Overview
Social media refers to activities that combine technology, telecommunications and social interaction, with the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. Social media can also be defined as collective goods produced through computer-mediated collective action (Wikipedia, 2009). Social media offers tools that allow consumers to connect and share. Businesses often refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or user-generated media (UGM) typically transmitted via cable and broadband internet connections or mobile communication networks such as the Apple ‘iPhone’. Through the juxtaposition of social media and traditional broadcast media, the defining characteristics of social media become clearer.
Social media is still in its infant years of growth, only in the last few years emerging as a new marketing platform. Similar to traditional broadcast media channels such as television and newspaper, social media has the capability to reach small or large audiences, however at a significantly smaller cost. In contrast to traditional broadcast media however, social media has greater accessibility, useability, recency and permanence. Social interfaces such as ‘Facebook’, ‘YouTube’, and ‘Wikipedia’ are generally available for anyone to use, and are a simple means of content production that does not require specialised skills such as operating a printing press or developing film. Communication through social media channels occurs virtually instantaneously, particularly through real time social media interfaces such as ‘Twitter’, therefore eliminating the time lag between media production and distribution. Lastly, unlike broadcast media, social media is not permanent, meaning that it can be altered, rated, commented on, deleted or improved. Social media encourages organisations to interject themselves into conversations among customers within the online marketplace, rather than dominating what in the past was a one-way communication channel (Ahn, Han, Kwak, Moon & Jeong, 2007)
Figure 1.0. Illustration of social media marketing and traditional marketing approaches (www.awarenessnetworks.com, 2009).
Figure 1.0 illustrates the comparison between social media marketing and traditional marketing channels. One of the defining characteristics of social media is the multi-way marketplace within which social media operates. Brand-to-customer, customer-to-brand and customer-to-customer interaction are enabled by blogs, pod-casts, social networks and other web 2.0 technologies. This new type of engagement was not possible until the arrival of Web 2.0, which has been named the ‘participatory web’ as opposed to Web 1.0 which was purely an information source. Web 2.0 is the facilitator of the communications, information sharing, interoperability and collaborations which take place through applications such as social networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis and blogs (Wikipedia, 2009; Constantinides & Fountain, 2008).
Figure 2.0 illustrates the diversity of both producers and consumers of social media. The producers and consumers of social media range from individuals, small businesses, large corporations and social groups. In communicating within and between these groups, traditional broadcast media adopts a push strategy where a brands message is transferred
Figure2.0 The diversity of producers and consumers of social media (Microsoft Research, 2008)
from a single firm to an audience. In contrast to traditional broadcast media the combinations of communication flows have expanded through the emergence of social media. This allows for example, a group of brand consumers to produce brand communication and direct it towards other groups (Microsoft Research, 2008).
Another example of the customer-to-customer communication which social media facilitates can be found on community blogs such as ‘Lovemarks’ (http://tiny.cc/q0z0V). ‘Lovemarks’ is an online global community of people who create pages dedicated to particular brands they love, allowing comments and video uploading. Another example is German automobile manufacturer ‘BMW’ which has Wikipedia pages, Facebook groups and fan-pages (http://tiny.cc/9K7Rb), blogs and almost 200,000 YouTube videos dedicated to the brand, all produced and consumed by the global online community, not by BMW (Facebook, 2009; Wikipedia, 2009; YouTube, 2009). This social media characteristic of customer-to-customer communication flows illustrates that brand communication and media can be user-generated (UGM), giving brands less control over what is said in the marketplace and whom the communication is directed to. For this reason, one of the keys to successful social media marketing is no longer a one way push, but joining and encouraging positive conversation and communication between social media users with regards to the firms brand, product or service.
Social Media and Destination Marketing Organisations (DMO’s)
The relevance and application of social media to destination marketing is becoming increasingly apparent as the number of social media users grows. An estimated 373 million people currently engage in a form of social media ranging from blogs to forums to instant messaging. This number is projected to grow to one billion by 2012 as social media applications for communication and collaboration further diversify (Google, 2009).
Through the growth of user-generated content online, the role of intermediaries such as travel agents and tour operators is being challenged. Through access to blogs, forums, social network interfaces and pod casts, consumers can now be more informed about any subject as never before and more importantly, consumers have the means to communicate his or her knowledge and expertise to the rest of the global online community. These free flowing conversations create transparency among destinations, heightening the importance of quality information as well as the potential for misinformation. Destination marketing organisations exist for the most part as information providers. The information based nature of tourism therefore makes social networks an increasingly important means of promoting and distributing destination information (Choi, Lehto & Oleary, 2007). This is achieved through participating in the global conversation about the destination, rather than trying to control it. This involves engaging in different social media interfaces with the objective to interact with their dominant users.
Figure 3.0. An illustration of the global reach of social media (Denton, 2009).
Figure 3.0 illustrates the global reach of social media through the reach of dominant social media applications. It also shows that ones existing offline network influences which site one embraces. Research has found that people often use social media services to connect with those in their existing networks, rather than to seek out new acquaintances (Ellison, Steinfeld & Lampe, 2007). For example, social media network and discussion site ‘Orkut’ has approximately 30 million users; 17 million of these users are concentrated in Brazil alone. Age demographics also influence users’ choice of social media. Social media network ‘Reunion’ has approximately 50 million registered users, however only 10% of these are aged under 25 (Hargittai, 2007).
Social Media is however in its infancy, which leaves many questions still unanswered. The key to successful social media marketing for DMOs and businesses in general is still yet to be theorised, however as this research report analyses current strategies being adopted, the foundations of ‘best practice’ will become clear.
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