social media's role in marketing communication: the
TRANSCRIPT
UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE
LOUVAIN
LOUVAIN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT
and
VYTAUTAS MAGNUS UNIVERSITY
SOCIAL MEDIA'S ROLE IN MARKETING COMMUNICATION:
THE PERSPECTIVE OF FIRMS AND CONSUMERS
Supervisor at LSM: Ph. D. Nicolas KERVYN de MEERENDRE
Supervisor at VMU: Ph. D. Nina KLEBANSKAJA
Research Master’s Thesis
Submitted by Gintarė NOVIKAITĖ
With a view of getting the degrees
Master in Marketing Master in Management
ACADEMIC YEAR 2014 -2015
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
SANTRAUKA .................................................................................................................................... 3
ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................ 4
KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS OF THE THESIS .......................................................................... 5
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 8
I. THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF MARKETING COMMUNICATION................................... 10
1.1. The conception and evolution of marketing communication ........................................................... 10
1.2. Models of marketing communication............................................................................................... 14
1.3. Social Media: the concept and its implementation ........................................................................... 18
1.4. Types of marketing communication in Social Media ...................................................................... 22
1.5. A review of empirical researches on “Social Media” phenomenon ................................................. 28
II. THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA: EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF BELGIAN
AND LITHUANIAN MARKETS .................................................................................................... 31
2.1. The methodology of research ........................................................................................................... 31
2.2. The review of Social Media tendencies: EU, Belgium and Lithuania ............................................. 35
2.3. Analysis of Facebook characteristics in Belgium and Lithuania ..................................................... 39
2.4. Results of consumers’ survey in Belgium and Lithuania ................................................................. 46
2.5. Defining problem areas of Social Media implementation ................................................................ 55
III. STRATEGIC SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE SOCIAL MEDIA IMPLEMENTATION IN
BELGIUM AND LITHUANIA ........................................................................................................ 57
3.1. “Samsung” brand’s Social Media marketing communication plan in Belgium ............................... 57
3.2. “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand’s Social Media marketing communication plan in Lithuania .......... 65
CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................................................................... 72
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................. 75
ANNEXES ........................................................................................................................................ 81
Annex No. 1 ................................................................................................................................................. 82
Annex No. 2 ................................................................................................................................................. 83
Annex No. 3 ................................................................................................................................................. 84
Annex No. 4 ................................................................................................................................................. 85
Annex No. 5 ................................................................................................................................................. 88
Annex No. 6 ................................................................................................................................................. 91
Annex No. 7 ................................................................................................................................................. 94
Annex No. 8 ................................................................................................................................................. 95
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SANTRAUKA
Baigiamojo darbo autorius: Gintarė Novikaitė
Pilnas baigiamojo darbo pavadinimas: Socialinės Žiniasklaidos Vaidmuo Marketingo
Komunikacijoje: Įmonių ir Vartotojų Požiūris
Baigiamojo darbo vadovas VDU: Ph. D. Nina KLEBANSKAJA
Baigiamojo darbo vadovas LSM: Ph. D. Nicolas KERVYN de MEERENDRE
Baigiamojo darbo atlikimo vieta ir
metai:
Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas, Ekonomikos ir vadybos
fakultetas, Kaunas, 2015 ir
Louvain School of Management, Louvain-la-Neuve,
2015
Puslapių skaičius: 79
Lentelių skaičius: 9
Paveikslų skaičius: 23
Priedų skaičius: 8
Atsižvelgiant į socialinės žiniasklaidos tendencijas Belgijoje ir Lietuvoje, šio magistro
baigiamojo darbo tikslas yra pateikti strateginius sprendimus įtraukiant socialinę žiniasklaidą
„Samsung" ir „Nescafé Dolce Gusto" prekinių ženklų marketingo komunikacijoje. Teorinėje darbo
dalyje buvo pristatyta rinkodaros komunikacijos modelių raida nuo „Vienas-vienam" "iki „Daugelis-
daugeliui“ modelių, taip pat socialinės žiniasklaidos sąvoka kartu su jai pritaikytais marketingo
komunikacijos būdais. Empirinė šio darbo dalis susideda iš dvejų anksčiau minėtų prekinių ženklų
„Facebook" socialinio puslapio charakteristikų analizės bei dvejų vartotojų apklausų rezultatų
palyginimų, atliktų Belgijoje ir Lietuvoje. Atsižvelgiant į gautus rezultatus, projektinėje darbo dalyje
buvo pasiūlyta "Samsung" prekiniam ženklui Belgijoje sustiprinti savo komunikacijos strategiją
susitelkiant ties Tūkstantmečio karta (angl. the Millennials), sukuriant Snapchat programos ir
"Diagnostinio Socialinio Aprūpinimo" socialines kampanijas. „Nescafé Dolce Gusto" prekiniam
ženklui Lietuvoje siūloma susitelkti ties Tūkstantmečio ir X kartomis (angl. Generation X) pristatant
edukacinius video (angl. "know-how"), sukuriant Instagram komunikacijos programą ir pradėti
„Prekinio ženklo advokato“ (angl. Brand Advocacy) kampaniją.
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ABSTRACT
Author of diploma paper: Gintarė Novikaitė
Full title of diploma paper: Social Media's Role in Marketing Communication: The Perspective of
Firms and Consumers
Supervisor in LSM: Ph. D. Nicolas KERVYN de MEERENDRE
Supervisor in VMU: Ph. D. Nina KLEBANSKAJA
Presented at: Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Economics and
Management, Kaunas, 2015 and
Louvain School of Management, Louvain-la-Neuve, 2015
Number of pages: 79
Number of tables: 9
Number of pictures: 23
Number of appendixes: 8
Regarding Social Media’s tendencies in Belgium and Lithuania, the aim of the thesis is to
present strategic solutions of Social Media implementation in “Samsung” and “Nescafé Dolce Gusto”
brands’ marketing communication strategies. In the theoretical part of the thesis it was presented the
evolution of marketing communication models from “One-to-One” to “Many-to-Many”, not to
mention the “Social Media” phenomenon was described with its relevant types of marketing
communication. The empirical part consists of Facebook characteristics’ analysis for two previously
mentioned brands and comparison of two consumer surveys’ results that were conducted in Belgium
and Lithuania. Taken into consideration the empirical findings, it was suggested for “Samsung” brand
in Belgium to enhance its communication strategy in Social Media by targeting Millennials with real-
time marketing competition for consumers, creating Snapchat and “Diagnostic Social Care” social
campaigns. In addition to this, for “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand in Lithuania it was suggested to
target Millennials and Generation X by providing “know-how” educational videos, creating
Instagram communication program and launching a brand advocacy campaign.
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KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS OF THE THESIS
Brand awareness – target consumers are aware of the most essential brand characteristics, features
and benefits. They know the strengths of the brands as compared with competitive brands; they know
why they should buy brand X instead of brand Y or Z. Essentially, consumers should be able to recall
the brand’s positioning. This knowledge may be based on very objective information, but also on
brand image and lifestyle positioning (De Pelsmacker et. al, 2013).
Business-to-Business (B2B) conception - the nature of a business transaction, which takes place
between organizations, for example a manufacturer and wholesaler, a wholesaler and retailer
(Investopedia, 2014).
Business-to-Customer (B2C) conception – the nature of a business transaction, which takes place
between the organization and the user. The term itself can describe a company that provides goods
and services to consumers (Investorwords, 2014).
Communication – it is a group of people or interpersonal activities, exchange of experience by verbal
and nonverbal signals (Jovaiša, 1993).
Competitive advantage – a characteristic or set of characteristics that distinguishes a person,
product, company, branch or a country from others and help them to compete in the market (VŽ
dictionary, 2014).
Content Marketing – type of marketing communication, when it is created and provided valuable,
adequate and complete information (content) in order to attract and acquire a precise audience
(Content Marketing Institute, 2014).
Exuberants – a term used in Social Media to describe active users who take pictures of and blog
about everything and are constantly projecting themselves and their experiences out into the world
(Mashable, 2014).
Long Tail Theory – phenomenon, when lower-profile merchandises and services because of newly
introduced ones also gain popularity and comes back to the market (Zimmermann, 2010).
Many-to-many communication model – in this marketing communication model a consumer is not
only the recipient of the information, but he is also a sender. The dissemination of information in the
market is no longer just vertical but also horizontal – a consumer can give a feedback to the
organization (sender) and also spread the information to others.
Meta-analysis - a statistical procedure that integrates the results of several independent studies
considered to be “combinable”. Well conducted meta-analyses allow a more objective appraisal of
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the evidence than traditional narrative reviews, provide a more precise estimate of a treatment effect,
and may explain heterogeneity between the results of individual studies (BMJ, 2014).
One-to-one communication model – the first marketing communication model that consists of a
sender, a medium through which a message is delivered and a recipient. It has relatively high cots in
time and economic factors, therefore it is used today only exceptional cases, when a company wants
to show the value of a particular customer.
One-to-many communication model – a marketing communication model where is the sender - a
person (organization), who transmits the information in targeted message to consumers by choosing
the appropriate marketing communication tools. By using technical devices there is a possibility to
reach out for more than one consumer.
Real time marketing (RTM) - is marketing performed "on-the-spot" to determine an appropriate or
optimal approach to a particular customer at a particular time and place. It is often related to already
popular event or occasion (Business dictionary, 2014).
Relationship marketing – marketing activities that are based on management and development of
long-term relationship with consumer (Business dictionary, 2014).
Social contagion - the spread of innovation processes in which the main role is played by users,
communicating with each other (Van den Bulte, Wuyts, 2007).
Social media – creation, publication and sharing of information with the public on the internet, that
allows internet users to participate in the creation of the content, share insights and feedback,
participate in the leisure activities or for business purposes (Chung, Austria, 2010).
Social Network Analysis – a methodology used to analyze the properties of social networks. The
way in which the social network is represented is based on Graphs Theory, representing relations as
nodes and links, where depending on the level of analysis, the nodes may represent entities such as
people, technology, groups or firms (Zack, 2000).
Stakeholders - people who are interested in a particular company or project. Primary stakeholders
are considered as investors, employees, customers and suppliers. Secondary – as the public, the
government, trade associations (Investopedia, 2014).
Theory of U-shaped function – the most satisfied and most unsatisfied consumers are willing to
leave comments about goods and services (Godes, Mayzlin, 2003).
Velocity Alert factor – the characteristics of an advertisement that has the highest probability to be
responded to by consumers, e.g. high level of sharing, commenting, “liking”.
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Viral Marketing – type of marketing communication, where an increase of the organization’s or
brand’s awareness or marketability is pursued by using a self-spreading processes on social media. It
can be verbal recommendation that reinforces the internet or e-mail (Wilson, 2012).
Word-of-Mouth communication – informational communication between consumers about
ownership and usage of goods and services, also their characteristics and sellers (Westbrook, 2000).
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INTRODUCTION
Relevance of the topic. The relationship management and its development between an
organization and its clients is a critical factor in the analysis and evaluation of business process and
its effectiveness. Previously, company’s management processes consisted only of the supply of
products and services, the attention was focused on keeping the level of quality, regardless of what
users really want and expect. However, the days when only manufacturing a good product or
delivering a good service could bring the success for the organization have already gone. Because of
the rising competitive pressure that is not based on pricing, for an organization that wants to compete
successfully in the market is not enough anymore to create just a product of great quality.
Taking into consideration the fact that organizations are now focused on the needs of
customers, they have been raising questions such as: how could they analyze, target and interact with
consumers in the most efficient way? The rise of Social Media phenomenon incites scholars and
marketing agencies to position it as the main marketing communication tool. The innovative approach
to consumers has become one of the factors that led to the transformation of marketing
communication model from “One-to-Many" to "Many-to-Many", where the consumer is not only a
recipient of information, but also the consigner. This change was the beginning of "word-of-mouth”
communication that increasingly gained popularity between marketing professionals, strategists and
scholars.
Many scholars have dived into the topic of “social media” where the main question
remained: how online/offline communication between consumers and organizations affects latter’s
performance results? It is also evident that still not every market participant understands the
importance of social media’s role – there are companies that do not use social media platforms or at
least do not know what first step to take in order to implement it into their communication strategy.
After careful analysis of researches conducted all over the world, it is concluded that up until today,
there are only several researchers who have analyzed the situation in European countries concerning
this topic. Taking into consideration that each European country differs from one another by its size
of population, economic, geographic and political situation, it was chosen Belgium and Lithuania, to
analyze the market situation in these two countries. After the online marketing analysis has been
done, the number of market sectors has been narrowed to one – Electronics & Appliances – among
which brands such as Samsung and Nescafé Dolce Gusto have been selected in performing a
Facebook characteristics’ analysis – how do they present themselves in Social Media, what
communication strategies have they chosen.
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Problem questions. How companies use Social Media to communicate in Belgium and
Lithuania’s markets? What is the attitude towards Social Media as a communication tool among
consumers?
Target of thesis. Marketing communication between companies and their consumers in
Belgium and Lithuania.
Aim of thesis. Regarding the Social Media’s tendencies in Belgium and Lithuania present
strategic solutions of its implementation.
Objectives of thesis:
1. Perform literature review about models of marketing communication, Social Media
phenomenon;
2. Review previous researches conducted by scholars concerning Social Media concept;
3. Perform an analysis of Facebook characteristics for “Samsung” and “Nescafé Dolce Gusto”
brands;
4. Perform a survey of consumers in Belgium and Lithuania, present the results;
5. Conclude hypothesis and provide strategic solutions for social media implementation.
The research paper is structured as follows. To guide this empirical analysis it is started by
developing a theoretical framework that identifies the evolution of marketing communication
conceptual models. Regarding this, a “Social Media” concept is introduced also disclosing the most
relevant types of marketing communication. After reviewing previous researches regarding Social
Media subject, the results of Facebook characteristics’ analysis and surveys conducted in Belgian and
Lithuanian markets are presented and discussed. Finally, four hypothesis are concluded and further
strategic solutions are disclosed.
Methods of empirical analysis. In order to present the solutions for problem questions
raised in the introduction part, it was examined the scientific, analytical literature and primary
statistical and secondary data on which the survey was conducted, based on a logical and comparative
analysis. In order to achieve more profound results of analysis, not only quantitative (statistical
research) but also qualitative (analysis of defined characteristics) methods have been chosen. The
obtained data was processed with Microsoft Excel 2013 program. In order for the data to be easily
understood and more visual, it is illustrated by tables and graphs.
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I. THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF MARKETING
COMMUNICATION
In the first part of the thesis the main concepts regarding marketing communication and the
evolution of its conception will be presented. It will also be disclosed and compared several marketing
communication models with the regard of the role of consumer and the change of its influence to
company’s marketing communication. Taking into consideration the IT innovations in the market and
changes of its tendencies, the Social Media conception and its implementation will be presented.
Finally, in the light of certain types of marketing communication, previous researches regarding this
topic will be discussed.
1.1. The conception and evolution of marketing communication
Electronic marketing is the future. This is how K. Stedman (2007), public relations,
marketing and training company’s "Nelson Parker Communications Ltd” founder, asserted.
According to her, this type of communication is a result of the development of Web 2.0 - second
generation internet which users often choose information from different resources, not by traditional
marketing channels disseminated information. All of which have a significant impact on the
organizations that whether increase their marketing budgets and allocate a part for internet marketing,
or revise, on which option is better to spend the already approved budget. So it is worth stating how
the situation looked before, what kind of changes took place and how the marketing communication
is being proceeded nowadays.
Not always it was believed that advertising and communication with customers is necessary.
According to supporters of Marxism, advertising is a disastrous activity, relevant to the bourgeois
capitalism. During the planned economy period the communication between a company and its
consumers was minimal, reduced as much as possible or even forbidden, because it was believed that
centralized planning will ensure enough products and services for the market. Nevertheless, the
quality of communication in the nineteenth century became more relevant. Companies can only be
successful if they communicate regularly with its customers and other stakeholders. Whatever the
sector the organization would belong to, it is worth defining the conception of communication. L.
Jovaiša (1993) emphasizes that communication is a group of people or interpersonal activities,
exchange of experience by verbal and non-verbal signals. He has highlighted the exchange of
information and experiences, which are widely used means of communication. Previously the
communication was defined by scholars as a "two-way action”, a process of exchanging information
in the society that was realized by spoken language or written text (Jansone, 1997). According to R.
Gomez and P.A. Knowles (2006), the most important is not to only transfer an information, but it is
necessary to know what, how, to whom and how many times to give it. In other words, a
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communication could be referred as a process, when target audience is reached while transforming
corresponding information through chosen communication channels at the right time.
Since its very beginning, information and communication technology (ICT) was used for the
automatization of business processes within organizations or between them (Zimmermann, 2010).
Because of the globalization processes, it is more and more common to discuss and as the outcome
of researches were stated the electronic markets hypothesis, which are based on business processes
and cost reduction theory (Malone, 1987). In the past, organizations have used an online web only to
present their statistical information to consumers. All improvements of network were created directly
to consumers, as the final one-way value chain participants - the possibility of a backward connection
was not available.
Along with established Web 2.0. technology, e-marketing processes were also improved-
the possibility for users was given to evaluate, rate and certify products and services in public, in
other words, to generate a feedback to organizations that can be used for market research, production
development purposes. M. Fraser and S. Dutta (2010) argues that social media Web 2.0 is understood
as threatening, because it challenges the fundamental assumptions, not only in terms of social
interactions, but also about organizational behavior, corporate governance and democratic
government. This big step in the electronic market innovation has led to the emergence of three
processes that characterize the benefits of consumers’ feedback (Zimmermann, 2010): crowdsourcing
- characterized by the usage of ideas and thoughts of a group of people, the online platform is used
as a medium for the organization and its customers to communicate (e.g. Wikipedia, Flickr.com);
mass customization - using the online platform consumers can create their own types (models) of
goods (e.g. books, watches, sports shoes); "Long tail" theory - lower-profile product or service
because of newly introduced ones also gain popularity and comes back to the market. According to
market analytic H.D. Zimmermann (2010), the internet media development will enable users to
participate in the value creation process as experts, consultants, designers and even vendors. On the
other hand, in that case the users take more responsibility - incompetent rating can have a significant
impact on the organization's brand, its reputation.
Figure 1 shows the connection between the marketing communication and marketing
strategy. Marketing strategy is related to the structure of the organization's mission and its main
strategy. This should be a structured plan for the organization to achieve its objectives in the chosen
target market. If the purpose of marketing communication is set, the complex of marketing
communication can be formed. Of course, it will be completed only when the marketing
communication factors affecting the final outcome will be evaluated - the target market and product
features, product life cycle stage and price levels. After choosing one combination of marketing
communication complex, an organization can create targeted message and choose the channels
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through which it will be broadcasted to consumers. In addition, it must also be evaluated possible
options for the budget - if the costs exceed its limits, the marketing communication complex
combination must be reviewed or marketing strategy must be changed. However the most important
evaluation and decision making process comes at the end, after the marketing communication
program is applied. The company has to evaluate its selected marketing communication strategy and
tools, whether it was effective and how it could be improved in the future. So, this figure is supposed
to show the main steps that needs to be done in order to meet the marketing communication program,
in other words, for the organization to communicate with its target consumers’ segment.
Figure 1. The Plan of Marketing Communication Program Source: H.D. Zimmermann (2010)
P. De Pelsmacker and his colleagues (2013) presented a common research where they
asserted that in order to choose an appropriate communication goal, one of the most important factors
to consider is the phase of the life cycle of a brand or product. If it is in the introduction stage, the
communications strategy has to stress the basic selling points, i.e. the central functional advantages
of the product. While in the growth stage, consumers are already aware of the product, therefore
communications strategies will be aimed at defending the brand’s position against possible
competitive attacks. Considering a brand in the mature stage of its life cycle has to cope with strong
competition in a market that is scarcely growing - communications strategies will focus on increasing
the brand loyalty of consumers. Finally, when manufacturers are confronted with declining products
Evaluation and redefining strategy
Apply marketing communication program
Estimate marketing budget
Choose media toolsCreate target message
Marketing communication complexAdvertising Sales promotion Public Relations
Set marketing communication goals
Marketing complex (4P's)Product Place Price Promotion
Strategic Marketing planTarget market Market and product positioning
Organizational plan Mission Strategy
Influencing factors
Market features
Product features
Product's lifecycle
Levels of prices
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or brands and decide to harvest the brand, they will probably turn to sales promotions such as prizes
and lotteries or they can renew the life cycle of that product.
In addition to this, a marketing communication plan was presented (De Pelsmacker et al.,
2013) that consists of 6 steps and questions which have to be answered: situation analysis and defining
steps of marketing objectives (question Why?); what are the target groups (question Who?); defining
communication objectives – what does the company want to tell its customers (question What?);
choosing tools, techniques, channels and media (questions How and Where?); defining budget
(question How much?); measurement of results (question How effective?). According to them, it is
essential to consider and answer all these questions if a company wants to choose and implement the
most effective marketing communication strategy. Therefore, the effectiveness of this kind of strategy
should be evaluated regarding these aspects provided.
Although first to introduce a "social contagion" concept was R. Burt (1987), later it was
revised by Ch. Van den Bult and S. Wuyts (2007). According to them, social contagion - the spread
of innovation process, in which the main role is played by consumers, communicating with each
other. They also identified four causes of this process: the need for communication, normative
pressure in the market, competitive considerations and the correlation effect. Because of these
reasons, consumers create and transmit information about products and services. Ch. Barrot and S.
Albers (2008), while analyzing previous studies on the "social contagion” processes, came to the
conclusion that this process can be assessed at three levels: at the level of the market participant -
based on individual market participants’ characteristics, motivation and behavior; binomial level -
centered on the sender-recipient relationship and communication hierarchy; in network level -
focusing on the transfer of information across the whole market, which consists of a large number of
participants and their bilateral relations. The first assessment is largely attributed to the "word-of-
mouth" marketing communication, when information is passed from one to another follower,
generally considered to be more reliable, if not directly based on monetary incentives, in other words,
this is considered to have a major impact for consumer's purchasing decision. At the beginning this
evaluation was viewed with skepticism, since its implementation required considerable costs.
However, because of advancing the level of innovation and creation of Web 2.0 internet technology,
this evaluation process has become more accessible. Because of the recent innovation there has been
formed the second one – the connection between the sender and the recipient. Unfortunately, this
evaluation has some negative aspects - it remains unexplained processes such as what kind of impact
is done to the sender (i.e., where he gets the information), how the recipients of information behaves
(where information received travels further or does it later disappear), or whether these binomial
connections are affected by other factors. As a result, the third level of evaluation was developed,
which should solve the latter problems - in the evaluation process there are included all binomial
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relations and other persons who have influence to it. However, the last "social contagion" assessment
method requires the development of market simulations (available only for a limited number of
market participants), because in this area it has been carried out very few researches and the results
obtained by other authors still remain in dispute. So it is worth to make it clear that although "social
contagion" effect is experienced in the market, the scholars still cannot find convincing evidence to
prove it.
To sum up, it can be said that the concept of marketing communication has changed over
time - at the beginning of completely ignoring the need to use it, market participants noted that it
becomes more and more difficult to remain competitive when they no longer can compete by prices
nor quality of goods and services. P. Kotler (2004) states that a company with a better understanding
of customer needs, perceptions, interests and behavior will be ahead of its competitors. But still there
remains an opinion that once S. Jobs said: "People do not know what they want, as long as we do not
show them what they are missing". Based on this idea people should think that communication with
a consumer, asking his opinion, registration of his ratings for organization’s internal purposes is
totally unnecessary. Therefore there is another question, if organizations ignore consumer feedback,
would it hurt their final productivity? In the next section it will be analyzed the impact of the consumer
on corporate marketing communication.
1.2. Models of marketing communication
In the previous section it was discussed that the changing and evolving innovative
technologies affect organizations’ marketing activities – it has become easier and with lower costs to
contact with consumers, collect relevant information about them for company’s internal purposes. In
the scientific literature it can be found many different models of the communication processes when
the information is exchanged between the consumer and the organization. Previously, in schematic
models of the communication process it was common to see two entities - the sender and the
recipient– and their interaction.
Although the term was started to be used by scholars recently, the “one-to-one”
communication model is old as the commerce process itself. In the past, for example, proprietors of
a general store would naturally take a one-to-one approach, remembering details about each
customer's preferences and characteristics and using that knowledge to provide better service. In other
words, the model consists of a sender, a medium through which a message is delivered and a recipient.
Of course, this kind of approach has very high timely and economic costs, therefore market
participants and scholars were eager to find more effective ways to communicate. While today it is
considered as a customer relationship management (CRM) strategy emphasizing personalized
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interactions with customers. The personalization of interactions is thought to foster greater customer
loyalty and better return on marketing investment.
Source: Shannon, C., Weaver, W. (1949)
One of the first designs of the communication model was presented by C. Shannon and W.
Weaver (1949). They defined communication as “all of the procedures by which one mind may affect
another”. In other words, they presented a communication model where, by using a technological
device, a message can be transmitted to more than one receiver. As it may be seen in the figure 2,
their communication model consisted of an information source: the source’s message, a transmitter,
a signal, and a receiver: the receiver’s message and a destination. Eventually, the standard
communication model featured the source or encoder, who encodes a message by translating an idea
into a code in terms of bits. A code is a language or other set of symbols or signs that can be used to
transmit a thought through one or more channels to elicit a response in a receiver or decoder. Shannon
and Weaver also included the factor noise into the model that may distort the actual message. It is
worth mentioning that this model was created to describe a mechanical and mathematical side,
therefore it is very concrete and technical.
Later in 1960, D.K. Berlo presented an improved SMCR (Source – Message – Channel–
Receiver) model by asserting that “the prime goal of communication was persuasion, an attempt to
sway other one to speaker’s point of view”. Therefore its model includes verbal and non-verbal
communication, also considering the emotional aspect of the message. Communication begins when
two or more people (sender and receiver) begins to contact directly or through tools such as telephone,
television, internet, etc., and continues until the contact is interrupted. One of the connected ones
must be interested to affect the other one by sending him some information. Berlo’s communication
model consists of four elements that are affected by different factors. First of all, source – the origin
of a message. It is affected by the sender’s communication skills, how he communicates the message,
also his attitude, knowledge that may be result of the social factors that surrounds him. Then the
message – it can be opinion, emotion, idea or general information that has its content, structure,
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elements and treatment (the way it is delivered to audience). The channel – the medium through the
message is delivered – depends on five senses: hearing, seeing, touching, smelling and tasting. The
receiver is considered to be a listener or decoder who analyses, understands and interprets the
message. According to D. K. Berlo, the conversation will be proper if the sender and receiver will be
at the same level, therefore the factors that influence the receiver are the same as senders. This model
was criticized because it had no barriers and in real life no two individuals are at the same level of
experience.
Source: Berlo, D.K. (1960)
In figures 2 and 3 the communication models differs from each other, but both of them were
previously studied and used by marketing scholars a marketing communication model called "One-
to-many". The sender - the person (organization), who transmits the information in targeted message
to consumers by choosing the appropriate marketing communication tools. Whole marketing
communication process is carried out in order to make recipients of information (consumers) react as
the sender wants to. H.D. Zimmermann (2010) adds that this model has a direct or indirect feedback.
In other words, consumers who got the transmitted information may, for example, to buy, try to re-
buy, become loyal - it is an indirect feedback. They may also require information, place orders,
comment - this is a direct feedback. Unfortunately, consumers may react negatively - to ignore the
newly advertised product or worse – to form a bad opinion about the product or the message sender.
Traditional marketing communication tools become less effective - the modern user, drilled
into the daily routine activities may overlook or simply ignore the message that was targeted specially
for him. As also stated in the previous section, depending on the intensity of consumers' daily
activities, it has been developed a new generation of Web 2.0 social internet that it would be easier
17
for target messages to reach consumers and that everyone could participate in the development of the
internet (O'Reilly, Zarrella, 2010). It is noticed that over time due to the introduction of this
technology, the importance of demographic segmentation was reduced, thus highlighting
psychographic segmentation: marketing specialists with their message could reach only those
consumers who are more likely to be interested in it. Thus, consumers are divided not by gender, age
or race criteria (demographics), but according to consumers’ behavior, hobbies, and interests.
Marketing scholars discuss that previously covered marketing communication model "One-
to-Many" no longer meets today's market situation. Taking into account the IT improvements (Web
2.0. technology), it is appropriate to adjust it to the concept model “Many-to-many” shown in Figure
4. The main difference highlights the fact that the consumer in the new model is not only the recipient
of the information, but he is also a sender. In other words, the dissemination of information in the
market is no longer only vertical but also horizontal. Users can express their views through online
blogs or comments, therefore they can give a feedback to the original message’s sender, but also send
the message to others by themselves. S. Sorensen (2010) said that from now on organizations'
objectives must be linked to an ongoing relationship with customers, rather than just attracting their
positive emotions - each time the interaction must give an opportunity to continue and develop that
communication. Thus, the new marketing communication model (Figure 4) creates the possibility to
achieve this by allowing consumers to spread the message about the organization and its products or
services to others.
Every organization seeks to make its communication with the customer as smooth and
efficient as possible. C.L. Bovee and J.V. Thill (1997) has identified six characteristics of effective
18
communication in the organization: favorable and open conditions of communication, compliance
with the Code of Ethics, respect differences of intercultural communication, effective adaptation of
new technology, formation of a cohesive team, good quality of written communication. It is worth
paying attention to how a company creates favorable conditions for communication to take place. In
order to achieve it of course you can use innovative information technologies. It is observed in the
market, that those organizations that use innovative information technology to develop new
communication channels (e.g. start using new blog, or begin to advertise using Twitter gadget
designed for advertising1, etc.), they are more favorably considered by consumers and also increase
their popularity among them.
Source: C.R. Milton (1981).
Based on the information provided in Figure 5, it may be concluded that the most effective
channel of communication is “face-to-face”. As stated by C. R. Milton (1981), the biggest effect can
be obtained if we can feel short-term human connection. Reviewing business communication
characteristics, when organizations seek for a contact with consumers, there may be noticeable the
scarcity of a connection. Taking into consideration the Internet Web 2.0 innovations and the changes
of consumer targeting because of it, companies are forced to reconsider their communication
strategies. In the next chapter it is worth discussing, how the effectiveness of marketing
communication can be improved by Social Media.
1.3. Social Media: the concept and its implementation
In the previous section it was highlighted the innovative changes in the technological
market– the appearance of Web 2.0 Internet and all the novelties that came with it. It is the emerging
information technology with the credibility of immediacy and fastness, thus, it brings globalization
1 More information to find on internet: https://ads.twitter.com/.
19
in every aspects of communication. Communication through internet is more specified, with effective
interactive strategy among its users. In recent days, internet communication has taken new forms
which have more advantages over the traditional mediums like print media, television and radio.
Marketing communication became precise, personal, interesting, interactive and social. Regarding
this, a new concept has been introduced in the market – the social media.
Social media is defined as the publication, creation and sharing of information with the
public through tools, which allows internet users to participate in the information’s content creation,
sharing insights and feedback, to participate for pleasure or for business purposes (Chung, Austria,
2010). W.G. Mangold and D.J. Faulds (2009) asserted that social media is still otherwise known as
user-generated media, since most of the information disseminated there is distributed by users. A.M.
Kaplan and M. Haenlein (2012) also agree on that social media is "a group of Internet-based
applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow
the creation and exchange of user-generated content”.
Source: T.D. Baruah (2012).
T.D. Baruah (2012) asserts that the history of social media goes back way more than the
usage of internet platforms. Therefore, the concept that is provided in her work is consisted not only
of the internet platform based communication, but also any exchange of information that requires a
20
social interaction. As it is shown in the figure 6, the earliest ways to send messages over long distances
were by communicating smoke signals by day and beacon fires by night in ancient China, Egypt, and
Greece. The seeds of social media were sown during 550 BC when the regular postal system was
established in Iran where horse riders and horse-drawn wagons carried mail. Usually, mail consisted
of governmental dispatches and was delivered from one place to another. The 18th and 19th century
were breakthrough period where devices like the telegraph (1792), telephone (1890) and radio (1891)
ushered in a new era of the sending and receiving messages over long distances. The 20th century
was marked by the growth and development of internet. Finally, with the growth and development of
internet, there came era of exchange of messages from one person to another digitally or via web.
In figure 7 (placed in annex 1) it is shown the evolution of social media’s landscape during
the period of 2012-2014. With the growing variety of social platforms where consumers today can
not only facilitate the access to information about a product or service that is relevant to them, but
they also can share the information available in preferable way. According to this, the consumer is
no longer the last part of the value chain, in other words, the recipient, who can only give feedback
to the sender - the consumer has a possibility to become the sender of information to others. The
defined terms and categorization reaffirms that because of social media consumer’s influence in the
company's marketing communication is changing, i.e. the impact on the reputation of the organization
and its operational effectiveness is growing.
M. Fraster and S. Dutta (2010) divided the social media into the following categories:
egocentric (profiled sites such as Facebook and MySpace, created for personal creativity and artistic
expression), community oriented (websites linking members of the strong relations based on
nationality, race, religion, for example BlackPlanet), opportunistic (socially organized sites like
LinkedIn, Plaxo, whose members subscribe for prudential reasons, such as business
communications), emotional (brings together people who share interests and hobbies) and
information sharing (not described by the membership nor by content, such as YouTube, Flickr).
Other marketing communication scholars E. Marcos-Kujbus and M. Gati (2012) in their work
classified the basic attributes of social media. First of all they noted social networking sites (e.g.
Facebook, LinkedIn), where users are able to create personal profiles, invite friends or colleagues to
view or participate on their profiles and to send messages to each other. Then blogs and microblogs
(e.g. personal or Twitter) - are special types of websites serving mainly as a sort of online diary to
distribute and present content. Social news websites let users discover and share content from
anywhere on the web, by submitting, voting and commenting, while collaborative projects are a joint
and simultaneous creation and sharing of content and knowledge - the co-creators are equally end-
users. Finally, content and commerce communities– latter represents communities built around e-
commerce sites and specialized product or service rating sites, while content communities are
21
platforms devoted to users to create, publish and share various media content (video, picture and
sound). In conclusion, there are many types of social media, therefore it is up to companies to choose
the most suitable one and implement into their marketing communication strategy.
While social media changes through periods of time, its implementation also varies. As one
of the important novelties A.M. Kaplan and M. Haenlein (2012) distinguish the advent of mobile
social media, that is, according to them, a social media accessed via a mobile device that makes a
computer-based technologies look like “a gramophone in comparison to an mp3-player”. The new
type of social media engages people even more: one not only knows the “status” of friends and
acquaintances, but additionally where they are currently located – which opens the possibility to
actually go and see them in real life. Also, location-based services provide room for other
development: the potential information over-sharing that may seem very useful for marketing
department but the privacy matters are highly questioned and concerns everyone. One thing, however,
is evident: with the over-sharing of information between social media users, an unprecedented
opportunity for researchers is to analyze and decrypt new types of data, to communicate and interact
with consumers, and to help organizations to be prepared for this new era of internet and mobile
applications.
Source: S.Corcoran (2011)
In addition to new mobile innovations, S. Corcoran (2011) concluded in his work, that social
media should now be embedded in every of four aspects of the customer journey (figure 8) and
together into marketing communication mix. First of all, social media aids the “discover” stage
through mass reach and „word-of-mouth“ – the results of a survey confirmed that consumers tend to
buy the products that have bigger quantity of reviews and feedback. Not to mention that it plays a
central role in the “explore” stage through navigation and research - Social Media has become one of
22
the top resources people use to find information on websites. It also drives transactions during the
“buy” stage – by using special applications companies can track what kind of ROI is got from social
media advertising. Finally, it personalizes the “engagement” stage through support and loyalty – users
tend to give feedback and communicate after purchase with each other, in this way the advantage of
brand advocates is noticed. So having this conception in mind, companies can enhance their corporate
reputation and effectively use the advantages of social media.
Marketing scholars (Stephen and Galak, 2012) have adopted a typology for online and
offline social media activities that falls into three categories: paid media, owned media, and earned
media. Paid media, or advertising, refers to media activity that is generated by agencies that is ordered
by the company (or its agents). Owned media refers to media activity that is generated by the company
(or its agents) in channels it controls. Common forms of owned media include press releases,
brochures, and posts made by company representatives on an official company blog or website.
Earned media refers to media activity that is not directly generated by the company, but rather by
other entities such as customers, in the case of “word-of-mouth”, or journalists, in the case of
traditional media publicity. Whereas paid media effects on sales and related outcomes have received
more attention, little research has examined the marketing- and financially-relevant consequences of
earned media. A. Stephen and J. Galak (2012) drew a conclusion, that companies get bigger impact
on their sales results when using paid social media, however earned social media has more relevant
impact on long-term results of a company, in other words, building relationships and loyalty of the
consumers. Therefore, they recommended to pay more attention also to this kind of media while
forming marketing communication strategies.
In conclusion, this chapter was dedicated to present valuable information concerning social
media phenomenon. It was found out that social media concept has its valuable history, although
scholars have different perceptions of its concept, it is acknowledged as a powerful marketing
communication tool. As it is advised for companies to use it in their marketing communication
strategies, it is worth discussing in next chapter about types of marketing communication that are
used in social media.
1.4. Types of marketing communication in Social Media
As it was stated in the previous sub-sections, one of the organization's priorities of activities-
meeting consumer needs and the development of their loyalty. Regarding the social media
phenomenon it is getting easier to target audience and distribute message together with a content to
them. Due to the fact that retaining the existing consumers costs less for the company than attracting
new ones, long-term relationship maintenance, creation of consumer confidence highly increases the
profitability of companies. It was found out that consumers' desire to maintain a loyal relationship
23
depends on the organization's ability to predict the needs of potential consumers and to meet them
prior to the competitors do so. The rest of this section will be devoted to describing the types of
marketing communication that are used in social media - how companies can effectively achieve
results involving consumers in their decision making processes and taking advantage of customers’
loyalty.
A company that is seeking to earn customers’ loyalty and maintain a well-deserved
advantage against other competitors, has to have a good understanding of the qualitative dimensions
of the relationship - the basic principles of supporting relationships. So first of all, company's
relationship with customers is based on relationship marketing dimensions that raise the connection
between business participants to a qualitatively higher level. According to L. L. Berry (1995),
relationship marketing - is the tool of attraction, support and relationship-building with consumers.
To survive the fierce competition in fast-paced markets, companies have to give up the control of
sales and instead switch to long-term relationships with customers building. The main aim of
relationship marketing theory – to identify key factors influencing the performance of organizations,
and to understand the causal links between these factors and the outcomes (Henning-Thurau et al.,
2002).
A.Smith said: "The feeling that motivates us mostly to give, is gratitude". R. W. Parmatier,
C.B. Jarvis et al. (2009) concluded their study that gratitude, emotional affection of consumers for
received good feeling (the product or service that matched or even surpassed their expectations)
together leads to the desire to give something in return - this is another aspect of determining the
effectiveness of relationship marketing. Thus, the interpretations of relationship marketing concepts’
analysis stated in the scientific literature leads to the conclusion that the common understanding of
this concept has not been agreed, in addition to this, quantitative and qualitative evaluations of
relationship marketing are complex, so for this reason there are very few studies on this subject.
Given the fact that today consumers can find online all the necessary information to make a
decision to buy or not - they do not need to rely on information offered with traditional marketing
communication tools by an organization. Unfavourable changes for traditional media tools enable
organizations to communicate directly with customers and develop relationships based on their
loyalty. J. Pulizzi and N. Barrett (2008) present the following six reasons for these changes: changes
in consumer behaviour (in order to make decisions to buy or not, they have access to a multitude
information sources, for some of the consumers a degree of reliability of data is not important),
distribution of information (organizations re-evaluate their existing data about consumers, change
data accumulation strategies and approaches to it), the budget (companies appoint more and more
investment in marketing activities), “anti-sell” programs (the more a consumer is informed, the harder
he buys a product or service - marketing specialists develop authoritative brand development
24
strategies and programs), technological innovations (exponential technological changes accelerate
the content creation and development), editorial skills (the main feature of a successful social media–
presentation of a relevant content to a consumer). Scholars are proposing a way to attract and retain
customers’ loyalty for the organization - to improve and develop content marketing.
Content Marketing Institute (2014) provides the following definition of content marketing -
a marketing communication method, when it is created and provided a valuable, adequate and
complete information (content) in order to attract and acquire a target audience. J. Pulizzi and N.
Barrett (2008) emphasizes that today's consumers and business partners want to make decisions on
the issues and problems themselves, so before contacting the organization, they have already gathered
adequate information about the company itself and of its products and services – this applies without
exception to all market participants. They also identified two types of content marketing
communication – inbound and outbound marketing. Latter one is referred to traditional advertising,
when the information is sent through various channels in order to reach as many customers as
possible, while inbound marketing offers solutions to the problems and questions of a consumer. In
other words, the main difference between them is that outbound marketing strategies are for searching
consumers who might be interested in the offer, while inbound marketing strategy prepares the
organization to give a solution to those consumers when they need it. Therefore, the authors propose
to use the behaviour of users and become their source of information (inbound content marketing
fundamental principle), which helps them to solve problems.
Table 1
The questions of „B.E.S.T“ formula’s aspects
Aspect Questions
Behavioral
How do we want the end consumer to feel?
Which actions should they take?
How do we initiate their wish to buy?
Essential
What do buyers really need to know?
How to present the information in order to benefit the most?
Which type of media should be included?
Strategic
Will this type of marketing communications achieve the strategic
objectives?
Does it complement other methods of marketing communication?
Targeted
Do we understand what motivates the consumers?
Do we understand their point of view to our products and services
offered? Source: J.Pulizzi, N.Barrett (2008)
Their analytical article also contains “B.E.S.T.” formula, which can be used to effectively
exploit the content of marketing principles to increase the organization's effectiveness. This formula
consists of four key aspects that must be taken into account in creating content for consumers:
behavioural - communication with each consumer has a purpose, what is expected from him at end
25
of the communication; essential - to provide adequate information, which is most relevant to the
objectives of the organizations to engage a consumer; strategic – in content marketing the actions
must coincide with the company's core business strategy; targeted – a target segment should be set in
order to select an adequate information. Organizations cannot build a successful content marketing
strategy, unless they understand the consequences that may occur. In table 1 it is showed the questions
assigned to each “B.E.S.T” formula’s aspect that every organization has to ask itself in order to create
an efficient and adequate content marketing strategy. DeMers (2013) presented the ways by which
you can create marketing content: blogs, e-books, e-newsletters, PowerPoint presentations and
videos, articles in social media, online seminars, and workshops. For 2015, marketing strategists
predict that the business will have to increase investment in content marketing activities, because it
is one of the most fundamental and so far the most effective ways to "tame" the consumer and benefit
while acting in accordance with his requirements.
Marketing professionals and strategists after the analysis of market trends came to the
conclusion that consumers have felt the real "freedom of choice", which allows them to ignore the
information provided by traditional communication channels – they choose to find and evaluate it by
themselves. Due to these resulting trends in the market it is becoming more and more popular the
"word-of-mouth" communication. Also, user loyalty in marketing literature is associated with "word-
of-mouth" information dissemination. When analyzing the results of studies conducted, a conclusion
is reflected that the dissemination of information "word-of-mouth" is the indicator of customer
loyalty.
According to the survey data about European readers’ confidence about trademarks (2010),
it was found out that only 32% of consumers trust the international organizations, 13% trust
advertisements. On the other hand, 48% of them trust their friends, colleagues or neighbors.
Following the Nielsen international consumer survey (2010), as much as 90% of consumers trust the
recommendations of their friends and 70% trust online users’ left comments. As well as the “Wall
Street Journal” poll found that 71% of adults use consumer feedback to decide whether to buy or not-
42% of them trust the information of internet sources (Spors, 2006). In some cases, the influence of
reviews is so great that consumers do not pay attention to their previous opinion and completely rely
on recently discovered information from an unknown source (McFadden and Train, 1996). In light
of the empirical research and survey results, it is worth examining what constitutes the so-called
"word-of-mouth" communication, how does it affect the organization’s effectiveness and how it can
be evaluated.
One of the first conception of "word-of-mouth" communication is owned to J. Arndt (1987)–
a verbal, “face-to-face” communication between the sender and the recipient, when a non-commercial
information about the brand, product or service is provided. Later, an attempt was made to distinguish
26
this method of communication from traditional advertising, suggesting that they differ in their rates
of limitations - "word-of-mouth" communication has them significantly less (Stern, 1994). R.A.
Westbrook (2000) accurately describes it as: "<...> an informational communication between
consumers about the ownership and usage, certain characteristics of goods and services or the
vendor itself.” "Word-of-mouth" process may also called viral marketing, which is defined as a
process by which the organization's targeted message is passed to the consumer with the purpose to
spread it to his friends, family and colleagues. It's like a virus - information about the organization,
its brand, products or services is spreading among potential buyers, who also transmit this information
to other potential buyers. In this way, the huge amount of information’s transmission network is made
(Laudon, Traver, 2001). M. Trusov et al. (2008) the most effective implication of "word-of-mouth"
communication describes as a formation of certain niche community which members are linked to
the common interest of the product or service and they together disseminate information to other
existing or potential customers. As discussed in the previous section, marketing communication is
most effective when the communication takes place "face-to-face" (Figure 5). At present, the
communication “word-of-mouth” as direct “face-to-face” interaction was moved into cyberspace and
is carried out by social media (some of the scholars named it as “word-of-mouse” (Mckinsey report,
2013)). Compared to the direct interaction “face-to-face”, online “word-of-mouth" information
spreads much faster and thus the message may reach hundreds or thousands of recipients. It is
therefore fair to assume that this type of communication processes in an organization is difficult to
control, so to estimate what is the impact on the organization performance is really required.
First of all, it is worth identifying the factors that motivate consumers to evaluate goods or
services and leave feedback for other potential and existing customers. The first is considered as a
desire for social recognition, proving his more experienced purchasing power decision, altruistic
behavior by giving the advice for others (Henning-Thurau, 2004). Second, in order to express their
satisfaction or dissatisfaction - studies have confirmed that the negative reviews were left to wreak
revenge or hostility (Richins, 1984). It was also noted that in the past, users who express their views
and leave a response, do it for reasons of social status - to show their knowledge on the matter and
altruistically help others. Later, when the market has experienced a boom in technology (after
appearance of Web 2.0. internet technology), a new type of consumers who are more pragmatic and
make their decisions based on the value and quality - they are more likely to express satisfaction or
dissatisfaction about the subject (Rogers, 2003; Shahana, 2007).
After analyzing what affects consumer reviews, it is worth examining the influence of "word
of mouth" communication to organization’s effectiveness. D. Mayzlin (2002) noted that WOM
communication is effective at increasing awareness of a new product and at decreasing uncertainty
about its quality. After a certain time, awareness is sufficiently high and quality known with sufficient
27
certainty that “word-of-mouth” is no longer valuable in this respect. As it is shown in Figure 9 (Annex
2) from McKinsey report, the influence of “word-of-mouth” communication is indeed more
significant when the product is in the development stage (new in the market), considering the
consumer’s decision making steps. In addition to this, later Ch. Dellarocas (2003) identified the
following issues:
Brand building and new customer acquisition - in social media left feedbacks mean low costs
for the organization, an effective communication channel for acquisition and retention of
consumers, an additional mean of communication to promotional activities.
Product development process and quality control - feedback in social media can better serve
the organization to understand the user's reaction to proposed production.
Supply Chain Quality Assurance – users’ feedbacks can be a great way to assess the expertise
of suppliers and to reduce the costs of cooperation processes with them.
Given the fact that this type of communication is the consequence of sales, it is worth noting
that P. Kotler and K.L. Keller (2006) came to the following conclusion: dissatisfied users twice as
likely to leave feedback as those who were satisfied with the received product or service. A. Davis
and D. Khazanchi (2008) conducted an empirical study which results supplemented the above authors'
findings. It was found out that "word-of-mouth" communication has an impact on consumer’s
cognitive condition, attitude, understanding, intentions and behavior - all of which affect the
organization's sales and revenue (their willingness to purchase goods and services depends on how
consumers will feel).
Among multitude of potential origins and motivations of “word-of-mouth”, in McKinsey
report (2010) it was identified three forms of word-of-mouth that should be taken into consideration:
experiential, consequential, intentional. Experiential word of mouth is the most common and
powerful form, typically accounting for 50 to 80 percent of word-of-mouth activity in any given
product category. It results from a consumer’s direct experience with a product or service, largely
when that experience deviates from what’s expected. Consequential WOM occurs when consumers
directly exposed to traditional marketing campaigns pass on messages about them or brands they
publicize. The impact of those messages on consumers is often stronger than the direct effect of
advertisements, because marketing campaigns that trigger positive word of mouth have
comparatively higher campaign reach and influence. Finally, a less common form of word of mouth
is intentional - for example, when marketers use celebrity endorsements to trigger positive buzz for
product launches. Few companies invest in generating intentional word of mouth, partly because its
effects are difficult to measure and because many marketers are unsure if they can successfully
execute intentional word-of-mouth campaigns.
28
To sum up, this sub-section was dedicated to present which types of marketing
communication are best represented in social media, that is, relationship marketing, content marketing
and “word-of-mouth” communication. It is evident that social media plays important role and
enhances the usage of these types of marketing communication, therefore it is worth reviewing the
most relevant researches conducted worldwide on this subject.
1.5. A review of empirical researches on “Social Media” phenomenon
After reviewing the scientific literature regarding marketing communication and social
media concepts, it is evident that these topics and the noticeable impact on companies’ performance
are relevant among numerous scholars. It is observed that the objectives of empirical parts vary from
consumer behavior analysis to measuring the exact impact on company’s sales revenues. The
summary of empirical studies is disclosed in table 2.
Table 2
Summary of empirical researches on marketing communication and social media
Year Author(s) Title Conclusion
2011 P. S. Jothi,
M. Neelamalar
R. S. Prasad
Analysis of social networking
sites: A study on effective
communication strategy in
developing brand
communication
Consumers prefer brand communication
rather advertising through social media,
therefore companies first should pay attention
to consumers’ loyalty then making offers.
2012 T.D. Baruah Effectiveness of Social Media as
a tool of communication and its
potential for technology enabled
connection: A micro level study
Social Media has its advantages and
disadvantages that influence not only
organization’s performance, but also
consumer’s preferences.
2008 C.A.de Matos
C.A.V. Rossi
Word-of-mouth communica-
tions in marketing: a meta-
analytic review of the
antecedents and moderators.
In order to increase customers’ likelihood of
favorable recommendations, managers have
to increase customers’ commitment to
organization.
2013 M. Lovett, R.
Peres, R.
Shachar
On brands and word-of-mouth The social and functional drivers are the most
important for online WOM, the emotional
driver is the most important for offline
WOM.
2014 L. Groeger, F.
Buttle
Word-of-mouth marketing
influence on offline and online
communications: Evidence from
case study research
Weak-tie acquaintances are important for the
spread of WOM campaigns, because
although they are peripheral in a participant’s
ego network, they are likely to be central in
another social network.
2006 J. Lee, J.Lee, L.
Feick
Incorporating word-of-mouth
effects in estimating customer
lifetime value
The Consumer Life-time Value increases
more through direct savings of acquisition
cost and extended duration as customers
generate more positive WOM.
Due to the internet as an emerging information technology scholars began analyzing the
effectiveness of social networking sites as an essential marketing communication tool. P. S. Jothi,
M. Neelamalar and R. S. Prasad (2011) by conducting a survey (100 users of analyzed social
networks) and a content analysis of social media (Facebook, Twitter and Orkut) attempted to define
29
the effectiveness of brand communication strategy in India‘s market. They concluded that the
audiences respond more to interactive marketing than the traditional ads followed in internet
advertising. They also suggested that communication should be more preferred than advertising:
people do not prefer buying products through social networking sites. So, if the brand is
communicated well and remembered by the audience, there is a great success to the company for its
promotion through social media.
In addition to the research presented above, T.D. Baruah (2012) also analyzed the effects of
the growth of social media and its implications to the society. The intentions were to disclose the
usefulness of social media as a tool of communication in general. A survey of 200 residents in
Guwahati city (India) was conducted to find out that social media provide simple, inexpensive ways
to organize members, arrange meetings, spread information, and gauge opinion. The advantages of
social networking were such as a tool for bridging the communication gap, significant source of
information, important crisis communication tool, cost effective, less time consuming. However,
there has also been detected several disadvantages: intrusion into privacy, breakdown in familial ties
and reduction in worker productivity. To sum up, these two researches were dedicated to analyze the
overall tendencies in the market, whether the social media phenomenon is recognized and
implemented in everyday activities.
As it may be seen from the table above, some of the scholars concentrate their attention on
the “word-of-mouth” communication in social media as an outcome of consumers’ behavior such as
the construct of satisfaction. In other words, the attention was focused on the aspects that are more
likely to initiate the feedback mechanism. First of all, it is worth mentioning C.A. de Matos and
C.A.V. Rossi (2008) meta-analysis research, where they collected and used data from previous
researches in order to find out whether there is a link between consumer behavior factors and “word-
of-mouth” communication processes. They concluded that commitment, loyalty and satisfaction of
consumers have positive impact on WOM. Although the hypothesis, that satisfaction has a stronger
relationship with positive WOM than loyalty, whereas disloyalty has a stronger relationship with
negative WOM than does dissatisfaction, was confirmed. The researchers admitted that for further
researches it must be tested the influence of online “word-of-mouth”– whether the satisfaction and
loyalty on negative and positive WOM is even more pronounced in an online environment, given a
greater power of dissatisfied customers to use the internet to vent negative emotions, to warn other
customers or to seek retaliation.
In addition to the influential factors of “word-of-mouth” communication theme, recently
scholars M. Lovett, R. Peres and R. Shachar (2013) analyzed that consumers spread the word on
brands as a result of three drivers: social, emotional, and functional. The social driver relates to social
signaling: expressing uniqueness, self-enhancement and a desire to socialize; the emotional driver is
30
related to sharing the emotions; the functional driver is related to the need to obtain information, and
the tendency to provide information. To test that, they constructed a unique data set on online and
offline WOM and characteristics for over 600 of the most talked-about brands. The results show, as
it is stated in the table 2, that brand management and WOM are connected – managers in order to
attract or retain consumers, develop their loyalty have to take into consideration the emotional, social
and functional aspects.
Another recent research about aspects that influence “word-of-mouth” communication was
conducted by L. Groeger and F. Buttle (2014). This case study describes three studies associated with
a single “word-of-mouth“ marketing campaign, including two routine agency-conducted analyses of
the offline and online reach of the campaign and an independent investigation made by scholars that
also investigates campaign reach (the number of a defined target audience (e.g., people or households)
exposed at least once to a firm’s advertising message in a defined period of time) and frequency (the
average number of times a member of that audience is exposed to the message during the defined
period of time) but using a different methodology – social network analysis (SNA). It was concluded
that consumers, that are linked in social network weak-ties with each other disseminate information
faster and more effectively for two reasons: as they are less acquainted, the sphere of their point of
view differs (consumers get different opinions of point of view) and because of their weak ties,
consumers are more likely to be in different social circles that affects the speed of information’s
dissemination processes.
On the other hand, there have been conducted several researches on estimating the impact
of “word-of-mouth” on companies’ productiveness. J. Lee et. all (2006) stated a hypothesis that
“Customer lifetime value” should be estimated not only by financial contributions, but also by a latent
relationship-based indicator such as “word-of-mouth”. So based on mobile phone service company’s
data and simulation, they empirically investigated the effect of WOM in estimating CLV. The
approach to integrate WOM effect into CLV complements other approaches to CLV management as
prioritizing investment in customers. Without doing that, companies run the risk of missing the latent
aspect of customer value and thus misjudge customers’ true lifetime value. It was noted though that
often service providers are more subjective to intangibles than producers and potential customers use
the experience of existing customers as the information source for their own (Bansal, 2000).
In conclusion, the social media concept has been already analyzed regarding several
perspectives – its overall recognition in the market, impact of “word-of-mouth” communication to
company’s strategic decisions and finally to its sales revenues. It is important to clarify the advantages
of social networking and analyze its implementation considering the perspectives of companies and
their consumers – that will be done in the second part of this work.
31
II. THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA:
EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF BELGIAN AND
LITHUANIAN MARKETS
In the second part of this thesis, taking into consideration the theoretical findings and
problem questions stated in the introduction, it will be analyzed the usage tendencies of Social Media
as a marketing communication tool in Belgium and Lithuania. Therefore, the empirical part is
constructed as follows. First of all, the research methodology will be presented, where all relevant
aspects of the Facebook characteristics’ analysis and survey questions will be disclosed and
explained. Then, the overall comparison of Social Media’s tendencies in European Union with
Belgium and Lithuania markets separately will be discussed. Moreover, two brands – Samsung and
Nescafé Dolce Gusto – have been selected to be used in performing the analysis of Facebook
characteristics. In addition to this, two surveys have been conducted in Belgium and Lithuania to
present the consumers’ perception of “social media” phenomenon and its implementation in their
everyday lives. Finally, the empirical results will be interpreted while concluding four hypothesis
formed in the methodology section.
2.1. The methodology of research
In previous part of the thesis it was discussed that innovative technologies brought “social
media” phenomenon and enhanced the communication between a company and a consumer and,
eventually, even between consumers. As the demand of an effective communication tool increases, it
becomes necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of a chosen communication strategy – that is a
responsibility of marketing scholars to find the most suitable way to do it. The problem arises that
there is no unique solution that would be suitable for all industry sectors neither for all markets. Due
to the absence of researches about European countries, it was chosen for this work to concentrate on
two of them (key comparison factors are disclosed in annex 3) – Belgium and Lithuania – in order to
compare the implementation of social media in perspective of companies and its consumers. For this
reason, the problem questions for the empirical research were formulated: How companies use social
media to communicate in Belgian and Lithuanian markets? What is the attitude towards social media
as a communication tool among consumers?
Aim of empirical research. Analyze the usage of social media as a marketing
communication tool tendencies in Belgium and Lithuania.
First of all, in order to perform a more profound research analysis, it is worth discussing the
overall social media tendencies in European Union, not to mention what social media landscape is in
32
Belgium and Lithuania. For this purpose, primary statistical and secondary data will be analyzed. As
it was stated in the theoretical part, marketing scholars agreed that one of the best ways to attract
consumers is to present a content which would be interesting and relevant to them. Regarding this, in
order to understand and evaluate how companies communicate through social media it was chosen to
do an analysis of the most popular social networking site – Facebook – by defining characteristics on
how it will be analyzed. With the support of online social media metrics (SocialBakers, 2014) and
according to the marketing research company’s ComScore (2014) data, it was found out that the most
perspective industry for effective communication in Social Media is Electronics&Appliances. The
reason for this– innovativeness and high demand increases the need of communication between a
company and its consumers. Regarding the data provided by SocialBakers (2014), two brands were
chosen: Samsung and Nescafé Dolce Gusto, which availability is limited only for Belgian and
Lithuanian markets. First one because of its popularity and prevalence, the second one for its
relatively novelty in both, Belgian and Lithuanian markets. In other words, as it was discussed in
theoretical part, brands choose different marketing communication strategies regarding in which
product or brand life cycle stage they are. Therefore it was chosen intentionally two brands that are
in different stages of life cycle (Samsung is in mature stage, and Nescafé Dolce Gusto is in growth
stage) in order to analyze and compare their communication processes in Belgium and Lithuania.
According to the global tendencies (Pommier, 2014), among social media channels the most popular
laureate that have the biggest user audience is Facebook. Therefore, it is assumed that in order to
attract more customers and target them effectively, companies have to present themselves and
communicate their content mostly through this channel. As the intentions are to present more
profound results, it will be analyzed all relevant data posted during the year of 2014. To make the
analysis more structured, it is worth stating the main characteristics on what it will be concentrated:
Qualitative analysis: how many followers, comments, testimonials and “likes” does a brand
get?
Frequency of communication: how often the brand posts in social media?
Types of communication: what are the types of brand communication strategy used?
Ads placement: how do these sites place their ad in their pages?
User Interaction: kinds of participation with the brand, which posts got most attention from
consumers (defining velocity alert factor), overall engagement rate.
Accessibility: how legibly they present themselves, what kind of information is available for
consumers.
Another part of empirical research consists of a survey method. As the aim is to analyze
Belgian and Lithuanian markets, there will be created two surveys in three languages (Lithuanian,
33
French and English) that it would fit consumer’s needs and would not create any inconvenience
because of a language barrier. Considering the fact that the aim is to analyze two markets and get
results that are statistically significant and representative, it was chosen to use questionnaires – in this
way the quantitative measure is more relevant. With the confidence level of 95%, it is estimated that
the sample size is representative when it reaches 384 respondents. The tendency of personal
characteristics of respondents in both countries is seen the same: although the percentage of women
is higher (59,2% in Lithuania and 52,4% in Belgium) than men (40,8% in Lithuania and 47,8% in
Belgium), the difference between the numbers is not significant. Considering the age of respondents,
it was intended to survey habitants having in total a wide range of age, therefore answers were
collected from all age groups indicated in the last question of the survey, although ones in group of
18-25 years old were more active (38% in Lithuania and 26,3% in Belgium).
Taken into consideration the sample size, in order to collect answers effectively, it was
decided to spread questionnaires in Belgium and Lithuania by using social networking sites. For
surveys to be more concrete and efficient, the questions were formulated as closed ones (multiple
choice, annexes 4-6). In order to understand the reasonability of questions presented, here are the
following explanations of each of them:
Getting information about overall usage of internet, disclosure of social networking sites that
are the most popular in Belgium and Lithuania: How often do you use the Internet? Do you
use social media sites or applications? In which social media site(s) or application(s) do you
have a profile(s)?
Overall opinion of consumers towards social media as a communication tool, its usefulness:
Do you consider a social media as a major communication tool? How would you evaluate
each aspect in respect of social media usefulness?
To evaluate how consumers in Belgium and Lithuania appreciate the advertising in social
media. To which communication strategy consumers would react the most: What kind of
advertising would you notice/watch in social media? In your opinion, how a brand/company
could communicate with customers in social media in most effective way? How often are you
interested by an advertisement in social media site that you would click for more information
about it?
The consideration of WOM and its usage tendencies among Belgian and Lithuanian
consumers: When you are considering to buy a product/service, what do you do? How are
you likely to recommend or give a feedback on a product or service in social media site? In
general, considering past six months, what kind of feedbacks of a products or services did you
give?
34
In addition to Facebook characteristics’ analysis, it was intended to find out consumers’
opinion about chosen brands – Samsung and Nescafé Dolce Gusto – their overall popularity
in Belgium and Lithuania: Which brand manufacturer of electronic & smart appliance
technologies (tablets & smartphones, laptops, cameras & TVs) do you prefer the most? Stop
for a moment - think of the favorite brand that you chose in previous question. Which of the
following would most accurately describe the reasons of your choice? Are you still interested
in this brand’s new product offers even though you already have a mobile
phone/laptop/tablet/camera/TV? Are you aware of the brand “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” – coffee
machines and its accessories? Why does this brand attract you?
In order to get overall information about respondents (collecting attribute data variable), it
was asked to indicate their age and gender.
Finally, to summarize the information provided in the theoretical part and present more
structured empirical results, here have been formulated 4 hypotheses:
H1: The reaction rate of consumers to commercial incentives in Social Media is higher when
the brand is in a mature stage of product cycle. It is assumed that the brands that are present in the
market for longer period of time, they are better recognized (consumers’ awareness of the brand is
higher), therefore they should have more effective communication with them. However, the longer a
brand is in the market, the bigger becomes a risk to be forgotten. It is worth analyzing how consumers
respond to brand’s content messages in the growth and mature stages of lifecycle.
H2: Brands in Belgian market communicate more frequently with consumers than in
Lithuania. It is worth analyzing whether frequency of posts and actualities presented by a brand has
impact on consumers’ willingness to respond and interact with a brand. It is assumed that in Belgium
brands initiate communication more often.
H3: Consumers are willing to interact more with an organization when they are involved in
the “making” process, such as product design or competitions within the organization. As
scholars previously stated in their researches, consumers prefer to feel the engagement with a
company and see their contribution to its performance. In order to have a structure of measurement,
a definition of “Velocity Alert” factor was created and introduced. It is worth analyzing this
hypothesis in Belgium and Lithuania and define the differences.
H4: Belgian consumers give a feedback of a product more often than Lithuanian ones.
According to literature review, consumers are commenting about products and services provided
more when they believe that their opinion is appreciated. It is worth to analyze the situation among
Belgian and Lithuanian consumers.
35
2.2. The review of Social Media tendencies: EU, Belgium and Lithuania
After discussion of the empirical analysis strategic steps in previous chapter, the following
one will be dedicated to briefly review recent tendencies of social media - overall in Europe and
specifically in Belgium and Lithuania. As it was mentioned in theoretical part, the evolution of social
media’s landscape during the period of 2012-2014 is significant (Annex 1). The growing variety of
social platforms enables consumers today to have the access to information about a product or service
that is relevant for them within just one click. Looking at the period of 2012-2014, the global social
media leaders remain the same three – Facebook, Twitter and Google+, even though the density and
competition of a market share may be defined as intensive and unbearable – the spotlight has to be
shared with new social applications such as WhatsApp, SnapChat, Tango, WeChat, Line, KakaoTalk.
With a few changes during this period social media is divided by its usage into publishing, sharing,
discussing and networking. It is seen in figure 7, placed in annex 1, in just a couple of years, social
media is not a part of the web anymore, it became a global social web owning to millions of users
and the rise of global net of commerce platforms (Google, Amazon, Alibaba, etc.).
Source: GlobalWebIndex (2014).
Remark: The sum of percentages is not equal 100% because multiple choices were selected.
Significant influence to that transformation is also addressed to the advent of mobile devices.
Organizations became aware of the increase of social media popularity and its latest tendencies,
therefore the commercial incentives were transformed and the investment in advertising was
distributed between traditional (mass media) and digital advertising. As it is shown in figure 8 above,
in GlobalWebIndex report (2014) it was stated the statistics of current level of device ownership
worldwide. It is found out that the most popular devices that people own are laptops and smartphones
(91% and 80% respectively). Therefore, social media implementation is improved regarding the
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100% 91%
80%
47%37% 34%
16%
2%
Figure 8. Worldwide usage of devices in 2014
36
demand of devices presented. According to M. Hoelzel (2015), the market analyst in
BusinessInsider.com, mobile ads in 2014 reached up to 65% of total investments in advertising and
it is considered to be the fastest-growing source of social media advertising spend worldwide through
2018, while spending on mobile social media advertisements will surpass non-mobile social spend in
2015. All in all, during recent years, especially in 2014, social media became not a luxury
communication channel for everyone, but necessity to increase a competitive advantage. After
reviewing social media landscape evolution, it is worth discussing what Internet and social media
trends are observed in Europe, especially in Belgium and Lithuania.
Table 3
The presence of enterprises on the Internet in 2014 (%)
Website
Formal
policy
for
social
media
use
Social
networks
Enterprise
blog or
microblog
Multimedia
content-
sharing
websites
Wiki-
based
knowledge
sharing
tools
Website
and
social
media
Use
only one
type of
social
media
Use two
or more
types of
social
media
EU 73 8 28 10 11 6 28 15 15
Belgium 78 9 31 10 16 5 33 18 17
Lithuania 75 6 31 9 16 14 33 21 17
Source: European commission website: Eurostat (2014)
Source: European commission website: Eurostat (2014)
Considering European level, in Table 3 it is shown the presence of enterprises on the Internet
in 2014. According to the information provided, 30 % of enterprises in Europe used social media (e.g.
social networks, blogs, content-sharing sites and wikis) in 2014, with almost three out of four of these
businesses (73 %) using such applications to build their image and to market products. In fact,
although 30 % of EU enterprises used some type of social media, only 8 % had an official social
media policy. Having a formal policy implies clear objectives, rules and procedures, in addition to
any investment needed. One would expect the relevant policies to set out the strategy for using social
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Social networks Multimedia
content sharing
websites
Enterprise blog or
microblog
Wiki-based
knowledge
sharing tools
46%51%
40%
53%
33%39%
31%37%
21%
10%
29%
10%
Large Medium Small
Figure 9. European enterprises' usage of social media in 2014 (%)
37
media as a business tool to promote long-term relationships and become more competitive and
profitable. It was reported that half of enterprises in Europe used social media, especially the ones in
the accommodation sector, to obtain customers’ opinions or reviews or to answer their questions. In
figure 9 the information is divided by the size of enterprises in Europe. It is noticed that large
enterprises use social media more profoundly in comparison to medium and small sized ones. It is
worth mentioning, though, that in case of enterprise blogging or microblogging, the percentages are
similar in all three types of enterprises - 40% of large ones, 31% of medium size and 29% of small
ones. Therefore it is assumed that small enterprises choose to distribute their content information and
communicate with consumers via blogs or microblogs.
Taking into consideration the information provided in table 3 about Belgium and Lithuania,
it may be concluded that the overall usage of internet tendency is similar (78% and 75% respectively),
as also social networking (31% each). However, it is worth noticing that there is a significant
difference in using wiki-based knowledge sharing tools (14% in Lithuania and only 5% in Belgium)
and the case when an enterprise use only one type of social media (21% in Lithuania and 18% in
Belgium). This is the evidence that in Lithuania social media implementation is less improved than
in Belgium – companies do not cease the opportunity to use more interactive and various social media
sites, therefore they prefer using only one type of social media or the older types.
However, according to BusinessCulture.com (2014), it was noticed in Belgium and
Lithuania that, considering Social Media usage in enterprises, quite often only an organization’s
communication managers have full access to Social Media, and most employees are blocked from it
during working hours. Although a lot of companies use social media, fewer than one in three have
company-guidelines or a strategy on how it might best help the business. Social media platforms can
be used as valuable tools e.g. for customer acquisition or marketing campaigns. However, nearly half
of Belgium’s businesses are not currently thinking of planning and implementing social media
guidelines or strategies in order to fully exploit its potential (in Lithuania the percentage of non-usage
of Social Media in business is even bigger). It is often assumed that the younger generation
(Generation Y) will already have and bring to the company, all the necessary skills to get the most
out of Social Media. Thus, more than 2/3 of all companies are not currently planning to train their
employees in the use of social media. Furthermore, Social Media activities are only monitored by a
small number of companies and the response to customer feedback is quite often neglected in both
Belgium and Lithuania countries. If a negative comment about a company’s service/product is posted
on social media, 1/3 of companies in total would not react to it and 20% would not answer openly. In
conclusion, the increasing tendency of Social Media usage has been noticed by most of the market
participants, however, not everyone decided whether to use that information for their competitive
advantage, nor how to do that.
38
In table 4 it is presented the number of social, digital and mobile users in 2014 considering
three regions – EU, Belgium and Lithuania. In the table is introduced a concept “Mobile Social” that
is considered to be the usage of social networking sites in mobile devices. Global Internet usage
tendencies in 2014 can be perceived as positive in Europe with over half of billion people in Europe
(501 mn., table 4). Social Media’s and Mobile Social usage numbers in Europe are seen as less
impressive (Social Media 293 mn. and Mobile Social 194 mn.), but the forecast for 2015 has a positive
tendency (Eurostat, 2014). Looking at the statistics in Belgium and Lithuania, it is noticed that latter’s
results are lagging behind in all three categories comparing to Belgium (Internet users in Belgium 8,6
mn., in Lithuania 2,4 mn., Social Media – 5,4 and 1,2 mn. accordingly, Mobile Social – 3,8 and 0,72
mn. accordingly).
Table 4
Number of Social, Digital & Mobile users in 2014 (mn)
Belgium Lithuania EU
Internet 8,6 2,4 501
Social Media 5,4 1,2 293
Mobile Social 3,8 0,72 194
Source: European commission website: Eurostat (2014)
Source: European commission website: Eurostat (2014)
It is worth mentioning, that, as it was seen in the annex 3, the total number of habitants in
Belgium and Lithuania differs significantly, therefore while comparing it is useful to consider a
derivative measure such as penetration rate - the number of people who have a specific usage
tendency, divided by the size of the relevant market population. Taking into consideration the global
picture in 2014, Europe has impressively high levels of internet usage, with 7 countries around the
region registering penetration of more than 90% (Eurostat, 2014). As it may be seen in the figure 10,
the difference between Belgium and Lithuania now is less significant in all three categories, however
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
Internet Social Media Mobile Social
82%
52%
36%
68%
35%
20%
68%
40%
26%
Belgium Lithuania EU
Figure 10. Social, Digital & Mobile penetration rates in 2014
39
the percentage in Lithuanian market is smaller (Social Media usage – 35%, Mobile Social – 20%). It
was noticed in the global market, that people that use mobile devices in social media are as twice as
active as the non-mobile users. Therefore, even though the percentage of Mobile Social penetration
is smaller than the others, it is worth taking into consideration that category as a future perspective of
implementation tool in business.
As for the websites that are the most popular in Social Media among its users, according to
The Directorate-General for Statistics (2014), it is evident that the leader is Facebook.com with its
1,15 billion of users worldwide that have increased during the year by 21%. Second place is reserved
for Twitter with its 288 million users worldwide. It is also worth mentioning that other Social Media
sites such as LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube are not that far behind from leaders and are
considered to be future channels for the implementation of communication strategies.
To sum up, the Social Media phenomenon has been noticed by most of the market
participants (considering the firms and their consumers), however, not everyone has decided whether
to use that information, nor how to do that. Taking into consideration the most popular social
networking sites, it is worth analyzing how Social Media channels are used for marketing
communication purposes by presenting their content to consumers – that will be done in the following
chapter.
2.3. Analysis of Facebook characteristics in Belgium and Lithuania
In the previous chapter it was discussed the tendencies of Social Media activities in EU with
Belgium and Lithuania separately. It was found out, that in 2014 with certain differences between the
countries there was an increasing tendency of Internet and social networking sites, not to mention the
forecast for 2015 to be positive. However, it was admitted that the awareness of Social Media
advantages is relatively low among the companies. Therefore, it is worth to perform a profound
Facebook characteristics’ analysis - the most popular Social Media site in Belgium and Lithuania –
disclosing the characteristics and main differences between these two markets.
As it was mentioned earlier, according to the marketing research company’s ComScore
(2014) data, the most perspective industry for an effective marketing communication in Social Media
is Electronic Appliances. The reason for this is that its innovativeness and high demand, the need of
communication between a company and its consumers is essential. Regarding the data provided by
SocialBakers (2014), “Samsung” and “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brands in Belgian and Lithuanian
markets were chosen. It is known that Samsung is in mature stage of product cycle and Nescafé Dolce
Gusto is in growth stage – according to SocialBakers metrics (2014), both of them have the highest
activity in Social Media, taking into consideration their product cycle stages. In order to perform a
40
profound analysis, it was decided to take data from the year of 2014. As it was also stated in the
methodology part of the thesis, there have been set certain criteria that will be followed throughout
the process of analysis:
Qualitative analysis: how many followers, comments, testimonials and “likes” a brand gets?
Frequency of communication: how often brand posts in social media?
Types of communication: what are the types of brand communication strategy used?
Ads placement: how do these sites place their ad in their pages?
User Interaction: kinds of participation with the brand, which posts got most attention from
consumers, overall engagement rate.
Accessibility: how legibly they present themselves, what kind of information is available.
As it was found out in previous chapters, the social media networking sites are a powerful
communication tool for brands to build awareness of consumers. Nevertheless, market researches
show that the global tendencies point out – companies do not use their total potential to implement
Social Media into their marketing communication strategies. Therefore, with this analysis of
Facebook characteristics it will be found out whether these two brands that were chosen - Samsung
and Nescafé Dolce Gusto – do they use an effective social media implementation and how it differs
between Belgium and Lithuania.
At first the analysis of Facebook page was performed for “Samsung” brand. As a veteran
member of the market, it is perfectly positioned as one of the leaders in the industry of digital
technologies in Europe or in each country taken separately which ambition is to become the world’s
number one brand. Pursuing these objectives “Samsung” brand has developed and presented a
significant amount of products that are used in consumers’ everyday lives - tablets and smartphones,
laptops, cameras and TVs. Considering its guaranteed leading position in the market during the
mature stage of product cycle, it is worth analyzing what kind of Social Media marketing
communication strategies does this brand use in Belgian and Lithuanian Markets.
In the table 5 it is presented a part of systematized results of Facebook characteristics
analysis regarding “Samsung” brand in Belgian and Lithuanian markets in 2014. It is known, that this
brand has already been in the market for many years, has launched a lot of products, but it created a
Facebook page only in 2010 in Lithuania and 2011 in Belgium. After the analysis was done, there
have been found out considerable differences that are worth pointing out. Taken into consideration
that in Lithuania there are less of habitants than in Belgium (annex 3), the fact that the number of
followers of Samsung brand in Facebook is bigger than in Belgium (179 523 in latter and 202 377 in
Lithuania) suggests that it is more appreciated in Lithuania, in other words, it may be assumed that
the marketing communication strategies are more effective there. As a result, the following numbers
41
in the table are significantly bigger in Lithuanian market – number of comments under the posts is
103474 (while in Belgium is only 691), amount of “likes” and shares is 66696 and 17745 (comparing
to 8251 and 1328 in Belgium).
Table 5
The results of Facebook characteristics’ analysis for “Samsung” brand
Criteria Belgium Lithuania
Number of followers 179 523 202 377
Number of comments 691 103 474
Number of “likes” 8 251 66 696
Number of shares 1 328 17 745
Frequency of brand’s
communication
Total number – 159
Average frequency – 4 days
Total number – 640
Average frequency – 1,3 day
Types of communication Videos – 28
Interactive links – 5
Games – 5
Pictures – 110
Events – 5
Discussions -3
Real time marketing (RTM) - 3
Videos – 90
Interactive links – 2
Games – 45
Pictures – 427
Events – 19
Discussions – 47
Real time marketing (RTM) – 6
Brand advocates - 4
Velocity Alert factor Games, quizzes, RTM Games, quizzes
Number of testimonials Total number – 1 459
Negative – 693
Positive – 589
Neutral - 177
Total number – 3 612
Negative – 932
Positive – 1 845
Neutral - 835
Engagement rate 0,05 % 0,16 % Note: Statistics is shown summing up all the data of 2014
There has been noticed another interesting fact that “Samsung” brand in Belgium posts
information in two languages– French and Flemish – consequently, the number of certain posts
doubles. During the analysis, these double posts were not eliminated, because each of the double
posts provoked different numbers of consumers’ reactions. However, the notable difference in
amount of reactions may also be explained by the frequency of brand’s communication with
consumers – “Samsung” brand in Lithuanian market posts information 4 times more frequently than
the Belgian one (total number of posts during 2014 is 640 and 159 respectively). It means that
“Samsung” brand in Lithuania posts on average almost every day, while the Belgian one only every
4 days. In addition to the information shown in table 5, it has been counted the number of posts that
the brand left during the same day – in Belgium the number reaches 73, in Lithuania – 355, which
also confirms the fact that Lithuanian brand was communicating more frequently. It is worth
mentioning that during the period of analysis it was noticed the absence of communication of
“Samsung” brand in Belgium – there were no posts left on Facebook in April. These results could
42
imply that the hypothesis no. 2 should be rejected, to make final conclusion, the other brand also has
to be analyzed.
Another reason for such difference in consumer participation on Facebook regarding
Samsung is that this brand in Lithuania posts more interactive posts, in other words, his
communication strategy relies on stimulating consumers to interact and share its news more through
quizzes, games and discussions that are presented with humor in order to become more attractive to
consumers. While comparing to brand in Belgium, that kind of consumer motivation is used less
frequently. Considering how brand communicates, the types are noticed to be the same with only a
few exceptions – in Lithuania a brand used all types mentioned in the table more intensively (the
amount is bigger than in Belgium) and it was chosen to promote brand advocates as a part of
advertising 4 times in total during 2014. According to the information provided above, the hypothesis
no. 3 is likely to be accepted. With this type of communication brand relates more with the consumer,
its intents are concentrated on showing that the advocate who a consumer may know is recommending
that brand and is using its products.
In order to find out how a brand provokes a consumer to respond most effectively a
conception of “Velocity Alert” factor was defined and explained in the terminology. Therefore, now
it is known a method which was the most effective in communication with consumers and got most
significant amount of responses in a short period of time (1-2 days). In Belgium, the “Velocity Alert”
factor is games and quizzes (#TweetforHeat initiative, short quizzes for prizes), also it is noticed that
consumers appreciated the real time marketing (football game’s theme commercial). While in
Lithuania the most popular posts were only games and quizzes for opportunity to win prizes (Samsung
products).
It was also calculated the number of testimonials from consumers that the brand received in
both countries. The same tendency is noticed here – more significant amount of testimonials is
received in Lithuania. Another fact that is worth mentioning is that in Belgium more negative
comments were found that positive ones – consumers published pictures, videos where they show
broken or bad quality Samsung products. Considering negative feedback in both countries, in order
to analyze and understand better, it is worth dividing them into three groups. First group of negative
comments that were received in 2014 on Facebook is from angry customers, in other words, they are
real customers (have purchased some of “Samsung” brand products) who have real complaints about
these goods (something went wrong during the purchase or after the purchase it became evident that
the quality was not as good as expected). Another group of comments could be called “malicious
attacks” that are received from consumers who are mostly willing to argue with others on Facebook
or in Social Media in general – often they have no argumentation of their accuses to the brand, they
just spread more negativity as they are responded by other consumers of by brand itself. Finally, there
43
has been found third group of negativity among testimonials on Facebook from “off-target”
consumers, who would not be considered as a target audience of “Samsung” brand (most of them
were young children who have not such influent purchasing power).
In order to compare more objectively the situation of Samsung brand in these two
markets, it was calculated the consumer engagement rate. It quantifies the success of a brand and
also can be a tool for comparison even if brands have different number of followers (the formula
for engagement rate calculation is presented in annex 7). In order to get more accurate
calculations, it was decided to calculate engagement rate of each month of 2014 first, then to
derive a yearly rate from it. As it is seen in table 5, consumers in Lithuania still remain more
engaged that Belgian ones (0,16 % and 0,05 % respectively).
Another part of “Samsung” brand’s analysis that is not reflected in the table 5 consists
of ad placement criteria, types of user interaction and accessibility. After the analysis was done,
it can be assumed that “Samsung” brand in both markets takes advantage of Facebook offers and
functions: to present various advertising solutions it posts videos – worth mentioning that
Lithuanian “Samsung” brand uses less Facebook videos and more YouTube links (calculating the
percentage) – also most of the posts consist visual attraction (picture, video, interactive link). As
for types of user interaction, it was noticed that in both cases there were found users’ comments,
testimonials, and shares of posts, moreover – “Samsung” brand in both markets respond to
negative testimonials or inquiries within 24 hours. Finally, considering accessibility, it is
disclosed all necessary contact information for consumers, links to official webpages where
consumers can find product catalogues and additional data and it is presented the main social
responsibility aspects of the company – mission and vision, main facts of company’s
establishment history.
The analysis of Facebook characteristics is proceeded for “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand in
Belgium and Lithuania. It is worth noting that even though the brand is in growth stage, its distribution
channels of products are present all over the world - this is due to the popularity of parent company
“Nestlé”, the awareness of “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand was spread with rather less difficulties. The
brand positions itself as a producer of an espresso machine or coffee capsule system and has intent to
deliver a message to consumers that every day can be started with a cup of good quality coffee (such
as espresso, cappuccino, latte, grande, lungo and others). In the regard of innovative technologies that
the brand presents (with different types of coffee machines that are produced, it can target various
types of consumers who have different tastes), it also offers a flexible delivery system, where
consumers can purchase and receive products while staying at home. All these benefits are advertised
44
in social networking sites, so it is worth analyzing how it presents itself to the market in Social Media
and whether its marketing communication strategy is effective.
Table 6
The results of Facebook analysis for Nescafé Dolce Gusto brand
Criteria Belgium Lithuania
Number of followers 50 884 19 987
Number of comments 3 833 1 569
Number of “likes” 63 723 3 465
Number of shares 5 812 295
Frequency of brand’s
communication
Total number – 300
Average frequency – 2,4 days
Total number – 104
Average frequency – 4 day
Types of communication Videos – 30
Interactive links – 86
Games – 5
Pictures – 148
Events – 2
Discussions - 22
Real time marketing - 1
Videos – 3
Interactive links – 10
Games – 9
Pictures – 44
Events – 7
Discussions – 29
Real time marketing – 1
Velocity Alert factor “Modern Art” campaign Discussions, Games and quizzes
Number of testimonials Total number - 433
Negative – 209
Positive – 181
Neutral - 43
Total number – 172
Negative – 8
Positive – 16
Neutral - 148
Engagement rate 0,81 % 0,25 % Note: Statistics is shown summing up all the data of 2014
It is already known that the “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand is in a growth stage of a product
cycle. Therefore, in some countries it still can be unknown or at the beginning of introduction phase
in the market. Looking at the results of analysis of Facebook pages in Belgium and Lithuania, it may
be assumed that it is the exact case in latter country – the brand was introduced in Lithuania only in
2013, while in Belgium it is known since 2009. In table 6 it is seen that more popularity it has gained
in Belgium – number of followers here is 50 884, while in Lithuania it is 19 987. In respect to this,
the following numbers also belong to the same tendency – in Belgium, Nescafé Dolce Gusto got more
comments, “likes” and shares of the posts than in Lithuania (3833, 63723 and 5812 respectively in
Belgium, while in Lithuania 1569, 3465 and 295). For that situation to occur contributed the
frequency of brand’s communication on Facebook – as it may be seen in the table 6, Nescafé Dolce
Gusto in Belgium posts more frequently (every 2,4 days) than in Lithuania (every 4 days) that brought
total number of posts in Belgium 300 and in Lithuania 104.
“Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand tries to provoke consumers to buy or at least take a look at
offerings by posting more visual triggers (pictures, videos) – for that specific reason it posts
interactive links on Facebook to indicate potential consumers to brand’s own website where they
could buy products online (each country has its own domain). For that reason number of interactive
links posted on Facebook is relatively high (in Belgium 86 from total 300, in Lithuania 10 from 104).
45
As another reason for this significant difference between two countries in attracting, retaining and
communicating with consumer is different positioning messages. At the end of 2014 (during the
period of November - December) the brand in Belgian market chose to present itself figuratively as
a piece of Modern Art – introducing 4 different new flavor drinks (tea latte, chai tea latte, espresso
caramel and chococino caramel) that no one else have in the market. To make it more effective it
made various pictures of real art in the coffee cup that became viral message for the consumers – they
shared, commented the pictures – their participation in a short period of time increased significantly
and made the end of analysis’s period the most intensive in terms of consumers’ participation (see
annex 8). As a result, the “Velocity Alert” factor in Belgium is referred to this type of communication.
Considering Lithuanian market, the “Modern Art” campaign was not pursued there, so the most
intensive consumers’ participation was provoked by initiating discussions and quizzes (even though
not in every case the prize was guaranteed). As it noticed, brand in Belgium received consumers’
reaction more intensively by providing more innovative information regarding its product rather than
initiating communication with a consumer, therefore, hypothesis no. 3 may be rejected.
Moreover, the number of testimonials and the ratio of positivity and negativity is worth
pointing out while considering “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand. It has been counted that in Belgium the
total number of testimonials is bigger than in Lithuania (433 and 172 respectively – more incentives
for hypothesis no. 2 to be accepted). Another interesting fact is that in Belgium there is relatively
more negative testimonials (complains about product quality or product delivery conditions) than in
Lithuania. In latter’s data it has been noticed the number of neutral testimonials. The reason for this-
there has been a number of consumers who posted photos for the competitions that the brand
organized. These testimonials were not eliminated, because each of them got other consumers’
reactions – “likes”, shares, comments – that also attracted the attention to the brand itself. Considering
the engagement rate estimated during the analysis, it was decided that overall Belgian consumers are
more involved in brand’s activities on Facebook than Lithuanian ones (0,81 % and 0,25 %
respectively).
In addition to the information presented in table 6, it is also necessary to discuss ad placement
criteria, types of user interaction and accessibility. As this brand’s products are designed more for
consumer’s pleasure (it positions itself in the market by saying that drinking coffee is for pleasure
rather than necessity in people’s everyday life), it has been noticed that this brand in both markets
tries to show its esthetic side by posting pictures, videos where people are enjoying their coffee time.
Although it was noticed that brand posted several messages without any visual stimulation (Belgian
6, Lithuanian 1). Keeping in mind that the advertising posts should stimulate consumers’ emotions,
“Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand in Belgium as it in Lithuania initiated discussions with consumers by
asking how do they feel, what is their opinion regarding its products. As it was mentioned earlier,
46
“Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand in Belgium also posted videos more frequently, using more YouTube
links rather putting Facebook videos (27 out of 30 videos were from YouTube, while in Lithuania 1
out of 3 videos).
In terms of user interaction, Lithuanian “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand was more initiative
and engaging in an individual level – consumers were able to participate in several competitions by
posting their personal photos with special liaison with the brand. As for accessibility criteria, both
brands disclosed contact information on Facebook, its historic events and social responsibility
information. In addition to this, brand offered to its consumers a possibility to subscribe for
newsletters of its novelties in both markets.
In conclusion, in Belgium “Samsung” brand is less popular on Facebook than it is in
Lithuania. Its communication strategy on Facebook also differs from Lithuanian one in terms of
frequency of posts (latter posts more frequently) and also latter’s communication strategy relies on
stimulating consumers to interact and share its news more through quizzes, games and discussions,
not to mention promoting brand advocacy activities. Concerning “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand, its
popularity is more significant in Belgium (consumers’ engagement rate is bigger). It is because of
more effective communication strategy chosen in latter country – Modern Art campaign. Another
finding was made that in Belgian market consumers are willing to express more negative feelings and
feedback of brands. Overall, in comparison between two countries, Lithuanian consumers are more
engaged with “Samsung” brand, while Belgian consumers are willing to interact and respond more
to “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand’s posts.
2.4. Results of consumers’ survey in Belgium and Lithuania
In previous chapter the results of Facebook characteristics analysis were disclosed in order
to find out how brands of Electronics & Appliances sector in Belgium and Lithuania implement Social
Media in their marketing communication strategies. Contributing to these findings in this chapter the
perspective of consumers will be presented by disclosing results of surveys conducted in Belgian and
Lithuanian markets. During the surveys it was questioned in total 768 respondents (respectively 384
in Belgium and 384 in Lithuania) in order for the results to be representative in both countries. For
better comprehension the data were analyzed with Microsoft Excel 2013, grouped by questions and
presented in graphs while comparing both countries.
First two questions of the survey were dedicated to find out the overall usage tendencies of
internet and what part in both markets consists of Social Media users. As it is shown in figure 13,
consumers in both countries cannot get through the day without internet – 34,9% in Lithuania and
36,4% in Belgium use it 3-4 hours per day and even 33,3% in Lithuania and 41,3% in Belgium use it
more than 5 hours per day. It is seen the pattern that Belgian consumers use internet more, but the
47
difference is not that significant. It is worth mentioning that not everyone who use internet also have
profiles in social networking sites - in Lithuania there is 88,5% and in Belgium the percentage reaches
93% of people who have created at least one social networking profile.
Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that all respondents of 6-25 age marked that they use
Social Media and have indicated more platforms where they had created profiles. It can be assumed
that the future generation of potential consumers will be even more attached to social networking
sites, therefore it is worth taking consideration into it when choosing targeting criteria. Considering
Generation Y (otherwise – the Millennials), their usage of internet and Social Media tendencies are
frequent – their answers spread between 3rd and 4th columns in figure 13. The ones who tend to be in
a wealthier stage of life (people of 41-55 age – Generation X) showed less interest in social media
(indicated 1-2 hours per day). Another fact can be stated that considering the age of consumers, elder
ones (Baby Boomers generation) tend to use less of the internet and are based in the first group that
uses internet connection only 2-3 times a week and most of them do not have a profile in Social Media
sites.
Consumers were asked to indicate all social networking sites where they have created
profiles, therefore multiple choices were available. As it is shown in figure 14, surveys’ results
confirm the fact that the most popular Social Media site is Facebook (86,2% in Lithuania and 90,6%
in Belgium). For Belgian brands as more favorable (having more opportunity to communicate with
consumers, because they tend to use that platform more often) Social Media places could also be
Instagram (55,9% of consumers surveyed) and Snapchat (34,4%). As for Lithuanian ones – Instagram
(28,2%) and YouTube (20,3%) platforms are advised. It is worth mentioning, concerning consumers’
behavior in Social Media – Lithuanian market still does not recognize LinkedIn platform as a
0,00
10,00
20,00
30,00
40,00
50,00
60,00
70,00
80,00
90,00
100,00
2-3 days a week; Every day, 1-2
hours;
Every day, 3-4
hours;
Every day, more
than 5 hours.
4,17%
27,60%34,90% 33,33%
5,6%
16,7%
36,4%
41,3%
Lithuania Belgium
Figure 13. How often do you use the Internet?
48
professional network comparing to Belgium (6,3% and 50% respectively). It is also evident that
Belgian consumers are more active on Social Media – they marked more options and have higher
tendency of using each site that was available in the survey.
When the consumers were asked to express their opinion about Social Media (SM), whether
they consider it as a major communication tool, the answers were spread differently comparing these
two countries. As it is shown in figure 15, Belgian consumers tend to communicate more via social
0,00%
10,00%
20,00%
30,00%
40,00%
50,00%
60,00%
70,00%
80,00%
90,00%
100,00%
Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Snapchat Twitter Viber What’s app Youtube
85,20%
28,20%
6,30%4,00% 4,20%
10,80%
5,70%
20,30%
90,60%
55,90%
50,00%
34,40%
15,60%
21,90%
12,80%
29,70%
Lithuania Belgium
Figure 14. In which social media site(s) or application(s) do you have a profile(s)?
0,0%
5,0%
10,0%
15,0%
20,0%
25,0%
30,0%
35,0%
40,0%
45,0%
Prefer SM than "face-
to-face"
communication
SM as a
communication bridge
between distance
Prefer both equally Prefer "face-to-face"
communication than
SM
4,7%
43,3%
35,0%
17,0%16,1%
30,6%
42,3%
11,0%
Lithuania Belgium
Figure 15. Do you consider a social media as a major communication tool?
49
networking sites (16,1% of them prefer communicating with everyone via social networks, rather
than face to face while in Lithuania there is only 4,7% - 1st columns) and are less willing to meet and
talk in face-to-face conversations than Lithuanians - 11% and 17% accordingly (4th columns).
Nevertheless, they agree that Social Media is very useful and easy tool to contact someone who is far
away from them (2nd column – 43,3%% in Lithuania and 30,6% in Belgium).
Figure 16 shows more profound results of consumers’ understanding about Social media as
a communication tool. When they were asked to evaluate in scale from 1 to 5 its usefulness
considering different aspects, the average evaluation was positive (more than 2,5 of the scale
indicated). Even though they agreed that Social Media can be referred as an interactive medium (3,79
in Belgium and 3,81 in Lithuania), as most effective its purpose is indicated the bridge of
communication gap with the ones who live in distance (4 in Belgium and 4,51 in Lithuania).
Considering the fact that they recognize its advantage as a consumer’s interaction with a company
tool (3,02 in Belgium and 3,74 in Lithuania), it may be assumed that it is a positive sign for a firm to
pursue a Social Media implementation in marketing communication strategies.
As one of the purpose of these surveys were to analyze the perspective of consumers in
Belgian and Lithuanian markets towards the communication with a company via Social Media, they
were also asked to express opinion about the advertising in social networking sites. According to the
results shown in figure 17, it is all or nothing to the consumers – the highest rate of responses were
regarding the 1st column – advertisements that meet their interests and hobbies are the most interesting
for them (42,6% in Lithuania and 58,3% in Belgium). However, looking at the figure 17, it is also
evident that a big part of consumers surveyed responded negatively – 19,7% in Lithuania and 43,3%
0,00 1,00 2,00 3,00 4,00 5,00
Interactive medium
Sources of information
Bridges communication gap with the ones that live abroad
Customer interaction tool (commenting, request for
customer service)
Crisis communication tool
Marketing communication tool
3,81
4,29
4,51
3,74
3,97
3,82
3,79
3,82
4,00
3,02
2,90
3,02
Belgium Lithuania
Figure 16. How would you evaluate each aspect in respect of social media usefulness?
50
in Belgium (5th column) are not interested and always skip advertisements if they can, some of them
were of the opinion that advertisements are the “time-killers”. This suggests that a brand or a company
has to be very precise when communicating a content to its consumers – to have a concreate
description of target people (what do they prefer, what are their usage habits etc.).
Remark: the overall percentage of the market exceeds 100% because consumers were asked to mark two most
appropriate options.
In addition to this, consumers had to indicate, according to them, the most efficient way that
a company could send a message via Social Media. In figure 18 results present the fact that traditional
digital advertising has lost its influence and popularity (flash ads and banner ads were indicated only
by 0,5% and 3% respectively in Lithuania, while in Belgium no one indicated flash ads, banner ads
0,00%
10,00%
20,00%
30,00%
40,00%
50,00%
60,00%
70,00%
80,00%
90,00%
100,00%
Meet interest andhobbies
That advertisesnovelties
Where I couldparticipate andcontribute to
When brandperiodically keeps
in touch withconsumers
Always skipadvertisement if I
can
42,60%
19,40%
5,00%
12,20%
19,70%
58,30%
13,30%
31,70%
23,30%
43,30%
Lithuania Belgium
Figure 17. What kind of advertising would you notice/watch in social media?
0,0%
20,0%
40,0%
60,0%
80,0%
100,0%
Interactive
fan pages
Brand
Advocacy
Flash ads Banner ads Games,
quizzes or
updates
Video ads
20,1%12,4%
0,5% 3,0%
29,5%35,0%
26,7%18,4%
0,0% 1,6%
34,3%
14,0%
Lithuania BelgiumFigure 18. How a brand or a company could communicate with customers in Social
Media in most effective way?
51
were chosen only by 1,6%). Preferences were indicated by Lithuanian consumers for video ads (35%)
and games, quizzes and daily updates of information (29,5%), while Belgian ones were agreeing on
latter (34,3%) and also choosing brand advocacy campaigns. However, it is worth mentioning the
information, which is not reflected in the graphs, that consumers in both markets admitted that when
seeing an advertisement in social networking site, they rarely click on it for more information (49,2%
in Lithuania and 46,7% in Belgium). Given the fact that interactive fan pages received a significant
recognition (20,1% in Lithuania and 26,7% in Belgium) suggests to draw a conclusion that it is
strongly advisable for companies in these markets to implement Social Media sites into their
marketing communication strategies.
Regarding the situation when consumers are considering to buy a product or service, there
are noticed significant differences between these markets that it is essential to point out. Figure 19
shows that Lithuanians tend to look through the reviews and comments in seller’s webpage first (51%
of consumers surveyed – 1st column), while Belgians prefer looking or asking for some feedback in
social media instead (39,7% - 2nd column). Consumers in both markets are also willing to ask their
friend or relative for advice on a specific product or service (19,5% in Lithuania and 21,2% in
Belgium), in other words, word-of-mouth communication is considered as an important tool to spread
the message about a brand or a company.
The results presented in figure 20 comply with the findings of Facebook characteristics’
analysis disclosed in previous chapter. Two assumptions are confirmed: first of all, Belgian
consumers are more willing to give a feedback only when the quality of a product or service is bad
0,0%
10,0%
20,0%
30,0%
40,0%
50,0%
60,0%
70,0%
80,0%
90,0%
100,0%
Look into
reviews in
seller's webpage
Ask for some
feedback in SM
Ask a
friend/relative
for advice
Going through
some stores
Don't seek for
any advice
51,0%
2,6%
19,5%
12,2%14,7%
15,5%
39,7%
21,2%16,7%
6,9%
Lithuania Belgium
Figure 19. When you are considering to buy a product/service, what do you do?
52
(3rd column – 51,4%, while only 15,1% of Lithuanians agree to that). Secondly, consumers in
Lithuania tend to keep their opinion to themselves and give feedback only when they are asked to do
so (68,2%, when 31,4% of Belgians prefer that). As a result, when they were asked to indicate what
kind of feedbacks of a products or services did they give, considering past six months, 68,9% of
Lithuanians indicated that they did not give any feedback at all and 43,1% of Belgians gave negative
feedback.
In the survey, there were also included several questions about brands analyzed in previous
chapter where the results of Facebook page analysis were presented. Figure 21 represents the
consumers’ preferences of manufacturers of electronic and smart appliance. It is evident that the
0,0%
10,0%
20,0%
30,0%
40,0%
50,0%
60,0%
70,0%
80,0%
90,0%
100,0%
Very likely - I like
to express my
opinion
Only when the
quality is good
Only when the
quality is bad
I keep the opinion
to myself
5,8%10,9%
15,1%
68,2%
6,9%10,3%
51,4%
31,4%
Lithuania Belgium
Figure 20. How are you likely to recommend or give a feedback on a product or
service in social media site ?
0,0%
20,0%
40,0%
60,0%
80,0%
100,0%
Apple Blackberry HTC Nokia Samsung Sony Other
22,4%
0,0% 3,1%
17,2%
47,4%
5,2% 4,7%
50,9%
0,0% 0,0%
14,0%
22,8%
8,8% 3,5%
Lithuania Belgium
Figure 21. Which brand manufacturer of electronic & smart appliance
technologies do you prefer the most?
53
leaders of these two markets are different. In Belgium it is “Apple” brand (50,9%), while in Lithuania
it is “Samsung” brand (47,4%). This confirms the findings of Facebook characteristics’ analysis - it
was recognized that “Samsung” brand’s position is weaker in Belgium than it is in Lithuania.
Apparently its main competitor is “Apple” brand, therefore it has to be taken into consideration when
planning marketing communication strategy.
Consumers in the surveys also specified the reasons for choosing their preferable electronic
and smart appliances brand – the most important factor was understanding their preferences and
offering the things that they like (figure 22, 1st column – 42,7% in Lithuania and 47,4% in Belgium),
following the recommendations to buy or try it by someone else (word-of-mouth communication
factor) – 24,5% of Lithuanians and 28% of Belgians (4th column). In addition to the information
presented in the graphs, when asked, whether they would still be interested in this brand’s products
after they already bought one, consumers answered positively that they also check other brands,
because they like being up-to-date in technological innovations (42,1% in Belgium and 45,1% in
Lithuania). All in all, brands of this industry have to be precise and concreate with offerings, defining
exactly what do their consumers expect from them.
Last surveys’ questions were dedicated to other brand of Facebook characteristics’ analysis-
Nescafé Dolce Gusto. Survey’s findings contribute to results of previously mentioned analysis – in
Lithuania, where activity in Facebook page of this brand is less significant than in Belgium, 60,1%
of consumers admitted that they have not heard about this brand before, while in Belgium this
percentage reaches only 31,58%. Therefore it is evident that “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand in
0,0%
10,0%
20,0%
30,0%
40,0%
50,0%
60,0%
70,0%
80,0%
90,0%
100,0%
Knows what my
preferences are
It's the most
expensice and
luxurious
product in the
market
It has so many
innovative
characteristics
I was
recommended to
buy it
Personal
experience
42,7%
10,9%14,6%
24,5%
7,3%
47,4%
8,8% 8,8%
28,0%
7,0%
Lithuania Belgium
Figure 22. Which of the following would most accurately describe the reasons of your
choice?
54
Lithuania has to reconsider its marketing communication strategy in Social Media to build the
awareness among consumers in the market. It is also useful to understand the reasons why do
consumers like this brand, in other words – what are the drivers influencing consumers’ decisions
regarding this product. Looking at figure 23, it is evident that their preference of non-traditional coffee
(espresso, cappuccino, latte, mocha, frappé) and economic factor (it’s a good way to save money by
making it at home) are main advantages– that is how 44,6% of Belgian consumers think of this brand.
The purpose of empirical part of thesis was to analyze the usage of social media as a
marketing communication tool tendencies in Belgium and Lithuania. Concluding the results, it is
evident that the leader of Social Media’s landscape is Facebook, being the most popular platform
among consumers and, therefore, among companies too. The improvement of electronic devices and
consumers’ recognition of Social Media as an interactive medium gives opportunity for companies
to reach their consumers more frequently. However, the results of Facebook analysis show – there is
still plenty of space left for improvements. The findings of analysis show that “Samsung” brand is
appreciated more in Lithuania than in Belgium. There are several reasons for this – latter
communicates less with consumers, do not try to engage them in the commercial nor production
processes as it is done in Lithuania. Furthermore, the survey of consumers showed that there is a
strong competitor in the market – “Apple” brand – that has significant brand awareness among
consumers in Belgium. As for the “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand, it has been noticed a considerable
difference of brand awareness between these two markets – Lithuanian consumers have less of brand
0,0%
10,0%
20,0%
30,0%
40,0%
50,0%
60,0%
70,0%
80,0%
90,0%
100,0%
Having non-
traditional coffee
and saving
money
Having high
quality coffee at
home
CSR of a brand Don't have it yet
but are willing to
buy it
Have never
heard about this
brand before
16,7%
2,6% 3,6%
17,2%
59,9%
44,6%
14,0%
1,8%
28,0%
11,6%
Lithuania Belgium
Figure 23. Why does Nescafé Dolce Gusto brand attract you?
55
knowledge, when Belgian one chose interactive and effective strategies to increase its popularity
among consumers.
2.5. Defining problem areas of Social Media implementation
In order to proceed more structured empirical research which results were presented in
previous sub-chapter, there have been formulated four hypothesis regarding Social Media
implementation and consumers’ behavior. It is now worth concluding them to define problem areas
of Social Media implementation in Belgium and in Lithuania.
H1: The reaction rate of consumers to commercial incentives in Social Media is higher
when the brand is in a mature stage of product cycle. After the Facebook characteristics’ analysis
was done, it was found out that the consumers’ engagement rate of “Samsung” brand is 0,05% in
Belgium and 0,16% in Lithuania. However, as for the “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand, its engagement
rate reaches even 0,81% in Belgium and 0,25% in Lithuania. Therefore, hypothesis no.1 has to be
rejected – brand that is in growth stage obtained higher rate than the one being in mature stage. It is
concluded that being in different product lifecycle stages does not guarantee bigger popularity among
consumers – the biggest impact is recognized by choosing the right marketing communication
strategy.
H2: Brands in Belgium communicate more frequently with consumers than in Lithuania.
During Facebook analysis it was counted the communication frequency rate of both brands in the
chosen markets. The results show that “Samsung” brand communicated with consumers every 4 days
in Belgium, while in Lithuania every 1,3 days. Considering “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand, its
communicating frequency reaches 2,4 days in Belgium and 4 days in Lithuania. This means that
hypothesis no.2 has to be rejected – after comparing these two brands it is evident that in Lithuania
brands initiate communication with consumers more often.
H3: Consumers are willing to interact more with an organization when they are involved
in the “making” process, such as product design or competitions within the organization. After
two surveys were done, the conclusion contributes to previous researches of other scholars -
consumers prefer to feel the engagement with a company and participate in their proposed activities
such as games or quizzes (this type of communication was also recognized as a “Velocity Alert”
factor in the Facebook analysis). Therefore, the hypothesis no.3 is accepted.
H4: Belgian consumers give a feedback of a product more often than Lithuanian ones.
Combining the results of Facebook analysis with the data got from surveys, it is evident that Belgian
consumers express their opinion more often, especially when they want to criticize the product or
service and give a bad feedback (51,4% in Belgium and only 15,1% of consumers in Lithuania state
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that they are willing to express their opinion when the quality is bad – figure 20). The hypothesis no.4
is accepted.
After concluding the hypothesis it became evident what marketing communication problem
areas the research discovered in Belgium and Lithuania. The main problem areas are the following
two. First of all, “Samsung” brand has become widely known and matured during its activity time in
the global market, however in Belgium it lost its leader position to “Apple” brand and is not that
appreciated anymore in Social Media as it is in Lithuania. In addition to this, its communication with
consumers on Facebook page seems to be rather reluctant – frequency level is significantly low.
Second of all, “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand is relatively new in the market, pursuing business
activities in the growth stage of product cycle, especially in Lithuania, therefore it has some
difficulties to build consumer brand awareness and increase their loyalty to the brand – up until today
it is noticed low engagement and frequency of posts rates.
Due to previously described situations it was decided to give strategic solutions for
“Samsung” brand in Belgium and “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand in Lithuania on how to improve their
presence and communication strategies in Social Media. Solutions will consist of marketing
communication plan while answering 6 questions that were discussed in the first part of the thesis –
Why? Who? What? How and Where? How much? and How effective? (De Pelsmacker et al., 2013).
In relation to this, in the third part of the thesis these two brands will be provided with concreate
suggestions for improvements that is why it is essential to consider and answer all these questions if
a company wants to achieve the most effective performance results.
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III. STRATEGIC SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE SOCIAL MEDIA
IMPLEMENTATION IN BELGIUM AND LITHUANIA
Previously it was performed a Facebook characteristics’ analysis of two brands - “Samsung”
and “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” – in addition to two surveys conducted in Belgium and Lithuania that
results were presented in tables and graphs. The third part of the thesis is designated to provide
strategic solutions for these brands on implementing the Social Media effectively into their marketing
communication strategy. It is now evident that “Samsung” brand in Belgium needs to enhance its
marketing communication strategy – to find new methods and channels to communicate more
effectively. Furthermore, “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand in Lithuania has difficulties in building brand
awareness among consumers – new solutions how to be present in consumers’ minds have to be
suggested. Therefore, in the following two sub-chapters brands will be provided with concrete
strategic steps of Social Media marketing communication plan on how to deal with their problem
areas in social networking platforms.
3.1. “Samsung” brand’s Social Media marketing communication plan in
Belgium
In the second part of the thesis it was found out how “Samsung” brand communicates in the
most popular social networking site – Facebook. According to the findings, it has been defined what
kind of problem areas its communication strategy has – lost Belgian market leader position, low
communication frequency and consumer’s engagement rates in Social Media and significant amount
of negative testimonials from its consumers. Therefore, by applying the main 6 questions of
marketing communication plan, suggested by P. De Pelsmacker and his colleagues (2013) that were
presented in the theoretical part of the thesis, concrete strategic solutions for effective Social Media
implementation will be provided in this sub-chapter. Given the fact that solutions and strategies in
marketing world should be implemented according to overall market tendencies, the period of time
for strategic marketing communication plan to be implemented is suggested to be 6 months. In this
way, it is enough of time to see the primary results of techniques used and not too much of the time
for using the same methods without making any changes.
As it is shown above in table 7, the starting point of providing solutions to this brand is
answering a question Why? In other words, defining the situation of business environment were the
“Samsung” brand proceeds its activities and stating the reasons why changes in communication
strategy should be implemented. After the empirical analysis is done, it has become evident that
“Samsung” brand has a strong competition in the Belgian market with the “Apple” brand ahead of its
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competitors. The results of survey showed that consumers in Belgium prefer the latter – 50,9% gave
their preferences to “Apple” brand and only 22,8% gave it to “Samsung” brand (figure 21). Therefore,
it faces the challenge not only to attract customers by providing good quality products but also show
the reasons why it is better than its biggest competitor. In addition to this, empirical analysis showed
that its communication strategy is consisted of low frequency rate, for this reason indifference and
low engagement rates of consumers are seen in social networking sites. Lastly, the reason why
marketing communication strategy should be modified is abundance of negative feedbacks from
consumers – special methods should be implied to overcome this problem.
Table 7
Summary of Social Media marketing communication plan for “Samsung” brand in Belgium
Question Answers for strategic preposition
Why?
Lost market leader’s position to “Apple” brand
Low frequency of interaction and consumers’ engagement rates
Significant amount of negative feedback
Who?
Generation Y (Millennials) at age of 15-35:
Have different lifestyle and living conditions;
Share a common passion for innovative technology;
As for Social Media, divided into Exuberants, Collectors and
“Millennial Marthas”.
What?
Objectives:
Set a particular feeling, inspire them;
Surprise them;
Provide an opportunity for discovery and knowledge.
How and
Where?
In six months period of time showing brand’s technological advantages,
encouraging consumer’s engagement, dealing with negative feedbacks by:
Creating real-time marketing related quizzes, games;
Creating Social Media marketing campaign in Snapchat;
Create a “Diagnostic Social Care” campaign.
How much? Labor costs of 3 Social Media Specialists;
Costs for metrics software provider.
How effective? Establish a routine of measurement techniques.
Considering the fact that “Samsung” company has developed and presented a significant
amount of innovative products - tablets and smartphones, laptops, cameras and TVs – and continues
to do that, it is essential that its marketing messages would be targeted to people who are interested
in it. As it has also been found out during the survey, consumers in Belgium like the brands that know
their preferences (47,4% - figure 22), in other words, consumers want their expectations to be
surpassed when they buy a product. Therefore, when answering to a question Who? of this Social
Media marketing communication plan, it is advised to target consumers of Generation Y or how they
are called “the Millennials”. In order to create a relevant positioning message to them, it is worth
defining what kind of personal characteristics do they have and how do they behave as consumers.
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Millennials are a highly complex group. Unlike other previous generations, they aren’t
clearly defined by a simple birth decade. Most researchers assign the term to those born from the mid
1980s to the early 2000s, in other words, their age varies from 15 to 35. Generation Y may be defined
as a product of the world they grew up in. They are diverse, interested and educated in
technology, their shopping preferences and buying habits demonstrate significant variations in what
they want and expect – they can shop everywhere and have access to everything. After analyzing
their behavior patterns, it has been concluded that Millennials prefer: to be recognized and treated by
a brand personally, they want their needs to be anticipated and getting it in the easiest way and most
important of all – they want to be heard by a brand (survey in Belgium showed 31,7% of consumers
want to contribute to brand’s creation processes – figure 17). Given the fact that it was suggested for
a brand to define exactly who will be the target group, it is essential to point out, that at this moment
Generation Y is at very diverse age – some of them are teenagers who depend on their parents or
students/newly graduates who struggle financially and seek for a better living conditions and some
of them are already parents and take daily choices for more than one person. In conclusion,
Millennials are the most diverse and the most heterogeneous of any generation before them, therefore
for a company trying to target them and send a common positioning message to them may be quite a
challenge.
Putting aside the differences in lifestyle and the well-being of Generation Y, there is a
common aspect about what they all feel passionate – an innovative technology. Many researches
confirm the fact that especially Millennials are the only generation that surpasses other ones in using
up-to-date technology (smartphones, tablets, laptops) and being “tech-savvy” (Monteiro, 2014).
Given their fluency and comfort with technology, the Millennials have more of a positive view of
how technology is affecting their lives than any other generation. They feel that new technology
makes their lives easier and also feel new technology helps them be closer to their friends and family.
As for the usage of Social Media, most Millennials fall into one of two categories (Mashable, 2014):
"Exuberants"- active users who take pictures of and blog about everything and are constantly
projecting themselves and their experiences out into the world, and "Collectors"- the biggest part of
Social Media users who passively take in the vicarious experiences of others. While collectors are the
most receptive to marketing messages, their lack of engagement means they're less likely to spread
brand’s message. A hybrid of these two groups, called the "Millennial Marthas" are the generational
trendsetters who collect items, experiences and then tell others what to buy and do. These millennials
have widespread influence among their peers, making them great targets for marketers.
The question What? Requires to define marketing communication objectives – what does
“Samsung” brand should tell its customers in the positioning messages. For this reason, taking into
account what characteristics have Generation Y, it is worth defining what content should be included
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in the target messages for Millennials. First of all, setting the mood – to give them a repository for a
particular emotion or bond over a universal human experience. By doing that a brand will help them
escape of a routine, give a glimpse of a good life or even inspire them to achieve something better.
Secondly, surprise them, incite their creativity by showing controversial mash-ups, artistic
installations, not to mention that all this should be related to “Samsung” brand’s attributes. Finally,
tap into Millennials desire for discovery by providing them “how-to”s or other content experience
that would make them feel smarter and even more “savvier”.
Up until this step of marketing communication plan, first three questions were provided as a
way for a brand to prepare himself for an action and get to know the environment. As for the fourth
question How and Where?, we are now approaching the selection of tools, techniques, channels where
the plan will be implemented. It is clear what type of consumers will be targeted and what result is
expected to have at the end of the period. The problem areas were defined as lack of brand’s
participation in Social Media, as a consequence, so is consumers’ engagement rate and increased
amount of negative feedback from them. When choosing techniques and channels to deal with the
problems mentioned, it is worth reminding what was found out in the survey of Belgian consumers-
31,7% of them prefer advertisements where they could participate and contribute to (figure 17), also
34,3% of them specified games and quizzes to be their preference (figure 18). The methods were
chosen while taken into account that “Samsung” brand is in mature stage of product cycle and its
priority is to change approach of communicating with consumers and leave impression of an
innovative brand in their minds.
During the Facebook analysis, it was noticed that the consumers’ participation rate was
higher for posts about recent events, in other words, actualities in Belgium. This kind of brand’s
communication, when it gives content related to actual events at the right moment is called real-time
marketing. This method gives a brand an opportunity to share the “fame and attention” with an event
that results in increasing the brand awareness or even number of potential buyers/customers. Another
aspect worth pointing out is engaging activities to participate and connect to the brand, mostly
preferred by Belgian consumers – games and quizzes. For this reason it is suggested for “Samsung”
brand in Belgium to give extra attention to actualities in the market and post games and quizzes that
not only focus on Electronics & Appliances sector, but also for example: the most popular sports (the
pride of Belgium - football, second most popular sport - cycling, the most watchable sport on TV –
tennis), national celebration and parades (Carnival of the Bears, Belgian Pride, Battle of Waterloo
Re-enactments etc.). It is known, that the targeted audience of “Samsung” brand – Millennials -
prefers authenticity, originality. Sometimes they do not seem to care what is being sold, they are just
interested in seeing brands join a public conversation with an interesting point of view.
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Taking into consideration, that Belgian consumers prefer seeing advertisements presented in
an interactive mode (26,7% of them - figure 18) and results of the survey show that the target audience
of a brand shows high interest in usage of Snapchat platform (34,4% of them – figure 14), it is
suggested to increase brand’s presence in Social Media while appearing in latter networking platform.
With its new media service for brands called “Discover”, it became possible to reach big audience
and post content in more innovative and up-to-date way, as younger generations prefer it (Gen Y and
Gen Z). It is already known that Samsung’s biggest competitor is a luxury brand “Apple”, therefore,
while the communication would be limited to only visual aspects, a brand could cease the opportunity
to convey the feeling of esthetics, classy and elegant style and also increase its communication
frequency level. Regarding “Apple” brand, it doesn’t have a typical marketing strategy, but that’s
because it’s not a typical technology company. Apple may not have national social networking
accounts to interact with its customers, but it doesn’t have to – the brand is strong enough to motivate
its audience to drive the cultural conversation for its products. Keeping this in mind, “Samsung” brand
has to find other ways to generate the ultimate ROI: consumers’ loyalty. Summing up this proposal,
it is worth stating its main advantages for a brand to be present in that social networking platform:
survey results confirm that more appealing for consumers became visual effects of advertising –
pictures and videos; younger generations tend to like those things that are offered in a new, unusual
way, therefore communication with a brand via new platform would be appealing to them and finally,
the connection between a brand and a consumer would be tighter while giving to it a little bit of
human touch.
In general, when the customers complain about products, companies do everything they can
to fix it. But how long does it take for that complaint to get to them in the first place? For huge
companies like Samsung, it’s even harder to gather all of the incoming complaints and get them to
the right person to solve the issue. That problem is known for many of business market participants,
but consumers tend to forget or at least not take into account the amount of feedbacks. The situation
that faces “Samsung” brand is exactly what is described above – to respond and compensate each
case would be praiseworthy considering the ethical perspective, but disastrous for company’s
profitability. Therefore, it is suggested to follow these five principles on dealing with negative
comments in Social Media:
1. Listen for negative word-of-mouth and determine if it’s worth a response – as it was seen
during Facebook analysis, there have been found certain amount of comments that should be
considered as not relevant to the brand.
2. Act quickly and speak like a human – as it was mentioned above, target audience of
“Samsung” brand (the Millennials) prefer to be treated as individuals and seek for
personalization in every aspect of life with no exception to a brand. Therefore, automatic
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responses from public relations representative are noticed right away and provokes reluctance
from consumers.
3. Offer a real apology and to make it right – when the audience is “tech-savvy” as Generation
Y, it becomes non acceptable for a brand to give responses without relevant justifications.
4. Keep the discussion open – consumers need to know that they still have a possibility to reach
out for the brand and get answers they need.
5. Use fans and third-party sources to help tell the story and involve them in the fix – this is a
great opportunity to turn a negative word-of-mouth into a positive one while making the brand
look trustworthy. Consumers are longing for inspirational and positive stories from a brand
and when they can become a part of it that could be called a double success for a brand.
Regarding the points stated above, it is suggested to make amends for a part of actual cases
(it’s up to the company to decide how big the part will be) of complaints and present them officially
in Social Media by creating a campaign “Diagnostic Social Care” – the story with relevant attractive
content about brand’s intentions to other actual or potential consumers. All things considered,
negative feedbacks are good for a brand, because it means that its consumers care enough to criticize
it and are giving an opportunity to improve its services and increase consumers’ loyalty to a brand.
The question How much? is designated to clarify financial aspects – what kind of
investments will be needed to implement steps of marketing communication plan. However, deciding
on the communications budget is not a “one-time” activity and certainly does not come at the end of
the marketing communications planning cycle. The financial resources of a company or brand
influence the communication program, and plans should be continuously assessed against financial
feasibility at all stages in the planning process. In this case, when considering Social Media
implementation into general marketing strategic plan of a company, a relatively less significant part
of budget should be dedicated to it (although tendencies in the market show that the part that
companies designate for Social Media marketing activities becomes bigger in 2015, comparing to
2014). According to the number of channels where the brand will be present, costs needed to
implement the plan consist of paying to 3 full time Social Media workers – one who is providing
creative ideas and creating communication campaigns and other two would be responsible for
technical issues and its realization. It may be questioned whether really it is necessary to hire
employees specialized in relatively narrow field. Even if company’s editors, reporters and producers
are assigned to some Social Media duties, they'll never be able to stay on top of the efforts like a
Social Media specialist. He stays on top of the trends and makes sure you're a Social Media leader
instead of a copycat of market tendencies. He's always aware of what's new, what's on the horizon
and what's old school in the constantly changing Social Media landscape.
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Finally, last question that has to be considered is How effective? If a company intends to
invest time in Social Media, it needs to measure its performance and it becomes difficult to identify
relevant metrics. There’s no one-size-fits-all method of measuring social media success, because
goals vary from brand to brand. As for “Samsung” brand, its problem areas that were previously
mentioned may unite as one goal – enhance brand’s communication in Social Media. It is advised for
a company to establish concrete and achievable objectives, for example: “Increase intensity of
communication by 10% in the next six months implementing a targeted Social Media campaign.”
Measurement of performance effectiveness consists of steps, proceeded in the empirical part of thesis
that are also summarized in the table below.
Table 8
Measurement steps of Social Media campaign effectiveness
Steps The result
Getting to know the audience Find out what preferences does the target audience have, which
social networking platforms are the most popular among
consumers.
Choose types of content Knowing what kind of content to present (photos, videos, news
and actualities) in social media will help to choose the most
relevant communication channels – platforms.
Check engagement of the fans The more fans are engaged with the brand, the more interested
they are in its business, and the more likely they will be to buy
its products.
Check traffic to brand’s website Google Analytics services will show the detailed statistics.
Check conversions Whether the communication campaign gives impact on sales.
In table 8 it is shown the summary of measurement steps suggested for a brand to build an
effective Social Media marketing campaign. The effectiveness is built from the knowledge of
consumer base – which product consumers have been longing to buy and can a company cease the
opportunity to create and offer it? When being on Social Media, brands promote their business
through content. So the type of content “Samsung” brand create will determine the platform it will
have to choose. While the number of fans can be a measure of the marketing success, a more accurate
measure would be how much its fans are interacting with its page/profile – number of likes, shares,
retweets and pokes can be an indication of how effective a marketing campaign is. The primary aim
of any social media marketing campaign is to send traffic to company’s website. In order to check
the statistics properly, the Google Analytics services will let to see how much of the traffic is coming
from social platforms, and is there any increase since the time the social campaign was implemented.
It is evident that getting traffic is great, but the next thing to do is to check if the visitors are taking
the desired action – buying a product. In order to guarantee concreteness of the Social Media
campaign results, it is worth having an outside opinion or even its specialized techniques to measure
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it. Therefore, following paragraph consists of the best five Social Media agencies in Belgium that
could contribute to measurement of “Samsung” brand’s success:
1. EPIC creative agency – located in Liege city, this agency is an award winning company (in
2009) for contribution to highly interactive and creative flash websites, HTML5 websites,
smartphone applications etc. Their created Social Media measurement software is appreciated
by many companies, for this reason this agency guarantees its leader position among other
ones.
2. Dogstudio – located in Namur, its main business activity is to help its clients to boost their
business through new media. They are known for having an eye for details, precision in
projects they participate, therefore, if “Samsung” brand expects concreteness in evaluation of
campaign effectiveness, this collaboration would be very promising.
3. We make graphics – located in Antwerp, they place a strong focus on visual communication
and stylish design. They assume that the form and content of equal value and the highest level
should be. This agency is especially recommended, as it is intended to implement campaigns
of visual effectiveness.
4. Statik – located in Leuven, this agency has a very clean and direct way of building designs
and images of their clients - brands. Even its name says it all – every solution provided by
them is based by statistical information, in other words, concreteness that “Samsung” brand
is looking for.
5. Inventis – located in Houthalen, they call themselves as a web architects that provide all kinds
of web-based applications, promotional mini-sites to the most comprehensive websites on
advanced web applications. It is clear that the agency bases its work on up-to-date technology,
therefore the results would consist of high effectiveness.
While concluding the measurement of Social Media campaign effectiveness it is worth
saying, that companies demand concreteness, which can be achieved by using relevant software.
Therefore, it is suggested for “Samsung” company in Belgium to outsource metrics that is offered by
media agencies listed above.
In conclusion to this sub-chapter, it was suggested for “Samsung” brand to improve its
communication frequency and also enhance its efficiency in Social Media. Generation Y (the
Millennials) as the most relevant target group was offered because of their passion for constant
innovation, being interested in intelligent technology. Having described their preferences on what do
they expect from a brand, it was suggested for “Samsung” brand to create a real-time marketing
campaign and start communication campaign on social networking platform Snapchat. A problem of
significant importance was considered to be negative feedbacks in Social Media. The solution for this
was suggested to create a “Diagnostic Social Care” campaign in order to deal with negativity for a
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brand and inspire consumers to become loyal to “Samsung” brand. Taking into consideration the
financing part of the campaign, it should consist of costs for 3 Social Media specialists and
measurement of effectiveness metrics that is likely to be outsourced by external media agency in
Belgium.
3.2. “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand’s Social Media marketing
communication plan in Lithuania
In the beginning of the third part of the thesis it has been concluded that “Nescafé Dolce
Gusto” brand in Lithuania was outperformed by the one in Belgium. In other words, the results of
Facebook characteristics’ analysis and survey conducted in Lithuania showed low frequency rate of
communication, lower consumer brand awareness and, as a consequence, lower consumer
engagement rate. After the strategic solutions have been made for “Samsung” brand in Belgium to
enhance its communication in Social Media, it is high time to present in this sub-chapter a strategic
marketing communication plan for “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand. The same method of 6 questions
of marketing communication plan, suggested by P. De Pelsmacker and his colleagues (2013) will be
implied to present concrete strategic solutions for effective Social Media implementation. The same
condition will be presumed here – regarding that solutions and strategies in marketing world should
be implemented according to overall market tendencies, the period of time for strategic marketing
communication plan to be implemented is suggested to be 6 months. It is enough of time to see the
primary results of techniques used and not too much of the time for using the same methods without
making any changes.
In table 9 it is presented a summary of Social Media marketing communication plan for
“Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand in Lithuania. The summary begins with the reasoning why should be
implemented any changes in brand’s Social Media communication plan. After the Facebook
characteristics analysis and survey are done, the results show that there is a low brand awareness in
Lithuania – only 39,9% of consumers stated that they have heard about this brand before and knows
what main products it offers in the market. It has also been found out that one of the reasons why the
brand awareness is in such low level is that the communication frequency rates is considerably low,
comparing to the rate in Belgium - in latter country the brand posts information on average every 2,4
days, while in Lithuania it is done less often – every 4 days on average. As the “Nescafé Dolce Gusto”
brand tends to communicate rather rarely in Social Media, the engagement rate estimated on
Facebook is also lower (0,25% in Lithuania, while in Belgium 0,81%). All things considered, the
situation of this brand in Lithuania is not satisfying, therefore, changes should be implemented in
Social Media marketing communication strategy.
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Table 9
Summary of Social Media marketing communication plan for “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand in
Lithuania
Question Answers for strategic preposition
Why? Low level of brand awareness among consumers
Low frequency of interaction and consumers’ engagement rates
Who?
Generation Y (Millennials) at age of 15-35:
Have different lifestyle and living conditions;
Share a common passion for innovative technology;
As for Social Media, divided into Exuberants, Collectors and
“Millennial Marthas”.
Generation X (Baby Bust) at age of 35-50:
They are pessimistic and skeptical, questioning of conventionality;
Reaches for the balance of family, life, and work;
Eager to understand the product features and its necessity;
They have low price sensitivity.
What?
Objectives for Generation Y:
Set a particular feeling, inspire them;
Surprise them;
Provide an opportunity for discovery and knowledge.
Objectives for Generation X:
Give plenty of access to information and educate them into buying a
product;
Approach them more as a consultant rather than a seller by providing a
relevant content;
Communicate using group events or by initiating word-of-mouth.
How and
Where?
In six months period of time increase brand awareness, consumer engagement
and frequency of communication rates by:
Providing “know-how” educational videos;
Launching of a communication program on Instagram;
Creating brand advocacy campaigns – competition for consumers.
How much? Labor costs of 3 Social Media Specialists;
Costs for metrics software provider.
How effective? Establish a routine of measurement techniques.
Another aspect worth considering about is the target group, to whom the positioning
messages should be dedicated (the question Who? in the table 9). Considering the fact that “Nescafé
Dolce Gusto” brand creates products and already position itself by implying to the esthetic side of
coffee consummation (“Drinking coffee is a pleasure, not necessity”- extract of brand’s commercial
message), it should be concentrated on two generations – Generation Y (the Millennials) and
Generation X (the Baby Bust or “Why Me” Generation). First of all, as it was mentioned in previous
sub-chapter – the Millennials tend to like the esthetic side of consummation – feeling of a classy,
elegant style, reaches for a brand that will help them escape of a routine, give a glimpse of a good life
or even inspire them to achieve something better. Therefore, the notion of innovativeness in a simple
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every day activity like a coffee making attracts them. A brand has to give back to society instead of
just making a profit and take into account that consumers just need to be reminded in a subtle way of
their preferences.
Not every generation is alike, nor should they be treated by marketers in the same way,
therefore it is essential to define what kind of characteristics hold Generation X. They were born
during 1965-1980 and are in the 35-50 age range as of 2015. They reached adulthood during difficult
economic times, for that reason they are pessimistic, skeptical, disillusioned with almost everything,
and are very questioning of conventionality, even though they are highly educated. The
characteristics, lifestyles, and attitudes of Generation X include balancing family, life, and work. As
for the marketing perspective, a brand becomes preferable if it helps them plan for the future and
balance work, family, and personal life. They like initiatives that will make things more useful and
practical. Generation X needs to buy products and services to set up households and for their young
children. They want to hear the features of the product as well as an explanation of why these features
are necessary. This group is the most price conscious and has low price sensitivity. They want
products and messages designed uniquely for their tasks and lifestyles. Information and technology
are important in products and services - they see technology as changing their world and techno
literacy is highly valued. Taking all things into consideration, the characteristics of Generation X are
beneficial for “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand, therefore it is essential to get into specific situation and
match it to concrete communication strategy.
While answering the question What? it is essential to define marketing communication
strategic objectives – what does “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand should tell its customers in the
positioning messages. When taking into account what characteristics have Generation Y, as it was
said previously, setting the mood – give them a repository for a particular emotion or bond over a
universal human experience. This generation consists of diverse people regarding their age, lifestyle
and preferences. Younger people of this generation also should be considered by a brand as important
if it seeks to earn their loyalty in the early stages of their consummation. In order to get the maximum
benefit of their loyalty, a brand should appeal to their belief that they can make the future better. It is
advisable to be sure that the Generation Y knows that “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand’s mission speaks
to a purpose greater than the bottom line, e.g., globalization, global warming, and the advent of the
“global citizen”, in other words, feature the organization as an instrument of change.
Different perspective should be considered when sending a message to Generation X. It is
not always easy to reach them. A positioning message should give them plenty of access to
information and educate them into buying. That is, a brand should keep them in the loop by asking
for their feedback and sharing information with them regularly. It is effective to approach them more
as a consultant rather than a seller, that is, provide them with a relevant content - they like to be kept
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abreast of the bigger picture. Using an informal communication style, keep the message short and
precise. Generation X is aware of the aim of advertising - to get them to buy something, so a brand
should be frank and use straightforward facts and honesty. It is very effective to speak their language
directly and in a non-threatening way, for example: “You’re different and we respect that.” A brand
should motivate them with statements such as “There aren’t a lot of rules here” or “This is not a
formal establishment”. Making good use of group events and word-of-mouth recommendations from
their peers is another effective way because these consumers think communally and often make
decisions together.
After deciding of what the positioning messages should be composed, it is essential to
precise which Social Media channels and communication methods could be used to achieve strategic
objectives most effectively. It is clear that both generations prefer these brands from which they can
learn something, include in their communication processes educational content. Furthermore, after
concluding results of survey in Lithuania, it became evident that consumers prefer advertisements
that are presented as a video material (35% of them – figure 18). For this reason, the first strategic
step would be suggested to create more educational, “know-how” videos about “Nescafé Dolce
Gusto” brand’s products. After the Facebook analysis is done, it may be argued that the brand is
already posting enough of videos, even though, there are several points about these videos worth
criticizing. First of all, they are created in YouTube platform. On the one hand, it may be effective,
if these videos stay in that platform and its users are reaching them only there. On the other hand,
they are more likely to be shared in other more popular social networking platform Facebook and
here it confronts a problem – as trying to compete with each other (these two platforms are
competitors in social networking world), Facebook promotes its own videos to be published rather
from other sources, therefore, it makes other ones less noticeable, with smaller icons, while its own
videos are launched without clicking (as soon as it is seen by a user) and are relatively bigger. For
that reason, a brand should use Facebook videos, if it posts in that platform. Another aspect to criticize
is the content of these videos - they consist of valid information about usage of its products, but they
lack of showing the emotional appeal what would also be interesting for the target audience.
The videos created adding a new content could not only be used on Facebook, but also on
Instagram – a new social networking platform for “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand. As the results of
survey show, even 28,2% (figure 14) of Lithuanian consumers appreciate this platform and have
created a profile there. In general, Instagram has quickly grown into a massive social network with
both a mobile and web presence. It shows no signs of slowing down, yet only a small percentage of
brands take advantage of it. There have been done several researches that show the visual appeal
matters in 93% of cases when people go to make a purchase. Visual content is not only easier and
faster for the human brain to process, it is a great way to generate more attention and leads. As for
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the marketing intentions, this platform is not only comfortable for a brand to reach its audience, but
also to make paid advertising campaigns. However, current suggestion only relates a brand creating
its page and posting content to its followers. It is forecasted for the Instagram platform to increase its
popularity even more in 2015, therefore it would be highly recommended for the brand to follow this
trend of being present there.
Creating an Instagram profile for the “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand would also benefit for
its brand advocacy campaign. This suggestion is made for several reasons. Firstly, it is known that
Generation X appreciates group events and world-of-mouth communication. Secondly, the results of
survey confirmed that consumers take into account the opinion of others. Furthermore, consumers in
Lithuania agreed to give their preferences to brand advocacy as a form of an effective advertising
(12,4% of them, figure 18). There are two types of brand advocacy: positive word-of-mouth, created
by happy consumers and known celebrities hired to spread a positive word for the brand. The first
case is considered to be more powerful when is significant in quantity (the more satisfied consumers
are spreading the positive word, the better). However the second case may be more powerful
regardless the quantity of celebrities chosen, in other words, the qualitative aspect is taken into
account and it depends on the popularity of a brand advocate.
The first part of suggestion consists of “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand hiring several
celebrities who are known for their esthetical preferences, where their opinion is valued. After that is
done, it is advised to collaborate brand advocacy campaign with the presence on new social
networking channel Instagram: create several collections of pictures where these celebrities are
present and are using “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand’s products. Ideally, these known people should
also have an Instagram profiles and have their own followers. During the first days of campaign, these
photos would create social buzz, for what reason these celebrities started to use these coffee machines,
which ones are their favorite etc. After a week, a brand should launch several videos, where these
persons talk about the features of products. The campaign would be even more effective, it the brand
ambassadors would be drawn in a content – telling a story how the product of “Nescafé Dolce Gusto”
made them feel. However, even more effective brand advocacy campaign would be including the real
consumers into the creation of video testimonials. Suggestion is to launch a competition for
consumers to send a video made by them where they talk about their experience of using the product.
In this way, a “viral buzz” would be created in the market, consumers would feel contributed to
company’s business activity and finally they would have an opportunity to win. In conclusion, this
brand advocacy campaign would be concrete (short videos is an effective trigger for consumers to
react), agile (different people, opinions and lifestyles would be shown) and human (brand would open
up to its consumers letting them decide what reputation it should have in the market).
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Given the fact that the marketing communication plan is related to Social Media, the last
questions How much? And How effective? are similar to the prepositions for “Samsung” brand in
Belgium. Costs should be taken into account of the work of 3 Social Media specialist and the fee of
measuring effectiveness of communication campaign to the media agency. Regarding the
measurement of performance effectiveness, it consists of steps, proceeded in the empirical part of
thesis, which are also summarized in the table 8. As the market now has changed to Lithuania, here
are the following list of top 3 media agencies that are considered the best ones of media analytics:
1. Omnicom Media Group - is the media services division of Omnicom Group Inc., the leading
global advertising, marketing and corporate communications company. Provide services such
as media networks and PHD Network, leading global data and analytics
company (“Annalect”), as well as several media specialist companies including search
specialist and digital trading platform.
2. Leo Burnett Vilnius – a media services agency division that is one of the leaders in global
market and proceed activities in Lithuanian market. It has accumulated a great resources that
let the agency provide impressive results in media scanning, social metrics and innovative
advertising.
3. Adell Taivas Ogilvy – division of a global media agency that creativity impresses the followers
of both traditional and digital advertising. Provides services of media and advertising
consultancy, market digital research.
To sum up the Social Media marketing communication plan for “Nescafé Dolce Gusto”
brand in Lithuania, it is worth saying that its main objectives concern increasing brand awareness
among consumers, not to mention their engagement rate. As a target audience it is suggested to
concentrate on Generation Y and Generation X. For that reason, it has been presented several
solutions how to send a target message and position itself in new ways in the Lithuanian market. First
of all, appeal to visual attractiveness of brand’s products by posting more of Facebook videos with
the “know-how” theme. Furthermore, follow the trends of actual and potential consumers and become
present on Instagram platform. Finally, in a collaboration of first two suggestions, launch a brand
advocacy campaign – hire known Lithuanian celebrities, who are relevant to the brand’s esthetic side
(known as having a classy, elegant style) to promote the brand by posting pictures and videos of their
testimonials. In addition to this, consumers also could be included into this campaign by participating
in a competition of expression their feelings about the “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand. Given the fact,
that the communication plan concerns Social Media, the aspects of budgeting and measuring the
effectiveness stays the same as for the “Samsung” brand in Lithuania.
Concluding the third part of the thesis, it is worth pointing out that today all people are
connected. They spend more time in Social Media than looking at traditional advertising channels.
71
Younger generations live and breathe “connectedness” with their devices, which they prefer over
actual face time with other people. In order for brands to be successful in marketing, the old ideas of
marketing teams must be let go and begin embracing Engagement era. According to these principles
strategic solutions have been made for the “Samsung” and “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brands – the ones
that have been concluded to have struggles in appearance in Social Media.
72
CONCLUSIONS
The concept of marketing communication has changed over time - at the beginning of
completely ignoring the need to use it, market participants noted that it becomes more and more
difficult to remain competitive when they no longer can compete by prices nor quality of goods and
services. P. Kotler (2004) states that a company with a better understanding of customer needs,
perceptions, interests and behavior will be ahead of its competitors. Taking these incentives into
consideration, the topic of marketing communication methods and enhancement of its effectiveness
becomes more and more relevant in business market.
The changes of marketing communication models from “One-to-One” to “Many-to-Many”
were mostly impacted by the advent of Internet Web 2.0. innovative technology. Social Media
landscape changes rapidly each year – the number of social networking platforms increases
significantly by letting consumers to integrate different activities into the social world. As a result,
companies are forced to reconsider their communication strategies. Many scholars were analyzing
different perspectives of Social Media – from its overall recognition in the market to its impact to
company’s sales revenues. Given the fact that concerning this subject the market situation in Europe
remains unknown, this thesis was designated to analyze two countries – Belgium and Lithuania – and
find out the differences in Social Media implementation from companies’ and consumers’
perspectives.
Regarding the European market view, Social Media phenomenon has been noticed by most
of the market participants (considering the firms and their consumers) – the penetration rate of usage
of Internet, innovative technologies and social networking sites is significantly high - however, only
a small part of companies has decided to implement it in strategic decisions, even though most of
them haven’t found the most effective way how to do that.
The results of analysis of Facebook characteristics showed that in Belgium “Samsung” brand
is less popular in this social networking site than it is in Lithuania. Its communication strategy on
Facebook also differs from Lithuanian one in terms of frequency of posts (latter posts more
frequently) and also latter’s communication strategy relies on stimulating consumers to interact and
share its news more through quizzes, games and discussions, not to mention promoting brand
advocacy activities. Concerning “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand, its popularity is more significant in
Belgium (consumers’ engagement rate is bigger). It is because of more effective communication
strategy chosen in latter country – Modern Art campaign. Another finding was made that in Belgian
market consumers are willing to express more negative feelings and feedback on brands. Overall, in
comparison between two countries, Lithuanian consumers are more engaged with “Samsung” brand,
73
while Belgian consumers are willing to interact and respond more to “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand’s
posts.
Concluding the results surveys of Belgian and Lithuanian consumers, it is evident that the
leader of Social Media’s landscape is Facebook, being the most popular platform among consumers
and, therefore, among companies too. The improvement of electronic devices and consumers’
recognition of Social Media as an interactive medium gives opportunity for companies to reach their
consumers more frequently. However, the results of Facebook analysis show – there is still plenty of
space left for improvements. The survey of consumers showed that there is a strong competitor in the
market – “Apple” brand – that has significant brand awareness among consumers in Belgium. As for
the “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand, it has been noticed a considerable difference of brand awareness
between these two markets – Lithuanian consumers have less of brand knowledge, when Belgian one
chose interactive and effective strategies to increase its popularity among consumers.
The results of empirical part of the thesis allows to conclude hypothesis. It is evident that
hypothesis no.1 has to be rejected – brand that is in growth stage obtained higher engagement rate
than the one being in mature stage. Furthermore, the hypothesis no.2 has also to be rejected – after
comparing “Samsung” and “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brands it is evident that in Lithuania brands
initiate communication with consumers more often. However, the hypothesis no.3 is accepted,
because it became evident - consumers prefer to feel the engagement with a company and participate
in their proposed activities such as games or quizzes. Finally, hypothesis no.4 is also accepted -
Belgian consumers express their opinion more often, especially when they want to criticize the
product or service and give a bad feedback.
After concluding the hypothesis it became evident what marketing communication problem
areas the research discovered in Belgium and Lithuania. The main problem areas are the following
two. First of all, “Samsung” brand has become widely known and matured during its activity time in
the global market, however in Belgium it lost its leader position to “Apple” brand and is not that
appreciated anymore in Social Media as it is in Lithuania. In addition to this, its communication with
consumers on Facebook page seems to be rather reluctant – frequency level is significantly low.
Second of all, “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand is relatively new in the market, pursuing business
activities in the growth stage of product cycle, especially in Lithuania, therefore it has some
difficulties to build consumer brand awareness and increase their loyalty to the brand – up until today
it is noticed the low engagement and frequency of posts rates.
It was suggested for “Samsung” brand to improve its communication frequency and also
enhance its efficiency in Social Media. Generation Y (the Millennials) as the most relevant target
group was offered because of their passion for constant innovation, being interested in intelligent
technology. Having described their preferences on what do they expect from a brand, it was suggested
74
for “Samsung” brand to create a real-time marketing campaign and start communication campaign
on social networking platform Snapchat. A problem of significant importance was considered to be
negative feedbacks in Social Media. The solution for this was suggested to create a “Diagnostic Social
Care” campaign in order to deal with negativity for a brand and inspire consumers to become loyal
to “Samsung” brand. Taking into consideration the financing part of the campaign, it should consist
of costs for 3 Social Media specialists and measurement of effectiveness metrics that is likely to be
outsourced by external media agency in Belgium.
As for the Social Media marketing communication plan for “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand in
Lithuania, it is worth saying that its main objectives concern increasing brand awareness among
consumers, not to mention their engagement rate. As a target audience it is suggested to concentrate
on Generation Y and Generation X. For that reason, it has been presented several solutions how to
send a target message and position itself in new ways in the Lithuanian market. First of all, appeal to
visual attractiveness of brand’s products by posting more of Facebook videos with the “know-how”
theme. Furthermore, follow the trends of actual and potential consumers and become present on
Instagram platform. Finally, in a collaboration of first two suggestions, launch a brand advocacy
campaign – hire known Lithuanian celebrities, who are relevant to the brand’s esthetic side (known
as having a classy, elegant style) to promote the brand by posting pictures and videos of their
testimonials. In addition to this, consumers also could be included into this campaign by participating
in a competition of expression their feelings about the “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” brand. Given the fact,
that the communication plan concerns Social Media, the aspects of budgeting and measuring the
effectiveness stays the same as for the “Samsung” brand in Lithuania.
In conclusion, it is worth pointing out that today all people are connected. They spend more
time in Social Media than looking at traditional advertising channels. Younger generations live and
breathe “connectedness” with their devices, which they prefer over actual face time conversation with
other people. That situation makes this topic even more time-sensitive and relevant for future scholars
and marketers. The scope of this thesis was limited only to Belgian and Lithuanian markets. Even
though the tendencies were concretely described and future strategic decisions were made, the
research should not be stopped on this matter. It is advised to improve the analysis by adding other
countries from different European regions such as Scandinavian or other Western and Eastern markets
in order to find out whether the trends remain the same or there are noticed some externalities. As for
the future of the brands analyzed in the thesis, it is also advised to collaborate with them and analyze
internal processes in order to see the results of Social Media marketing communication plan provided.
All in all, it may be marked that for brands to be successful in marketing, the old ideas of marketing
teams must be let go and begin embracing engagement era.
75
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75. Zimmermann, H.D. (2010). From eCommerce to eCommerce 2.0: the Changing Role of a
Customer. Antlová, Klára (ed.): Proceedings of the Liberec Informatics Forum, Liberec, Czech
Republic.
81
ANNEXES
82
Annex No. 1
Figure 7. Social Media Landscape 2012-2014
Source: F. Cavazza (2014)
83
Annex No. 2
Figure 9. Top 3 factors that influence consumer’s decision journey
Source: McKinsey report (2010).
Note: Figures do not sum to 100% because percentages for several other factors are not shown.
84
Annex No. 3
Key comparison factors of Belgium and Lithuania
Factor Belgium Lithuania
Area 30 528 km² 65 300 km²
Population 11 116 243 2 944 459
Member of EU Yes Yes
Currency EUR EUR
GDP per habitant 43 381,78 € 11 696,58 € Source: Belgian and Lithuanian departments of statistics (2015).
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Annex No. 4
Questions for survey (English version)
1. How often do you use the Internet?
2-3 days a week;
Every day, 1-2 hours;
Every day, 3-4 hours;
Every day, more than 5 hours.
2. Do you use social media sites or applications (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram,
Youtube…)?
Yes
No
3. In which social media site(s) or application(s) do you have a profile(s) (multiple options are
available)?
Snapchat
Viber
What’s app
Youtube
Other ________________
4. Do you consider a social media as a major communication tool?
Yes, I prefer communicating with everyone via social networks, rather than face to face ;
Yes, I find social media very useful and easy tool to contact if there is a big distance
between ;
Yes, but I prefer both: communication in social networks and face-to-face conversations ;
No, I prefer meetings and face-to-face conversations ;
5. How would you evaluate each aspect in respect of social media usefulness (in scale of 1-5,
where 1-not useful at all ; 5- very useful) :
Interactive medium
Sources of information
Bridges communication gap with the ones that live abroad
Customer interaction tool (commenting, request for customer service)
Crisis communication tool
Marketing communication tool
6. What kind of advertising would you notice/watch in social media (choose two most
appropriate ones) :
The one that meets my interests, hobbies
The one that advertises innovative production (novelties)
The one where I could participate and contribute to
Of a brand that keeps in touch with its consumers and provide useful information about
itself from time to time ;
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I am not interested and always skip advertisements if I can
Other ……………………………….
7. In your opinion, how a brand/company could communicate with customers in social media
in most effective way? Through (choose the most appropriate one) :
Interactive fan pages
Flash ads
Banner ads
Games, quizzes or updates
Video ads
8. How often are you interested by an advertisement in social media site that you would click
for more information about it ?
Very often
Sometimes
Seldom
Never
9. When you are considering to buy a product/service, what do you do (choose the most
appropriate one) :
Look through the reviews and comments in seller’s webpage ;
Looking or asking for some feedback in social media ;
Asking your friend/relative for advice on that product or service ;
Going through some stores and looking for the best option to choose ;
I don’t look for any advices, if I want – I go and buy it
10. How are you likely to recommend or give a feedback on a product or service in social media
site?
Very likely, I like to express my opinion, I feel that my opinion is valuable
I give a feedback only when the quality of a product/service is good
I give a feedback only when the quality of a product/service is bad
I keep that opinion to myself and give feedback only when I am asked to do so
11. In general, considering past six months, what kind of feedbacks of a products or services did
you give
More positive ones ;
More negative ones ;
I did not get any feedback.
12. Which brand manufacturer of electronic & smart appliance technologies (tablets &
smartphones, laptops, cameras & TVs) do you prefer the most?
Apple
Blackberry
HTC
Nokia
Samsung
Sony
Other _______________
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13. Stop for a moment - think of the favorite brand that you chose in previous (12) question.
Which of the following would most accurately describe the reasons of your choice :
It understands my preferences and always offers the things that I like ;
It is one of the most expensive and luxurious products in the market ;
I follow its updates in the market – its newest offer has so many innovative characteristics!
I was recommended to buy it by someone I know.
Your personal experience ………………………………………
14. Are you still interested in this brand’s new product offers even though you already have a
mobile phone/laptop/tablet/camera/TV?
Yes, I also check other brands, because I like being up-to-date in technological innovations ;
Yes, I am only interested in this brand’s offers – if it will be good enough, I may buy it ;
No, since I already have one, I am not interested in the newer ones.
15. Are you aware of the brand “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” – coffee machines and its accessories?
Yes
No
16. Why this brand does attract you?
I prefer non-traditional coffee (espresso, cappuccino, latte, mocha, frappé) and it’s a good
way to save money by making it at home ;
This brand came with a bang into the market – to make a restaurant quality coffee while not
leaving your home? Sure I want it! ;
Because of the brand’s social responsibility to protect the environment while making coffee,
capsules, machines and packaging ;
I don’t have that yet, but I am willing to purchase it
I have never heard about this brand before
17. You are
Female
Male
18. How old are you?
6-18
18-25
26-40
41-55
Over 56
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Annex No. 5 Questions for survey (French version)
1. À quelle fréquence utilisez-vous Internet ?
2-3 jours par semaine
Tous les jours, 1-2 heures;
Tous les jours, 3-4 heures;
Tous les jours, plus de 5 heures.
2. Utilisez-vous des sites ou applications de médias sociaux (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,
Instagram, Youtube…)?
Oui
Non
3. Dans quel(s) site(s) ou application(s) des médias sociaux avez-vous un profil(s) (plusieurs
options sont disponibles ) ?
Snapchat
Viber
What’s app
Youtube
Autre ________________
4. Est-ce que vous considérez les médias sociaux comme l’outil le plus important de
communication ?
Oui, je préfère communiquer avec tout le monde via les réseaux sociaux, plutôt que face-à-
face ;
Oui, je trouve les médias sociaux très utiles et faciles pour le contact s’il y a une grande
distance
Oui, mais je préfère les deux moyens de communication : la communication via les réseaux
sociaux et les conversations en face-à-face
Non, je préfère les rendez-vous et les conversations en face-à-face.
5. Comment évaluez-vous chacun des aspects par rapport à l'utilité des médias sociaux (à
l'échelle de 1 à 5, où 1-pas du tout utile; 5- très utile) :
Moyen Interactive
Sources d'informations
Elimine le déficit de communication avec ceux qui vivent à l'étranger
Outil d'interaction des clients (commenter, demander des services à la clientèle)
Outil de communication en cas de crise
Outil de communication de marketing
6. Quel genre de publicité notez-vous / lisez-vous dans les médias sociaux ? (choisissez deux
des plus appropriés)
Celui qui répond à mes intérêts, loisirs
Celui qui annonce une production innovante (nouveautés)
Auquel je pourrais participer et contribuer
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D'une marque qui reste en contact avec ses consommateurs et fournit des informations utiles
sur lui-même de temps en temps ;
Je ne suis pas intéressé(e) et ne lis pas les annonces si je le peux
Autre …………………………………
7. À votre avis, comment une marque/entreprise pourrait-elle communiquer avec les clients via
les médias sociaux de manière le plus efficace ? Grâce à: (choisissez le plus approprié)
Pages de fans interactives
Annonces de Flash
Les bannières publicitaires
Jeux, quiz ou des mises à jour
Annonces de Video
8. À quelle fréquence êtes-vous intéressé(e) par une annonce dans le site de médias sociaux et
pour laquelle vous cliquez pour plus d'informations à ce sujet ?
Très souvent
Parfois
Rarement
Jamais
9. Lorsque vous envisagez d'acheter un produit ou service, que faites-vous ? (choisissez le plus
approprié)
Parcourez les avis et commentaires dans la page web du vendeur
Vous recherchez ou demandez des commentaires dans les médias sociaux
Demandez à votre ami / proche pour des conseils sur ce produit ou service
En passant dans certains magasins à la recherche de la meilleure option à choisir
Vous ne cherchez pas de conseil, si vous voulez l'acheter
10. Comment êtes-vous susceptible de recommander ou donner une rétroaction sur un produit
ou service dans le site de médias sociaux?
Très probablement, je tiens à exprimer mon opinion, je pense que mon avis est précieux;
Je ne donne mon avis que lorsque la qualité d'un produit / service est bon;
Je ne donne mon avis que lorsque la qualité d'un produit / service est mauvais;
Je garde cet avis pour moi-même et le dis seulement quand on me demande de le faire.
11. En général, compte tenu des six derniers mois, quel genre d'évaluations de produits ou
services avez-vous donné?
Plutôt positifs
Plutôt négatifs
Je n’ai pas eu des évaluations.
12. Quelle marque fabricant de technologies d'appareils électroniques et intelligents
(smartphones et tablettes, ordinateurs portables, appareils photo et TVs) préférez-vous le
plus?
Apple
Blackberry
HTC
Nokia
Samsung
Sony
Other _______________
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13. Arrêtez-vous un moment - pensez à la marque préférée que vous avez choisie dans la
question précédente. Lequel des éléments suivants décrirait avec plus de précision les
raisons de votre choix?
Il comprend mes préférences et offre toujours les choses que j’aime
C’est l'un des produits les plus coûteux et luxueux dans le marché
Je suis les mises à jour sur le marché - ses nouvelles offres ont tellement de nombreuses
caractéristiques innovantes!
Il m’a été recommandé d'acheter le produit par quelqu'un que je connais
Votre expérience personnelle …………………………………….
14. Êtes-vous toujours intéressé par le nouveau produit de cette marque offre même si vous avez
déjà un téléphone mobile / ordinateur portable / tablette / appareil photo / TV?
Oui, je vérifie aussi d'autres marques, parce que j’aime être à jour dans les innovations
technologiques.
Oui, je suis seulement intéressé par les offres de cette marque - si elle est assez bonne, je
peux l'acheter.
Non, puisque j’en ai déjà un, je ne suis pas intéressé(e) par les plus récents.
15. Connaissez-vous la marque "Nescafé Dolce Gusto" - les machines à café et ses accessoires?
Oui
Non
16. Pourquoi cette marque vous attire?
19. Je préfère le café non-traditionnel (expresso, cappuccino, latte, moka, frappé) et c’est une
bonne façon d'économiser de l'argent en restant à la maison.
20. Cette marque est venue avec un coup au marché - pour faire un café de qualité de restaurant
sans quitter votre maison? Bien sûr que je le veux!
21. En raison de la responsabilité sociale de la marque pour protéger l'environnement tout en
faisant du café, des capsules, des machines et de l'emballage.
22. Je ne l’ai pas encore, mais je voudrais l'acheter
23. Je ne connais pas cette marque
17. Vous êtes :
Femme
Homme
18. Quel âge avez-vous?
6-18
18-25
26-40
41-55
Plus de 56
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Annex No. 6 Questions for survey (Lithuanian version)
1. Kaip dažnai naudojatės internetu?
2-3 kartus per savaitę;
kiekvieną dieną po 1-2 val.;
kiekvieną dieną po 3-4 val.;
kiekvieną dieną daugiau nei 5 val.
2. Ar naudojatės socialinės žiniasklaidos svetainėmis ir programomis (Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn, Instagram, Youtube…)?
Taip
Ne
3. Kurioje socialinės žiniasklaidos svetainėje esate užsiregistravę, susikūrę profilį?
Facebook;
Instagram;
LinkedIn;
Snapchat;
Twitter;
Viber;
What’s app;
Youtube;
Kita ________________ .
4. Ar manote, kad šiuo metu socialinės žiniasklaidos svetainės yra pagrindinė, greita, patikima
bendravimo priemonė?
Taip, aš dažniau renkuosi bendravimą socialiniuose tinkluose, negu realiai ,,akis į akį” .
Taip, aš manau, kad socialinė žiniasklaida yra efektyviausia priemonė palengvinanti
susisiekimą su tais žmonėmis, kuriuos skiria didelis geografinis atstumas.
Taip, aš vienodai bendrauju tiek socialiniuose tinkluose, tiek realiai ,, akis į akį”, telefonu.
Nemanau, man labiau patinka susitikti ir bendrauti realiai.
5. Įvertinkite kiekvieną žemiau pateiktą socialinės žiniasklaidos apibūdinimą (naudojimą
žmogaus gyvenime) pagal naudingumą (skalėje nuo 1 iki 5, kai 1- visiškai nenaudinga; o 5-
labai naudinga):
bendravimo terpė;
informacinis šaltinis;
sumažina bendravimo/ryšio spragas su tais, kurie gyvena užsienyje;
bendravimo su vartotoju priemonė (komentavimas, klientų aptarnavimo paslaugos);
komunikavimo priemonė krizinėse situacijose;
komunikavimo priemonė marketingo tikslais.
6. Į kokią reklamą atkreipiate dėmesį socialinėje žiniasklaidoje (pasirinkite du tinkamiausius
variantus) :
kuri atitinka mano pomėgius ir interesus;
kuri reklamuoja inovatyvią produkciją (naują, dar nematytą rinkoje);
tokią, kurioje galėčiau sudalyvauti ar prisidėti prie jos kūrimo pats;
tokio prekinio ženklo, kuris palaiko ryšį su vartotojais bendraudamas ir dažnai pateikdamas
naujienas apie save;
man nepatinka reklamos, todėl jas išjungiu, kai turiu galimybę tai padaryti;
92
kita ............................................. .
7. Jūsų nuomone, kaip prekinis ženklas ar įmonė galėtų bendrauti su vartotojais efektyviausiai?
Pateikiant (pasirinkite vieną labiausiai tinkantį variantą):
kurdami interaktyvius gerbėjų puslapius socialinėje žiniasklaidoje ;
pasikviesdami reklamuoti gaminius gerai žinomą visuomenėje veikėją;
reklamas interneto puslapių šonuose;
”Iššokančias lange” reklamas (angl. Banner ads);
žaidimus, klausimynus ar aktualijas perteikiant linksmai, neįkyriai;
video reklamos;
8. Kaip dažnai Jūs susidomite reklama socialinėje žiniasklaidoje, kuris priverstų, sukeltų norą
Jus susirasti papildomos informacijos apie pasiūlymą?
labai dažnai;
kartais;
retai;
niekada.
9. Kai ketinate pirkti naują prekę ar paslaugą, ką darote pirmiausiai (pasirinkite vieną
tinkamiausią variantą)?
Susirandate apie objektą informaciją internete, peržiūrite klientų komentarus ir atsiliepimus
pardavėjo puslapyje.
Pats klausiate atsiliepimų socialinėje žiniasklaidoje.
Klausiate patarimo ir rekomendacijos draugų ar artimųjų realiai.
Apsilankote keliose panašiose parduotuvėse taip apžvelgdami vietinę pasiūlą.
Neieškau kitų vartotojų atsiliepimų, jei man prekė ar paslauga patinka, aš ją nusiperku.
10. Kaip dažnai jūs paliekate atsiliepimus apie prekę ar paslaugą socialiniuose puslapiuose?
Labai dažnai, nes man patinka išreikšti savo nuomonę, ji bus naudinga kitiems ateityje.
Išreiškiu nuomonę tik tada, kai prekė ar paslauga yra geros (labai geros) kokybės.
Išreiškiu nuomonę tik tada, kai prekė ar paslauga yra prastos (labai prastos) kokybės.
Dažniausiai pasilieku savo nuomonę sau, nebent paprašo manęs asmeniškai ją išreikšti.
11. Žvelgiant į prėjusių 6 mėnesių laikotarpį, kokius atsiliepimus pateikėte apie prekes ir
paslaugas?
daugiau teigiamų;
daugiau neigiamų;
nepateikiau nei vieno atsiliepimo.
12. Kurį iš elektroninių ir išmaniųjų prietaisų (planšetės ir išmanieji telefonai, nešiojami
kompiuteriai ir televizoriai) gamintojų prekinių ženklų Jūs vertinate labiausiai?
Apple;
Blackberry;
HTC;
Nokia;
Samsung;
Sony;
Kita _______________
93
13. Sustokite akimirkai ir pagalvokite apie prekinį ženklą, kurį nurodėte ankstesniame (12)
klausime. Kuris iš žemiau pateiktų teiginių labiausiai apibūdina Jūsų prekinio ženklo
pasirinkimo priežastį?
Atrodo, jog prekinis ženklas žinotų, ko man reikia. Šio gamintojo prekės visada atitinka
mano poreikius.
Tai vienas iš brangiausių, garsiausių ir populiariausių prekinių ženklų pasaulyje.
Aš seku visas šio prekinio ženklo naujienas rinkoje. Jo naujausias produktas turi tiek
inovatyvių funkcijų!
Man rekomendavo jį kitas asmuo.
Jūsų asmeninė patirtis ........................... .
14. Ar Jūs vis dar domitės šio prekinio ženklo gamintojo naujausiais pasiūlymais, net jei ir turite
nusipirkę atitinkamos funkcijos prekę?
Taip, tačiau aš seku ir kitų gamintojų siūlomas prekes, nes mėgstu žinoti aktualiausias
naujienas šiame sektoriuje.
Taip, mane domina tik būtent šio prekinio ženklo pasiūlymai. Jei naujas pasiūlymas bus
patrauklus, aš jį galiu nusipirkti dar vieną.
Ne, kadangi aš jau tokią prekę turiu, manęs šiuo metu nedomina jokie naujasni pasiūlymai.
15. Ar žinote prekinį ženklą “Nescafé Dolce Gusto” – kavos aparatų ir jo priedų gamintoją?
Taip;
Ne.
16. Kodėl šis prekinis ženklas Jums patinka?
Man patinka netradicinė kava (espresso, cappuccino, latte, mocha, frappé), todėl ši prekė –
tai geras būdas sutaupyti gaminant kavą namuose.
Šis prekinis ženklas atėjo į rinką su trenksmu. Pasidaryti aukštos kokybės (lyg restorane
siūlomą) kavą tiesiog neišeinant iš namų? Žinoma, kad man tai patinka!
Nes šis prekinis ženklas yra socialiai atsakingas ir kartu saugo aplinką gaminant kavos
aparatus, kavos kapsules ir įpakavimą.
Aš dar jo neįsigijau, tačiau planuoju tai padaryti ateityje.
Aš iki šiol niekada negirdėjau apie šį prekinį ženklą.
17. Jūs esate:
moteris;
vyras.
18. Kiek yra Jums metų?
6- 18;
19- 25;
26- 40;
41- 55;
56 ir daugiau.
94
Annex No. 7 The formula of an engagement rate calculation
ER =
𝑳𝒊𝒌𝒆𝒔+𝑪𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔+𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒔 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑑
# 𝒐𝒇 𝒘𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒕𝒔 𝒎𝒂𝒅𝒆 𝒃𝒚 𝒂 𝒑𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑑
𝑻𝒐𝒕𝒂𝒍 # 𝒐𝒇 𝒇𝒂𝒏𝒔 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑑∗ 𝟏𝟎𝟎
Source: Social Bakers (2014)
95
Annex No. 8
Note: The numbers consist of the total amount of comments, “likes” and shares
Note: The numbers consist of the total amount of comments, “likes” and shares
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
1331596
274 0 2751568
75 985 1061 913 5212869
5856
1686
7027
20838
50231
13430
24791
1778514119 14375
107347043
Samsung BE Samsung BE
Figure 11. Participation of consumers on Facebook in 2014
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
23701290 1596 1559 1834
1167 913 1277 1142
19760
23213
17247
34 314 497 548 276150 712
1025201 1109
24439
Nescafé Dolce Gusto BE Nescafé Dolce Gusto LT
Figure 12. Participation of consumers on Facebook in 2014