This is a findings and analysis chapter of a MSc Digital Marketing degree Dissertation by Maria Jose Serres.
The purpose of the dissertation was to investigate to what extent companies are using Social Media within their digital communities.
I also had the opportunity to examine in what ways the company's culture has been affected since it adopted Social Media and to what extent Social Media is allowing companies to deliver value to their Communities, as measured by their own objectives.
Many companies adopted Social Media, but not all of them are now obtaining the results they expected at first. Mistakes are related to misunderstanding and lack of strategy.
The organisations that are succeeding have many characteristics in common that are related to the companies’ values and changes in the culture.
This document contains the findings of my research.
In case you want the details of the data obtained from experts or the discussion of the implications I created, please contact by email.
You can use the information contained in this document, please include a copyright notice and the name of the writer when you do it.
Maria Jose Serres
MSc Digital Marketing
Southampton University
2010 -2011
@mjserres
2. MSc Digital Marketing Dissertation Findings
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of the dissertation was to investigate to what extent companies
are using Social Media within their digital communities.
I also had the opportunity to examine in what ways the company's culture has
been affected since it adopted Social Media and to what extent Social Media is
allowing companies to deliver value to their Communities, as measured by their
own objectives.
Many companies adopted Social Media, but not all of them are now obtaining
the results they expected at first. Mistakes are related to misunderstanding and
lack of strategy.
The organisations that are succeeding have many characteristics in common
that are related to the companies’ values and changes in the culture.
This document contains the findings of my research.
In case you want the details of the data obtained from experts or the discussion
of the implications I created, please contact by email.
You can use the information contained in this document, please include a
copyright notice and the name of the writer when you do it.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
..................................................................................................................................................
2
The
research
process
.................................................................................................................................
3
Social
Media
Experts
...................................................................................................................................
4
List
of
Social
Media
Experts
.................................................................................................................................
5
Findings
......................................................................................................................................................................
6
Case
Studies
................................................................................................................................................
16
Case
Study
1:
Dell
.................................................................................................................................................
18
Case
Study
2:
Starbucks
.....................................................................................................................................
19
Case
Study
3:
Giffgaff
..........................................................................................................................................
20
Case
Study
4:
Zappos
..........................................................................................................................................
21
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3. MSc Digital Marketing Dissertation Findings
THE RESEARCH PROCESS
I started this dissertation with the literature review, which contained the
research I did from books, articles, journals, commercial research and other
dissertations to obtain a wide view of the market and understand trends.
Then, I have contrasted my findings with your points of view, people who work
as consultants or in some way help companies to get involved with the best and
correct use of Social Media tools to be applied in their communities.
Finally, I have tried to understand how companies, that are delivering value on
their digital communities with Social Media, are using these tools.
Four companies from the top 10 Social Brands 100 Ranking was selected on the
basis of their successful use of Social Media and compared with the previous
findings and opinions.
As a result, I have created a framework with recommendations based on the
knowledge acquired and examples obtained.
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4. MSc Digital Marketing Dissertation Findings
SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERTS
I’m very grateful that I obtained more expert’s opinions than I expected and
the quality of those opinions was priceless for my research.
These experts were interviewed through a qualitative questionnaire and semi-
structured interviews. Finally, 42 experts contributed with their point of view
about the way companies are using social media and how the company culture
is affected, amongst other topics. Great insight was gained through the
interviews, specially the barriers that organisations are normally facing.
These opinions are summarised, compared and analysed in the this document.
1. Social Media Experts that collaborated with this dissertation
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LIST OF SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERTS
These are the experts that contributed. The highlighted were also interviewed.
Location Twitter username Complete Name
United Kingdom @abigailh Abigail Harrison thebluedoor Managing Director
United States @adamzawel Adam Zawel Director, Communities, Palladium Group
United States @AliJLamb Ali Lamb Social Media Strategist at The Marketing
Zen Group
United States @alliemiami Allison Semancik Online Marketing Consultant & Founder at
Idea Sprouts
United States @andreavahl Andrea Vahl Author of the Facebook Marketing for
Dummies All-in-One
Chile @andressilvaa Andrés Silva SMM Senior Consultant at
Arancibia Gmgroup
United Kingdom @andrewgrill Andrew Grill CEO PeopleBrowsr UK
United Kingdom @gandy Andy Gibson Founder and Director, Sociability
United States @barbaraanne123 Barbara Steinberg Owner at Barbara's Dreams
Uruguay @danielcarranza Daniel Carranza Editor at TanConectados.com
United Kingdom @dmhprior David Prior Head of Digital Marketing, Delineo
United States @wilsonellis Debra Ellis President at Wilson & Ellis Consulting
United Kingdom @eileenb Eileen Brown CEO at Amastra Ltd.
Spain @edans Enrique Dans Professor IE Business School
United States @equalman Erik Qualman Author of Socialnomics
United Kingdom @guy1067 Guy Stephens Capgemini, Social Media Consultant
United Kingdom @jas Jas Dhaliwal Head of Communities of AVG
United States @JasonFalls Jason Falls Social Media Explorer/Principal
United Kingdom @jedhallam Jed Hallam Communities director, VCCP Share,
jedhallam.com/blog
United States @jeffsheehan Jeff Sheehan Sheehan Marketing Strategies
United Kingdom @socialvation Jon Holloway Digital Director @ The Works Sydney
United Kingdom @juliusduncan Julius Duncan Senior Consultant - Headstream
United States @socialkwan Kwan Morrow Digital Relations - @SocialKwan
United States @thelaurenklein Lauren Klein CEO at Executive Networks
United States @lizstrauss Liz Strauss Web Strategist, Corporate trainer Inside-
Out Thinking
United States @lonsafko Lon Safko CEO at Innovative Thinking, Author of the
Social Media Bible
United Kingdom @communisage Mike Cowburn Managing Director at Communisage Ltd
United States @mrowland602 Mike Rowland President of Impact Interactions
Canada @mitchjoel Mitch Joel President at Twist Image
United Kingdom @moelnadi Mo Elnadi Head of Social Media Strategy
United Kingdom @prospereau Orhan Ertughrul Enjenta, Managing Director
Uruguay @pablobuela Pablo Buela Director, PIMOD
United States @PatrickStrother Patrick Strother Founder, Chief Creative Officer at SCGRP
United States @rhappe Rachel Happe Co-Founder, The Community Roundtable
Canada @RandallCraig Randall Craig President, Pinetree Advisors
United Kingdom @raxlakhani Rax Lakhani Freelance Social Media & PR Consultant
United Kingdom @renepower Rene Power Management Team (digital strategy) at
Barrett Dixon Bell
United States @shama Shama Kabani CEO at The Marketing Zen Group
United States @stephaniec2c Stephanie Cross VP of Client Relations for The Marketing
Zen Group
United States @tamar Tamar Weinberg Community Support, and Project Manager
at Mashable
Canada @tyrellmara Tyrell Mara Digital Marketing Strategy at Tekara
United States @vdimauro Vanessa DiMauro CEO, Leader Networks
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FINDINGS
According to the experts’ opinions, between 25% and 75% companies use
Social Media. The size and type of organisation (small, medium or large;
Fortune 500, non-profit, one-person company, from heavily regulated sectors,
etc.) are not indicative of the use of Social Media and examples of good practice
can be found everywhere, as some experts highlighted.
2. Percentage of the companies that are using Social Media
The reasons for adopting Social Media are many, but the majority of the writers
and consultants agreed that most of the companies are adopting Social Media
because they are following a trend or trying to create a competitive advantage.
3. Summary of the reasons to adopt Social Media
The opinions that were grouped under “Advantage” are the ones that show that
Social Media is helping business to go further: creating a competitive
advantage, following competitors, generating revenue or leading generation,
getting new customers and engaging with them.
Those who are following a Trend not only desire to be there because everybody
is adopting social media, but also fear not doing it. They need to be there to be
perceived as good and also to avoid the uncertainty and doubt of traditional
media.
With “Improve” I grouped the opinions that I consider show businesses that
want to improve what they are doing right now, like giving better customer
service, brand awareness and wanting to use Social Media as a new
communication channel.
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7. MSc Digital Marketing Dissertation Findings
The last category, Economic, collates issues that I thought it could be important
in order to adopt Social Media in an economic crisis, with changes in the market
and economic cuts. However, experts expressed that these are not the most
important reasons for getting involved in Social.
According to the experts, the reasons why organisations want to contact their
communities are not very different from the ones to use Social Media.
On the one hand, branding, prospects conversion and communication channels
are the main objectives for being in contact with their community. On the other
hand, most companies are not taking advantage of the community to innovate
and carry out market research. This tendency is also reproduced in the Case
Studies.
“Consumers take control of your brand; and if done right this is a
beautiful thing.” Erik Qualman, Author of Socialnomics
4. Companies’ objectives to contact their communities
Experts were asked about the tools companies use today, with the objective of
understanding why they have chosen those specific ones and not others.
There is general agreement that Facebook and Twitter are the preferred tools,
and that more specific ones such as location based, bookmarking, etc. are less
used.
(The numbers inside the boxes show the number of experts that agreed)
5. Summary of the preferred tools chosen by companies
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It’s interesting to see that trend is one of the main reasons for choice of tools,
according to expert opinion, but companies are also aware that these are the
tools their community members (or the target they want to reach) are currently
using.
6. Motives behind the tools selection
At the time to measure effectiveness, Jas Dhaliwal, Head of Communities at
AVG, states, “There is no easy answer as many businesses are different and
look for different things.”
Abigail Harrison, The Blue Door Managing Director, considers that Social Media
provides different opportunities for measuring effectiveness, but there are some
unreal measures of influence online with “self-fulfilling prophecies” as she said,
therefore online measurement provides huge challenges for companies.
Most of the experts interviewed agreed that the way companies measure their
efforts is through vanity metrics (likes, fans, etc.). These are superficial metrics
compared with the ones closer to revenue sources.
7. Social Media measuring techniques
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9. MSc Digital Marketing Dissertation Findings
“Pointless measures revealing the little understanding they have of the
social web. Short-sighted strategies or no strategy at all” Enrique Dans, IE
Business School Professor
Experts’ opinions show that most of the companies found Social Media efforts
difficult to measure. As Liz Strauss, Web Strategist, Corporate trainer Inside-
Out Thinking / SOBCon stated, three problems come together when measuring
Social Media efforts:
1. Often companies are trying to measure the wrong things, because they
don't understand the culture.
2. The tools are still evolving and no clear agreement exist on terms and
definitions of what constitute clear measures.
3. The best tools available are enterprise level, quite expensive, and
require some understanding to use well.
When experts were asked about how good organisations on this topic are, there
was a general agreement that most of the companies are not competent on
measuring their efforts.
8. How competent are companies measuring effectiveness
“We are still in the early days of measuring effectiveness” Guy Stephens,
Social Media Consultant at Capgemini
Many interviewees agreed that just a minority of companies they know have a
business objective behind metrics therefore many get discouraged when they
do not see how or even if Social Media is affecting their sales.
They also come to an agreement that Social Media is very time-consuming and
difficult to understand for companies while many marketers don’t even believe
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10. MSc Digital Marketing Dissertation Findings
they can get anything to measure. Vanity metrics are easy to see and compare,
this is one of the main reasons why organisations use them.
“Some measures are too intangible” David Prior, Head of Digital Marketing at Delineo
Lack of measurement and confusing vanity metrics with engagement are two of
the most usual mistakes companies are making with Social Media, but there are
many more as the experts declared.
According to their opinions, the main errors are associated with the absence of
strategy and engagement with the audience.
A word cloud was created with all the experts’ opinions, showing that the bigger
the font, the more concept coincidences that were found.
(The biggest the font, the more opinions that matches to each concept)
9. Word Cloud- all the experts’ opinions about company’s mistakes.
It can be seen that lack of strategy and understanding as well as the lack of
engaging, listening and conversation creation are the most common opinions.
However, there are many opinions that are relevant and perhaps I can loose
important insight.
Therefore, all these opinions were grouped under the categories created in the
literature review in order to facilitate the comparison.
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11. MSc Digital Marketing Dissertation Findings
10. Mistakes categories created on the literature review
Then, I weighting each category by the amount of answers obtained from the
experts that match each category.
It is interesting to see how the previous graphic changes contrasting the
relevance of each mistakes category and it also reveals insight that was not
shown on the word cloud.
(Sizes represent the amount of opinions per category)
11. Mistakes categorised and weighted
“What if someone says something mean? - Address it” Lon Safko, Author of The
Social Media Bible
As some experts expressed that “fear of what might go wrong” is one of the
common mistakes companies make, Lon Safko, author of “The Social Media
Bible” was interviewed specifically about that topic. He advised many
companies to be transparent and talk about the issues that bother them as the
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12. MSc Digital Marketing Dissertation Findings
conversations are going to take place, whether they face it or not. When
companies followed his advice, the fear level came way down and they start to
understand they could talk about those issues. The examples he mentioned
where:
Capri Sun Apple Juice by Kraft Foods – One bag got
punctured and got black mold in it and a child drunk it and
got ill. Safko inspired them to explain that was not their
fault; it was the retailer who punctured the bag.
https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=46580091974
4
People at Campbell were terrified because everybody was
criticising them up because gluten is in every one of their products
and gluten can make people really ill. But they cannot take the
gluten out of their products. Safko recommended them to address
this fact and explain why gluten is in there, why they cannot just
take it out and use alternative products.
http://campbellsoup.ca/en/products/health.asp?label=glutenfree
Merck Pharmaceuticals had a problem with Thimerosal, a mercury-
based preservative present in childhood vaccines. Many people
thought that it was causing an increase in autism. Safko
recommended an open approach not waiting for the discussions to
happen, but to publish the studies and reports and have
conversations on the subject.
http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/VaccineSaf
ety/UCM096228
According to Safko, big and small companies face the same problem and the
solution is to face it, but with a strategy and a means of delivering value.
But value is not easily identified and delivered as the Social Media Experts’
opinions showed. Specifically two of the interviewees stated that companies
are not delivering value at all.
In the literature review, seven ways to deliver value were found. These were
exposed to both experts and the companies examined to obtained their
opinions about it. These concepts were displayed graphically, all of them with
the same size to show the same importance.
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13. MSc Digital Marketing Dissertation Findings
12. Seven ways to deliver value
The experts suggested that the organisations that best understand the concept,
deliver value mainly as rich content and by creating relationships and
conversations within their community, recognising that being helpful with the
community has its rewards.
The same seven ways to deliver value have now different sizes, reflecting the
importance of each way, as expressed by the experts’:
13. Seven ways to deliver value weighted by the amount of opinions
The ways organisations are delivering value and understanding mistakes are
also part of the characteristics that allows them to succeed with Social Media,
as can be seen in the responses obtained.
Most of the experts interviewed agreed that having a clear strategy, goals and a
purpose is the main factor influencing success of a company with Social Media.
They also state that the strategy has to be aligned with the company plan and
integrated with a traditional marketing strategy and traditional tools. This
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14. MSc Digital Marketing Dissertation Findings
strategy should allow the company to be open, transparent and genuine but a
cultural mind-set and understanding of Social Media is required as well as an
understanding of how communities behave in order to get o it right.
“Social media isn't a means to further a corporation's strategy; it's a
means to help determine it” Manish MehtaVice President, Social Media and Community, Dell
Inc.
It is very clear that recovering from some of the mistakes previously described
or even managing not to make them constitutes one of the greatest strengths
that allows companies to succeed with Social Media.
Experts were asked about their opinion about what are the characteristics that
companies have that allow them to succeed on Social Media. A word cloud was
created with all these opinions that shows coincidences by the font size.
14. Characteristics that allow companies to succeed on Social Media
It is clear the have a Social Media Strategy, to be open, authentic and
transparent as well as to be committed, willing to engage and create value
content are the most frequent characteristics that allow companies to succeed
on Social Media.
People as well as a budget should be assigned to manage this strategy, but as
many experts expressed, most of the employees have to be involved and the
board of directors should be committed with it.
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15. MSc Digital Marketing Dissertation Findings
It is interesting to see that the characteristics that allowed companies to
succeed with Social Media are also connected with changes in the culture of an
organisation, as can be seen in the experts’ answers that were impacted on a
word cloud:
15. How Social Media positively impacted on the company’s culture
From the graphic it can be seen that the most common changes on company’s
culture that Social Media generated were to be more collaborative, open and
transparent in addition to more aware to customer relationships.
However, not all the companies that have become involved with Social Media
have experienced those changes.
“It hasn't yet, but it will, the social business is not far from being the
norm.” Jon Holloway, Digital Director @ The Works Sydney
Moreover, most of the experts agreed with Holloway expressing that the culture
has not changed since Social Media was adopted. And also there are many
negative implications as it can be seen in this graphic:
16. Negative implications of Social Media adoption
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CASE STUDIES
As was previously mentioned in the methodology chapter, companies from the
Social Brands 100 Ranking (Buckley, Sponder & Welch, 2011) were selected to
gain an understanding about their use of Social Media to reach their
communities. The findings were then compared with the literature review and
the opinions of the experts’
This ranking was chosen because many of the principles identified in the
literature review helped to identify successful companies using Social Media.
The principles centred around engagement, conversation and transparency.
“A social brand is measured by its ability to engage with a connected
people by demonstrating three important social principles, consistently
and intrinsically, in all it does" Chris Buckley, Head of Consulting of Headstream
The Social Media 100 ranking elaborated by Headstream is a list of 100
companies that were selected by people’s opinion over a Twitter nomination.
Headstream considers that a social brand consists of its ability to comply with a
set of social principles:
1. To listen and respond to what people care about
2. To demonstrate appropriate social behaviours that remain compelling, true, authentic
and transparent
3. To have the ability to create and sustain a win-win relationship with others.
They measured these principles on the visible effects of a brand’s social intent
in three phases.
The first phase, they examined the brand’s behaviour based on ease with which
people could manage, join and start conversations:
• Their ability to start conversations
• The engaging quality of the content they created and shared
• The brand’s responsiveness to comments or questions from the community
Then they used a data analytics tool (Brandwatch) to score each brand based
on the number of times the brand was mentioned on discussion sites as well as
the brand’s interactions and conversations.
Finally, a multidisciplinary expert panel reflected on their industry expertise
around a brand’s social activities to score each brand (Buckley, Sponder &
Welch, 2011).
Only the ones that had contacts who could spare the time to share information
were selected.
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17. MSc Digital Marketing Dissertation Findings
Four case studies were analysed:
Multinational technology company that sell and support a wide
range of product on many categories, including desktop PCs,
servers and networking products, storage, software and
peripherals, and services.
Multinational retailer, roaster, and brand of specialty coffee
company with focus on the customer experience, adopting the
concept of “third place”.
British "community-run" mobile phone company, which rewards its
customers to spread the word about it and give support to their
peers.
American online retailer of shoes, handbags, clothing, eyewear,
jewellery, luggage, accessories and electronics over 1100
brands. They are centred on customer service and spending
more on it than advertising.
The information obtained from contacts was complemented with a little
research about of each company through articles in order to understand their
strategy, their culture and how they behave with Social Media.
The combined information was summarised and presented in the next session,
in a clear and easy to compare structure.
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CASE STUDY 1: DELL
Social Brand 100 ranking Scores
Rank Social Brand Social Engagement Panel
1 53.10 14.60 38.50
Community
Started in: 1984
Objectives to • Understand customer needs Category: Technology
contact the • Branding CEO: Michael Dell
community • Support (@michaeldell)
• Customer Service Great at: Innovation
• Maintain Customers Headquarters: United States
• Communication Channel
• Improve Customer Satisfaction Social Media Tools used:
Deliver Value • 24/7 support in different languages
by • Promoting Collaboration
• Delivering rich content
• Creating relationships
• Sharing knowledge in both directions
• Being helpful with the community Were chosen because:
• Looking for insights • Communities' members
are using these tools
Social Media • Create Strong Social
Started using February 2006 after “Dell Hell” incident Presence
it:
Use Reasons: • Listen& engage with customers
• Track online conversations all over the world to find patterns and promote
conversations
• Help customers to tell their stories
• Real-time Measuring
• Amplifies and accelerates word-of-mouth
Objectives: • Create a good brand presence on Social Media
• Generate meaningful content for customers
• Increase connections with customers on Social Media
• Tighter integration between Dell Community sites with Social Media presence
• Scaling support of Social Media initiatives into the Dell business units
Measuring: • Amount of customer insights that drive innovation on Dell’s products
• Efficiency on marketing expenditure
• Customer lifecycle value: loyalty and recurring investments
• Costs savings on support interactions
Culture
Company: • Focus on customers
Changes since • Code of Conduct to instruct employees how to behave on Social Media
Social Media • Social Media Listening Command Centre
was • Employees scattered all over the world are listening, monitoring and actively
introduced: participating.
• Board of directors are involved with Social Media
• More than 1,000 employees got formal training on Social Media
• Any employee is accountable for the information they share
They Succeed • Passionate social listeners
on Social • Social Media University
Media • Turn customers into brand advocates
because: • Dell Executives are social
• Community active and involved
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CASE STUDY 2: STARBUCKS
Social Brand 100 ranking Scores
Rank Social Brand Social Engagement Panel
3 51.10 12.60 38.50
Community
Objectives to • Maintain Customers
contact the • Communication Channel
community • Improve Customer Satisfaction
Started in: 1971
• Co-Creation
Category: Coffee
Deliver Value • Promote Collaboration
by • Deliver rich content CEO: Howard
• Create relationships Schultz
• Share knowledge in both directions Great at: Customer
• Be helpful with the community Experience
• Look for insights Headquarters: United
States
Social Media
Started using • 2007 Globally, 2009 in United Kingdom
it: Social Media Tools Used:
Use Reasons: • To build meaningful relationships
Objectives: • Promotes Co-Creation through “My Were chosen because:
Starbucks Idea” • Community members are
using that tool/these
tools.
Measuring: • Likes / Fans / Friends / Followers / Re-tweets / Visitors / Posts, Conversations /
Engagement / Influence
Culture
Company: • Focus on customer experience, the third place between work and home
(Starbucks, 2011)
• Mission Statement: To inspire and nurture the human spirit - One person, One
cup, and One Neighbourhood at a time. (Shearing, 2010)
Changes since • Focus more on relationships than traditional marketing.
Social Media
was
introduced:
They Succeed • Have willingness to take smart risks.
on Social Media • Understanding throughout the business of the importance of these relationships.
because: • Drive to deliver the best customer experience possible.
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20. MSc Digital Marketing Dissertation Findings
CASE STUDY 3: GIFFGAFF
Social Brand 100 ranking Scores
Rank Social Brand Social Engagement Panel
4 50.60 15.60 35.00
Community Started in: 2009
Category: Mobile phone
Objectives to “Community is central to Giffgaff's business”
contact the • Branding CEO: Mike Fairman
community • Prospects Conversion (@mikefairman)
• Support Great at: Crowd-sourcing
• Maintain Customers customer
• Communication Channel service
• Improve Customer Satisfaction
Headquarters: United Kingdom
• The aim of interacting with it is to give what
customers want, a voice and a real form of
interaction with the business. Social Media Tools used:
Deliver Value • Promote Collaboration
by • Deliver rich content
• Generate conversations
• Create relationships
• Share knowledge in both directions Were chosen because:
• Be helpful with the community • Communities' members
• Look for insights are using these tools
• Easiest ones to manage
Social Media
Started using From launch2009 – Social Media was part of the customer service strategy
it:
Use Reasons: • Create a Competitive Advantage
• Promote Changes in the Market
• Deliver a Better Customer Service
• Social Media enables real dialogue and two-way communication, which genuinely
involves customers in business decisions and business functions.
Objectives: • Create real and meaningful engagement for those customers who want to get
involved
• Allows customers to help others as in many cases they know more about an issue
that the staff
Measuring: • Likes / Fans / Friends / Followers / Re-tweets / Visitors / Posts
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• They think trying to attribute ROI to Social Media is a mistake
Culture
Company: • They want to create real and meaningful engagement for those customers who
want to get involved.
Social Media: • Fully integrated in the company’s culture, an integral part of the company from the
start
They Succeed • Authentic voice. Participating as real people and not as a 'branded' voice
on Social • Honesty in content. Sharing real information, admitting mistakes
Media • Speed of response. Picking things up and responding very quickly (inside 20
because: minutes)
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21. MSc Digital Marketing Dissertation Findings
CASE STUDY 4: ZAPPOS
Social Brand 100 ranking Scores
Rank Social Brand Social Engagement Panel
6 48.70 10.20 38.50
Community
Started in: 1999
Objectives to • Branding
Category: Online Retail
contact the • Support
community • Maintain Customers CEO: Tony Hsieh
• Communication Channel (@zappos)
• Improve Customer Satisfaction Great at: Customer
Service
Deliver Value • Promoting Collaboration
by • Delivering rich content Headquarters: United States
• Creating relationships
• Sharing knowledge in both directions
• Being helpful with the community Social Media Tools used:
• Looking for insights
Social Media
Were chosen because:
Started using 2006 – previously use only forums & phone • Communities' members
it: are using these tools
Use Reasons: • To provide Better Customer Service • Easiest ones to manage
• Listen and Engage • Most known /trendy
• Because is Trendy tools at the moment
Objectives: • Give the best customer experience ever
• Drive awareness and engagement by providing useful, engaging content that
showcases the Zappos Family culture, top-notch service, breadth of product, and
impactful community efforts while supporting brand marketing campaigns
Measuring: • Conversations/ Engagement/ Influence
• Likes / Fans / Friends / Followers / Re-tweets / Visitors / Posts
Culture
Company: • 10 core values: from WOW service to Be humble
• Hire people consistent with this culture of service
• Open
• Transparent
• Easy to engage
• Conversations creators
Changes since • Most of the employees have Twitter accounts
Social Media • Staff is exposed on Social Media initiatives, showing the company is real
was • The CEO leads by example he communicates about his passions on Social Media
introduced:
They Succeed • They have Human voice
on Social • Their culture
Media • Top-notch service level
because: • Customer service representatives watching Twitter 24/7
• Being proactive and building relationships
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