Social Media as the New Communication Tool - Research Paper Example

Part Users and Facebook The first thing that must be examined will be the demographics of Facebook – who uses Facebook and why? According to thelatest statistics, there are approximately 400 million active users worldwide. Of these, 50% log in on any given day. More than 35 million people update their status each day. There are 60 million status updates posted each day, and every month, more than 3 billion photos are uploaded to Facebook. 5 billion pieces of content are shared each week, and 3.5 million events are created each month.1 The fastest growing demographic is 18-24 college demographic, which grows at the rate of 74% per year. Meanwhile, the 35+ demographic makes up 30% of the user database.2 There are also many users who use Facebook quite frequently – 48% of 18 to 34 year olds check Facebook right when they first wake up, and 28% check their Facebook from their smart phones before they get out of bed.3 The reasons why people use Facebook are shown in the activities on Facebook – on an average day, 20% of the users will comment on another users photo, 26% of users will like another users content, 10% of users will send another user a private message, 15% of users will update their own status, and 22% of users will comment on another users post or status. 4 Therefore, the reasons why people use Facebook are simple – the desire to stay connected with one another, and the desire to let people know what is going on in ones life. Facebook has made one’s social circle wider, but much more shallow, with some people having 1,000s of “friends.” And, since it would presumably be impossible for any one person to have that many “friends”, a person’s friends list is mainly populated by “weak ties” who might be mere acquaintances – “it might be someone they met at a conference, or someone from high school who recently ‘friended’ them on Facebook, or somebody from last year’s holiday party. In their pre-Internet lives, these sorts of acquaintances would have quickly faded from their attention. But when one of these far-flung people suddenly posts a personal note to your feed, it is essentially a reminder that they exist.” 5 While this is an accurate description of the vast majority of “friends” on one’s Facebook account, it often gets even further removed. Some of the “friends” , in fact, for a lot of us, many of the “friends” are people to whom one has never spoken a word – random people from school that you know of, have seen around, but have never spoken to, along with many “frenemies” who you maybe never liked, all show up on one’s “friend” list and proceed to bombard you with their everyday mundane activities. Yet these silly, mundane, borderline narcissistic news feed updates fascinate even those who do not know the people making the updates. There is even a name for this type of on-line voyeurism – “ambient awareness.”6 It is referred to as being “very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does – body language, sighs, stray comments – out of the corner of your eye.”7 According to Thompson, Facebook is a way for people to somehow not only keep in touch with their friends, but to “know” them by keeping up with the rhythm of their everyday lives – that every mundane update works as a piece of a larger puzzle of who that person is, and, if you put these puzzle pieces together, they form enough of a coherent whole. That if you follow somebody’s updates, or, on Twitter, “tweets”, and piece them together, you can get a sense for that person, as if you were reading an autobiography of their lives. And that seems to be true, in a way. Facebook has also had tremendous impact on our culture in other ways. For instance, Facebook is a way to broadcast information in such a way that trends spark and quickly spread. It is also a way to broadcast information that matters to the user, for instance, information about a particular social project that he or she is working on or a particular band that he or she has discovered, and post links and videos for others to peruse. For the curiosity seekers, or people who are just plain bored, these links and other updates are gold mines at times, as new rock bands get attention and social projects get more publicity. It is in this way that Facebook is particularly valuable and has the most impact on our culture at large.8 Companies and Facebook Although there is not a hard and fast statistic about the number of companies that have a Facebook presence, there is a statistic that would be helpful in this regard. According to a study done by the PR firm Burson-Marsteller, 79% of the 100 larges companies on the Fortune 500 list use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or corporate blogs to communicate with their customers and shareholders, and, in the United States, 86% of the top 100 companies use at least one social media platform. Moreover, 54% of the top 100 companies have a Facebook fan page, and 59% of these companies post on their Facebook page once a week. 9 There are a number of reasons why companies would desire to use Facebook as a marketing tool. First, it is ubiquitous, in that so many people are using social networking sites. The demographic statistics above bear this out. Second, the social media individuals who like a site or talk about a site are very effective messengers for the marketing message that companies want to create. Third, businesses must be mindful of their online reputation, because this is a critical component of any business marketing strategy, and the firm reputation impacts how much can be sold, what kind of employees can be attracted, and how good are the vendors who are willing to do business with the firm. As Jason Fitzpatrick, a blogger for Lifehacker states, a firm must actively maintain its online reputation, because, if it does not, the search engines will cobble together information to tell the firms story. This can be good or bad. Therefore, it is crucial for a firm to be proactive in maintaining its online identity, because “people rely more and more on search results to help build a picture of you, and you want the picture to be a good one.”10 Beuker & Abbing (2010) state that companies may start and steer conversations about their brands effectively through social media. According to them, 65% of consumers have had a digital experience that positively or negatively changed their mind about a specific brand, and, of these, 97% state that this digital experience impacted whether or not they bought a product or service from this brand.11 An example of this brand management, according to Coon (2010), is Toyota. After its massive recall of their cars, its reputation was sliding. They created a social media response room where six to eight people were monitoring, on a constant basis, what was being said about them on the social media sites, and they responded accordingly. They were proactive and listened, something that many companies failed to do, so they were successful in this strategy. Best Buy has also used the site successfully to get feedback from customers. They asked customers for their favorite vampire movies, and put them all on sale. They also opened up a dialogue and allowed the fans to see the real action taking place. Chase Bank enhanced its brand reputation by asking fans to donate to 100 different charities, thus aligning themselves with charitable giving and building esteem in the fans minds.12 While these are ways that large brands are using Facebook as brand management, smaller companies and brands are also using Facebook to great advantage. They use the network to get established – find new customers, build online communities of fans, and get demographic information. One such small company, according to Coon (2010) is Chris Meyer, a wedding photographer in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area who spent $300 on Facebook ads in two years and generated more than $60,000 in business. Sprinkle cupcake bakery, another small business, relies entirely on social marketing for getting business. Their strategy is posting a password every day which can be redeemed for a free cupcake. 13 Bolotaeva & Cata (2010) further state that, in addition to brand intelligence and marketing opportunities, social networks, such as Facebook, offer other advantages. First, they are cost effective – as of 2009, Facebook charges a $5 minimum daily budget. That said, they state that companies may encounter pitfalls, such as aggressive advertising, the lack of e-commerce abilities, legal issues, lack of brand control, and data mining.14 Perhaps of these pitfalls, the data mining one is the most dangerous, as consumers are wary about giving out personal information because they dont want this personal information to be data mined by the companies on Facebook, for good reason. Therefore, a company must be careful about this. As for success on Facebook, Balwani (2009) states that there are four major ways that a company may have a successful fan page. The first is that they network with other platforms, which means that they work in conjunction with the other platforms, such as their own website, to drive visitors to the page. Second is creating a resource. By this, it means that the successful pages offer information pertinent to their consumers, and this is value-added. Third is by creating contests that require participation. The fourth is by empowering pre-existing pages. For instance, two users who liked Coke created a page for fun, and it became one of the largest product fan pages on Facebook. Coca Cola rewarded the fans by flying them to Atlanta to tour their Coke facility, and did not take over the page. Rather, they empowered the creators of the site, and Coke used this as a marketing tool.15 There are a number of successful Facebook pages, and different people determine the term “success” in different ways. Bullas16 determines the success of a Facebook page by the number of fans. In this regard, Starbucks is the most successful, as it has over 16 million fans. Coca-Cola is second most successful, with just under 16 million fans. Oreo is third, with just under 13 million fans. Skittles is next with just under 12 million fans. This is followed by The Gap at number 5, with just under 11 million fans. Disney is number six with just under 10 million fans. Converse is number seven with around 6.5 million fans. Pringles is next, at number 8, with just under 6.5 million fans. Zara is next at number 9, with just under 6.5 million fans. Ipod is next at number 10, with just under 6 million fans (Bullas). While these are quantative measures for how successful a page is, this is not the only measurement, and others have different ways of gauging the success of a corporate page. William Wee, a blogger for Asia Tech News for the World, states that Facebook pages are successful if they are engage, updated and rewarding.17 To this end, he states that Ben & Jerrys has the most successful page, as they have been creative in creating a Facebook application that allows people to flip their texts upside down, prompting others to ask how the person does that, which leads to Ben and Jerrys site. Pizza Hut is next, as they employ teaser messages to make their fans hungry. Victorias Secret is after this, because the fans love the videos of the sexy models. FML (For My Life) is next, because it has engaging text conversations and videos which are “hilarious.” Itunes is after this, because of their treasures under their Featured tab, where the fans can share a song and receive podcast updates. Starbucks is next, because it talks about its CEO and what he is doing, and this is unique, because no other sites are doing this. Pringles is next because of its humorous video posts. It also allows anybody to review the chips, and these reviews have been, by and large, positive. The Gap is next on his list, because it has a diverse sponsorship from sports, so its sporty image is increased. Coca-Cola is next, because it allows its fans to write on its wall, which makes them feel that their voices are heard. Number 10 on his list is Facebook itself. Porterfield (2010), has her own ideas of the top Facebook pages, as well as her own ideas about why these pages are successful.18 Number one in her book is The Gap. She states that this brand knows their audience and knows how to respond to them. As an example of this, Porterfield notes their online games, which are geared towards sports and high-impact competitions. They also have a web TV program and a welcome tab which encourages fans to like their page with an attention-grabbing image. Number 2 for her is Burts Bees, which is successful because of their use of photos and video, which give a behind-the-scenes view of their company and products. Number 3 is Uno Chicago Grill, because they use appealing imagery to entice their fans with their pizza and their welcome tab links to the most important areas of their website, including locations and online ordering options. Livescribe is number 4, and it is successful because they have created a savvy storefront as one of their tabs which enables you to tweet about the products and post them to the Facebook wall. Toy Story 3 is next, because the page is fun and functional, with their enabling fans to make themselves into an animated toy. Coca Cola is next on her list at number 6, because of their fun, interactive features and innovative promotions. Oreo is next at number 7, because of their use of nostalgia with their campaign asking fans to share their memories and photos on the Oreo Facebook page. Number 8 is Jones Soda, because of its interactivity. Number 9 is the Twilight Saga, because of its discussion tab, where fans of the series can discuss it. Number 10 is the Travel Channel, because they have created a space for their fans to share how Facebook has played a part in their travel experiences, enabling fans to share stories and read other stories.   Part 2 – Brands on Facebook The first thing that should be said is that, originally, two different companies would be examined – Lancome cosmetics and The Gap. This soon changed. First of all, Lancome cosmetics site is nothing more than a website. There are no fans on there discussing anything, and the site is something that might be seen if one goes Lancomes official site. Therefore, Jillian Michaels, who is a trainer on the Biggest Loser, and is a brand unto herself, will be examined instead of Lancome Cosmetics. Therefore, the decision was made to actually analyze sites which are known to be popular, and find out why this is. Therefore, the sites which will be analyzed are Jillian Michaels and The Gap. These are both products which have made virtually all the lists above for successful pages, and Jillian Michaels will have a high emotional involvement, due to the fact that she was a controversial trainer on The Biggest Loser, a popular reality television program, and people either love her or hate her. Since she is a brand unto herself, with fitness videos and product endorsements, this is an appropriate brand to examine. The Gap will probably also have a high emotional involvement, because the fans of The Gap probably have both sentimental and current emotions associated with the brand, due to its ubiquitous nature and the fact that it has been around a long time. One could imagine that many of the members of Facebook got their back to school clothes there when they first started kindergarten, and the current ads that are on television and in print adds to the emotional involvement with their emphasis on philanthropy. Each also has a high cognitive component, as each engages the audience to think about their brand and products, and each promotes a great deal of interest in their products. The Gap site has almost 2,000,000 likes. On its wall, it has postings about their different collections which are in the stores, as well as postings about a mix CD that they are currently promoting. The fans post under the postings, but they do not interact with fans, in that they do not reply to what the fans are saying. This is a missed opportunity. Also, they have postings about a parties that they are throwing in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. A video by a child singing about Sugar and some ads about giving away a $500 gift card rounds out their wall postings. That said, The Gap is missing opportunities with their wall. For one, it would be helpful if they would interact with what fans are saying – for instance, one particular outfit featured generated many negative comments, such as “her legs look cold” and “this outfit is a trainwreck,” etc. If The Gap realizes that some of their looks are generating more negative comments than positive ones, then they should interact and tell the fans why they believe it to be fashionable, etc. Or, even better, they should heed the feedback and pull the look off their wall and focus on something that gets more positive responses. Another major missed opportunity is that The Gap does not advertise any social causes to which it belongs. Last year at this time The Gap was running print ads that focused on young philanthropists who looked hip in The Gap clothing. This is something that The Gap apparently wants to be associated with – social causes. Yet none of their postings, except one little posting about The Gap giving blankets to the LA homeless, focus upon any social causes. The entire page makes The Gap look like just another soulless corporate entity who is only concerned about fashion and making people look good. That is fine, but Facebook attracts younger people who might be involved in social causes, and would like to see that their favorite clothing store is as well. Plus, there are a lot of clothing stores out there which are pretty much interchangeable with The Gap – why not set itself apart from the others by showing that they care? The other site was Jillian Michaels, who was a trainer on The Biggest Loser, and is considered to be a brand because of her fitness videos, books, endorsements and the like. As with The Gap, it appears that anybody can post on her site, not just fans. This site is a little different then a corporate site, because it is one person, as opposed to a large company. She has just over 1 million “likes.” Her communication to her fans is different from that of The Gap, because it is more personal. Where The Gaps post consists of videos and advertisements for clothing, Jillian Michaels posts news and videos, but these are the news and videos which are personal to her, in that they are what she is passionate about. She also has videos regarding concerts that she has gone to and the like, as well as jokes that likes. Which is not to say that she does not do promotion for herself – she does. She announced a new workout video, as well as a link to her podcast. She also made the announcement that her podcast was named the “Best New Podcast of 2011,” and gave thanks to her fans for making this possible. She also gives words of advice, regarding diet and fitness, as well as motivational words which means things to her. Her communication style to her fans is extremely informal – for instance, she posted a video of a concert that she went to, and simply said “Kanye and Jay-Z – Sick!” Sick, of course, is slang for awesome or great. She gives news and updates about herself, like the fact that she is making a commercial with Danica Patrick for the Super Bowl, much like last year. She also is sly about giving nutritional tips that would lead her fans to a cookbook that she has out – for instance, she was talking about swaps to make for food, and mentioned that she has a great brownie recipe in her book. That said, there is not interaction with her fans, per se, as she does not post in her own posts along with the fans. Rather, she leads off the posts, and her fans post under it. This is the same with The Gap. That said, Jillian and The Gap both have thousands of likes for some of their posts, and the comments are up to 400 for both, depending on the post. Therefore, each of the sites are active, in that people are evidently visiting the sites to like certain posts and so forth, and they are also bothering to leave comments on both sites. This gives the overall impression that these sites are well-trafficked, which is a good thing.   Part 3 – Evaluation the performance of brands and their strengths and weaknesses. There are strengths and weaknesses to the two sites that were visited and expounded upon. The main strength of The Gap is that it gets to showcase its clothing to the youthful portion of Facebook who probably has strong emotional connections to the brand. The weakness is that it does not capitalize upon its philanthropic efforts to make their fans know that they are not just a soulless corporate entity. In this climate of Occupy Wall Street, where corporations are sometimes looked at as The Man and as enemies, it would do well for The Gap to make itself seem like it cares about people and animals. The weakness of both sites is there lack of interaction with their fans. Both sites post something, and fans comment, but neither Jillian Michaels nor The Gap actually interacts with their fans, in that they do not put their comments in under the original comment. It would be helpful if they would reply to something that a fan says, either good or bad, but especially bad. A good example of this is when Jillian posted, about a year ago, that she was going to be training her “monkeys,” meaning her contestants on the show. She did not mean harm by this, and it is something that she uses as a term of endearment. Her fans, however, not having much of a sense of humor, berated her for this, and she did not stick up for herself in the comment string. This is something that should have been dealt with. Therefore, a site would do well to monitor what fans are saying, much like Toyota did after the recalls, and answer back when fans post negative things about the brand. This would make the brands more successful. Jillians strength is her informal postings to her fans. It shows that she is one of them, and it adds to her brand. Her fans can see that she struggles too, as she posts about this, and her words of inspiration are another major strength. The other strength is that she is able to embed publicity for her products in her posts, such as when she made a post about making swaps for food, then put in that she has a great recipe for a brownie in her book. This gets fans thinking that they should do some swaps, then gets them thinking that they need to buy her book to find out her great swap recipes. This is very successful as well. Both sites have much to recommend corporations. Jillian has an excellent way to keep people coming back to her site, because she is always making posts which would be very interesting to fans, both cognitively and emotionally. The cognitive posts are the ones where fans can see different pieces of advice regarding food. The emotional posts are the words of wisdom that she posts. Therefore, they are provocative, and it increases traffic to her site. The Gap showcases its clothing quite well, and gives fans an opportunity to comment, which makes them feel included. Furthermore, companies should interact more with their fans than either The Gap or Jillian does.   Bibliography Balwani, S. (2009) 5 elements of a successful Facebook fan page. Doi: http://mashable.com/2009/03/30/successful-facebook-fan-page/   Beuker, R. & Abbing, E. (2010) Two faces of social media: brand communication and brand research. Design Management Review 21.1: 54-60.   Bolotaeva, V. & Cata, T. (2010) Marketing opportunities with social networks. Journal of Internet Social Networking and Virtual Communities. Doi: 10.517/2010.109111   Bosker, B. (2011) The average Facebook users: Stats show how we use the site. The Huffington Post.com. doi: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/19/the-average- facebook-user_n_1102902.html   Bulla, J. (2010) The worlds 10 most popular company Facebook pages. Jeffbullas blog. Doi: http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/11/04/the-worlds-10-most-popular-company-facebook- pages/   Coon, M. (2010) Social media marketing: Successful case studies of businesses using Facebook and YouTube with an in-depth look into the business use of Twitter. doi: http://comm.stanford.edu/coterm/projects/2010/maddy%20coon.pdf   Facebook statistics, stats and facts for 2010. Digital Buzz Blog (2011) doi: http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/facebook-statistics-facts-figures-for-2010/   Facebook statistics, stats and facts for 2011. Digital Buzz Blog (2011) doi: http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/facebook-statistics-stats-facts-2011/   Packer, R. (2011) Social media marketing: The art of conversational sales. WSI. Doi: http://www.wsimarketbuilders.com/socialmediamarketingwhitepaper.pdf   Porterfield, A. (2011) 10 top Facebook pages and why theyre successful. Social Media Examiner.com. doi: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/top-10-facebook-pages/    Thompson, C. (2008) “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy.” The New York Times New York ed.: MM42   Wee, W. (2008) 10 successful Facebook business pages. Asia Tech News for the World. doi: http://www.penn-olson.com/?p=871 Table of Contents Users and Facebook………………………………………………………………………………………1 Companies and Facebook……………………………………………………………………………..4 Brands on Facebook……………………………………………………………………………………….10 Evaluation the performance of brands and their strengths and weaknesses…………………..13 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………15           Read More