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Social Media - Integrate It and Perform Better?

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Social Media - Integrate It and Perform Better? Social media - Integrate it and perform better? Authors: Gabriel Modéus Tutor: Dr. Martin Amstéus Roger Blomkvist Examiner: Prof. Mosad Zineldin Business Administration and Economics Programme (Civilekonomprogrammet) Subject: Business Administration, Marketing Level and semester: Degree project in Marketing, the Business Administration and Economics Programme, 30 credits, Spring 2013 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT We wrote this thesis between the 21st of January and the 30th May 2013, at Linnaeus University, Campus Växjö. During this time we have received a lot of extremely appreciated support from a large amount of people. We now would like to take the opportunity to thank all these helpful people, who have contributed to our thesis. First we would like to thank our tutor Dr. Martin Amstéus for all his feedback, support and for the inspiration he has given us. We also want to show our gratitude towards our examiner Prof. Mosad Zineldin for his feedback and support. Further, we want to send our gratitude to the opposition groups and our seminar colleagues, Astrit Hodza, Rickard Paulsson and Helena Olsson. Their comments as well as the discussions during the seminars, has contributed a lot to our thesis. Next we would like to show our gratitude towards all the respondents of our survey, their contribution of data has been of unspeakable value for this thesis. Our gratitude also goes to the interviewees. We are deeply thankful that they took the time to answer our questions and give us their feedback. Last, but not least, we want to send our gratitude toward our friends and families, for all their support and feedback during these months. We would especially like to thank Ingrid Modéus, Jennie Blomkvist and Martin Modéus for proofreading our thesis and giving suggestions on improvements. Växjö, May 30th, 2013 Gabriel Modéus Roger Blomkvist ABSTRACT 30 ETCS credits degree project in Marketing, Linnaeus University, School of Business and Economics, spring 2013. Title: Social media - Integrate it and perform better? Authors: Gabriel Modéus, [email protected] Roger Blomkvist, [email protected] Examinator: Prof. Mosad Zineldin Tutor: Dr. Martin Amstéus Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to assess the relationship between companies’ social media integration and companies’ subjective social media performance. Hypotheses: In this thesis eight hypotheses are formulated. All eight of them focus on if there is a relationship between integration of social media and subjective social media performance. Seven of the hypotheses are focusing on possible specific goals with social media and one is about if there is a more general relationship. Methodology: In this thesis a deductive method as well as a positivistic and an objectivistic approach are used. Based on theory, questions for our research were formulated and tested through interviews, looked over by academic professionals and finally tested in a pilot study. The main study was conducted as an online survey where answers from 511 companies were collected, resulting in a response rate of 38.02%. Conclusion: On all hypotheses a positive correlation between integration of social media and subjective social media performance can be found. However it is in general not very common for companies to feel satisfied with how they perform in social media. It is as well not very common for companies to fully integrate all departments in their social media activities. It was also concluded that companies which are not yet active in social media services could have Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube as starting points, when thinking about what social media services to start their social media activities in. Suggestions for We suggested that social media integration and social media performance further research: should be tested objectively in further research, for example by doing experimental design and case studies. It could also further be tested by doing the research internationally, on companies in other industries as well as on smaller and other types of companies. Keywords: Social media integration, Subjective social media performance, Social media, Metrics of social media This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/. ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviation Explanation e/@TRM Electronic Total Relationship Management eWOM Electronic Word-of-Mouth IMC Integrated Marketing Communications TRM Total Relationship Management WOM Word-of-Mouth LIST OF CONTENT 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1 1.1. Background ..................................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Problem discussion .......................................................................................................... 2 1.3. Purpose ............................................................................................................................ 4 1.4. Delimitations ................................................................................................................... 5 1.5. Theoretical and empirical relevance................................................................................ 5 1.6. Outline of the thesis ......................................................................................................... 5 2. Theoretical framework ........................................................................................................... 7 2.1. Marketing communications ............................................................................................. 7 2.1.1. Integrated marketing communications ..................................................................... 7 2.2. Social media .................................................................................................................... 8 2.2.1. The phenomenon social media ................................................................................. 8 2.2.2. Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 ............................................................................................... 8 2.2.3. Different types of social media ................................................................................ 9 2.2.4. Corporate use of social media ................................................................................ 10 2.2.5. Managing and integrating social media ................................................................. 11 2.2.6. Metcalfe’s Law ....................................................................................................... 11 2.3. Word-of-Mouth ............................................................................................................. 12 2.4. Relationships in social media ........................................................................................ 12 2.5. Performance .................................................................................................................. 14 2.5.1. Objective performance ........................................................................................... 15 2.5.2. Subjective performance .......................................................................................... 15 2.5.3. Metrics in social media .......................................................................................... 15 2.6. Main hypothesis ............................................................................................................ 19 3. Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 20 3.1. Theoretical perspectives on methodology ..................................................................... 20 3.1.1. Objectivism, constructivism and subjectivism ....................................................... 20 3.1.2. Positivism and interpretivism ................................................................................. 21 3.1.3. Deductive and inductive method ............................................................................ 22 3.1.4. Quantitative and qualitative method ...................................................................... 22 3.2. Step one - pre-testing ..................................................................................................... 23 3.2.1. Interviews ............................................................................................................... 23 3.2.2. Academic professionals .......................................................................................... 25 3.2.3. Final pre-testing ...................................................................................................... 26 3.3. Step two - pilot study .................................................................................................... 26 3.4. Step three - main study .................................................................................................. 27 3.4.1. Survey sample ........................................................................................................ 27 3.4.2. Survey procedure .................................................................................................... 28 3.4.3. Data analysis .......................................................................................................... 29 3.5. Operationalization
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