DEPARTMENT INFORMATION Bachelor Thesis Comparing Social Media Presence and Branding online A Social Media Communication Strategy Study for Lufthansa Industry Solutions about its top 3 competitors in Germany (Accenture, Capgemini and T-Systems) Written by Laura Fergusson de la Torre Course of studies [Media and Information/ Medien und Information] First examiner: Prof. Dr. Hardy Gundlach Second examiner: Prof. Dr. Ulrich Hoffmann Hamburg, February 29, 2016 Keywords: social media marketing, benchmark, IT consulting, comparison, social media, online marketing, Germany, Facebook, Twitter, Xing, LinkedIn, Lufthansa Index 1. Image and Table index ................................................................................................................ 4 1. Glossary ....................................................................................................................................... 6 2. Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 7 2.1. Status quo of the Social Media Management at LHIND ............................................................. 7 2.2. The Lünendonk study: the most relevant competitors at the time ................................................ 7 2.3. Main research questions and overall purpose ................................................................................ 9 3. How do the selected social media channels work? ...................................................................... 10 3.1. Facebook ................................................................................................................................... 10 3.2. Facebook for Business ................................................................................................................ 10 3.3. Twitter ...................................................................................................................................... 13 3.4. Twitter for Business ................................................................................................................... 15 3.5. LinkedIn.................................................................................................................................... 16 3.6. LinkedIn for Business ................................................................................................................ 16 3.7. Xing .......................................................................................................................................... 17 3.8. Xing for Business ....................................................................................................................... 17 4. Financial, demographic and user pool status quo of selected platforms ...................................... 19 5. Academic Literature ................................................................................................................... 24 5.1. What is Social Media? ................................................................................................................ 24 5.1.1. Development of the Social Media interaction framework ...................................................... 26 5.1.2. The paradox of choice: where should businesses be present? .................................................. 29 5.2. Building business relationships online ........................................................................................ 30 5.2.1. Communicating as a B2B company ...................................................................................... 31 5.2.2. B2B Social Media limitations ................................................................................................ 32 5.2.3. Current adoption and use of Social Media as a marketing tool in a B2B environment ........... 33 5.2.4. Bringing the right people to start a conversation publicly ...................................................... 37 5.2.5. Brand equity ......................................................................................................................... 38 5.2.6. The arising Social advertisement model: location based marketing ........................................ 39 5.2.7. Blogs in the B2B communication environment ..................................................................... 39 5.3. Target audience, goal setting and relevant content gathering ...................................................... 40 5.3.1. Defining goals, identifying the audience and possibilities ...................................................... 40 5.3.2. Goal 1: Recruitment and Employee marketing ...................................................................... 41 5.3.3. Goal 2: Brand Awareness ....................................................................................................... 42 2 5.3.4. Goal 3: lead generation ......................................................................................................... 43 5.3.5. Analyst and Consultant Relations .......................................................................................... 44 5.3.6. Blogger relations .................................................................................................................... 46 5.4. Dealing with user feedback ........................................................................................................ 46 6. Data collection and Interpretation ............................................................................................. 48 6.1. Time frameworks, selected platforms and limitations ................................................................. 48 6.2. The KPIs: numerical, strategically and emotional ...................................................................... 49 6.3. Company Benchmarking ........................................................................................................... 51 6.4. Statistical/numerical comparison ............................................................................................... 52 6.4.1. Social Platforms .................................................................................................................... 52 6.4.2. Business Platforms ................................................................................................................. 58 6.5. Strategy comparison .................................................................................................................. 61 6.5.1. Social Platforms .................................................................................................................... 61 6.5.2. Business Platforms ................................................................................................................. 64 6.6. Emotional comparison ............................................................................................................... 70 6.6.1. Social Platforms .................................................................................................................... 70 6.6.2. Business Platforms ................................................................................................................. 75 7. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 81 7.1. Conclusion of Benchmarking .................................................................................................... 81 7.2. Further research and data gaps ................................................................................................... 82 8. Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 83 8.1. Printed Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 83 8.2. Internet Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 84 Appendix ............................................................................................................................................ 86 3 1. Image and Table index Table 1 Question: which corporations represent your most important competitors? ................................. 8 Image 1 News feed post with reach overview ......................................................................................... 11 Image 2 Mobile view of example business page ....................................................................................... 11 Image 3 Advertisement integration in news feed with call-to-action button ............................................ 12 Image 4 Targeted advertisement integration in news feed based on friends' interests .............................. 12 Image 5 Jack Dorsey's early sketch as he first imagined Twitter .............................................................. 13 Image 6 Structure of a Tweet ................................................................................................................. 14 Image 7 Follow ad as seen by target audience .......................................................................................... 17 Image 8 Sponsored post as seen by target audience ................................................................................. 17 Image 9 Ideal layout for first impression of company landing page ........................................................