Social Media Branding For Small Business The 5-Sources Model A Manifesto For Your Branding Revolution PDF
Social Media Branding For Small Business The 5-Sources Model A Manifesto For Your Branding Revolution PDF
Social Media Branding For Small Business The 5-Sources Model A Manifesto For Your Branding Revolution PDF
DAVIS
EXPERT PRESS and Advertising Collection
DIGITAL LIBRARIES
for Small Business:
The 5–Sources Model Victoria L. Crittenden, Editor
EBOOKS FOR
BUSINESS STUDENTS Robert Davis
Curriculum-oriented, born- Social media branding provides the thinking, evidence, and
digital books for advanced practice to create a road map for practitioners in small busi-
business students, written
by academic thought
leaders who translate real-
nesses to develop and implement their brand in online and
offline communities. It provides a starting point, as one of
the biggest issues for small businesses is where to start.
Social Media
Branding
for Small
students expecting to tackle sources are the five fundamental branding principles that
management and leadership focus on simply outsourcing your brand. Putting the custom-
challenges during their er back in control while focusing on the community and this
professional careers. group of dedicated customers and other stakeholders. The
POLICIES BUILT
BY LIBRARIANS
• Unlimited simultaneous
5-Sources Model simply says that the social media brand
for small businesses needs to play an important role in your
customers’ functional and emotional existence. It is both the
Business:
The 5–Sources
serious and the fun experience of your brand.
usage
• Unrestricted downloading Robert Davis, PhD, is the founder of drrobertdavis.com,
and printing a research and strategy agency that delivers a portfolio of
Model
• Perpetual access for a services to build on the core capabilities of research, bench-
one-time fee marking, modeling, and strategy development to co-create
• No platform or with companies the best way forward. Robert has a PhD from
maintenance fees
the University of Auckland Business School and is a Fellow
• Free MARC records
of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK). He has consulted
• No license to execute
widely and has been a senior executive at IBM and held
The Digital Libraries are a senior academic roles in the University of Auckland Business
comprehensive, cost-effective School. His published research appears in numerous jour-
way to deliver practical
Robert Davis
nals, including, Marketing Science, the Journal of Information
treatments of important Technology, the Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Ser-
business issues to every vice Research, Communications of the ACM, Journal of Consumer
student and faculty member. Behaviour, and Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Acknowledgment.....................................................................................xi
Preface.................................................................................................xiii
Power And Validity......................................................... xiv
Key Questions.................................................................. xv
Chapter 1 Why, What, and How?.......................................................1
Community Reboot...........................................................1
First Source: Function—Shared Meaning
and Objective.....................................................................2
Second Source: Emotion and Your brand Loves Me...........3
Third Source: Self-Oriented Actualization..........................5
Fourth Source: Personal and Social Engagement................7
Fifth Source: Collective Relationships................................8
Next Steps........................................................................10
Chapter 2 The Importance of Social Media Branding.......................11
Brand as App...................................................................11
What is a Social Media Community?...............................13
The Social Media Brand and Your Brand..........................15
Functional vs. Emotional.................................................19
Relationships and Community.........................................21
Closing Thoughts on the Importance
of Social Media Branding.................................................23
Chapter 3 Source 1: Functional Social Media Brand.........................25
Problem Solving, Information Search, and Feedback........25
Prompt Action.................................................................31
Convenience and Accessibility..........................................32
Knowledge.......................................................................33
Rewards...........................................................................34
Closing Thoughts on the Functional Brand......................35
Chapter 4 Source 2: Emotional Social Media Brand.........................39
Enjoyment.......................................................................39
Problem Alleviation..........................................................41
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS
Privilege...........................................................................42
Fantasy.............................................................................43
Curiosity..........................................................................43
Closing Thoughts on the Emotional Brand......................44
Chapter 5 Source 3: Self-Oriented Social Media Brand.....................49
Self-Actualization.............................................................49
Self-Relevance..................................................................50
Self-Branding...................................................................51
Life Arrangements............................................................53
Closing Thoughts on the Self-Oriented Brand.................54
Chapter 6 Source 4: Personal (Social) Media Brand..........................59
Experience Exchange........................................................59
Community Attachment..................................................61
Link Building...................................................................62
Social Engagement...........................................................64
Closing Thoughts on the Personal Brand..........................64
Chapter 7 Source 5: Relational Social Media Brand .........................69
Personalized Brand Communication ...............................69
Fickle Relational Bonds....................................................71
Obliged Relational Bonds................................................72
Preexisting Relational Bonds............................................73
Emerged Relational Bonds...............................................74
Casual Relational Bonds...................................................75
Closing Thoughts on the Relational Brand ......................75
Chapter 8 Implementing Social Media Branding..............................81
Create Functionality Through Product
I Love, Service I Use.........................................................81
Create Emotion By Tapping Into My Feelings..................82
Create The Personal and Social.........................................84
Create Relationship..........................................................85
Being Interactive and Personal..........................................86
Closing Thoughts.............................................................87
Chapter 9 Brand Building in Action.................................................91
Case 1 Yarns With Erica and Jess......................................92
Case 2 Westjet Xmas Cheer..............................................94
Case 3 Fun with Bitstrips.................................................95
TABLE OF CONTENTS ix
1
See for example, Brodie, R. J., Hollebeek, L. D., Juric, B., and Ilic, A. (2011a). “Cus-
tomer Engagement: Conceptual Domain, Fundamental Propositions, and Implica-
tions for Research,” Journal of Service Research 14, no. 3 (2011a): 252–71.
xiv PREFACE
2
This early work provided direction and inspration: De Chernatony, L., and
Dall’Olmo Riley, F. D. “Experts’ Views About Defining Brands and the Principles
of Services Branding.” Journal of Business Research 46, no. 2 (1999): 181–92. http://
www.sciencedirect.com.
PREFACE
xv
The principles are largely the same. The 5-Sources Model also suggests to
the business owner that they start to build their team. But, not in the tra-
ditional way. Rather, outsourcing social media brand functions and role
to their customers and other stakeholders.
The 5-Sources Model together with this journey and current work on
your brand in social media, contributes to the thinking and practice. A lot
of companies are using social media, but many of them fail to build rela-
tionships and position their brands as community assets. Now, build the
concept of your brand in social media by focusing on the development
of five important sources of value for customers. In essence it signals the
day when your brand is owned by the community. It is outsourced to the
customer and other stakeholders in the social media community.
Key Questions
In summary, the 5-Sources Model approach asks the following questions of
your brand and its stakeholders:
3
See http://www.lovemarks.com/.
xvi PREFACE
I hope that you enjoy this book and that it contributes value to your
brand and community relationships both on and offline.
Kia kaha! (Be strong, get stuck in, and keep going)4.
4
Maori Dictionary Translation at http://www.maoridictionary.co.nz/word/11337.
CHAPTER 1
Community Reboot
The 5-Sources Model starts with the fundamental question: Where is your
brand? Where does it exist? Before I would have said that it exists within
your company, with its people and possibly on the shelf or online. It is
articulated in a strategy document. We often see your brand in traditional
marketing communications. It is part of the vision.
The 5-Sources Model says those days are over. What I like to say is that
traditional branding has been rebooted by the community. The days when
companies had control over the brand are over because something called
“the community” has broken free from its offline cage. Like antimatter,
the community and its offline and social media presence have reabsorbed
these traditional frameworks and architectures. Like a B grade movie, the
community has morphed into an uncontrollable beast. It found online
and pushed go or maybe on is a better word.
The community just rebooted business and their primary target has
been . . . yes, you guessed it, the brand. Offline, their views were mostly
ignored or hidden in market research studies on the brand. Now their input
into the brand and its meaning is ubiquitous and in real-time nano-second
mode. Multilingual, multidevice, and multichannel. All interlinked with
extreme velocity and synchronicity.
The first change on the agenda is the meaning of the brand. Now it
is purely from the customers’ perspective. Brand meaning is now owned
by the community and we aren’t going back. That community involves
many different brand stakeholders and could involve customers, busi-
nesses, suppliers, influencers, social interest groups etc1.
Given the significant change in how we view and think about your
brand, the reboot has motivated the creation of a new way of thinking
about the brand. The 5-Sources Model. Motivated by the movement of the
social community. Let’s go!
1
For example, see the early work for further reading on brand communities: Cova,
B., and Pace, S., “Brand Community of Convenience Products: New Forms of Cus-
tomer Empowerment—The Case My Nutella The Community,” European Journal of
Marketing 40, no. 9/10 (2006): 1087–105.
Why, What, and How? 3
sees it as the way the community takes back your brand and controls the
functional outcomes. In the case of Google; the brand is functionally
driven by the community. What it does, is the community.
social self 2. That it exists off and online. One of the major issues your
brand faces here is the lack of congruency or fit between your brand and
its image in social media vs. the community image of its stakeholders.
This occurs because brands outside the community structure are often
run under traditional managerial and control approaches.
When they become involved in social media branding they apply the
same model. Sure you can have rules. Digital has always been about ne-
tiquette. But brands that operate by control and command in relational
community structures just seem disjointed and out of the play and flow
of the community and where it wants to take your brand. The lack of fit
destroys the emotional connection. Think about whether emotion is a
planned outcome of a community’s engagement with a brand? No! It can’t
be. Emotion can’t be planned.
Let’s look at the case of Apple. What I get about Apple is not just
their design or great leadership. I think we can find many examples of this
across the globe, small and large. What Steve Jobs did understand, apart
from his employees and stakeholders in their brand, was brand emotion.
So much so because the community simply loves the Apple brand. I think
that was the secret. It is not really about the design or Steve himself. You
are just an Apple person or not. If you are an Apple person then you are
not alone. You are part of a community or what I like to call a subculture.
Hence, it is that community and the activities between members that
2
For example, see the early work of Hirschman, E. C., and Holbrook, M. B.,” He-
donic consumption: Emerging concepts, methods and propositions,” Journal of Mar-
keting 46, (1982): 92–101.
Why, What, and How? 5
underlie brand emotion. What is true is that emotion will have many
different forms and outcomes. Often it will be hedonically for the sake
of its existence. Some examples of the role of emotion in the 5-Sources
Model could be:
3
See for example Houston, M. B., and Walker, B. A., “Self-Relevance and Purchase
Goals: Mapping a Consumer Decision,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
24, no. 3 (1996): 232–45.
6 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
4
See http://www.zoodoo.co.nz/.
Why, What, and How? 7
Then along came social media services like LinkedIn, which allow
professionals to connect in an instinctive or native way. I also had to laugh
at the very symbolic movie, Her. Taking personal engagement, socialness,
and technology to the next level of intuition. A movie about the man who
falls in love with his OS. But don’t laugh so hard. Technology, being led
by the social media and its community-based learning will evolve to that
point where we will interact with it on a natural and interactive level. The
entity will be synchronous and contingent in the way that it interacts.
Your brand will also evolve.
In its way, LinkedIn enhances this social process. Your brand helps to
facilitate the different types of exchange, such as:
5
See the work of Fournier, S., “Consumers and their Brands: Developing Relationship
Theory in Consumer Research,” Journal of Consumer Research 24, (1998): 343–73.
Why, What, and How? 9
The key objective for your brand is to determine two things. First,
what types of relationships exist with my brand in social media? How do
they create or erode community value?
6
See https://www.facebook.com/HERSHEYS.
10 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
Next Steps
The next steps in the book, having briefly summarized the 5-Sources
Model are three-fold. First, I am going to talk about the importance of
branding and social media. This will be an exploration of some of the
hot topic both now and in the past. Second, we get to the heart of the
5-Sources Model and the following five chapters work through each source
component of the model and its subcomponents. Customer feedback
and conversations that were had about real social media branding will
be shared so that you can understand how to reinterpret your branding
strategy in social media community.
Finally, we end the book through a discussion about implementation
and application. This will be accompanied by a “think” chapter which will
provide seven fresh case studies with questions you can work through.
I would encourage you to go to drrobertdavis.com to provide feedback on
the questions. Here I can then help.
CHAPTER 2
Brand as App
In 1980, Alvin Toffler forecast that electronic cottages would dramatically
change society, challenging the way people think, work, and live. Now as
predicted, the cottage has broken free in the world of space that we, our
brands and other stakeholders’ community occupy. Disney is no longer
restricted to its theme parks, retail stores, or even online space. Disney’s
community can now exist where its stakeholders are.
Brand as application
Simultaneous coupling of channels of interactivity and
experience. Offline, Online U-Space . . . (where ever).
Sharing content creation and process. Roles are diffuse.
Stakeholders. Collective and community oriented.
Uncontrolled and controlled (guarded).
12 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
Like Disney your brand can become ubiquitous. This new space is
loosely called Social Media. For its customers it is truly defined by its
ability to create unlimited opportunities for engagement—beyond the
cottage: anytime and from anywhere. It is where stakeholders of your
brand can engage in a personalized and continuous way.
There have been many reports that argue for social media trans-
formation. Many argue that social media provides a world of connec-
tions. Pointing out that social media communities have become not
only common public spaces, but also channels of influence that is often
translated into transactions. eMarketer reports that the population
of social networks users will exceed 2.55 billion by the end of 20171.
eMarketer strongly argues that many of these users are using social
media because of the rapid growth in different Internet and mobile
applications, which has strengthened the connection between brand
and customer2. Hence, more social media users are engaging with their
social community and making purchase decision. So, you ask: Why is
our brand not engaging in these opportunities?
There is no doubt that this wave of change is being fueled by the needs
of businesses and customers looking for more opportunities of engage-
ment through brand-related conversations in social media. Buying has
moved on from the transaction. Now the customers of Walmart want to
talk directly to your brand. They want engagement through conversation.
Importantly, this conversation involves other stakeholders from your brand’s
1
Emarketer, [http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Social-Networking-Reaches-Nearly-
One-Four-Around-World/1009976]
2
See for example the work of Balasubramanian, S., Peterson R. A., and Javenpaa S. L.,
“Exploring the Implications of M-Commerce For Markets and Marketing,” Journal of
Academy of Marketing Science 30, no.4 (2002): 348–61.
The Importance of Social Media Branding 13
I think the key to their success for your brand is that they are really good
at creating engagement through content across channels and exchange
between community members. Pivotals are also seamless in social media
markets because they democratize knowledge and information. As part of
this equality between brand and customer, pivotals and the community
don’t consume, they create. Content and exchange is their heat and their
contribution to the value of your brand. This momentum is being driven
by the desire of increasing participation of consumers in what your brand
is and what it means. So, why not let them? Pivotals are the hot spots for
your brand I promise.
With CCE there is also the important theme of real time exchange,
which is often taken for granted. There is a move toward the real time brand
experience as defined by CCE. In this respect, it is logical to suggest that
for customers, being a member of a social media community and engaging
with brands using web-based and mobile media, is very compelling. Think
about traditional product brands like Pepsi and IKEA. Before social media
the experience was oriented around a flat world related to usage. You had to
use the brand to experience it. Now through CCE your brand stakeholders
in a social media community leverage the experiences of others.
They key question though is, given we have CCE, how has this trans-
formed your brand?
3
See also the work of Breazeale, M., “Word of mouth: An assessment of electronic
word-of-mouth research,” International Journal of Market Research 51, no. 3 (2009):
297–318.
18 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
like fuel to the fire. This is because like heat, consumption is an observed
and felt phenomenon. We feel it and experience it. So when a group of
friends in a community are worn out from sharing photos and other ran-
dom user created content, they will often resort to brands. These brands
represent the fuel of consumption within the community.
One friend might like Volkswagen or NTT Docomo. This exchange
and consumption of brand content in the community may have been
motivated by two forces. First, the discomfort of consumption wear-out.
In other words, there is nothing more to say at that time. To move to a
feeling of comfort a customer will share brands that relate to their personal
experiences. In this way wear out is distanced and the state of interactivity
maintained. Customers and their community look for new types of social
engagement beyond the mundane. They look to conversation pivotals to
pass along to their family and friends and in this way, social media com-
munities can be viewed as amplified word-of-mouth (WOM) which have
a huge impact of other customers’ feelings and decision making.
To help us understand this process of consumption we need to think
about it from your brand and customers/communities point of view.
First, your brand is asking: How do I leverage consumption? Well, this
is a tough one because consumption between community members is
complex and the basis of exchange is not always apparent.
For example, because I like Honda cars and I bought one yesterday
does not mean my community will share the same view. So, it is really
hard to predict the rules of exchange consumption unless you can measure
them. I think this is where brands need to back off and let the community
decide. Have trust in the fundamentals of your brand and its product,
service, and organization. If you are creating value and satisfaction then
your brand will find its way into the process of community consump-
tion. Sometimes brand that get too directly involved in the conversation
disrupt the internal flow. A flow of dialogue which may be pretty random
but in some way it means something to the community. Just accept it!
Second, the customer and community view. Here I take a service-
dominant logic view which essentially says: the customer and the commu-
nities with your brand cocreate the value of your brand and its offerings.
Hence, in some ways the role of the customer and their community is to
evaluate the value offered and promised by your brand and then: decide,
The Importance of Social Media Branding 19
plan, and implement how cocreation will occur. Heavy stuff, but maybe it
is as simple as recognizing that what is valued by the customer and com-
munity is consumption which is a communal experience. These commu-
nal experiences not only define the “group brain” but also in a multitude
of ways link customer and community brand use to the self: to differenti-
ate and express their individuality.
Maybe a simple way of thinking about this is the social media driven
conversation about the 2014 Soccer World Cup vs. investment in soci-
etal infrastructure. It is many things but also includes offline/online
protests in Brazil that are fueled by the disgruntled rising middle class
who are dissatisfied by government and societal actions. As Aljazeera
notes4: “Scattered street demonstrations popped up around Brazil for
a third day as protesters continued their community cry against the
low-quality public services they receive in exchange for high taxes and
high prices.” The discussion is in both spaces but it becomes polarized
in the social media community. The conversations become amplified in
terms of the people’s cognitive, affective, and behavioral reactions. This
spills out into the offline public space where communities then vent
their feelings.
4
See http://www.aljazeera.com/sport/football/2013/06/2013619121330645419.html.
20 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
consumption of the brand, the Mayo Clinic can bring functional reality
to this emotion through, for example, content related to customer stories
about their service experience. These stories within their community are
tagged to the brand and talk specifically about who was involved and
what happened. The story of health can also be tracked, added to, shared,
and liked.
So, what is more important; the functional or the emotional? The seri-
ous or the fun? Answer: Both. In social media branding, both coexist in a
mutually beneficial relationship.
5
Friedman, M., Abeele, P. V., and De Vos, K., “Boorstin’s Consumption Community
Concept: A Tale of Two Countries,” Journal of Consumer Policy 16, no. 1 (1993): 35–60.
6
See for example: Kozinets, R. V., “Utopian Enterprise: Articulating the Meanings of
Star Trek’s Culture of Consumption,” Journal of Consumer Research 28, (2001): 67–88.
7
See for example Schouton, J. W., and McAlexander, J. H., “Subcultures of Con-
sumption: an Ethnography of the New Bikers,” Journal of Consumer Research 22,
(1995): 43–61.
The Importance of Social Media Branding 23
8
See for example, Davis, R. A., and Sajtos, L., “Measuring Consumer Interactivity in
Response to Campaigns Coupling Mobile and Television Media,” Journal of Advertis-
ing Research 48, no. 3 (2008): 375–91 and Davis, R. A., and Yung, D., “Understand-
ing the Interactivity Between Television and Mobile Commerce,” Communications of
the ACM July 48, no. 7 (2005): 103–105.
24 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
Functional-Source
What is the role of the brand in the
enablement of customer objectives?
problems and providing them good service may actually translate into
positive word of mouth1.
For example, Xero Live http://www.xero.com/ is a “software service
platform” for accounting. Xero uses Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to
allow their customers to provide feedback on the service; problems are
often resolved through these channels by Xero staff but most often by
other Xero customers who have faced similar problems.
Customers consider social media as a platform for addressing
their problems when other communication channels such as emails or
phones are unavailable, inconvenient or time and/or money consuming.
Occasionally many customers contact, for example, banks or Internet pro-
viders via Facebook and Twitter to solve emerging problems. Interestingly,
customers’ stories about their memorable experiences with brands often
refer to functionality and particularly to problem solving.
It is really interesting how one customer said when getting help for
their pets from the Vet:
“One day I tweeted to my vet and I said: Look, I’m little worried
about my dog, he has fleas once again, what would you recom-
mend? And they just tweeted me back: try one course of predni-
sone. I would have usually had to call to the vet or gone down the
road and be charged for this information. As it was—I just was
sitting at my desk tweeting to my vet.”
When customers were asked in what case they would contact a service
using social media, many of them agreed that scheduling an appointment
1
See for example Brown, Jo., Broderick, A.J., and Lee, N., “Word of Mouth
Communication Within Online Communities: Conceptualizing the Online Social
Network,” Journal of Interactive Marketing 21, no. 3, pp. 2–20 (2007).
Source 1: Functional Social Media Brand 27
In this regard, the degree to which customers are ready to use social media
channels to contact a service provider depends on a customers’ personal
life context. For instance, the customer would not contact or show any
relationship with a bank because of safety reasons. After moving to the
USA, she started caring more about her own personal safety, which is
contrary to her previous life in New Zealand. So, the personal context of
28 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
the USA vs. New Zealand has a dramatic effect on her perceptions of risk.
This does suggest that in social media, you just can’t treat all your custom-
ers as one big mass of a community.
However, in contrast, some customers recognize the benefits of being
involved with such services as banks and insurance companies in social
media. Often these brands have developed their social media brand to
create greater levels of trust. In the strategy described by this customer,
the service provided a fee benefit for engaging through social media. As a
small business owner, you will need to think about how you might incen-
tivize your customers to engage with your social media brand:
“I’m almost prepared to bet that a lot of the companies that people
follow; they did so 6 months, a year, 2 years ago. They’ve never
looked at that Facebook site since, but because they have not both-
ered to go in and unlike . . . a page, it is just there, and it becomes
part of the stats, I guess. Unless they have a problem, in which case
they are all too quick on there and gripe about your brand.”
Source 1: Functional Social Media Brand 29
Why? Possibly they are in a state of boredom and they use the functional
activity as a pathway to alleviate the mundane through emotion. Emotion
could also relate to themselves because boredom itself is an internal cogni-
tive state. Hence, it requires a self-directed solution:
“I used to be reading the Air New Zealand page, but I have unsub-
scribed one year ago. It always depends on where I am in the
world now; it dictates which business pages I follow.”
Customers often connect the need for information with the possibility
of learning something new about a service. This may explain why the
absence of any kind of expected information is likely to affect custom-
ers’ service experiences. In other words, if you would like to have more
engagement it is important your brand in the first interaction provides
a learning experience linked to your brand. Don’t just flash your logo or
some special offer. Try and give those first time customers content that
creates that stickability:
The feedback from customers also reveals that some customers are
willing to provide brands with feedback regarding service quality using
social media channels. 5-Sources Model shows that customers use social
media to publically express what they think about service quality, initia-
tives or even advertising campaigns. Social media for some brands has
become like a constant test bed for ideas and innovation. As one customer
strongly argued, social media helps them with the community cocreate
campaigns with special relevance to the particular markets:
“When they launched the Rico [Air NZ] campaign I was very
vocal and particularly scathing in my critique of the campaign . . .
I felt strongly that it undermined your brand significantly and
could alienate the American market.”
Prompt Action
The feedback from customers shows that in social media, custom-
ers expect prompt actions from a service provider in response to their
emerging requirements. Customers point to social media as a short cut to
address their emerging needs and to get a quick reply from your brand.
One customer talked about the velocity of Twitter. Often it is that case
that when you want an answer quickly; don’t call. Go on social media:
“Now the only thing that annoys you is when you do have to
speak to someone and you’re put on hold for five minutes before
you get through to an operator, but so all those sort of service
things I’d much prefer to actually do it online. You feel a lot
more in control in a situation like that. I follow Air New Zealand
on my Twitter. And they tweet something like, ok, hurry up,
let’s grab a deal. They just probably put two lines, but that is
what makes me open their pages. I don’t want to spend a lot of
time going through the page, I want instant information so this
information has to be there for me, and otherwise I will not be
interested.”
Knowledge
The attributes of functional consumption seem to be related with each
other. Customers use your brand’s social media channels to not only eval-
uate offers and get an idea about a service provider, but also to gain tacit
knowledge through personal experiences before making a purchase deci-
sion. Contrary to expectations, being present in a brand’s social media
channel does not imply a purchase intention. To be engaged with a brand
and purchase from your brand are two different stories in the social media
context. For example, as one customer argued:
Rewards
It comes as no surprise that often the customers’ interest in businesses
within social media is dominated by a need to have access to a brand’s spe-
cials, giveaways, and gifts. This theme has been identified as rewards. In
exchange for giveaways or discounts, customers are willing to participate
in brand activities such as contests and opinion polls. For example, like
this customer, it is a great way to get likes:
“I only ‘like’ what I actually like except if there is a good prize in it.
If the company announces a contest via the app, I would definitely
read it and depending on what it is I may participate, especially if
there is a reward.”
The findings also show that for some customers, possible rewards are the
only reason they engage with a brand in social media as this customer explains:
“Seven days before the event we want to go to, I have checked out
their [*Essenze Home Decor] Twitter page, LinkedIn page, what
people say about it and their Facebook page as Dee (*wife) said to me
“a contest is going on there.” So I wrote a slogan and won a double
pass to the event. That’s the whole deal—you go there for a reason.”
“I have a friend who follows every brand just for the sake of the
freebies and whatever they’re giving away. So he’s constantly
Source 1: Functional Social Media Brand 35
Functional-Source
36 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
What becomes evident is that customers use a brand’s social media chan-
nels as a short cut to address their needs when traditional communication
channels are unavailable, inconvenient or time and money consuming.
Customers engage with the community because they want something
that cannot be found in other market spaces. Hence, they seek the brand
on Facebook and Twitter as a type of quality specific resource that will
satisfy their demand and determines the customers’ relationships with
your brand.
However, they are likely to consider using social media for making an
appointment or getting access to deals or giveaways. One of the 5-Sources
Model ’s contributions is that social media changes not only the status
of the customer in brand-relationships, but your brands as well. Brands
assume a variety of roles and tasks in social media; they serve as informa-
tion desks, emergency services, and a reception area, which are anchored
in customer needs and situations.
CHAPTER 4
Source 2: Emotional
Social Media Brand
The second source of social media brand is the customers’ emotional con-
nection to a brand and their need for enjoyable emotional experiences.
These types of experiences are termed hedonic, meaning, that are engaged
in by a customer and community for their own internal reasons. Often it
is called the opposite of functional. In other words: for no other reason
except for the enjoyment of the action itself.
Source 2 argues that customers communicate with brands in social
media to alleviate personal problems or situations, to feel privileged and rec-
ognized by a brand, and to find fantasy and curiosity in brand experiences.
Emotional-Source
What is the role of the brand in
customer acknowledgement?
Enjoyment
The 5-Sources Model shows that the central idea of emotional brand con-
sumption is an experience that provides the element of enjoyment. When
customers were asked to about images that reflect their experiences with
brands in social media they often chose those that represent happiness.
For example, one customer chose a picture with a rock musician perform-
ing on stage in front of a large audience accompanied by the comment:
“This is what you feel when you open their application [*Air
New Zealand mobile application]. It is sooo good.”
40 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
Being Entertaining
“If it was Whittaker’s [*NZ chocolate brand], I’d say I love your
product.”
“If I follow New World and they don’t have a post at least once a
week, I’m going to get really bored really quickly with them. And
then if they do end up putting up a post and it’s something that I
find completely boring, or irrelevant to me, chances are I’ll go off
and get rid of them. I’ve done that a few times with companies.”
Problem Alleviation
Emotion is also related to the alleviation of personal problems or a dif-
ficult situation. Because customers are situated in concrete every day
contexts, the way they consume a brand does not just reflect these con-
texts. Their consumption is also formed by these contexts and situations.
42 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
Remember the customer who immigrated to the USA a long time ago
stated that her connections with NZ Herald or Air New Zealand social
media brands through Facebook helped her to feel emotionally close to
her birth country. In this respect, your brand acts as a proxy to support
the customers’ gaps and insecurities in their personal life.
For others, connections with brands and others via social media help
to overcome personal obstacles. For instance, one customer who runs his
own construction company emphasizes that the necessity to go social
media brands made him more confident and conversational:
Privilege
The 5-Sources Model shows that customers tend to believe that their
relationship with a brand can create some sort of personal advantage.
It fosters feelings of being privileged and recognized by a brand. These
emotional experiences make brands meaningful and tangible. Hence,
the customer is transformed from being an invisible user, to a visible
individual. Taking into account that social media presupposes a dialogue
between brands and customers, the one-way old-fashioned approach
Source 2: Emotional Social Media Brand 43
“Less Meals, they don’t do well. Their Twitter feed is one—for Less
Meals worldwide. So if you tweet them, they don’t respond. They
don’t retweet even if you have got something really interesting to say.”
Fantasy
A need for an experience that provides some elements of fantasy or escap-
ism has been identified as one of the emotional attributes of consump-
tion. It can be suggested that consumption practices are motivated by
customers’ intending to find experiences, which on the one hand, serve as
the opposite of reality and on the other hand reflect their desired reality.
For example, as this customer argues:
Curiosity
Customers’ involvement with a brand often begins with curiosity and is
fuelled by experiences and the knowledge that they develop through sub-
sequent interactivity with a brand. The proximity of brands and customers
44 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
within social media has turned brand affiliations into an interactive show-
room, freely available and without time and location constraints. As a
result, customers are motivated to research and explore brands, often just
out of curiosity:
“I’ve got a nut allergy and a beautiful Anzac recipe was posted up
on one of the chefs I follow. And I asked a question, do I need to
substitute it with more flour to make it more balanced and she
[*a chef ] got back straight away and said . . .
Emotional-Source
contents and communication style. The 5-Sources Model shows that cus-
tomers are likely to avoid self-contained, dry, and direct communications
that push hard for sales. Instead, customers have a need for experiences
that provide elements of fun, humor, entertainment, and grass roots com-
munications, either with a brand or other customers.
Source 3: Self-Oriented
Social Media Brand
The third source of social media brand relates to the customers’ experi-
ences and two strands of connection: the “self ” concept (actual and ideal)
and the social self. In this sense, customers express their interest in expe-
riences that resonate with their life style. With their personal or profes-
sional goals or that help to facilitate and organize their daily activities.
Self-Sourcing
What is the role of the brand in the transformation of
customer acknowledgment to actualization?
Self-Actualization
Engagement among brands and customers and the community take many
forms in social media and it encompasses a variety of aspects in which
self-actualization holds a notable position in consumption practices. Cus-
tomers search for self-actualization in their experiences with brands in
social media. In other words, if brands hold the promise that the custom-
ers’ individual needs will be met, they will engage.
For some customers social media present new opportunities to realize
their potential through brand-related activities. In this regard, customers
take a very active role, encouraged by a network-oriented medium . . .
50 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
“I’m nosy. I would definitely say that this engagement with busi-
nesses and with people in social media adds value to my life, defi-
nitely. And it adds value to my perception of value I can give
other people. Years and years ago on the back of a bus was an
ad saying—‘listen to news on your way to work and you will be
far more interesting person by the time you arrive.’ I’m always
knowledge taking, that is what I want to do. Customers value the
possibility to express themselves and share their endeavors or ideas
through brand communications. It enhances their feeling of self-
worth and makes the experiences valuable.”
Self-Relevance
Throughout feedback from customers, self-relevance has been identified
as a common aspect of brand consumption among customers. Customers
tend to engage with a brand if your brand’s symbolic meanings are con-
gruent with their sense of self. If customers perceive a brand’s symbolic
meanings as relevant to their personal values, interests, and beliefs they are
likely to engage in consumption in social media. For example, it is inter-
esting how one customer talked about the importance of the ethics related
to a brand. The key question for your brand asks: what is it about your
brand that is consistent with your customers’ values, interests, and beliefs?
“Companies have to sit well with the customer so I’m very, very
conscious of that. So I’ll only like companies that I admire or who
have the same ethical background that we have.”
“One example would be Giapo; it’s an ice cream shop in the town.
It’s a tiny—tiny little ice cream shop. I have never even been to his ice
cream shop, but I know him, I know about his specials, I know when
he is making new flavors, never met him, but he creates a feeling of
like a little club, like Giapo club. And I don’t even like ice cream.”
Self-Branding
Brands in social media contexts seem to provide customers with oppor-
tunities to create an identity that depends on their personal goals. Self-
branding is characterized by customer’s actions that are undertaken to
build their social self-identity through different brand-activities, including
52 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
Life Arrangements
The next aspect that emerged as a subcategory of self-oriented consump-
tion is the customers’ need for brand experiences that help to facilitate,
optimize, and manage different daily tasks. New insights explain the
internal logic that directs some consumption practices in social media. It
is argued that the customers use the proximity of a brand in social media
to get, for example, news updates or information when it is needed, or to
address their personal inquires as soon as they occur.
In this regard, there is a link between the functional and self-oriented
aspects of consumption as customers use a brand’s social media applica-
tions as a tool that facilitates their daily activities. Many customers argued
strongly for this idea:
“Well, the coffee shop down the road here is Metro Coffee Shop.
You tweet them and they will have the coffee ready when you
arrive, instead of going in the queue.”
At the same time customers think that social media reformulates, for
example, how the people consume brands in their daily lives:
“I see very few young people that will ever look at newspapers. If
they do they might consume a little bit on their iPad and get it,
but they’re more likely to get onto an iPad and go to flip board.
The only way they’re hearing about things is because they’re on
the social media and people are talking about it within their peer
54 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
Self-Sourcing
Source 3: Self-Oriented Social Media Brand 55
The feedback from customers points to the customers’ need for brand
experiences that help to facilitate and organize day-to-day tasks. Such
consumption practices have been identified in relation to media, sport,
telecommunication, travel and leisure services. What is being witnessed
here is that customers tend to organize regular consumption activities on
a base of social media. It came as no surprise that customers prefer get-
ting news on Twitter, since it meets their need for instant information.
Contacting banks, vet clinics, or a car mechanic via Facebook or Twitter
is also accepted as a common practice in social media.
From the customers’ perspective, it helps them to 1) have brand
experiences that suit their personal schedules, and 2) effectively organize
daily tasks, from getting news updates to making appointments. In this
respect, customers tend to ascribe organizing properties to social media. It
58 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
Social-sourcing
What is the role of the brand in the reality
of a customers social interactions?
Experience Exchange
Customers use social media to share their personal brand experiences with
others. In this light, customers are willing to broadcast their consump-
tion activities and experiences not only for their own benefit and self-
promotion, but also for the benefit of others. It is expected that customers
would pay attention to what businesses their friends like or follow in so-
cial media. Some customers follow their friends’ recommendations even
if your brand is outside their personal or professional interests. But others
are skeptical about the influence of social media WOM. The key question
for your brand is what will help to drive the word of mouth”
“You get to a point that if certain people send it to you, then you’ll
follow it, so it’s the people that you align with or you think are
credible.”
it. If somebody has a really bad experience, and they put about it
on a page and in the back of your mind you can think that what
happened to this person might happen to me. Nowadays is about
what other people think. It becomes really important.”
Community Attachment
Consumption activities can be oriented toward the customers’ social need
for getting engagement with other members of a social media community.
In this light, the social dimension of consumption should be linked with
your brand community. Customers feel a sense of community being in-
volved in Facebook or Twitter brand affiliations, particularly revolving
around brands. Customers articulate the importance of being able to engage
with a brand community. This is mostly motivated by the notion that social
media give the possibility to voice opinions and be heard. It is a bit like your
customers want your brand, which was mute, to now have a voice:
“There are some New Zealand food brands that have done a great
job building online communities, probably it’s paid dividends for
them in the sense that people might be a little bit more reluc-
tant to speak badly about that brand on social, because they know
that brand is actively engaged on social media and has represented
themselves as a person or created a personality. So it feels like if
you were to slag them off you would be slagging off a friend. I
don’t think people have got the same qualms about doing that to
a bank or to a Telco.”
Whatever the outcome, the key question here is: can a brand bring cus-
tomers a sense of community and add value to consumption? Customers
bond with brands in social media is shaped by their communal experiences.
Link Building
Link building and networking for professional or personal purposes seem
to be an important part of consumption in social media. Customers
Source 4: Personal (Social) Media Brand 63
“It’s not as fast as face to face, it is not in real time, but there
is definitely interaction on air, which you can call communica-
tion. And in terms of networking, yes, because you never know
when your network is going to be important to what you are
doing right now. There is one other thing I’ve understood in
the past is that necessity builds the relationship before you need
to rely on relationship. You have to be creating relationships
that you can call on or be called on in the future. And by con-
tinuing communication again you are putting yourself in front
of somebody. So when they ask the questions you become the
picture in their mind.”
Social Engagement
The feedback from customers indicates that customers use brand
communities in social media to get social engagement with other cus-
tomers. The customers’ communal experiences do not necessarily imply
an attachment to a brand community or the intention to network. Fur-
thermore, customers do not purposefully seek engagement with a brand.
It is more likely that customers respond to your brand’s activities if there
is a promise of communication with others:
Social-Sourcing
Relational-Source
What is the role of the brand in
defining collective relationships?
“That’s the thing with online; it’s such an intimate space. It’s sort
of public, but at the same time it’s one on ones. You don’t really
talk to the corporation any more you talk to the person who
started it. If you have a person behind that brand page, and if you
know that you’re talking to somebody who is passionate about this
business, I guess just having a human face for that page would be
like a good start.”
“I like the fact that I can express my side as well. Like recently
Vodafone did a poll on “if you were given extra broad band, what
you would use it for?” It makes you feel like you’re engaging in a
business decision.”
The 5-Sources Model also shows that advocacy and loyalty toward
brands in social media are rooted in preexisting relational bonds. Giv-
ing the example of how Telecom NZ dealt with the public reaction to
Stephen Fry’s complaints regarding the quality of Telecom broadband on
Twitter, a customer points out that:
“Some people did back us up on that and say look, Telecom does
do this well, which was nice. I think one of the key things for me
was that the vast majority of the people that were abusing us were
people that I’d never heard of, they weren’t the people that we’ve
actually interacted with and that I consider part of our little online
community. So because we have built up relationships with people
previously, they weren’t the ones that were abusing us. If it was our
own community turning on us then I would have found that a lot
harder to take.”
74 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
her business. So I said. . . Let’s see how I may help you. My friends
they are quite active, they follow my wall for some reason. I would
make a genuine comment on clothing she was designing, I sup-
ported her on the first three months and she has become a really
good friend.”
“I have an insurance broker, I’ve tried to look him up, and he’s
not on any of the social media sites, so it’s a good old-fashioned
e-mail for him. Would I engage with him more if he were on
Twitter? Probably not, you know it’s the sort of thing you sign
up once for and forget about it for a year or two, or until your
circumstances change.”
Relational-Source
The 5-Sources Model shows that customers value social media communi-
cation with brands because it makes them part of the decision making
process. Customers value the personal responses from your brand in the
form of follow-up comments, likes, retweets or simply the acknowledg-
ment of being a regular. Such engagement reinforces and acknowledges
the importance of the customer as an individual to your brand.
Source 5: Relational Social Media Brand 77
The 5-Sources Model argues that customers are ready to invest time
and their own ideas by participating in your brands’ opinion polls and
discussions, for example, on new service initiatives. Social media make
them feel like they have the authority to influence the businesses’ prac-
tices. Customers also believe that, due to the properties of social media,
their opinions are heard not only by your brands but the public as well.
Customers help to cocreate the market offerings, taking the brand off in
their own desired direction.
It can be said that interactivity and cocreation in social media contexts
signify practices in which customers participate as brand coproducers,
reviewers, or marketers. For some customers the outcome of the relation-
ship with your brand is the possibility to choose service channels they can
interact with at their own convenience. For others it is about building and
linking your brand community.
Social media have shifted the focus from abstract forms of brand com-
munications to close and personal ones. From the customers’ perceptive,
it means knowing the person behind your brand, which gives customers
a sense of brand tangibility. Whatever the focus of the customers’ interac-
tivity with a brand in social media, it has a consequence that creates value.
The benefits of interactivity and engagement with a brand are fostering
individualized engagement and experience outcomes.
Although prior research has developed well-known typologies of
customer-brand relationships, they can only be partially applied to a
social media context1. Moreover, the forms of relationships produced by
current studies are more or less extensions or modifications of existing
typologies. There is also a gap in the understanding of customer-brand
relationships in the community-oriented environment of social media.
The 5-Sources Model has identified that customers may be very fickle on
social media channels. The consumption behavior of fickle customers is
difficult to predict and manage because of the situational dependency of
consumption practices. For example, customers may respond to sale pro-
motions or available giveaways as well as to friends’ recommendations.
1
See for example, the important work of Fournier, S., Breazeale, M., and Fetscherin,
M. (eds.) Consumer-Brand Relationships: Theory and Practice, Routledge, 430 pages,
New York, USA.
78 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
2
See Fournier, S. “Consumers and their Brands: Developing Relationship Theory in
Consumer Research.” Journal of Consumer Research 24, (March 1998): 343–73.
80 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
the business and the customers’ lifestyles, it does not affect their attitude
toward your brand. For instance, the customers note that they would
not visit, for example, a Facebook home design brand community on a
regular base, but would recommend this brand and continue using it if
the occasion arose.
Therefore, in the context of social media, casual experiences can
transfer into brand relationships because of brand visibility, accessibility,
and positive WOM. However, this will be dependent on the congru-
ence between your brands reputation and the customer’s everyday life
experiences.
CHAPTER 8
Functional-Source
• Material Rewards: Brand as a “priority club” enables
customers to get an exclusive access to the material and
tangible rewards.
• Problem Solving: Brand as an “emergency room” focuses
on a stress free, time and moneysaving solutions and
enables customers to address problems as soon as they
emerge.
• Information Search: Brand as an “information center”
enables customers to find required information about the
brand, available alternatives and/or expert advice.
• Knowledge: Brand as a “search engine” and a “data center”
enables customers to manage knowledge about the brand
in a convenient way.
• Feedback: Brand as a “conference room” enables customers
to express their opinions directly to brand.
The 5-Sources Model shows that in some cases, brand engagement might
be limited to the customers’ utilitarian needs. But this does not mean that
the same scenario applies to all consumption practices in social media. In
this regard, marketing practitioners need to recognize the importance of
the emotional aspect in brand consumption.
Implementing Social Media Branding 83
The model illustrates that customers look for enjoyable brand expe-
riences, which are expected to be entertaining and include elements of
humor, fantasy, or curiosity. By engaging with a brand in social media,
customers may also overcome some personal problems, such as homesick-
ness. Others use a brand as a form of aspirations, which is particularly
true for the leisure, fashion, and travel industries. Helped to escape and
manufacture rich memory.
Even though some of the customers’ stories about their emotional
experiences relate to product brands, they are provided here to show how
entertaining and enjoyable experiences can be incorporated into social
media strategies to give customers more than just practical reasons for
interacting with brands.
Emotional-Source
• Curiosity: Brand as an object of curiosity. By holding a
curiosity value brand makes customers want to “uncover”
the brand.
• Enjoyment: Brand as a source of enjoyable and exciting
experiences that makes customers feel happy and satisfied.
• Fantasy: Brand as a form of customer escapism, desired reality
and aspirations offering exciting and unusual experiences.
• Entertainment: Brand as a source of entertainment. By
giving customers amusements and interest brand makes
them to enjoy their experiences.
• Privilege/Recognition: Brand as the source of reassurance
that customers are noticeable and appreciated by a brand.
• Problem Alleviation: Brand as a source of help given
customers to deal with personal difficult situations.
The 5-Sources Model points to the fact that the value of consumption
can also be attributed to emotional experiences, which are constructed
through the activities customers, have undertaken to fulfill their emo-
tional needs. They will also become more active in engagement and the
experience of the brand, heightening the emotional response.
84 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
Self-Sourcing
• Life Arrangements: Brand as a source of support for
customers to simplify or facilitate their day-to-day activities.
• Self-Relevance: Brand as a link to the customers’ sense of
self. Customers get involved with brand that fits well with
their personal/professional interests and life style.
• Self-Branding: Brand as a platform for the customer
self-branding, building and raising their social profiles.
• Self-Actualization: Brand as a source of support for customers
to achieve what they want through their relationships with
brand.
• Expression: Brand as a vehicle for self-expression which
allows the customer to publically present their thoughts
and ideas and let others know who and what they are.
Create Relationship
“It can be a community hub . . . You are talking about florists, an
under -12 rugby team, and your plan to have sausage a sizzle this
weekend . . . .”
Obviously, since brands decided to go social they have become a part of the
social media community. The question to ask here is whether they are able
to bring customers a sense of community, as this is not just about lumping
people together; it is about focusing on community interests, engagement,
and link building. The 5-Sources Model proposes that social media approaches
need to be derived from an understanding of the role of the community,
where consumption experiences are formed, shared, and communicated.
It seems logical to suggest that customers foster your brand relation-
ship because it allows them to engage with society, sometimes at an inti-
mate and personal level. At the same time, members participate because
the communities are fun and enjoyable.
Social-sourcing
• Experience Exchange: Brand as a service for the exchange
of experiences, ideas, and know-how between customers.
• Sociality: Brand as a meeting platform that gives customers
a place to talk.
• Link Building: Brand as a source of the customer
networking for personal or professional interests.
• Community Attachment: Brand as a community hub
where customers experiences are formed, shared, and
communicated.
The 5-Sources Model shows that all aspects of brand consumption are
interrelated, but more importantly, they revolve around cocreation and
interactivity between customers and brands.
Relational-Source
• Emerged: The form of relationships occurred for the first
time in social media and based on online experiences only.
• Casual: The form of relationships resulting from accidental
or irregular experiences regardless of online or offline context.
• Preexisting: The form of relationships resulting from
customers’ prior brand knowledge and experiences.
• Obliged: The form of relationships resulting from statutory
obligations, not because it is wanted or desirable.
• Fickle: The form of relationships that is temporary and
often bonded by the present situation.
Closing Thoughts
As we come to the end of this book the focus now shifts primarily to
you, your brand, and your customers. The time to start developing and
implementing the 5-Sources Model. This will be a journey of discovery but
I caution you to keep it simple. I ask that you most of all, listen to the
customer and community and put them in control.
So, remember the functional, the emotional, the self, the social, and the
relational. All come together to make the 5-Sources Model:
• Self: Your social media brand will start to develop its image
that is more in line with community members.
• Personal: The brand that is starting to evolve will help to
foster closer social linkages within the collective building more
valued and meaningful reasons why your brand is truly loved.
• Relational: Finally, the brand will be the relationship as it
evolves with the social media community. It is no longer a
stand-alone observer. Now, the key participant that binds the
community of relationships and defines relationship equity.
Start thinking about how your brand will start building that conversation
with customers and the community. Focusing on the simplicity of the
community, content, and exchange. It is the primary definition of social
media community and the space in which your social media brand will
breathe and evolve.
I also want you to think about the brand as an APP or the application. Tradi-
tional branding has its place, but technology now plays such a key role in en-
gagement with customers and communities. The Smartphone is ubiquitous
and this is not just a trend. The APP as the brand is only that start of that
new approach. Now is the time to start adapting your brand to fit that model
so that your brand will be as ubiquitous as your customers in social media.
Think also about whom are your pivotals. The key customers that are
going to drive and provide momentum for the flow of communications
surrounding your social media brand.
Determine about the pivotals:
Finally, mistakes. You are going to make them because you will be ex-
perimenting. In the short term when customers and community are in
increasing control, things may seem chaotic and random. They probably
are! The best things you can do are listening and learning. Then develop
and apply. I would also encourage you to post a question to the blog for
this book through drrobertdavis.com. What social media branding says,
and it is predominant in the 5-Sources Model, is that this is a continual
process. There is no beginning and no end.
So! Just start.
CHAPTER 9
The think part of the book is where you start to do some further structured
thinking about your brand using some of the case examples that have been
developed. The eight cases I have included focus on the following areas:
Case 1
Yarns with Erica and Jess
was brilliant on many levels. Apart from being very witty, that is,
the yarns part playing off knitting and chatting, I loved the link to
Facebook. Wow, They get it. Social media branding is really simple. In
a witty way linking the offline brand and conversation with the social
media community based conversation.
Questions
1. What are some of the key success factors in their social media strategy?
2. In this and other cases, how do you think you can translate engage-
ment into transactions?
Case 2
Westjet Xmas Cheer
If all five points are involved and creatively designed, your consum-
ers and social media will do the work for you, spreading your story to
the global community.
Questions
Case 3
Fun with Bitstrips
Questions
1. If you were to create a comic character for your brand, what would its
characteristics be? Why are these important?
2. Go to Bitstrips and have a go at creating your character. Ask your cus-
tomers for feedback.
Case 4
Communication and Social Media
have not been able to reach you by phone or e-mail). That’s the beauty
of social media—it’s time-saving solution not only for your consum-
ers, but for you as well. And more importantly it reduces the distance
between your businesses and your consumers.
Isn’t that what you try to achieve?
Questions
1. What does your staff think about using social media for informal com-
munication? What are the arguments for and against this idea?
2. What type of applications does your staff mostly use when they engage
in informal communications?
Case 5
Banking and Social Media
Questions
1. If you started to engage more in social media, what areas pose most
of the risk in becoming too faceless in your communication with
customers?
2. What strategies would you employ to reduce these risks?
Case 6
Offline Engagement and Online Community
Questions
1. How do you currently use the offline market space in your marketing
communications and other business activities?
2. Of these approaches, choose three that could be used with social media
to complement the offline strategies.
Case 7
The Human Factor
recruitment agencies? If so, what do they look for and what implica-
tions might it have? Results from a focus group with job seekers were
clear and expected: social media is a reliable instrument for recruitment
purposes. However, the idea of “staying in touch” with recruitment
agencies seems more appropriate for Facebook rather than LinkedIn.
For example, the majority of the project participants pointed out that:
Questions
1. Think about your recruitment and talent strategies? Describe the cur-
rent approach in detail.
2. How could this approach be deployed online using LinkedIn or
Facebook?
Case 8
Not Much Spark in Spark.co.nz
This case is about changing the brand from traditional market orienta-
tions toward a brand that is more community and social media centric.
102 SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
1. Arrogance and indifference and being told, “OK, you can go to Vo-
dafone if you want to”.
2. An approach that nearly brought my partner to tears. Always bad to
make the customer cry.
3. Inflexibility in sales offering. Take it or leave it Model T Ford
approach.
4. A confused sales approach.
Brand Building in Action 103
Janine left pretty gutted. So, Janine went to Vodafone and here is what
happened:
Questions
1. Thinking about changes you are going to make to your brand in the
future to ensure it becomes more community oriented. How will you
ensure that traditional front line face to face delivery will be main-
tained and enhanced?
2. What incentives will you provide your loyal customers to continue to
be loyal as your brand shifts to being social media centric?
3. For your loyal customers, how will you convert them from simply
being loyal to becoming active pivotals in the collective communica-
tions model. See Chapter 2 for more in pivotals.
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THE BUSINESS Social Media Branding
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Curriculum-oriented, born- Social media branding provides the thinking, evidence, and
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