Samsung Business Strategy - Case Study Example

Samsung and Social Media Author’s Name Grade course Institution Tutor Date Company Overview and Mandate The Samsung Group, formed in 1938 by Lee Byung-chull, is an electronic conglomerate company based in South Korea and is made up of a number of subsidiaries (Mitchell 2010, p. 2). The company’s focus is primarily in electronics, construction and defense industries. Its other subsidiaries are involved in insurance, entertainment and advertising industries. Today, Samsung has become one of the most successful businesses, not only in Korea, but globally too and is among the largest companies in Korea contributing about one fifth of South Korea’s total exports (Mitchell 2010, p. 2). In the electronics industry, Samsung engages in consumer electronic products, information technology, mobile communications as well as device solutions for businesses globally. Future Samsung’s focus revolves around five key businesses; mobile, electronics and biopharmaceuticals (Mitchell 2010, p. 21). In its bio-pharmaceuticals business, Samsung approached Biogen and the two formed a joint venture with Samsung investing a massive $255 million that would see it offer the technical development required and the all important capacity for the biopharmaceutical manufacturing plant in South Korea (Bloomerg Businessweek 2012). A further $2 billion investment package has been budgeted for in pursuing the company’s biopharmaceutical growth strategy. Samsung has continued to grow exponentially in the mobile technology sector and has consistently become the largest mobile phones manufacturer since 2012. In order to retain this spot, the company is poised to upgrade its Texas semiconductor facility for an estimated $3-4 billion (Bloomerg Businessweek 2012). Current Social Media Techniques employed by Samsung Samsung, like many other global brands, has realized the power of social media in marketing their products and in communicating with their current and potential customers. The company was among the first to join social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+ (Lowitt 2013, p. 87). Samsung has gone a notch higher and created the Samsung Social Media Centre website where it has pinned plugins of these social media sites to make it easy for users to just log into the website, click on any of the available social media plugins and be directed straight to the company’s social media page. This reduces the hustle of users having to log into their own personal social media account and search for the company’s page (Lowitt 2013, p. 89). One technique that Samsung uses is the social currency strategy, whereby it uses its brand name in social media platforms to drive results (Nisen 2012). The social currency strategy has enabled Samsung drive forward its purchase, loyalty and consideration dimensions of business. Looking at the company’s website, it is clear that it is a fully socially enabled platform making it easy for visitors to the web to connect with friends thereby creating some sort of promotional campaign on behalf of the company while holding conversation with others (Nisen 2012). Samsung has also managed to effectively leverage its social currency strategy to give a boost and take advantage of the six major consumer behaviors; identity, functionality, information, affiliation, advocacy and conversation (Nisen 2012). Unlike its competitors, Sony, HTC and Apple, Samsung has been able to get people to talk about its products constantly and even celebrate them thereby fulfilling the strategy main purpose of attracting new customers instead of just preaching to its existing customers (Nisen 2012). Another technique employed by Samsung is the use of celebrity personalities to create the buzz on social media about its products and a good example is the just concluded Oscar Awards. Samsung had just released its latest Smartphone, Note 3, the latest of the galaxy note series. Being the event’s biggest sponsors, Samsung agreed with the event managers that the event’s host, Ellen DeGeneres, would use the new Samsung Note 3 on stage to tweet live updates of the event. Kontera, a company that specializes in tracking content on social media reported that at one point during the airing of the show, the Samsung was being mentioned approximately 900 times a minute on social media platforms. However, the major social media buzz that Samsung enjoyed was Ellen DeGeneres’ selfie which she took together with a number of movie celebrities. She posted the picture on Twitter and it reportedly garnered a massive 1 million retweets in just under an hour and breaking the record of the most retweeted post in just 34 minutes. Although the few of the retweets of the ‘selfie’ mentioned ‘Samsung’ it was clear to all viewers that the phone used was of the Samsung brand. Samsung, known for its high-end Smart TVs with quality visual display has always wanted to leverage on social media capabilities to market this line of televisions to consumers worldwide (Ignite Social Media 2011). The company thus employs a two-thronged approach whereby they first take over the community social media engagement on existing profiles and then come up with a long-term strategy with the help of the company’s Community Analysis & Engagement Planning process (Ignite Social Media 2011). The company then effects a content strategy that is more engagement-focused of the various social media platforms and reinforces this approach with the application of social media platform programs that are designed to drive promotions and acquisition (Ignite Social Media 2011). The results of this technique have been amazing for Samsung enabling the company to reach the 25million fans mark in Europe alone. Its Twitter brand account has also seen an increase in the number of followers growing by 1.875% over the past year. During a campaign to promote its smart TVs, the “Like It, Reveal It, Win It,” promotion, Samsung’s fan base tripled with the number of active community members increasing by 20% (Ignite Social Media 2011). Effectiveness of Samsung’s Current Social Media Tactics These social media strategies by Samsung have been very effective in publicizing the company’s products (Turner 2013). For one, the number of social media fans and followers has been growing at a steady pace over the past several years. For example, as mentioned earlier, in Europe alone, after the “Like It, Reveal It, Win It” the Samsung fan page had hit the 25 million fan mark (Ignite Social Media 2011). The company’s consumers were so impressed with the possibility of winning a Samsung related product and did not mind inviting their friends to the page every day they visited the company’s Facebook account. In addition Samsung was voted the best brand in social media in 2011. It was the only mobile phone brand in the top six. This goes to show that the company’s strategy is working effectively (Turner 2013). Samsung has also managed to create rise the loyalty of its customers to a whole different level (Sharma 2013). The company continues provide its consumers with up to date information on its developments and this has proved effective compared to if they would have opted to post these news updates on their website which, in all reality, very few consumers would visit. Social media users are known to converse with friends frequently on these platforms and by giving them topics and trends to talk about, Samsung has managed to fulfill what conventional publicity and advertising strategies has not been able to achieve (Sharma 2013). Taking into account the amount of money spent on conventional promotions and publicity companies, social media advocacy by users of Samsung products can only be termed as free publicity. Samsung’s Future Improvements Despite the leaps and bounds made by Samsung, surpassing its competitors by far, it is important for the company to continue on this trend and not slow down. Customers are always on the lookout for new things without caring the amount of work and finances that go into new developments (Shaughnessy 2013). Staying ahead of the pack is what will keep people talking about Samsung, and what better way to do it than on unique and creative social media campaigns and strategies. The future for social media marketing is limitless and the future is always uncertain, it helps to plan for it and be prepared for any possibilities (Shaughnessy 2013). When social network emerged, their main purpose was just to connect people and it brought pleasure from those involved in it. Sharing each other’s lives experiences created and continues to create closer ties thus building a social capital. However, the limits are being reached as is evident from the amount of time people are devoting to networking and the number of people one can connect with. Samsung’s direction should thus be towards social engagement and less networking (Shaughnessy 2013). This will be made possible by the company’s dominance in the smartphone industry and it will enable the company develop its own social media universe instead of ceding its content to Facebook. This will allow users to interact freely with every Samsung device that they own via the companies social media. The threat that social media may fizzle out in the future is one that many marketers cannot ignore. The buzz created by instant messaging platforms should give worry Samsung as the number of people engaging with these platforms is always on the rise (Shaughnessy 2013). The company can thus task its software engineering team to develop an instant messaging tool and integrate it into it future Smartphones and tablets so that the company will be able to communicate with its customers at a personal level (Shaughnessy 2013). The Ellen DeGeneres stunt is also something that Samsung can incorporate into its business in the future. Instead of waiting for major events, the company can decide to make publicity stunts using different other famous individuals to get more people talking about Samsung products thereby driving traffic on their social media pages. How Samsung will Measure the proposed Future Tools Once these tools have been put into place, the company will have to measure their effectiveness to find out if they are really achieving the goals and purpose they were meant to achieve (Sterne 2010, p. 61). On the social media platform proposed above, the company will have to monitor the number of users joining its platform and further employ a company that will help it track the content discussed by the users at any given time. This will give Samsung a rough idea of whether its users are talking more about its products and if not, find the cause and get consumers and potential consumers get talking about them (Sterne 2010, p. 63). For the proposed instant messaging application, Samsung may measure its effectiveness by making it mandatory for users to register in the application first in order to get the company’s latest news as and when they develop (Sponder 2011, p. 162). The company can then track the number of users registering on this platform as they will be interested in learning what Samsung has to offer in the future. Samsung’s New Innovation for the Future Samsung’s most innovative social media outreach campaign can be said to be the most successful campaign for the company so far (Ignite Social Media 2011). Developed by Ignite Social Media, the company’s “Like it, Reveal It, Win It” campaign incentivizes fans that participate regularly and invite friends to the campaign with weekly Samsung product giveaways. Once a user likes the company’s TV Facebook page, he or she is able to enter the competition and stand a chance of winning a Samsung product made possible by unlocking pixels (Ignite Social Media 2011). The pixels can only be unlocked if the user recommends the contest to his or her friends. As the number of pixels unlocked increases, the possibilities of winning a Samsung product also increases. This campaign is different from others because, being a weekly contest, users are driven to the Facebook page on a weekly basis and invite more friends to the page thus increasing the page’s traffic (Ignite Social Media 2011). Fan acquisition on Samsung’s Facebook page is the main idea behind this campaign. The first week of its inception, the company’s page saw its fan base increase by 12,000. This is a social media campaign that if applied to other products other than just Samsung TVs will see this fan base increase even further (Shaughnessy 2013). Samsung Leveraging on its Mobile Engagement Strategy As more and more people continue to buy smartphones and engage in discussions on social media, Samsung has not let this moment pass it by (Lopez 2013). Samsung recently launched a brand new enterprise mobile ecosystem called the Samsung Solution Exchange. Through this platform Samsung works closely with top companies on the rise to create solutions that are valuable to businesses in addressing challenges they face via Samsung secure highly-liked smartphones and tablets (Lopez 2013). The company has also laid down plans to work with various partners in healthcare, transport, education, financial services and retail industries in a bid to help come up with vertical solutions in these industries. Although this might appear less revolutionary, Samsung is of the opinion that the future of business solutions is mobility, and rightly so (Lopez 2013). Operating systems that are PC-based will eventually be resigned to the backstage as mobile solutions continue to be developed with each passing day. Samsung has intensified the development of user friendly software that has become the to-go-to platform for most businesses to build their value-added services on. Apart from building aesthetically appealing devices, the Samsung Company knows that the business is in developing Samsung-ready enterprise class solutions (Lopez 2013). Features such as S Pen, IR blaster, Screen Mirroring, NFC, Air View and Air Gesture are just some of the development that are a result of the increasing mobile engagement by its consumers; and has got consumers even engaging more with Samsungs mobile devices. The sales from Samsung Mobile smartphones and tablets have increased greatly over the past few years. This increase can only be rivaled by Apple who is Samsung’s only major competition in the smartphone industry(Gartner 2013). Samsung has taken advantage of the craze for smartphones in emerging markets by manufacturing smartphones that are cheaper than its competitor’s thus increasing the sales mobile phone models found in the mass-market sector . The company’s smartphone sales were estimated at between 300-310 million in 2013. It has further rolled out a plan that will see it sell around 360 million phones in 2014. Of this number, 126 million will be of premium models. Taking the figures into account, it is easy to conclude that Samsung understand the strategy of leveraging on product engagement by consumers. References Mitchell, T. (2010). Samsung Electronics: And the Struggle for Leadership of the Electronics Industry. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons. Bloomerg Businessweek. (2012, August 21). Company Overview of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Retrieved http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=91868 Nisen, M. (2012, December 7). The social Currency Wheels Show Why Everyone Loves Samsung and Forgot about Sony. Retrieved 16th March, 2014, from http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-and-sony-social-media-strategy-2012-12 Ignite Social Media (2011). Samsung: 2011 Social Media Plan. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/case-studies/samsung/ Lowitt, E. (2013). The Collaboration Economy: How to Meet Business, Social and Environment. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons. Sharma, V. (2013, October 11). 9 Secrets Behind a Successful Social Media Strategy. International Business Times. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from http://www.ibtimes.co.in/articles/513090/20131011/social-media-strategy-companies- facebook-twitter-instagram.htm Turner, H. (2013, May 21). Global and Social Media Strategy at Samsung Mobile. Retrieved March 16, 2014 from http://www.intelligenthq.com/social-media-posts/global-digital- social- media-strategy-at-samsung-mobile/ Shaughnessy, H. (2013, September 15). What the Latest Apple and Samsung Announcements Teach Us about The Future of Business. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2013/09/15/what-the-latest-apple-and- samsung-announcements-teach-us-about-business-3-0/ Sterne, J. (2010). Social Media Metrics: How to Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Investment. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons. Sponder, M. (2011). Social Media Analytics: Effective Tools for Building, Interpreting and Using Metrics. Columbus, NY: McGraw Hill Professional Shaughnessy, H. (2013, July 7). What makes Samsung such an innovative company?. Retrieved March 17, 2014, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2013/03/07/why-is-samsung-such-an- innovative-company/ Lopez, M. (2013, September 27). Can Samsung Be The Next Microsoft?. Retrieved March 15, 2014, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/maribellopez/2013/09/27/can-samsung-be-the- next-microsoft/ Gartner (2013, November 14). Gartner says Smartphone Sales Accounted for 55 Percent of Overall Mobile Phone Sales in Third Quarter of 2013. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2623415 Read More