One of the major alterations
among the individuals communication is the proliferation of social networking
websites. The rapid growth in web technologies has significantly changed the
human activities and interactions: the real world relationships between
individuals have moved to virtual platforms. It also has changed the important
dynamics at the marketplace: customers are hard to impact and persuade
(Pinheiro et al., 2014; Constantinides, 2014).
In today‘s world managers have to
consider those changes in communication and new dynamics at the marketplace.
The improvement in social media and web technologies offers lots of
opportunities and threats to managers (Berthon et al., 2012).
At this
section, this new communication channel is discussed with its opportunities and
threats.
Definition of Social Media Marketing
Since social media has become one
of the famous communication tools, many scholars have been attracted to study
at this field. Due to this fact, there are many social media definitions at the
marketing literature. At this study, the prominent definitions of social media
are given. After the description of social media, it is appropriate to explain
social media marketing concept.
Social media –
in other word consumer-generated media- is described as following:
―A variety of new sources of
online information that are created, initiated, circulated and used by
consumers intent on educating each other about products, brands, services,
personalities, and issues‖ (Blackshaw, Nazzaro, 2004, pg 2).
According to this definition,
social media includes online tools which provide to create, share information
among consumers about a product, a service or a brand. Moreover, interactivity
among consumers via social media tools causes word-of-mouth activities. The
definition doesn‘t include the social media tools in detailed, just gives a
clue about the marketing activity.
Social media can also be defined
as following:
―Social media
describes online resources that people use to share ‗content‘: video, photos,
images, text, ideas, insight, humor, opinion, gossip, news — the list goes on.
These resources include blogs, vlogs, social networks, message boards,
podcasts, public bookmarking and wikis. Popular examples of social media
applications include
Flickr (online photosharing); Wikipedia
(reference); Bebo, Facebook and MySpace
(networking); del.icio.us
(bookmarking) and World of Warcraft (online gaming)‖ (Durry, 2008, pg. 274).
According to definition,
individuals can share content such as videos, photos, texts, ideas, news
through the various social media tools like Facebook, Myspace, and Wikipedia
etc.
Bernhardt et al. made another
definition on social media concept:
―Electronic communication
channels such as social networking web sites, blogs, chat rooms, discussion
boards, and customer service rating web sites, all of which can provide ample
opportunities for two-way communication between marketers and consumers‖
(Bernhardt et al., 2012, pg. 132).
Social media
contains a broad online, WOM forums including blogs, company sponsored
discussion boards and chat rooms, consumer to consumer e-mail, consumer product
or service ratings websites and forums, Internet discussion boards and forums,
moblogs (sites containing digital audio, images, movies, or photographs) and
social networking websites (Mangold, Faulds, 2009).
According to the literature,
social media can be defined as: a set of online tools –web sites, social
networks, blogs, chat rooms, discussion boards, forums, vbolgs, moblogs- which
provide interactive communication between marketers and the consumers or
consumers to consumers about products, services and brands by creating content.
Marketers conduct their promotion
activities via these social media tools. Social media marketing can be
described as implementing IMC (Integrated marketing communications) strategies
via the social media tools (Mangold, Faulds, 2009).
Tuten (2009) is also defined social media marketing:
―Social-media marketing is a form
of online advertising that uses the cultural context of social communities,
including social Networks (e.g., YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook), virtual
worlds (e.g., Second Life, There, and Kaneva), social news sites (e.g., Digg
and del.icio.us), and social opinion sharing sites (e.g., Epinions), to meet
branding and communication objectives‖ (Tuten, 2009, pg 19).
Based
on literature social media marketing can be defined as following:
developing an advertising
campaign through the social media channels about a product, service or brand
towards the target audiences.
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