Brand management with social media in service industry

Shahriyar Humbatov Brand Management with Social Media In Service Industry Anchor Academic Publishing disseminate knowledge www.ebook3000.com Humbatov, Shahriyar: Brand Management with Social Media: In Service Industry Hamburg, Anchor Academic Publishing 2015 Buch-ISBN: 978-3-95489-483-3 PDF-eBook-ISBN: 978-3-95489-983-8 Druck/Herstellung: Anchor Academic Publishing, Hamburg, 2015 Cover picture: www.pixabay.com Cover design: Anna Klöhn Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek: Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar Bibliographical Information of the German National Library: The German National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography Detailed bibliographic data can be found at: http://dnb.d-nb.de All rights reserved This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt Jede Verwertung außerhalb der Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar Dies gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Bearbeitung in elektronischen Systemen Die Wiedergabe von Gebrauchsnamen, Handelsnamen, Warenbezeichnungen usw in diesem Werk berechtigt auch ohne besondere Kennzeichnung nicht zu der Annahme, dass solche Namen im Sinne der Warenzeichen- und Markenschutz-Gesetzgebung als frei zu betrachten wären und daher von jedermann benutzt werden dürften Die Informationen in diesem Werk wurden mit Sorgfalt erarbeitet Dennoch können Fehler nicht vollständig ausgeschlossen werden und die Diplomica Verlag GmbH, die Autoren oder Übersetzer übernehmen keine juristische Verantwortung oder irgendeine Haftung für evtl verbliebene fehlerhafte Angaben und deren Folgen Alle Rechte vorbehalten © Anchor Academic Publishing, Imprint der Diplomica Verlag GmbH Hermannstal 119k, 22119 Hamburg http://www.diplomica-verlag.de, Hamburg 2015 Printed in Germany www.ebook3000.com I ABSTRACT It is highly important to highlight that nowadays the digital age drives the enterprises to focus more on the social media platforms, because the social media has enabled the customers to engage with the brand products / services The social media platforms such as social networks, blogging, microblogging, photo and video sharing support brand managers to create relevant contents to promote the brand facilities / amenities The deliberately designed social media campaigns can help the firms to generate brand awareness and brand loyalty with the help of the social media tools such as Facebook (social networks), Twitter (microblogging), Instagram (photo sharing), YouTube (video sharing) and WordPress (blogging) The fundamental purpose of the chosen thesis topic is to validate whether the social media platforms / tools can in fact be effective as a marketing tool or not To be more precise, this study aims to shed light on and investigate the relationship between the social media and brand equity, especially brand awareness and brand loyalty The interest to uncover above mentioned relationship led to build overarching research question and sub-questions, which permit to dig deeper to discover the impact of the social media platforms / tools on raising brand awareness and loyalty: MQ How to manage brand awareness and brand loyalty through social media effectively in the hospitality industry? SQ1 What are the roles of social media tools in creating brand awareness? SQ2 How to build brand loyalty through the social media platforms? Based on these research questions exploratory and explanatory approaches have been taken into consideration The qualitative research methodology and case study method has been chosen to answer these questions Certainly, without the data collection method the necessary information could not be gathered The secondary data was collected from available literature in the academic world The designed questionnaire is used to gather primary data The information, which questionnaire disclosed, helped the author to compare 1|Page www.ebook3000.com the findings of secondary data with the primary data In the first phase, the data is analysed in order to find the influence of social media platforms on brand awareness and loyalty In the second phase, the designed models are compared with the results of the case company’s activities on the social web As a result, it was found out that in fact the social media platforms / tools have an impact on generating the brand awareness and loyalty as well as they can be immensely effective tools to design social media strategy Moreover, it has been depicted that the social media supports businesses to create relevant content and attract people to engage with brand product / service and with this way to expand the visibility of the brand to make customers aware about brand presence in the market Furthermore, to keep customers loyal to the brand companies should use the power of social media to create powerful content to engage with customers and allow them to experience the brand product / service in an online The results of analyses also exposed that rewards (financial or nonfinancial) can boost the revisit of the brand followers back to website and engage with the brand product / service Keywords: Brand, service brand, brand equity, brand awareness, brand loyalty, social media, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, WordPress, Fairmont Baku, content strategy, engagement, visibility, customer experience, loyalty program 2|Page www.ebook3000.com II I TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT II TABLE OF CONTENTS III LIST OF FIGURES AND GRAPHS IV LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS INTRODUCTION 1.1 Scope of the research 1.1.1 Purpose of the study 10 1.1.2 Research questions 10 1.2 Structure of the study 10 1.3 Delimitations 12 1.4 Introduction to methodology 13 LITERATURE REVIEW 13 2.1 What is a Brand? 14 2.2 Brand equity as an asset 16 2.2.1 Brand awareness 19 2.2.2 Brand loyalty 21 2.3 Service brand theory 26 2.3.1 Concept and characteristics of services 26 2.4 Social media defined 31 2.5 Social media platforms 35 2.5.1 Social networks 35 2.5.2 Microblogging 39 2.5.3 Photo sharing 42 2.5.4 Video sharing 44 2.5.5 Blogging 47 2.6 Brand awareness and social media 49 3|Page www.ebook3000.com 2.7 Brand loyalty and social media 50 METHODOLOGY 52 3.1 Research design 54 3.1.1 Research approach 54 3.1.1.1 Exploratory approach 55 3.1.1.2 Explanatory approach 55 3.1.2 Research methodology 55 3.1.2.1 3.1.3 Research strategy 57 3.1.3.1 3.1.4 Qualitative 56 Case study method 58 Data collection 59 3.1.4.1 Secondary data and empirical material sources 60 3.1.4.2 Primary data and empirical material sources 61 DATA ANALYSIS 62 4.1 The impact of social media platforms on brand awareness 62 4.1.1 Facebook as a tool 63 4.1.2 Twitter as a tool 65 4.1.3 Instagram as a tool 66 4.1.4 YouTube as a tool 68 4.1.5 WordPress as a tool 70 4.2 The impact of social media platforms on brand loyalty 71 4.2.1 Facebook as a tool 72 4.2.2 Twitter as a tool 73 4.2.3 Instagram as a tool 74 4.2.4 YouTube as a tool 75 4.2.5 WordPress as a tool 76 CASE COMPANY 78 4|Page www.ebook3000.com 5.1 The moments to the memories 79 5.1.1 Philosophy 79 5.1.2 History 80 5.1.3 Corporate responsibility 81 5.2 Social media activities 82 THE CASE COMPANY ANALYSIS 83 6.1 Usage of social media platforms in creating brand awareness 84 6.2 Usage of social media platforms in building brand loyalty 87 CONCLUSION 90 7.1 Study findings 90 7.2 Conclusion 92 7.3 Future research suggestions 94 7.4 Recommendations 95 LIST OF REFERENCES 97 Books, articles and essays 97 Internet sources 99 V APPENDIX 117 VI STATUTORY DECLARATION 122 5|Page www.ebook3000.com III LIST OF FIGURES AND GRAPHS Table 1: Brand functions 15 Table 2: Different approaches to measuring brand equity 17 Figure 1: The Loyalty Pyramid 23 Figure 2: Outcome of customer loyalty 26 Table 3: Comparing goods and services 27 Figure 3: Four services characteristics 29 Table 4: Major differences between traditional and social media 32 Figure 4: Social media penetration 34 Figure 5: Attention levels on TV and YouTube 46 Table 5: The differences between qualitative and quantitative methodology 56 Figure 6: Sources of secondary data 60 Graph 1: In-stream and in-display ads 69 Graph 2: Linde Werdelin on Instagram 74 Graph 3: WordPress Appearance sidebar 77 Graph 4: WordPress Media and Links sidebar 77 Graph 5: Panoramic view of Fairmont Baku and Baku city 80 Graph 6: Fairmont Baku and old Inner City 81 Graph X: Fairmont Baku and Caspian Sea 81 Graph 8: Name this location option on Fairmont Baku Instagram account 86 Figure 7: Brand awareness and social media relations 90 Figure X: Brand loyalty and social media relations 91 Figure 9: Brand awareness and social media relations, Fairmont Baku 91 Figure 10: Brand loyalty and social media relations, Fairmont Baku 92 6|Page www.ebook3000.com IV LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AMA American Marketing Association B2B Business-to-business CSR Corporate social responsibility FO Front office FRHI Fairmont Raffles Hotels International LW Linde Werdelin MIPIM Le marché international des professionnels de l’immobilier P&G Procter and Gamble PR Public relations ROI Return on investment SME Small and medium enterprises UK The United Kingdom USA The United States of America WWW World wide web 7|Page www.ebook3000.com INTRODUCTION Brands with the higher product / service components, as per Professor Leslie de Chernatony (cited in Pickton and Broderick, 2005), consist of the strength of the brands which are the essential prosperity of the organisation Brands create a value for both customers and firms (Keller, 2008) According to Clifton et al (2009), strong brand positioning creates unique competitive advantages and helps organisations to work effectively and efficiently In Fortune Magazine, which is published in 1997 (cited in Clifton et al., 2009, p 17) the future importance of branding has already been mentioned as follow: ‘In the twenty-first century, branding ultimately will be the only unique differentiator between companies Brand equity is now a key asset’ Brand equity is highly important, because it significantly increases profitability (Kim and Kim, 2005 cited in Kayaman and Arasli, 2007) and it has a great potential to create the value to customers in building confidence, boosting buying capability as well as to create the value to enterprises by building brand loyalty, developing effective and efficient marketing position, improving profit margins and so on (Bagozzi, Rosa, Celly and Coronel, 1998 cited in Pekka, 1999) Aaker (1996, pp 7-8) defines brand equity as ‘a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its name and symbol, that add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service to a firm and / or to the firm's customers’ As per Aaker (1991) brand equity has following assets and liabilities: brand awareness, perceived quality, brand associations, brand loyalty, other proprietary brand assets All these categories provide the value for customers as well as firms (Aaker, 1991) Brand awareness, being the first component of brand equity, has a great impact on the presence in the consumer’s mind (Aaker, 1996) and replacing the brand in and selecting the brand from the consideration set (Macdonald and Sharp, 2000, 2003) It is believed that the retention of existing customer is less costly than acquiring the new one That is why the strategic approach is necessary in order to build a relationship between customer and firm which the former later on turns to be a loyal consumer to the brand The loyal customer creates brand 8|Page www.ebook3000.com Julig, L., 2013 How a Winery Uses Social Media to Increase Sales and Brand Loyalty [online] Available at: [Accessed 29 November 2014] Kapferer, J.N., 2008 The New Strategic Brand Management 4th edition [pdf] United Kingdom, United States: Les Editions d’Organisation Available at: [Accessed 10 November 2014] Kayaman, R., and Arasli, H., 2007 Customer based brand equity: evidence from the hotel industry [pdf] Emerald Group Publishing Limited Available at: [Accessed 25 October 2014] Kelly, N and Hootsuit, n.d Measuring Social Media for Brand Awareness [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 22 September 2014] Kioskea, 2014 Flickr: Marketing tips [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 16 October 2014] Kisanne, E., 2011 The Elements of Content Strategy [pdf] New York Available at: [Accessed 23 November 2014] KPMG International, 2011 Issues Monitor: Sharing knowledge on topical issues in the Food, Drink and Consumer Goods industry [online] Available at: 108 | P a g e [Accessed 22 October 2014] Lawler, E., 2013 The rise of experiental marketing [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 30 November 2014] Lis, B and Berz, J., 2011 Using Social Media for Branding in Publishing [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 03 November 2014] Macdonald, E and Sharp, B., 2003 Management Perceptions of the Importance of Brand Awareness as an Indication of Advertising Effectiveness [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 10 August 2014] Macdonald, E.K and Sharp, B.M., 2000 Managing Brand Equity Brand Awareness Effects on Consumer Decision Making for a Common, Repeat Purchase Product: A Replication [pdf] Elsevier Science Inc Available at: [Accessed 22 November 2014] Malik, M.E et al., 2013 Importance of Brand Awareness and Brand Loyalty in assessing Purchase Intentions of Consumer [pdf] USA Available at: [Accessed 22 September 2014] Marketing Cloud, 2012 Strategies for Effective Tweeting: A Statistical Review [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 28 October 2014] 109 | P a g e Marketing Cloud, 2013 YouTube Brand Channel Overview [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 22 October 2014] Marvin, G., 2014 YouTube TrueView Ads Update Coming In April: What You Need To Know [online] Available at: [Accessed 25 October 2014] Mayfield, R., 2009 Enterprise Microblogging Whitepaper [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 18 November 2014] Metacafe, 2014 Metacafe: The Video Entertainment Engine [online] Available at: [Accessed 23 August 2014] Miah, K., Burd, N and Platts, D., 2012 The CMO's Guide to Instagram: Why Brands Must Be Visual to Gain Visibility [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 12 October 2014] Miller, M., 2011 YouTube for Business 2nd edition [pdf] Indianapolis USA: Que Publishing Available at: [Accessed 11 June 2014] Millstone Branding, 2012 Why use Facebook for your Business [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 12 November 2014] Millstone Branding, 2013 Twitter for Business [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 25 October 2014] 110 | P a g e Moreau, E., 2014 What is Vimeo? Introducing You to Video Sharing on Vimeo [onine] About.com Available at: [Accessed 31 August 2014] Myspace, 2014 About Myspace [online] Available at: [Accessed 25 October 2014] Nam, J., Ekinci, Y and Whyatt, G., 2011 Brand Equity, Brand Loyalty and Consumer Satisfaction [pdf] Great Britain: Elsevier Ltd Available at: [Accessed 11 November 2014] Oracle, 2011 2011 Customer Experience Impact Report [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 30 November 2014] Oracle, 2012 Instagram [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 11 June 2014] Oxford Dictionaries, 2014a Loyalty [online] Oxford University Press Available at: [Accessed 31 August 2014] Oxford Dictionaries, 2014b Service [online] Oxford University Press Available at: [Accessed 01 August 2014] Petersen, C., 2010 In the World of Facebook [pdf] NYREV, Inc Available at: [Accessed 05 October 2014] 111 | P a g e Pinterest, 2014 About Pinterest [online] Available at: [Accessed 25 October 2014] Plurk, 2014 Plurk FAQ [online] Available at: [Accessed 12 October 2014] Queens Library, n.d Pinterest for Beginners [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 28 November 2014] Rai, A.K., Srivastava, M.0, 2012 Customer Loyalty Attributes: A Perspective [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 28 September 2014] Schmitt, B., 1999 Experiential Marketing [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 30 November 2014] Simply Measured, Inc., 2013 How Top Brand Marketers Use Twitter [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 30 October 2014] Social Media Stream, n.d Brand Awareness & Social Media [online] Available at: [Accessed 02 November 2014] Sprout Social, n.d A Guide to Social Customer Care on Twitter [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 25 October 2014] 112 | P a g e Sprung, R., 2013 Examples of Excellent Twitter Customer Service [online] Available at: [Accessed 26 November 2014] Suhartanto, D and Noor, A., 2013 Attitudinal Loyalty in The Budget Hotel Industry: What are The Important Factors? [pdf] Malaysia Available at: [Accessed 30 July 2014] TAFE NSW, 2012 Social Netwroking: Video sharing [online] Available at: [Accessed 22 July 2014] The Ad Age Content Strategy Studio and Google, 2014 Brand Engagement in the Participation Age [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 24 October 2014] The AMA Marketing Watch, 2013a Brand Awareness [pdf] EBSCO Publishing Inc Available at: < http://membercenter.glaciermt.com/wpcontent/uploads/2014/04/AMA-Brand-Awareness-Article.pdf> [Accessed 12 November 2014] The AMA Marketing Watch, 2013b Brand Loyalty [pdf] EBSCO Publishing Inc Available at: < http://membercenter.glaciermt.com/wpcontent/uploads/2014/04/AMA-Brand-Awareness-Article.pdf> [Accessed 12 November 2014] The BigDoor Blog, 2014 Top Hotel Loyalty Programs [online] Seattle Available at: [Accessed 05 October 2014] Traveller Made, 2014 Fairmont Baku Flame Towers Baku, Azerbaijan [online] Available at: [Accessed 21 November 2014] 113 | P a g e Trejos, N., 2014 Hotels reward guests for Twitter, Facebook posts [online] Available at: [Accessed 23 November 2014] Tuominen, P., 1999 Managing Brand Equity [pdf] Emerald Group Publishing Limited Available at: [Accessed 26 November 2014] Twitter, 2014 Company [online] Available at: [Accessed 02 November 2014] UKNetMonitor, 2013 Hashtags and brand presence [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 19 August 2014] Ura, M., 2013 Introduction to Blogging in WordPress [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 28 October 2014] Vimeo, 2014 About Vimeo [online] Available at: [Accessed 20 August 2014] Vollmer,C and Premo, K., 2012 Can your brand win with social media? [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 18 July 2014] Wharton, S., 2012 Top hotel brands share social media tactics [online] Available at: [Accessed 30 October 2014] 114 | P a g e White Glove Social Media, 2013 19 Mind Boggling Facts That Will Make You Join Pinterest Social Media Marketing [online] Available at: [Accessed 14 November 2014] Wilde & Partner, 2013 Boomtown Baku – Metropole zwischen Kaukasus und Kaspischem Meer [image online] Available at: [Accessed 22 November 2014] Wood, L., 2000 Brands and brand equity: definition and management [pdf] MCB University Press Available at: [Accessed 01 July 2014] WordPress, 2014a About Us [online] Available at: [Accessed 18 September 2014] WordPress, 2014b Support: WordPress.com and WordPress.org [online] Available at: [Accessed 18 September 2014] Yi, L., Trigo, V and Shiming, L., 2012 The Building of a Service Brand: The Case of Fusen Noble House, China [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 30 October 2014] Yin, R.K., 2003 Case Study Research Design and Methods [pdf] Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: SAGE Publications Available at: [Accessed 14 October 2014] YouTube, 2009 Demonstrating the branding and engagement value of YouTube advertising [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 24 August 2014] 115 | P a g e YouTube, 2014 Statistics [online] Available at: [Accessed 25 August 2014] Zailskaite-Jakste, L and Kuvykaite, R., 2012 Consumer Engagement in Social Media by Building the Brand [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 12 November 2014] 116 | P a g e V APPENDIX Appendix 1: Questionnaire request sent to the Fairmont Baku hotel From: Shahriyar Humbatov To: sayad.ibrahimli@fairmont.com Date: September 2014 at 07:57 Subject: Partner Master Student Mailed-by: gmail.com Eziz Sayad Xanim, Siz attach olunmus faylda cavablandirmali olacaginiz suallari tapa bilersiniz Bir de sizden xahisim, Fairmont brandine aid elinizde olan melumatlari menimle bolusesiniz Mene komeklik gosterdiyiniz ucun size derin minnetdaram -Hormetle, Shahriyar Humbatov 117 | P a g e Appendix 2: Response received from the Fairmont Baku hotel From: Ibrahimli, Sayad (AZE) To: Shahriyar Humbatov Date: September 2014 at 12:58 Subject: RE: Partner Master Student Mailed-by: gmail.com Dear Shahriyar, Please find the filled in questionnaire in attached I have already sent an email to our Corporate Office regarding the access to the brand materials I will let you know as soon as I get a reply from them Have a nice day Thank you, Sayad Ibrahimli PR&Marketing Manager 1A, Mehdi Huseyn AZ 1006 Baku, Azerbaijan Tel.: +994 12 565 48 48 ext 4845 Mob.: +994 70 217 77 00 www.fairmont.com/baku 118 | P a g e Appendix 3: A filled questionnaire by the Fairmont Baku hotel 1) What kind of social media platforms Fairmont Baku Hotel is using? – This question is aimed to give an entrance to the interview A) Facebook; B) Twitter; C) Instagram D) YouTube; E) WordPress 2) When did you launch these social media tools? Please specify your answer In 2011 3) What is the purpose of using these platforms? A) Brand promotion B) To attract new customers C) To retain existing customers D) To gain customer feedbacks E) Others (please specify) To promote different offers and packages (Le Bistro, Alov, Nur Lounge ESPA, Room promotions) Please specify your answer 4) Why did you choose these platforms and tools? A) For better communication with customers B) To reduce promotion costs C) To use customer feedback to improve service 119 | P a g e D) To inform users about enterprise updates E) Others (please specify) Please specify your answer 5) How you consider the effects of social media on brands? A) Very important B) Somewhat important C) Important D) Not very important E) Not at all important Please specify your answer 6) After starting Facebook, Twitter and Instagram social media tools what was your expectation of the result of this action? Please specify your answer Increase in sales and brand awareness 7) Did you take into account brand awareness and brand loyalty while initiating a social media campaign? A) Yes, specify your answer People are using social media channels very extensively and constant exposure should lead to the increase in brand awareness B) No, specify your answer 120 | P a g e 8) How you build and maintain brand awareness of your company in social media? A) By providing reasonable and memorable messages B) By providing brand related facts C) By posting brand related photos and videos D) By blogging brand involved activities E) Others (please specify) Please specify your answer 9) How you create loyalty between your brand and consumer in social media? A) By contentedly responding customer comments B) By arranging online-rendezvous with top management to answer customer questions C) By awarding loyal customers D) By providing extra benefits E) Others (please specify) Please specify your answer 10) How you handle all consumer engagements in your built social media platforms? Please specify your answer Creating different promotions and contests to attract the attention of the followers 121 | P a g e If you are interessted in publishing your study please contact us: info@diplom.de Anchor Academic Publishing disseminate knowledge ... global internet users (Interbrand, 2012) By supporting this idea Rubbinstein and Griffiths (Interbrand, 2012) argue about the impact of social media on building a brand personality and creating... study is going to review literatures which are written in the area of the following subjects: brand, service brands, brand equity, brand awareness, brand loyalty, social media, social media platforms... revisit of the brand followers back to website and engage with the brand product / service Keywords: Brand, service brand, brand equity, brand awareness, brand loyalty, social media, Facebook,