The Role of Social Media in Branding in the UK - Dissertation Example

?I. INTRODUCTION Background Since its invention back in the 1980s, the Internet has rapidly evolved with the equally robust advances in information and communication technologies that enabled it to achieve the speed, coverage and accessibility crucial in the introduction and real-time delivery of rich media content, sophisticated web applications and systems. The time when a single image took ages to load in a website page and the inclusion of a moving picture such as video or animation as unthinkable are long gone. Today, Internet users are used to- and expect videos, flash elements, and other web applications to materialize in their computer screens almost instantaneously. This development has allowed the Internet to become a major component of the strategies and platforms by which business enterprises operate. The social networking website is one of such breakthroughs. Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, Blogspot/Blogger and Twitter are some of the most popular forms of this Internet application/system. By the year 2000, the usage of this web system exploded to billions of users combined. Facebook alone, through the analytics tool provided by Google Ad Planner, has more than 600 million users worldwide and 25 million of these are British. (Google 2011) The statistics is further reinforced by the fact that the website has 770 billion page views and 23-hour average visitor use. (Google 2011) If one has to consider the users of other social networking websites that are popular across the World Wide Web, the staggering figure could reach up to 1 billion. Facebook is, in fact predicted to achieve its one-billionth user by next year. (Business Wire 2007) In the British experience the figures are as impressive. For example, the percentage of social media users jumped from 22 percent four years ago to 44 percent in 2009 and approximately 35 percent of these users logging on to their favorite social networking site(s) at least once every week. (Shayon, 2010) The significance of these developments and figures for advertising and branding is tremendous. As a communications technology, social media has the power to influence individuals and groups. The humungous number of social media users highlights the degree of its import. Research Objectives This research seeks to investigate social media and critically outline its characteristics in an attempt to define its role in branding. This research will specifically be confined within the United Kingdom. To this end, the following goals would be pursued: Define and explain social media; Explain how social media can enhance branding; Identify emerging branding techniques within the social media sphere; Identify and explain existing cases of successful branding undertaken through or with the help of social media in the UK experience; Pitfalls and limitations of the social media in the branding context; Outline potentials and future development of the technology in the context of its role in brand building in the UK. What is Social Networking? An investigation on social media either within the academic sources or over the Internet would reveal numerous and diverse definitions. For this study’s purposes, the term social media would follow Paul Clark’s general assumption which explains social media as the ultimate democracy of expression, one that is “typified by e-mails, blogs, podcasts, video- and photo-sharing, voice-over IP, message forums and boards, and wikis” constituting some form of organic conversation that involved the production and access of contents by individuals using computers and the web. (Clark, 2010) Social networking websites such as Facebook can be an amalgamation of these social media elements and web applications. For example, they may offer their users photo and video-sharing services, blog/micro blogging functionalities, messaging/chat applications, boards and mail systems. The point is that the web is in constant flux and applications and functionalities are often being developed and integrated in order to provide richer and more complete user experience. It is, therefore easier to understand how social media can help and enable people to communicate, connect, collaborate and do other things with each other, real-time over the Internet. Specific example are listed below: LinkedIn connect colleagues for business purposes; sites such as YouTube are used for sharing ideas through video. People can share and comment on images through sites such as Flickr. Social bookmarking at sites such as Mister Wong and Digg are a way for Internet users to store, organize, search, comment on, and manage Web pages. (Oja and Parsons 2009) Technically speaking, social media is a network that involves objects and human interaction. According to Ting, Wu and Ho (2010), in social networking terms, a network is defined as a set of actors (objects or nodes in inanimate networks) and a set of ties or links between those actors. This is best expressed in the model below (See Fig. 1). To illustrate this, there is the case of Facebook. The website is a network. People are connected through the social graphs of the site’s users. Then, within the network, there are functionalities, extensions and applications that people can use in their interactions and enjoyment. For example, there is Farmville, a Flash-based game that takes advantage of the user-connections to create a community of players, “farming, trading and communing” within the game. In the entire scheme, players, “social applications” and Facebook’s functionalities constitute the nodes. They interact through the series of connections that are enabled via Facebook’s social networking technology – connections according to Friends, friends of friends, married to-, list of siblings, employed in, the schools one attended, even the games that people play, among other shared variables. Here, the network is easily understood as one that is composed of an almost endless or limitless cycle and opportunities wherein people and their connections could constitute a single community that is much more gargantuan in magnitude but simple, easy and fast for users. According to Wasserman (1994), social media should be considered an independent discipline in itself because it encompasses unique theories, models and applications that are expressed in terms of relational concepts or processes in addition to the following key distinctive characteristics: Actors and their actions are viewed as interdependent rather than independent; Relational ties (linkages) between actors are channels for transfer or “flow” of resources; Network models focusing on individuals view the network structure environment as providing opportunities for or constraints on individual actions. (p4) Fig. 1 In the context of marketing and, henceforth, branding, social media is a platform and an enabling technology. According to Tobin and Braziel, social media are tools that empower people to self-publish and that “while this self-publishing takes many forms, from a 2,500-word blog post, to a 15-word comment to a 140-character Twitter message, the essence is that social media tools give people [and organizations] a voice and a presence on the Internet.” Then, the platform and tools constitute the technologies – ones that are highly scalable and accessible – that enable individuals and organizations to influence other individuals and groups easily. The best indication, wrote Oliver, Romm-Livermore and Sudweeks (2009), that social media are becoming big business is the highly publicized acquisition of YouTube, the social networking video website developed by 29-year old Chad Hurley and 28-year old Steve Chen, by Google for a staggering 1.6 billion dollars. In the explanation of social media and social networking websites, experts – in their diverse opinions – effectively explained the phenomenal growth of this web technology. There are even some observers who think that this Internet platform is the Holy Grail of the World Wide Web from the commercial standpoint. Oliver, Romm-Livermore and Sudweeks emphasized that social media provide an entry point onto the web for consumers and that this role of gatekeepers enable the platform to play a key role in conducting business online. Key Terms and Concepts In order to better understand the content of this study, it is important to define key concepts. The following is a compendium of several terms and concepts on social media: Social applications: software components that facilitate interaction between members of a social network. (Evans & McKee 2010) Social media: An umbrella term that describe all Web-based and mobile services that enable to build their own personal online profile, connect with other users, and create, publish, and respond to content – whether to share with a network of friends or with the Internet as a whole. (Funk) Social networking sites: websites that offer its users the creation of their personal or business networks. Social networks allow their users to create and maintain either public or private profile; build a network of friends; interact with other users by either publishing messages, comments, images, videos and other contents. (Funk) Web 2.0: used typically to describe technologies such as wikis, weblogs and other collaborative tools. (Blossom 2009) In the field of branding, there is Lewis and Stowell’s (2008) explanation that the concept of branding is “a name, symbol or design that helps set a product apart from its competitors.” Belk gave his own version of the definition of the brand. The concept in this discourse is not too divergent. However, this time it is stated in the context of the notion of brand equity wherein the value that is equated with the brand name or its image relegates other factors and product attributes that distinguishes the brand in the market. From the perspective of commerce - as typified by actions and initiatives by competing players to capture the hearts and minds of their customers, the brand was defined as “system of signs and symbols that fulfill, in the imaginary/symbolic realm, consumer needs for intangibles such as emotional experience, a relationship or a sense of belonging in an increasingly fragmented and confusing world.” (Belk 2006) A fundamental component of branding is the so-called brand image. This refers to the identity or the visual/textual representation that is created and constantly maintained in order to attract a specific target market that may be composed of individuals or groups. The “image” may be consisted of a picture, a theme, a sound, logo, a slogan, or a combination of these, among other elements that could be used over and over in the course of the branding campaign. Meanwhile, identity takes a meaning of its own. Saren (2006) emphasized that it is the definition of an individual or a thing, a definition that constitutes what makes a brand different and distinct from others Then, there is also the need to define promotions. It, as used by this study, is not related to sales promotion activities, which is primarily aimed at influencing the consumers’ awareness or attitudes through campaigns that intrude directly at the decision-making and purchasing stages on the consumers’ end. Schultz, Robertson and Petrison (1998) maintained that sales promotions could only influence behavior directly by the changes in the price/value relationship that the product would eventually entice the buyer. Here, one sees that this kind of “promotion” is short term and a mere component within a wider marketing strategy. The promotions or brand promotions concept used by this study is more akin to advertising or marketing in a sense that it is more general and often cover integrated brand promotions consisted of several components. O’Guinn, Allen and Semenik (2008) discourse on the subject is more detailed in this respect. They posited that brand promotion “is the process of using a wide range of promotional tools working together to create widespread brand exposure.” Such tools mentioned by the authors can include sales promotions, among other advertising and marketing activities that make use of the media in order to achieve widespread exposure of the brand and other related objectives. Coverage and Limitations of the Study This research will be undertaken within the UK setting only. The social media would cover all known platforms, namely e-mails, blogs, podcasts, video- and photo-sharing, voice-over IP, message forums and boards, wikis, social networks, and all other related websites and Internet applications. In addition, this study will also be confined to the role of social media in branding exclusively. Other related variables such as advertising and marketing will not be extensively included. The major limitation of this study is the fact that the social media as a tool for branding is a recent phenomenon. There are perhaps still very few actual instances wherein this strategy was successfully implemented or used primarily in such a way that its results can be quantified. And so, one can consider this study as an exploratory research. This also may impact the instruments developed to measure the role of social media. Since there is still no similar study conducted on the subject (that about measuring the role and efficacy of social media in branding), instruments and measurements are not tested for reliability. References Belk, R 2006, Handbook of qualitative research methods in marketing, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 33. Blossom, J 2009, Content Nation: Surviving and Thriving as Social Media Changes Our Work. London: John Wiley and Sons. p. 2. Business Wire. (2007). "Social Media Users to Exceed One Billion By 2012: Long-term Financial Viability will Depend on Targeted Advertising Success" Business Wire. Available from: [24 Jan 2011] Clark, P 2010, Stormy Skies: Airlines in Crisis. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Pp 99-100 Evans, D and McKee, J 2010, Social Media Marketing: The Next Generation of Business Engagement. London: John Wiley and Sons. p. 318. Funk, T 2011, Social Media Playbook for Business. New York: ABC-CLIO. p. 8. Google Ad Planner. Facebook. Google.com. Available from: [21 Jan 2011] Lewis, T and Stowell, C 2008, The 16 Career Clusters: A Project-Based Orientation. New York: Cengage Learning. p. 20. O'Guinn, T, Allen, C and Semenik, R 2008, Advertising and Integrated Brand Promotion, New York: Cengage Learning. p. 11. Oja, D and Parsons, J 2009, Computer Concepts Illustrated: Enhanced Introductory. New York: Cengage Learning. p. 293. Oliver, D, Romm-Livermore, C and Sudweeks, F 2009, Self-service in the Internet age: expectations and experiences. Berlin: Springer. p. 5 Saren, M 2006, Marketing graffiti: the view from the street. Amsterdam: Butterworth-Heinemann. Schultz, D Robinson, W and Petrison, L 1998, Sales promotion essentials: the 10 basic sales promotion techniques-- and how to use them, New York: McGraw-Hill Professional. p. 6. Shayon, S 2010, "UK Social Media Users More Wary, Also Deluded." Brand Channel Online. Available from: [20 Jan 2011, ] Ting, I, Wu, H, and Ho, T 2010, Mining and Analyzing Social Networks. Berlin: Springer. p. 68 Tobin, J and Braziel, L 2008, Social Media is a Cocktail Party. Jim Tobin. Wasserman, S 1994, Social network analysis: methods and applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 13. Read More