How can a BMW franchise create Customer Engagement through Social Media - Research Paper Example

? How Can A BMW Franchise Create Engagement through Social Media Data Presentation, Data Analysis and Research Findings This section of the paper intends to present the data that has been gathered. The data has been presented by ways of survey results, pie charts, graphs and tables. The section will attempt to identify the numerous objectives of the study and will endeavour to attain the objectives of the paper. Objective 1: Gain Market Share through Social Media The reasons behind the utilisation of the social media sites depend upon multifarious factors. Its utilisation may depend upon components such as company profile, products and customers that the company is serving. Social media websites can be considered as a good way through which the dependability as well as the goodwill of a company can be enhanced (Gruzd & Staves, 2009). People make use of social media sites for certain reasons such as for the purpose of interacting, collaborating, looking for counsel from the experts, disseminating of the multimedia, looking for opinions, contributing reviews as well as entertainment (Sabado, Gallardo, & Lubach, 2011). Most of the people argue the fact that social media tends to bring a new sense of community by permitting them to connect with those who are similar to themselves i.e. like-minded people and people with similar tastes and preferences. A number of people are making use of the social media while initiating purchase decisions (Mangold & Faulds, 2009). The figure below demonstrates the use of social media by BMW and others and the benefits obtained by it in order to gain higher return on investment. The figure makes it apparent that BMW scores high in terms of revenues earned by making use of the social media (Slideshare, 2010). Source: (Slideshare, 2010). It is a well known fact that the new media environment is featured by interactivity and multi-dimensional communication flows. With the pace of time, the marketing functions have also started incorporating social media in its campaigns (Yamamichi, 2011). The increased utilisation of social networking sites such as Facebook as well as Twitter in order to market the products as well as the services is gaining huge attention in the recent times. The companies make use of the social media sites as one of the significant communication channels so that they can gain feedback of the consumers. It has been recognised that on-line communities are considered as a vital component of social media since they offer the companies with cross-selling opportunities to various user groups sharing the similar platform (Donath, 2004). Social media can offer BMW with immediate feedbacks and present the company with quick indications regarding what is required in order to resolve pertinent issues. In the present times, the companies make use of the social media so that they can improve their marketing schemes. The purpose of social media must be to improve branding of the business of BMW and to increase the popularity of the product. It can be mentioned that the social media must also be utilised for the purpose of tracking the presence of the business online in order to ensure that the clients are not deteriorating the value of the brand (Zwart, Lindsay, Henderson, & Phillips, 2011). Certain authors have stated the fact that one of the main benefits of social media is to identify precisely regarding what the customers are thinking. Businesses also make use of the social media sites in order to increase the sales of the products and the services and in turn to increase the market share (Ali, 2011). Social media makes it easier for the companies to create relationships, position the brand properly and share exciting experiences and information with their customers (National Association of Insurance Commissioners, 2011). Web Users Frequency It has been found that the rate of internet penetration in Europe in the year 2011 had been 61.3% while the world average was 32.7%. Internet penetration in rest of the world has been 28.9%. The figure presented below helps to make the concept of using social media as a vital tool to create customer engagement precise (Internet World Stats, 2012). Source: (Internet World Stats, 2012). From the figure above, it can be analysed that there is high penetration of internet in Europe. When the rate of internet penetration tends to be higher, in such circumstances, it can be revealed that the rate of success of social media in these countries can be quite high. The table below depicts the top ten internet using countries in Europe in the year 2011 (Internet World Stats, 2012). Source: (Internet World Stats, 2012). It has been found that Germany tops the list among the European countries and the percentage of users in this particular country is 67.4. Russia and the United Kingdom also seem to have significant amount of users making use of internet (Internet World Stats, 2012). The Chart Presented Below Helps to Determine Internet As Well As Facebook Usage in Europe. Internet and Facebook Usage in Europe EUROPE Population ( 2011 Est. ) Internet Users, 31-Dec-11 Penetration (% Population) Users % in Europe Facebook 31-Dec-11 Albania 2,994,667 1,441,928 48.1 % 0.3 % 981,580 Andorra 84,825 68,740 81.0 % 0.0 % 31,300 Austria 8,217,280 6,143,600 74.8 % 1.3 % 2,682,080 Belarus 9,577,552 4,436,800 46.3 % 0.9 % 354,520 Belgium 10,431,477 8,489,901 81.4 % 1.7 % 4,444,500 Bosnia-Herzegovina 4,622,163 1,955,277 42.3 % 0.4 % 1,159,960 Bulgaria 7,093,635 3,464,287 48.8 % 0.7 % 2,259,740 Croatia 4,483,804 2,656,089 59.2 % 0.5 % 1,452,300 Cyprus 1,120,489 584,863 52.2% 0.1 % 553,860 Czech Republic 10,190,213 7,220,732 70.9 % 1.4 % 3,502,420 Denmark 5,529,888 4,923,824 89.0 % 1.0 % 2,835,120 Estonia 1,282,963 993,785 77.5 % 0.2 % 447,620 Faroe Islands 49,267 37,500 76.1 % 0.0 % 29,880 Finland 5,259,250 4,661,265 88.6 % 0.9 % 2,078,880 France 65,102,719 50,290,226 77.2 % 10.0 % 23,544,460 Germany 81,471,834 67,364,898 82.7 % 13.5 % 22,123,660 Gibraltar 28,956 20,200 69.8 % 0.0 % 18,800 Greece 10,760,136 5,043,550 46.9 % 1.0 % 3,562,120 Guernsey & Alderney 65,068 48,300 74.2 % 0.0 % 440 Hungary 9,976,062 6,516,627 65.3 % 1.3 % 3,751,300 Iceland 311,058 304,129 97.8 % 0.1 % 210,220 Ireland 4,670,976 3,122,358 66.8 % 0.6 % 2,093,960 Italy 61,016,804 35,800,000 58.7 % 7.1 % 20,889,260 Jersey 94,161 45,800 48.6 % 0.0 % 820 Kosovo 1,825,632 377,000 20.7 % 0.1 % n/a Latvia 2,204,708 1,540,859 69.9 % 0.3 % 319,300 Liechtenstein 35,236 28,826 81.8 % 0.0 % 11,880 Lithuania 3,535,547 2,103,471 59.5 % 0.4 % 983,440 Luxembourg 503,302 459,833 91.4 % 0.1 % 190,020 Macedonia 2,077,328 1,069,432 51.5 % 0.2 % 879,540 Malta 408,333 262,404 64.3 % 0.1 % 191,940 Man, Isle of 84,655 35,600 42.1 % 0.0 % 30,660 Moldova 4,314,377 1,429,154 33.1 % 0.3 % 221,220 Monaco 30,539 23,000 75.3 % 0.0 % 36,800 Montenegro 661,807 328,375 49.6 % 0.1 % 292,700 Netherlands 16,847,007 15,071,191 89.5 % 3.0 % 5,759,840 Norway 4,691,849 4,560,572 97.2 % 0.9 % 2,561,820 Poland 38,441,588 23,852,486 62.0 % 4.8 % 7,524,220 Portugal 10,760,305 5,455,217 50.7 % 1.1 % 4,174,000 Romania 21,904,551 8,578,484 39.2 % 1.7 % 4,161,340 Russia 138,739,892 61,472,011 44.3 % 12.3 % 5,237,420 San Marino 31,817 17,000 53.4 % 0.0 % 8,240 Serbia 7,310,555 4,107,000 56.2 % 0.8 % 3,173,440 Slovakia 5,477,038 4,337,868 79.2 % 0.9 % 1,889,160 Slovenia 2,000,092 1,420,776 71.0 % 0.3 % 670,660 Spain 46,754,784 30,654,678 65.6 % 6.1 % 15,682,800 Svalbard & Jan Mayen 2,019 n/a n/a n/a n/a Sweden 9,088,728 8,441,718 92.9 % 1.7 % 4,519,780 Switzerland 7,639,961 6,430,363 84.2 % 1.3 % 2,727,600 Turkey 78,785,548 35,000,000 44.4 % 7.3 % 30,963,100 Ukraine 45,134,707 15,300,000 33.9 % 3.1 % 1,686,500 United Kingdom 62,698,362 52,731,209 84.1 % 10.5 % 30,470,400 Vatican City State 832 480 57.7 % 0.0 % 20 TOTAL Europe 816,426,346 500,723,686 61.3 % 100.0 % 223,376,640 . Source: (Internet World Stats, 2012). From the table above, it can be interpreted that there are large number of internet and more precisely, Facebook users in Europe. This demonstrates the success of social media in this particular region. This implies that the idea of using social media for customer engagement for can be a great success in European countries (Internet World Stats, 2012). Objective Two: Analyse Social Media Strategies for Customer Engagement In order to attract significant amount of consumers towards the company i.e. BMW, it is vital to prepare social media strategies (Buzulukova & Nekipelov, 2011). The companies are capable of creating their web pages on the social networking sites and thus solicit feedback of the consumers. It is worthy of mentioning the fact that customer engagement is one of the crucial factors in the world of social networking. It is significant for the companies to merge their marketing messages with interactivity and involve themselves in storytelling. The customers need to be made part of the marketing campaigns (Slideshare, 2009). Social relationship management (SRM) can be defined as the method that a company uses for the purpose of controlling, involving with and activating often large number of loose ties that it administers within the open social networks (Wang & Owyang, 2010). With the assistance of SRM software, the above mentioned processes can be endorsed, information regarding emergent and trending themes, volume and the key influencers consisting the collective external reply to a brand of the company, people, products, businesses, actions can be gathered, stored and gained by employee across the enterprises (Kim, Lee, Lee, & Paik, 2009). With the help of SRM, a company such as BMW can aim at developing brand equity, enhancing the sales, stimulating of the customer service, persuading product management decision and paying due attention towards the business strategy on scope for differentiation. SRM is generally a method influencing social networks as well as communities so that direct feedbacks can be enhanced, knowledge can be acquired and impact in and from a market segment among the functions of the company comprising sales, support, product management, logistics as well as other departments can be assessed. Smart Social Campaign for Small Business Most of the owners of the small businesses are conscious of the fact that with the assistance of social media, it becomes easier for the companies to unite with the customers as well as prospects. According to marketing strategy, a social campaign can be defined as the method of joining inbound marketing as well as social media as one strong business tool (Rutledge, 2008). One of the most common techniques of online marketing is call-to-action which the marketers use to force the people to involve with the products and the services. Social media related marketing advertisements that are incapable of displaying a call-to-action can be considered as incomplete as well as ineffective since the company is not capable of connecting themselves with the customers. Whilst, such passive approaches have been quite effective in the near past, in the present times, it is referred as call-to-reaction. The companies are capable of involving themselves with the audience at a deeper level and offer them with the chance to connect immediately (Speyer & Brown, 2011). It has been apparent that BMW makes use of numerous social media contents so that it can involve their four million fans to convey the customers regarding the range of models. Most of the BMW contents have been centred on their present models such as videos of X6 that is driven in the desert area along with new BMW 6 Series Convertible. It has also been found that BMW also involves consumers with the BMW Casting competition where the consumers can participate in the campaign and thus become the face of the worldwide advertisement campaign. The shows where the BMW content is successful at involving the customers in order to communicate regarding the models of the cars, in such instances WaveMetrix, a social media monitoring organisation tends to monitor customer responses. The figure below makes it apparent that through such social media content, the company is capable of provoking greater discussion regarding a particular product (WaveMetrix Limited, 2012). Social media and online marketing are areas where the future lies for most of the major companies. These have been viewed as among the best methods to gauge the return on investment, online campaigns have been developing on a year-over-year basis and have become the centre of marketing budgets. BMW has been quite successful in such stage. It has been noticed that more than one-third of the BMW’s impressions that have been served since the precedent years have been rich media based display placements and for Audi it has been less than 5%. Furthermore, it is recognised that BMW’s online TV website shifted its content under a YouTube channel and thus branded it as BMW TV. Facebook has been considered as the pioneer among the social media sites and BMW is successful at making more than 1.9 million fans (Boeriu, 2010). It was in the year 2010, when BMW initiated one of largest branding campaigns till date. A theme named as “The Joy of Driving” had been coordinated into every television, digital and print advertisement along with event and team sponsorships. The theme was moved from the car to the car owner (Young, 2010). Objective Three: Analysis of the Social Media Strategies That Have Been Used By the Competitors In order to remain competitive enough, it becomes significant for BMW to embark upon the strategies that their competitors are following. The main competitors of BMW are Audi and Mercedes. It is after 2009 when Audi initiated its program to get connected with the social media and has been successful at connecting with wider range of consumers. The main marketing objective of Audi is to attain high level of brand awareness and increased sales. In order to attain such objectives, it has been noted that Audi makes use of the viral marketing campaigns all over the world. Such viral marketing strategies comprise “Stolen Audi” miniseries TV as well as YouTube video spots. The campaigns were immediate hits both online as well an offline. Viral marketing has proved to be quite successful for Audi since it has been viewed as an unconventional way that tends to match the brand position of Audi in the marketplace. Such viral marketing efforts made by the company might not have helped in gaining huge market share but has assisted them with high brand awareness as compared to the competitors of Audi (SOS Marketing, 2011). The ‘Future of Engagement’ demonstrating the influence of Audi comprising the ‘hashtag’ that can be used for their new advertisements regarding LED headlights being nearer to daylight as one can get. It has been identified that Audi was chosen since they were quite imaginative previous year i.e. 2011 and they were identified as being the first advertisers to comprise a ‘hashtag’ in their advertisement. The advertisement of Audi demonstrates an Audi reaching to a vampire party at a bonfire and thus vaporising the frightened vampires. This message was pushed in Twitter by means of ‘#solongvampires tag’ (Socialmediatoday, 2012). It has been found that Audi makes use of Facebook in order to increase the involvement of the customers with the products of the company. The image below makes it apparent. Source: (Facebook, 2012). Audi came up with “Green Police” commercial which featured A3 TDI in the year 2010’s Super Bowl. 2.2 million viewers have watched the video till date on YouTube. In order to run this campaign, a channel named as ‘YouTube Green Police’ was specially created (Boeriu, 2010). It has been observed that social media has been of significant importance for Mercedes Benz which is one of the close competitors of BMW. In the present times, Mercedes makes use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google Plus in order to reach a considerable number of consumers. By means of social media related strategy, the company has been capable at executing all the five chief goals of Li and Bernoff’s Groundswell. The primary aim identified in Groundswell is listening (Li & Bernoff, 2011). Mercedes Benz has always paid attention to what the customers have stated regarding creating and implementing their social media strategies. The second objective that Mercedes is capable of fulfilling in their social media strategy is related to talking. The company do not spend a lot of funds on digital advertising but tends to make discussions. These conversations are created with the help of Facebook as well as Twitter. The company tends to fulfil its third objective with the help of energizing (Carlson, 2012). Since the last few years, Mercedes has been capable of launching numerous campaigns with the motive to involve the customers via social media. Supporting has been the fourth objective depicted in Groundswell that comprises the significance of interaction within the customers. Via campaigns such as Mercedes Benz Dealer Social Media along with Star Style Challenge as well as Tweet Race, Mercedes is capable of creating a community among its customers. The fifth and the final objective which is embracing, is served by integrating customers into the way in which the business works (BaseLine, 2012). With the assistance of the social media strategy, Mercedes Benz has been successful at becoming one of the major competitors in the social media markets. It has prepared effective social media campaigns on various platforms and thus coordinated with customers in its market (Social Media Practice, 2011). Conclusion and Recommendations Social media is one of the most significant aspects of marketing, being used by various marketers irrespective of how big or small they are. After having analysed the strategies that are mentioned above, set of ideas needs to be presented in order to increase the customer engagement by means of social media. With the pace of time, it becomes significant for all the companies to keep themselves updated with the new advancements. These strategies can assist them to remain competitive in the long run and thus assist them in attaining the objectives of the organisation (Goldman, 2012). It can be recommended that like Mercedes Benz, BMW can also make use of Groundswell strategies of social media to enhance the customers’ awareness in the new franchise of BMW. It can launch social media campaigns where the participants can be offered with the opportunity to interact with the customers and gain customers’ feedback. By developing high end social media strategy, BMW will be capable of gaining exponential growth within a short span of time (Shin, Park, & Pusan, 2011). It can be concluded that BMW has already been making good use of the social media sites. However, in order to increase the customers’ engagement with the brand, the company needs to keep making new social media strategies. It can hire a social media expert who will be responsible to handle the day-to-day affairs of the company. Advertisements made available to the online users will be of great advantage for the new BMW franchisee. With adequate usage of the social media sites, the company will be having a low cost marketing tool as well. References Ali, A. H. (2011). The power of social media in developing nations: new tools for closing the global digital divide and beyond. Harvard Human Rights Journal 24, pp. 185-210. Boeriu, H. (2010). BMW vs. Audi: who has the best media strategy? Retrieved from http://www.bmwblog.com/2010/09/22/bmw-vs-audi-who-has-the-best-media-strategy/ BaseLine. (2012). Social network generates market research for Mercedes-Benz. Retrieved from http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/CRM/Social-Network-Generates-Market-Research-for-MercedesBenz/ Buzulukova, E. & Nekipelov, A. (2011). Creating brand value through social networks on emerging markets: empirical evidence from Russia. 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Retrieved from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INFORMATIONANDCOMMUNICATIONANDTECHNOLOGIES/Resources/Mobile_Enabled_Social_Media.pdf Young, A. (2010). BMW vs. Audi: the best media plan on four wheels? Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/mediaworks/advertising-bmw-audi-media-plan/145990/ Zwart, M. D., Lindsay, D., Henderson, M., & Phillips, M. (2011). Teenagers, legal risks and social networking sites. Retrieved from http://newmediaresearch.educ.monash.edu.au/moodle/pluginfile.php/2117/mod_label/intro/SNSandRisks_REPORT.pdf Read More