Sailing the seven C ' s of blog marketing: understanding social media and business impact

Abstract

Purpose – Social media has transformed conventional marketing methods. This medium offers a unique blend of asynchronous communication, opportunities to co-create and customer empowerment far removed from traditional firm-to-consumer, push-vs-pull marketing messages. The purpose of this paper is to examine how a company developed long-term effective relationships and sales growth by using their blog to generate and enhance viral word-of-mouth message diffusion. Design/methodology/approach – The exploration of the blog includes analysis of both content and metrics for a real technology firm with an assumed name. Content and the ripples from blog posts were analysed to determine diffusion and use of messages. Findings – Seven critical success factors for utilising blog marketing to maximum effect are presented to firms considering a similar strategy. Suggestions for managerial implications are also presented. Research limitations/implications – There are two limitations, the focus on a single company which restricts generalisability. The advantage of the case study approach to research does afford depth into this topic. Second, the research questions addresses a small part of the whole social media and corporate marketing sphere, however, this focus allows for depth and richness of data. Originality/value – The paper’s focus provides a unique opportunity to explore the effect of a company who manages points of connection, blogs and viral marketing, on customer relationships. Further, the study responds to the need for practical guidance for managers in relation to the management of blog marketing to facilitate customer relationships and enhance the viral impact of blogs.

The levers of engagement: an exploration of governance in an online brand community

“…Implicit in gaining the trust of consumers in these settings is a rejection of unilateral company-centric brand management paradigms so that meaningful relationships can be facilitated through community access and engagement. The control of such access has, therefore, emerged as a key theme in the recent literature (Berthon et al 2012;Dobele, Steel & Cooper 2015;Fournier & Avery 2011;Gensler et al 2013), yet there is little agreement on what constitutes the optimal balance between flexibility and enforcement in relationship management within these environments.…”

Who says what?: exploring the impacts of content type and blog type on brand credibility, brand similarity and eWOM intention

“…While most brands understand that blogs can be a way to enhance customer relationships and brand equity, they are at a loss of how to do so (Dobele et al , 2015). Compounding their lack of knowledge, brands have not evaluated the blog's performance to see where changes could be made to make the campaigns more effective (Liljander et al , 2015).…”

The use of Twitter for innovation in business markets

“…Twitter's use in industrial markets is a more recent phenomenon, with firms using Twitter to manage interactions with customers (Andzulis et al , 2012; Sashittal and Jassawalla, 2019). Twitter's conversational nature has prompted calls for research into the use of micro blogs in the aspect of innovation (Dobele et al , 2015). Simula et al (2013) found that firms involved in business markets displayed a level of hesitancy to adopt and utilise social media tools.…”