2005;45:645–651; Kind et al. Journal of Media Economics, 2007:20:211–233) by introducing interactive channels and it augments the discussion of ad addressability by Kim and Wildman (Journal of Media Economics 2006:19, 55–79). The theoretical results give inside to the challenges and opportunities of individualized content in IPTV markets. Ad addressability appears to be a profit increasing tool for IPTV providers. Customized content on the other hand leads to a more severe competition in advertising levels. An essential question for the future development of IPTV markets is therefore, to what extend channels can differentiate their program with exclusive broadcasting rights.

Christoph Fritsch
The Social Media War: Is Google+ the David to Facebook’s Goliath?

By all measures, Google+, the newest entrant in the already-dominated social media category, should be dead in the water.

Just consider some of the dimensions of absolute dominance reached by the privately held Facebook, which was launched from a Harvard dorm room in 2004. With over 800 million current users, it is the world’s most visited website with more than 1.8 billion visits during an average week. Over 400 million users post every day more than 2 billion likes and comments in 70 languages.

More than 45 % of Facebook’s 18–34 years old users check the site when they wake up, and more than 30 % of this group checks in before ‘even getting out of bed!’ This stand-alone, walled-garden’s $4.3 billion in sales is valued at an incredible $82.9 billion for a 41.5 sales to value ratio.

So then, is Google+ the David to Facebook’s Goliath?

Launched in July 2011 as an invitation-only social network site, Google+ quickly jumped to third place as the U.S.’s most popular social media site by September 2011 when it became an open-access site with more than 40 million members. Published by publicly owned Google, it joins a stable of more than 105 companies that are among the top category leaders in search, email, image-search and internet browsers. Google’s more than $30 billion in revenue and $192 billion valuation dwarfs Facebook.

Additionally, Android, launched by Google in 2007 as an open source OS, leads the cell phone industry with a 42 % market share. And, Google’s aggressive $12.5 billion cash offer in August 2011 for third ranked cell phone manufacturer Motorola may present serious obstacles for Facebook’s mobile strategies.

This chapter explores as a case study the long-term potential of Google+ and analyzes its ultimate viability as a full competitor rather than a niche player in social media. This study is based on a complete review of the current literature; a thorough analysis of real world indicators including site metrics, market shares, revenue and valuations; a comparative analysis of the sites’ formats and features; interviews with company and industry spokespeople and several small-sized focus groups with dedicated users of the social media sites.

Richard Ganahl
Applications for the Media Sector to Leverage Content in Social Networks

The continued growth of data in social networks provides the networked media domain with a valuable resource for research, newsgathering, new forms of output and audience engagement. In order to leverage content in the Future Media Internet, media organisations need technologies that provide effective access to media items and information across social networking sites. Some of these challenges are addressed by the EC co-funded project SocIoS. It develops specific applications and services for the media sector to exploit content in social networks. This is important as web applications available today do not fully satisfy the needs of media companies that are active in Social Journalism. The latter entails new processes, business models and applications relevant to the Future Media Internet. For the SocIoS project, Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle identified media user needs related to search, IPR clearance, event detection, user filtering, item verification, reliability assessment and crowd sourcing. This business-oriented chapter highlights key challenges, describes social journalism, summarises user requirements identified by Deutsche Welle and outlines some of the shortcomings of current web applications. It then presents the EC co-funded project SocIoS by describing planned SocIoS Applications, underlying SocIoS Services and the technological framework (the SocIoS platform).

Jochen Spangenberg, Birgit Gray
Star Management of Talent Agencies and Social Media in Korea

With spreading of Korean popular music (K-POP) around the whole Asia and in Europe, the idol star management of Korean entertainment agencies has become the center of focus. In fact, it is because the agencies play a major role in developing and spreading of Korean wave.

The most notable characteristic of Korean idol groups is that the ace of a member leads the group. Then, as the aces gain popularity, the rest of the members as well as the groups’ names get recognized.

Regarding fields of area where they can show their talents, they play roles in TV dramas, variety shows, movies and musicals. The diverse activities of idol groups are one of the radical strategies of agencies. Particularly, vigorous training systems and drastic managements that follow after an acceptance from auditions that continue even after their debut have known to be the key strategies of Korean agencies have in making the K-POP stars to be world known stars.

Moonhaeng Lee
Predicting the Future of Investor Sentiment with Social Media in Stock Exchange Investments: A Basic Framework for the DAX Performance Index

Recently much attention has been paid on initial public offerings of social media companies, such as Facebook or Linkedln and how their owners become millionaires. However, this paper does clearly not focus on the valuation of IPOs of social media companies! Stock markets are sentiment driven—the herd-like behaviour of investors lead easily to overreactions and investment decisions based on emotions. Within the scope of this article the power of social media as a tool for sentiment analysis for stock exchange investments is investigated. With the emergence of behavioural economics and finance and socionomic theories of finance, also today’s social media will provide implications on stock exchange market sentiments and investment decisions. This paper provides a framework how social media can be utilized as a tool for the evaluation of stock exchange market sentiments and which impact they have on particular investment decisions. News and information are the keys for successful investments, and social media provide an additional source of decision making, investment planning, or allow the spreading of financial news even quicker than news tickers. Within the scope of this paper, a framework for the application of social media as a tool in stock exchange trading is presented. The paper examines the potentials of social media for the analysis of themed focused social media platforms, collective mood analysis, attitude of investors and traders, social media content analysis, and the actual stock exchange value.

Artur Lugmayr
Branding with Social Media at RTS

The phenomenon of brand building activities through social networks has received little academic attention, above all in the media industry. The present chapter aims to shed light on branding approaches for media companies in interactive times. It notably appears crucial to understand the way in which media firms can maintain a consistent brand identity in current conditions. In this sense, this research describes targeted actions undertaken by corporations faced with challenges brought by social media.

The case of Radio Television Suisse (RTS) the Swiss French speaking public radio and television broadcaster has been analyzed. RTS is a business unit of SSR SRG, the national Swiss public broadcaster. The entity is a newly converged media company, primarily dedicated to serving the French speaking part of Switzerland. It is composed by four radio channels, two television channels and various interactive platforms. The study focuses on the creation of a new job position, the digital communication manager, analyzing the managerial implications and consequences that the introduction of this figure could bring to media companies. A case study methodology was employed. RTS, the Radio Television Suisse was selected in order to investigate its approach to social media branding. The case focuses on the following research question: what are the brand building activities in which RTS invests online (social presence) and what are the reasons for those choices?

Social media and social networks are still a field of experimentation in many regards mostly from a branding perspective. As a consequence, limited amount of respective literature so far impedes proper comparison with industry practices. Results suggest that the loss of control over the brands should be taken into account by firms when interacting online. Public service media companies have to take the lead in term of online content production policies as their brand identity will otherwise be affected. The definition and integration of a Digital Communication Manager position has a role to play in making individuals inside the company aware of SNs branding implications and has high potential in generating the firm competitive advantage.

Stéphane Matteo, Giulia Spolaor, Cinzia Dal Zotto
Social Television, Creative Collaboration and Television Production: The Case of the BBC’s ‘The Virtual Revolution’

The way in which online users employ social media to enhance their television viewing experience is a phenomenon known as social television. The following study focuses on the possibility of embedding social television into the creative process of television production.

The chapter is in five sections. The first extends the literature on creative collaboration by addressing its two components, collaboration and creativity. The second describes the nature of social media, highlighting those characteristics that overlap with methods of creative collaboration. The third offers a conceptual framework of television production by breaking it down into its three stages. The section also addresses the precarious nature of television production. The fourth section seeks to shed empirical light on the above frameworks by unfolding the creative process of the BBC/Open University 2010 documentary The Virtual Revolution. It specifically examines the unique way in which the four-part documentary was developed and how online collaboration played a role in the final version of the programme. Finally, based on the findings of this study, the fifth section offers future research themes of social television and television production research.

Nicholas Nicoli
Evolution of Strategy and Commercial Relationships for Social Media Platforms: The Case of YouTube

We describe and analyze YouTube as a multisided platform with participants that include users, advertisers and content contributors, many of whom play dual and highly varied roles. YouTube’s role in structuring and managing relationships among platform participants with an eye to its own profitability is examined along with a sequence of elaborations on its business model that changed YouTube from a relatively simple service that sold advertisers access to web audiences generated by amateur videos uploaded by other internet users to a service that increasingly features commercial content from a diverse set of sources. This progressive layering of features that themselves are not inherently social on top of a social media foundation is similar to patterns of service elaboration exhibited by other social media services as they matured.

Sonya Yan Song, Steven S. Wildman

Social Media: Impact and Users

Frontmatter
Social Media and New Audiences as a New Challenge for Traditional and New Media Industries

Over the first decade of the twentieth century, the big revolution in information and communications technologies has resulted in many innovations that are having increasingly visible effects on the daily life of media users.

These developments are not only the logical result of a technological evolution. They affect the way people interact with media. What these changes on media have represented for the field of the media management? Do media managers currently really know their audience’s attitudes and responses? Even more, are they still acting and responding as massive media audiences?

Even in developing media markets, like in Latin America, media economies have moved from the massive and passive audiences’ model to the more informed, engaged and influential publics environment. Can managers keep safe the bridge between audiences and advertisers from the storm, when content is everyday available on multiple platforms and audiences are capable to create their own media diets and schedules?

The chapter is aimed to provide an overview on the recent academic literature about audience’s analysis under the veneer of segmentation, fragmentation, even erosion of traditional mass audiences.

Germán Arango-Forero, Sergio Roncallo-Dow
Towards a Typology of Strategies for User Involvement

Four types of strategic approach for traditional media in the utilization of social media are identified. The Donation strategy includes users in the production of content. The Distribution strategy utilizes viral marketing in order to invite potential users to consume this content, while the Deliberation strategy enables users to react and interact with the produced and distributed content. At last The Data Gathering Strategy accumulate information about users and their interaction in order to better serve the same users and potential advertisers.

News organizations might choose to execute several of the strategies in order to create value for users, advertisers, shareholders, and the society. This will especially be relevant if Data Gathering is the main strategic approach. However, observed practices indicates a low strategic awareness of the potential of different approaches, hence higher awareness and clarity on strategic intentions might contribute to both higher value creation and possibly also reduce some of the professional skepticism to user involvement as part of the online efforts by traditional news organizations.

Arne H. Krumsvik
Social Media Monitoring Tools as Instruments of Strategic Issues Management

It is only rarely possible to keep track of the entirety of the field of Social Media: tools for monitoring this communicative territory have been developed only recently. Each of these tools has its own algorithm and particular features, i.e. they measure different things and present their findings in their own idiosyncratic way.

What, then, is the potential of these tools in research on media reception and media use? How can they be employed for sentiment analysis or opinion mining? What is their contribution to the identification of so-called ‘issues’, i.e. companies’ communication risks? How can consumer trends for innovation be identified?

The purpose of this chapter is to propose answers to these questions by proceeding in three steps. An evaluation of the major social media monitoring tools is followed by a systematic analysis of each tool’s range of applications in the explanatory context outlined above. Finally some potential or existing practical applications in corporate communication (use cases) are explored.

Johanna Grüblbauer, Peter Haric
Social Networks: The Question on Efficiency Remains

It is quite easy to present and to analyze the number of possible connections and the growth of connectivity in social media—and with similar value or comparable quality of every single connection in a network, one can describe the total value or the growth of value parallel to the growing connectivity in a given timeframe. Following that: All the different models of explanation available (e.g., Reed, Metcalf) start with the growth of links in the network and they all use different rules and settings to describe the effect of this growth on network value. In the meantime we also realized, that the GFN-approach, introducing the group forming networks (brought into the discussion by Reed) is very helpful to have a closer look on everything happening (currently) in social media communication, also the existence of hubs and “super hubs” should be taken into account in this context, for these aspects give an explanation on exponentially growing value. Sadly—all the available blueprints—whether they are describing a linear or exponential curve of efficiency growth—are creating valid numbers, but they are static and inflexible if one additionally questions quality. One major task will now be, to (again) discuss quality from a teleological, normative or action based frame. It is crucial: To give an impression of social media value we today definitely could not only take connectivity into account, we have to reflect on diverging quality of possible connections and we will have to argue from an individualized point of view. In this concern one of the core questions would be: Could probably some of the theoretically driven rules of pre web era be transferred into or approached to social media? For the author future discussion will on the one hand lead back to the socio economic approaches, focusing preferences and individual decisions (consumption of media content, willingness of contribution, ‘collectivated’ dimension of wants or needs addressed by social media). One therefore has to judge, whether explainable or even measurable preferences are used to generate activity—for this question is of increasing relevance facing the rapidly growing influence of web based communication in society.

Harald Rau
How to Engage the Audience? A Study on Using Twitter to Engage Newspaper Readers

The proliferation of media outlets and audience fragmentation imply media companies have to use all available tools to reach and hopefully engage their audiences. The widespread use of social networks is seen by many media companies as a way to promote their brands and ultimately establish a link to the people in the audience. Nevertheless, there is still a lot experimenting on the right way to approach social networks users to engage them beyond what traditional advertising can do to promote a media brand and its extensions. Therefore, this chapter will explore the concept of engagement in order to determine whether a social network—i.e. Twitter—is useful for this purpose. A user is engaged if she participates in a conversation with the journalists at the media outlet, make comments about the content distributed via the social network, and help diffuse the media content to other users. Furthermore, this study will assess if different tactics employed by the media outlet can increase engagement. The findings are valuable to better understand the concept of engagement when applied to the social networks. Also, the results are helpful for managers who need to use social networks to improve the relation between the media brand and its audience.

Aldo van Weezel, Cristóbal Benavides
Blogs and Social Media: The New Word of Mouth and its Impact on the Reputation of Banks and on their Profitability

In the banking sector and especially the Greek banking sector, in the midst of an unthinkable economic crisis that the country is going through, what is “said” and “written” freely, and is considered to be the “contemporary” word of mouth (wom), is expressed through blogs and social media.

On these grounds, and taking into consideration the fact that the blogs and social media have become one of the most influential communication tools, it is rather interesting to investigate and measure the influence those “means” exercise on how people perceive and evaluate an organisation. Additionally, in terms of the current economic situation, it becomes even more interesting to orientate this investigation to the financial sector.

This chapter, is offering an overview of the relevant literature, that leads in creating a methodological tool, capable of measuring and answering to the hypothesis as to what extend wom, as created be blogs and social media, can influence a bank’s reputation and consequently its profitability

In this context, firstly a review was made on the literature on reputation, wom and the influence of the latter on the former.

A research model was created with the intention to rate all the publications in blogs and social media related to three major Greek Banking Institutions, for 1 year time and followed an evaluation of how their reputation is actually affected by these publications, using the seven dimensional RepTrak model.

Eleftheria (Roila) Christakou, George-Michael Klimis
Social Networks and Media Brands: Exploring the Effect of Media Brands’ Perceived Social Network Usage on Audience Relationship

The proliferation of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube has brought dramatic changes in consumer’s media consumption behavior. With more and more consumers participating in some forms of social media, these platforms have become important means of consumer engagement. From a branding perspective, such a two-way communication mechanism creates viable channels for ongoing dialogues and long-term bonds between companies and customers. Social networks’ branding potential, especially in the context of relationship building, seems to offer traditional media which were handicapped by the one-way communication mechanism an opportunity to connect with audiences more effectively in an increasingly competitive marketplace. This chapter empirically examines the contribution of social networks as a branding tool for media products from the relational perspective. It investigates if the perceived use of social networks by a media brand plays a role in enhancing its brand equity and in consumer’s intention to develop a relationship with the brand. Specifically, the chapter addresses the relationship between consumer’s perceived social network usage by a media brand and the “perceived relationship investment” (PRI) of that brand; association between PRI and consumer-based brand equity (CBBE); the effect of a media brand’s CBBE on an audience’s intention to develop a relationship with that brand; and the relationship between an audience’s PRI of a media brand and his/her intention to build a relationship with that brand.

Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, Moonhee Cho, Mark Yi-Cheon Yim
Social Media Involvement Among College Students and General Population: Implications to Media Management

Social media have been becoming one of the hottest topics in the recent years and various media incorporate social media to drive traffic and build customer relationships. This book chapter introduces a new concept—social media involvement—and applied it to our research. Social media involvement refers to the extent to which people indulge in social media. And then, by employing an audience survey in Northwest Ohio, we examined which demographic characteristics can predict social media involvement among college students and general population and compared and contrast the difference in social media content consumption behavior between college students and general population. In addition, we analyzed the media content topic preference in audience with different SNS involvement; and how SNS involvement affect people’s online media use.

Louisa Ha, Xiao Hu
Customer Integration and Web Interactivity. A Literature Review and Analysis of the Role of Transaction Costs in Building Value Webs

Newspapers are facing a variety of profound and disruptive challenges that come to threaten the printed publishing industry’s race for survival. By offering interactive e-commerce applications and services, and thereby actively engaging consumers in the communication process, news publishers are increasingly are emphasizing solid and sustainable relationships that may help them achieve improved economic viability and sustainable competitive advantages in the electronic marketplace.

In contrast to the thesis that net-enabled business exchange automatically leads to transaction costs efficiencies (Bakos, MIS Quarterly 15(3): 295–310, 1991; Benjamin and Wigand, Sloan Management Review 36: 62–72, 1995; Brynjolfsson and Smith, Management Science 46(4): 563–585, 2000; Cordella and Simon,

The impact of information technology on transaction and coordination cost

. Paper presented at the Conference on Information Systems Research in Scandinavia (IRIS 20), Oslo, Norway, 1997), this chapter argues that although interactivity may potentially reduce transaction costs, these costs are contingent upon different forms and practicalities of interactivity, and its impacts on the value of the interaction. It is assumed that offering interactivity-driven B2C e-commerce goods and services may involve transaction costs that exceed efficiency thresholds on both sides of the transaction which will negatively affect the welfare of both news publisher and online consumers.

The author develops a conceptual model of web interactivity and its potential effects of transaction costs. This model aims at fostering the theoretical development in social media management research in news publishing by drawing from disparate theoretical concepts and analytical frameworks.

Paul Murschetz
All Businesses are Media Business: The Impact of Social Media on the Healthcare Market

A healthcare market related article in a book of social media in media markets may not fit into context at first hand. Contrariwise especially in the healthcare market one can observe the changing and partly disrupting impact of social media quite exemplary. We can see that for the information monopoly feature of the physician as the partriarchal controller of medical knowledge in opposite to the passive therapy receiving patient is slowly breaking open through online connected patients and their free access to health information using the internet to manage their medical conditions.

With roughly 80 % of the online population in each industrially developed and emerging region of the world using the internet to search, share, evaluate and cocreate health related topics, the impact on the mostly regulated and traditional stakeholder controlled healthcare systems in place is still to come, partly assumably disruptive. Furthermore new so called health 2.0 startups emerge, offering “e-patient”-centric tools and service helping chronic patients to manage their medical condition and collaborate on new medical insights. Those internet- or mobile-based medicare tools are usually yet not connected to the brick-and-mortar infrastructure of the traditional medicare providers. The convergence of both will be critical, partly disruptive and to be observerd carefully in the near future.

Alexander Schachinger
The Impact of Facebook on News Consumption

This chapter introduces how social networking, and in particular Facebook, has reshaped media consumption habits and what happens if a social networking site (SNS) becomes so significant as Facebook has in terms of internet usage. SNSs are both a threat and an opportunity for media companies. On the one hand, they are an effective tool for sharing news, enabling media content to reach many more users than ever before. On the other hand, media companies lose control over the distribution channels: it is the users themselves who decide what to share and in which way.

Research studies and academic papers are already available about trends in SNS usage. They show how these sites have grown in importance, especially among young people. In parallel, media companies are attracting more and more visitors from these sites. It seems that role of users in distribution becomes more significant than their role in content creation. The so-called social filtering has a great impact on the news market, since users trust more in their personal friends than in unknown editors.

The chapter describes the possible strategies and there long term consequences for media companies in this new environment. The case of a start-up Hungarian investigative journalism portal (atlatszo.hu) illustrates our findings.

Agnes Urban, Tamas Bodoky
The Usage and Advertising Effects of Social Media in China

The aims of this research are to understand the usage of social media among the young people in China, and to investigate how the users respond to advertising on social media and to analyse the effects of advertising on social media. A survey was conducted among young internet users aged 18–32 with different occupations in China. A snowball sampling technique was adopted to access the respondents. The results show that social media is broadly used by young people in China, mainly to stay in contact with friends, and obtain information. Most of respondents notice the advertisements on social media; over half of respondents pay special attention to specific brands and their webpage and sometimes forward, share the information, or recommend those brands or products. Recommendations generated from peers of social networking would strengthen products or brands interests, and affect respondents’ consumption intentions.

However, a high proportion of the respondents disagreed that the products shown in social media are more appealing. The specific case of the brand ‘VANCL’ is used to examine the advertising effects in this research. The results show online advertisement might have drawn more than half of the internet users’ attentions on the brand image, but majority of the respondents have never clicked on the advertisement. Only a very small number of respondents have forwarded VANCL’s brand and product information to other members on their social media. A quarter of respondents, through social media word-of-mouth, understand the brand before their purchase. In other words, although online advertising is a general channel for communicating brand image, the word-of-mouth of the social media has an impact on the customer recognitions of the products and their behaviours. The results indicate that advertising on social media becomes one of the branding tools that appeal to some of the internet users, and strengthen brands or products images, but word-of-mouth may affect purchase behaviour.

Li-Chuan Evelyn Mai

Conclusion

Frontmatter
What Social Media Are Doing and Where They Are Taking Us

Social media are inextricably altering how we individuals, organizations and enterprises communicate. We use them to convey information and thoughts about the trivial and the momentous occurrences in our lives, our communities, and society, to share our thoughts, hopes, and wishes, and to access and share information about products, services, companies and organizations.

Robert G. Picard
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Handbook of Social Media Management
herausgegeben von
Mike Friedrichsen
Wolfgang Mühl-Benninghaus
Copyright-Jahr
2013
Verlag
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Electronic ISBN
978-3-642-28897-5
Print ISBN
978-3-642-28896-8
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28897-5