A spatial approach to social media

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (6) ◽  
pp. 671-683
Author(s):  
Christofer Laurell

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to conceptually explore how spatial features of social media can be explained. Design/methodology/approachBased on a conceptual approach, specific spatial features of social media are reviewed in terms of location, locale and sense of place within the wider frame of the social media landscape. FindingsIn the literature stream of social media management and marketing, central conceptualisations relate implicitly to the notions of space and place. By drawing from the field of human geography, this implicit spatiality of social media is made explicit by approaching social media applications as the building blocks of digital space in which digital places are created, maintained and integrated with each other over time as a result of interactions and relationships forming between users that inhabit digital places. Originality/valueThe present paper contributes to extant literature by providing a spatial approach to social media that depicts the character of social media, its interrelation with the physical world, as well as how it currently transforms and evolves. Furthermore, it also addresses how social media places represent settings in which social meaning of commercial relevance is created that affects the way consumption activities take place beyond the physical realm of human co-existence.


Author(s):  
Elzbieta Lepkowska-White ◽  
Amy Parsons ◽  
William Berg

Purpose This study aims to use a social media management framework and strategic orientation framework to explore how small restaurants manage social media. Design/methodology/approach The authors content-analyzed social media activity and interviews with 14 managers of social media in small independent restaurants in the northeast region of the USA that employed fewer than 20 employees. Findings The results of the study show that most small restaurants can be classified as anarchic, hierarchical and conservative defenders, and that they mainly focus on promotional activities on social media. The majority use social media also to drive traffic to a restaurant and, thus, act as calculative pragmatists. Very few use social media strategically or creatively in any of the social media management stages, and very few monitor or use social media information to improve their operations. Research limitations/implications This study shows that the adopted theoretical framework in this study for social media management helps analyze social media operations in small restaurants, points to the strategic orientations applied in small restaurants, shows the intricacies of each stage and helps show what small restaurants do well and how they can improve. Future research may use larger samples, investigate frameworks particularly relevant to small restaurants, such as the resource-based view (RBV) framework, and may focus on creative and diverse strategic approaches toward social media management for small establishments. Practical implications As customers continue shifting to social media and review sites, more restaurants may want to invest in developing more creative approaches toward social media and do it in more structured, integrated and continuous ways. The study describes a process they may want to follow and specific tactics that could be implemented to use social media more strategically in all stages of social media management. Social implications Not only are small business establishments the backbone of the restaurant industry, but they also appeal to customers more than large chains. This study shows how these small businesses can utilize social media to attract more customers, engage them, learn about them and their competitive environment to market and improve their operations. Originality/value The authors focus on the supplier side of social media for restaurants, a perspective lacking in the literature, and specifically small restaurants that receive less attention in prior research. Few studies exist that explore how social media is incorporated in all stages of social media management. The study points to the unique challenges that small restaurants experience in the process of using social media for marketing, monitoring and using social media to improve their operations. The study uses a relatively large sample of qualitative interviews conducted with managers of small restaurants and a content analysis of their actual social media activity.



2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 715-727 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenna Jacobson

Purpose Social media management is an emerging profession that is growing as companies increasingly adopt social media. The purpose of this paper is to analyze social media managers’ personal branding. Design/methodology/approach In-depth qualitative data is drawn from 20 semi-structured interviews with social media managers and supported by three years of orienting fieldwork in Toronto, Canada. Findings Social media managers are responsible for managing and executing organizations’ brands and presence on social media and digital platforms. As lead users of social media, social media managers provide critical insight into the emerging practices of personal branding on social media. “The future audience” is introduced to describe how individuals project a curated brand for all future unknown and unanticipated audiences, which emphasizes a professional identity. Due to workplace uncertainty, social media managers embody the mentality of being “always-on-the-job-market”, which is a driver for personal branding in their attempt to gain or maintain employment. Originality/value While personal branding is largely discussed by industry professionals, there is a need for empirical research on personal branding that examines how various employee groups experience personal branding. This research fills this gap by analyzing how people working in social media brand their identity and how their personal branding is used to market themselves to gain and maintain employment. The development of “the future audience” and “always-on-the-job-market” can be used to understand other professions and experiences of personal branding.



Author(s):  
Sarit Markovich ◽  
Oded Golan ◽  
Charlotte Snyder

In March 2017, Oded Golan sat in his technology startup's conference room with his co-founder, pondering the fate of their company, Start A Fire. In just four years, the two entrepreneurs had taken an idea that started in Golan's apartment in Tel Aviv and turned it into a company that had raised $3.5 million in venture capital funding and served more than 3,000 of the world's biggest brands using an innovative content distribution and social media management platform that enabled brands to improve communication and engagement with their followers





2011 ◽  
pp. 477-490
Author(s):  
Jens J. Martin ◽  
Anna Dietrich ◽  
Klaus-Jürgen Schilling


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Daowd ◽  
Muhammad Mustafa Kamal ◽  
Tillal Eldabi ◽  
Ruaa Hasan ◽  
Farouk Missi ◽  
...  

PurposeOver the last few decades, microfinance industry is argued to have played a constructive role in alleviating poverty level and providing the underprivileged with access to financial services. Statistics from the World Bank reveal that, currently, only 4% of the underprivileged have been served out of the 3 billion+ potential clients. Such results are due to several claims, particularly the operational and financial challenges faced by microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the constant flux inviting more attentions towards its performance. While explicit attention is given by many researchers towards mobile banking and information and communication technology (ICT) in improving the MFIs’ performance, the study on how social media, as a rapidly growing online phenomenon, can impact on the MFIs’ performance remains scarce. As such, this study aims to investigate this impact based on four dimensional performance indicators: efficiency, financial sustainability, portfolio quality and outreach.Design/methodology/approachA model is proposed and tested to ascertain the relationship between social media applications and organisational performance. In so doing, web-based questionnaires have been used to collect data from MFI employees in developing countries. Results reveal a significant influence of the social media over the MFIs’ performance, offering valuable insights into both researchers and practitioners in the domain of microfinance, as well as social media—conforming that the adoption of social media as marketing, advertising and communication tools may significantly improve the MFIs’ performance.FindingsThe results demonstrate that there is a positive and significant impact of social media use within microfinance on the key indicators of MFIs. They also show that the highest impact of social media usage within the microfinance is on the portfolio quality. In addition, it was found that marketing and advertising; communication and sales and distribution are the main areas where social media is able to support while social networking websites are the most popular platforms employed in MFIs.Originality/valueThis study adds to the existing literature few theoretical and practical aspects. First, this study developed a model for assessing the value of social media as a new phenomenon within this type of organisation. Second, it offers microfinance sponsors, managers and policy makers with a frame of reference to understand what social media platform can be deployed for each purpose. Third, with the identification of the main MFIs’ performance indicators, this research provided a reference of performance measurement guide for microfinance industry when assessing different technological employment.



2015 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlene S. Neill ◽  
Mia Moody


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