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Measuring The Degree of Corporate Social Media Use: International Journal of Market Research March 2015
Measuring The Degree of Corporate Social Media Use: International Journal of Market Research March 2015
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This article aims to provide a model with which to measure the degree of
corporate social media use or, in other words, the extent to which companies
are exploiting the potentialities of single or multiple social media platforms. This
is, however, explicitly different from using metrics to assess the success of social
media activities, as it is purely measuring how intensively a pre-defined group
of social media is utilised, taking into account the frequency of social media
activity by the brand as well as the related user reactions. The degree of corporate
social media use helps companies and market researchers analyse single brands
or companies and compare them with other brands, competitors or industry
averages. The degree of corporate social media use is a useful indicator, which
should be combined with social media metrics in order to draw better conclusions
about where to increase or intensify social media activities.
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International Journal of Market Research Vol. 57 Issue 2
Examples
Type of social media Name Website
Blogs The Huffington Post huffingtonpost.com
Boing Boing boingboing.net
Business networks LinkedIn linkedin.com
XING xing.com
Collaborative projects Wikipedia wikipedia.org
Mozilla mozilla.org
Enterprise social networks Yammer yammer.com
Socialcast socialcast.com
Forums Gaia Online gaiaonline.com
IGN Boards ign.com/boards
Microblogs Twitter twitter.com
Tumblr tumblr.com
Photo sharing Flickr flickr.com
Photobucket photobucket.com
Products/services review Amazon amazon.com
Elance elance.com
Social bookmarking Delicious delicious.com
Pinterest pinterest.com
Social gaming World of Warcraft warcarft.com
Mafia Wars mafiawars.com
Social networks Facebook facebook.com
Google+ plus.google.com
Video sharing YouTube youtube.com
Vimeo vimeo.com
Virtual worlds Second Life secondlife.com
Twinity twinity.com
Type of
social media Description
Blogs A blog (from ‘web’ and ‘log’) is a chronological list of postings, which can be read
and commented upon by visitors. Blogs are run by both individuals and companies,
which post news or other informational material, such as product tests.
Business Individuals use business networks to establish and maintain professional contacts.
networks Registered users create a personal profile and share personal details such as
the type and duration of their education, professional experience and expert
knowledge. Companies use professional networks primarily to position themselves
as an employer and to search for new employees or experts.
(continued)
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Measuring the degree of corporate social media use
Type of
social media Description
Collaborative Collaborative projects bring together internet users with a common interest
projects and/or certain knowledge in order to plan, develop, improve, analyse and/
or test technological, academic, scientific or fun-oriented projects. The results
(e.g. programs, codes, findings, results, games) are usually distributed as open
source and made available to the public for no charge.
Enterprise Enterprise social networks are open for registration only to employees of a specific
social company or group, offering similar features as social networks, including personal
networks profiles, profile pictures, etc. Companies want to ensure that their employees
know one another and exchange experiences and ideas. This helps to increase the
efficiency of knowledge management within the firm.
Forums A forum is a virtual discussion platform where users can ask and/or answer other
users’ questions and exchange thoughts, opinions or experiences. Communication
here does not happen in real time, like in a chat, but is time delayed and usually
visible to the public.
Microblogs Microblogs restrict the length of postings to approximately 200 characters, which may
be the major reason for their popularity. Postings may include pictures or weblinks.
Users can subscribe to news from other users, companies, brands or celebrities.
Photo Photo-sharing websites offer services such as uploading, hosting, managing and
sharing sharing of photos. Often, the photos can be edited online, organised in albums and
commented upon by other users.
Products/ Product and service reviewing websites sell and provide information about
services products. Customers can evaluate products or certain attributes (e.g. product
review quality) and write or read product reviews.
Social Social bookmarking describes the concept of saving and organising internet
bookmarking bookmarks at a centralised platform in order to share them with friends and other
users. Social bookmarks are a valuable indicator for popular websites and other
web content.
Social Social games are online games that allow or require social interaction between
gaming players, e.g. card or multiplayer games.
Social Social networks connect people that know one another, share common interests or
networks would like to engage in similar activities. Users have an individual profile; they can
be found by other users using their full name, and they upload pictures and videos.
Companies use social networks by creating a corporate profile in order to position
certain brands and to inform and support existing or to win new customers.
Video Video-sharing platforms allow users to upload and share personal, business or
sharing royalty-free videos and to watch them legally. Most websites offer the opportunity
to comment on specific videos. Companies use these social media to share
commercials, to test unconventional promotional videos or to save costs, which are
much lower compared to TV advertising.
Virtual Virtual worlds are populated by many users who can create a personal avatar,
worlds and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its
activities or communicate with others. In contrast to computer games, time continues
even when the user is not logged in. Virtual worlds often use virtual currencies, which
have an actual value, and allow companies to sell virtual or real products.
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Measuring the degree of corporate social media use
Corporate function
Customer
Type of social media R&D Marketing service Sales HR Organisation
Blogs
Business networks
Collaborative projects
Enterprise social networks
Forums
Microblogs
Photo sharing
Products/services review
Social bookmarking
Social gaming
Social networks
Video sharing
Virtual worlds
Importance: (empty) none or almost none; low; medium; high; very high
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Measuring the degree of corporate social media use
Table 4 Monthly active users of the five most important social media as of January 2014
A U platform
SMIFplatform =
∑A U platforms
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As of January 2014, the respective SMIF of the five most important social
media in terms of monthly active users, namely Facebook (social network),
YouTube (video sharing), Google+ (social network), LinkedIn (business
network) and Twitter (microblog), is:
The SMIF determines the relative importance of each social media platform
in the given framework. This is the basis with which it is possible to assess
the use of multiple social media by companies or brands and to show the
big picture, rather than simply the use of a single platform. The number
of social media can easily be reduced or expanded by taking into account
fewer or more websites, e.g. when companies want to exclude irrelevant
social media and include regional or niche platforms in their individual
calculations. When more platforms are included in the model, the relative
importance of each is reduced.
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Measuring the degree of corporate social media use
criteria about how to calculate the use of five individual social media
platforms, namely Facebook (social network), YouTube (video sharing),
Google+ (social network), LinkedIn (business network) and Twitter
(microblog). The use of other social media can be calculated in the same or
in a similar way, depending on the range of applications, e.g. no option for
users to comment on posts.
In order to find the optimal degree of utilisation for each of the five
social media platforms, the activities of the following three well-known
and popular global brands are investigated individually for each platform.
First, Intel Corporation (Intel), an American semiconductor chip maker,
is examined. Second, Samsung Mobile, a business unit of Samsung
Electronics Corporation, a South Korean electronics company, is analysed.
Third, the activities of The Walt Disney Company (Disney), an American
entertainment and media enterprise, are included in the study. Based on the
activities of these three companies, an index of social media use (SMU),
ranging from zero (0 = no use at all) to one (1 = full use) is established.
The average values serve as a benchmark that equals one (1 = full use),
representing the optimal degree of utilisation of the specific platform. Of
course, some companies will exceed the value of one (1 = full use), in which
case their SMU for the respective social media shall be equal to one (1 =
full use). The index is calculated by taking into account publicly available
information about the frequency of social media activity by the brand
(text, picture, video and job postings) as well as the related user reactions
(comments, shares, ‘likes’ and job applications) by its followers, subscribers
or fans (short: fans). As all social media platforms offer different features,
the SMU of a platform (SMUplatform) is a customised function of the number
of the social media activities by the brand and the user reactions to each
individual activity.
While a ‘like’ (or a ‘+1’, ‘thumbs up’, etc., depending on the social media
platform) expresses a certain degree of positive interest, comments may
also be negative and therefore need to be classified accordingly in the
analysis of the five social media. In the case of YouTube, ‘likes’ are weighted
100 times higher than views. Given that positive comments show a higher
degree of identification, they are weighted five times the weight of ‘likes’.
Shares (or retweets’, etc., depending on the social media platform) are
weighted ten times the weight of ‘likes’ or twice the weight of positive
comments because they have an important multiplier effect. Shares are
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International Journal of Market Research Vol. 57 Issue 2
especially valuable since they help companies to acquire new fans and win
new customers by diffusing posts of the brand to other users who are not
part of the brand’s network and are therefore out of direct reach for the
company.
As global brands usually have several accounts on most social media, e.g.
a Facebook account in different countries and/or in different languages,
the corporate account with the highest number of fans of Intel, Samsung
Mobile and Disney was selected for the present study. The data were
collected from 1 November 2013 to 31 December 2013, and include
text, pictures, video and job postings on each of the respective platforms,
which have all been assessed individually. It does not include, however,
announcements of events, replies to customer requests and special activities
such as competitions, unless they are promoted with a traditional text,
picture or video posting. The total number of individually analysed
postings was 695 (59 on Facebook, 166 on YouTube, 46 on Google+,
75 on LinkedIn and 349 on Twitter). Both the analysis of the five social
media platforms and the SMU formulas are adjusted to the type of social
media and its individual applications. In order to calculate the average
values, the user reactions are weighted by the number of corporate social
media activities, e.g. comments by video uploads or job applications by job
postings.
Facebook
On Facebook, it is possible for companies to create dedicated pages, write
postings, as well as upload pictures and videos. Registered users can become
fans of a Facebook page and ‘like’ the message, picture or video, comment
on it, or share it with their individual friends. Table 5 shows the number
of fans, the number of postings, including text messages, uploaded pictures
and videos, as well as the average number of ‘likes’, positive comments and
shares for each of the three analysed corporate Facebook accounts.
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Measuring the degree of corporate social media use
YouTube
On YouTube, companies can create corporate video channels and upload
videos, e.g. product tests, commercials and interviews. The videos can
usually be watched by anyone who visits the website, while ‘liking’ and
commenting on them is restricted to registered users, who can also subscribe
to a channel. Even though videos can be shared in other social media, and
despite the fact that this is an important factor, shares are not considered
in this research, as it is impossible to reveal the number of shares. It is
important to mention that, in contrast to postings in social networks or in
microblogs, where posts are usually popular only for a few days or for as
long as they are visible on the user’s news page, visitors to video-sharing
platforms generally search for videos using the platform’s search function,
and can find and watch videos that were uploaded years earlier. Therefore,
in order to guarantee consistency, the analysis of the SMU of YouTube and
other video-sharing platforms should be done within a time range of two
to ten weeks after the videos have been posted, as it is the case with the
research in this article. In addition, and in contrast to Facebook, users can
‘dislike’ a video. In light of this, Table 6 shows the number of subscribers,
the number of video uploads, the average numbers of views, the adjusted
average number of ‘likes’ minus ‘dislikes’, and the average number of
comments for each of the three corporate YouTube channels analysed.
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International Journal of Market Research Vol. 57 Issue 2
SMU Y ouTube
∅ views + ∅ ‘likes’*100 + ∅ comments*500
= video uploads* *0.025
subscribers
Google+
Similar to Facebook, Google+ offers companies the possibility to create
a dedicated page, write text postings, and upload pictures or videos.
Registered users can add the page to their circle, which means that they
are subscribing for all news posted by the respective Google+ page. If
users like a post, picture or video, they can ‘+1’ (‘like’) or share it with
their individual network. Table 7 shows the number of users who have
the respective page in their circles, the number of posts, including text
messages, uploaded pictures, and videos as well as the average number
of ‘+1s’, positive comments, and shares for each of the three corporate
Google+ accounts included in the analysis.
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Measuring the degree of corporate social media use
LinkedIn
On LinkedIn, companies can create a corporate profile, post news and
publish job offerings. In business networks, traditional text and picture
postings are of low relevance. This becomes evident by both the low number
of postings by corporations and the low number of ‘likes’ and comments.
Based on this, they are not included in the calculation of LinkedIn’s SMU.
Rather than traditional postings, job postings and the number of applicants
per job posting are of high relevance in determining the CSMU. Depending
on the company’s preference, potential applicants can either apply directly
through LinkedIn or are forwarded to the corporate website. In contrast
to all other data collected in this study, the average number of applicants
per job posting is based on the average of the 25 earliest job postings of
the reference period of November and December 2013, as of 15 January
2014. In addition, the number of followers is not used to calculate the
SMU, as it is not connected to the number of applicants. Nevertheless, the
information is provided in Table 8, which shows the number of followers,
the number of employees according to the most recent annual report, the
number of job postings, and the average number of applicants per job
posting for each of the three corporate LinkedIn accounts analysed.
In the case of LinkedIn, the number of job postings is adjusted by the
number of employees in order to consider the relationship between the size
of a company and its vacancies. Companies can use the following formula
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International Journal of Market Research Vol. 57 Issue 2
to calculate the SMU of LinkedIn and will receive a value between zero
(0 = no use at all) and one (1 = full use). The result of the equation can
exceed the optimal value of one, in which case the SMU shall be equal to
one.
job postings
SMU LinkedIn = * ∅ applicants*17.8
employees
Twitter
On Twitter, companies can create an account and post short tweets (text
or picture postings) with a maximum length of 140 characters. Registered
users can add the tweets to their favourites (similar to ‘likes’), post an answer
(comment) or retweet (share) the message. However, the answers to posts
are not taken into account when calculating the SMU of Twitter, as it is
difficult to identify which and how many answers are actually related to a
specific post. Table 9 therefore shows the number of followers, the number
of postings as well as the average number of favourites and retweets for each
Table 9 Twitter activities of selected companies in November and December 2013
∅ favourites + ∅ retweets*10
SMU Twitter = posts* *17.3
followers
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Measuring the degree of corporate social media use
CSMU company = SMU Facebook * 0.37 + SMU Y ouTube * 0.31 + SMU Google+ * 0.17
+ SMU LinkedIn * 0.08 + SMU Facebook * 0.07
Table 10 Degree of corporate social media use by Intel, Samsung Mobile and Disney
Company name
Description Intel Samsung Mobile Disney
SMUFacebook 0.69 >1 = 1 >1 =1
SMUYouTube 0.98 >1 = 1 0.18
SMUGoogle+ 0.40 >1 = 1 >1 = 1
SMULinkedIn >1 = 1 >1 = 1 >1 = 1
SMUTwitter >1 = 1 0.82 >1 = 1
CSMU 0.777 0.987 0.746
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International Journal of Market Research Vol. 57 Issue 2
four platforms in the best possible way, but has a CSMU of just 0.746. This
can be explained by the fact that the company has a low SMU of YouTube
(0.18), which is the second most important platform, with a weight of 31%
in the present model. On the contrary, Intel is using two platforms to their
full extent and three platforms in a suboptimal way, but has a higher CSMU
(0.777) than Disney, because its efforts to use the different social media are
more balanced.
Discussion
The model presented in this article can help market researchers and
marketing managers to measure and compare the degree of corporate
social media use (CSMU), both for individual platforms and for up to
five different social media. It might be the basis for performance analyses
and used as a tool to optimise the number and frequency of activities on
different social media. If there is a need or interest to assess individually
or include other social media in the model other than Facebook, YouTube,
Google+, LinkedIn or Twitter, this can easily be done by following
the same approach that has been used in this article. On the one hand,
academics will find this model a helpful tool to study the world of social
media because it provides a simple, clear and consistent framework that
allows comparison of the use of social media among brands, companies,
markets and industries. Furthermore, the CSMU enhances the general
comparability of quantitative studies about the use of social media. On
the other hand, practitioners can apply it in order to identify where to
increase or reduce social media activities. In addition, the CSMU helps
companies understand whether or not to allocate or shift human and
financial resources, which increases the probability of success in the online
world. The CSMU is a powerful yet easy to understand indicator that
allows companies to monitor internal social media activities, build industry
averages and keep track of their competitors.
There are, however, some limitations that need to be taken into
account. First, the model is not intended to be used for new accounts or
for accounts with very few fans. Generally speaking, it is recommended to
use the CSMU for companies with at least 1,000 fans or followers in each
social network, which is typically not a difficult number for any business
to achieve. Second, elements like fan drop-off, ‘unlikes’ and corporate
micro-management of content, such as the deletion or modification
of posts, have not been considered in the current model because they
are hard or impossible to track for outsiders. Third, only global social
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Measuring the degree of corporate social media use
media have been taken into account to build the model presented in this
research. Of course, regional social media, such as the Russian social
network VK (vk.com), should be taken into account by local or national
companies and in order to assess certain markets, which requires the
additional effort to recalculate the SMIF and to create a SMU equation
for the respective platform. However, it should be noted again that this
article provides all necessary information and instructions for building
both the SMIF for any social media and the respective SMU equations for
most platforms. Fourth, the CSMU does not permit the drawing of direct
conclusions with respect to the success of a company’s or a brand’s social
media activities, as a number of other factors, e.g. virality, play a crucial
role. Therefore, social media metrics need to be taken into account, and
should be utilised in conjunction with the CSMU in order to assess the
return on investment of both human and financial resources in social
media activities.
During the research for this paper, a number of additional findings
emerged, which are briefly described in the following. It is striking that
the behaviour of users of the two social networks Facebook and Google+
is quite different. On the one hand, corporate Facebook accounts generate
one ‘like’ per 1,393 fans, while they need only 956 followers on average
on Google+ to receive one ‘+1’. On the other hand, one in 21,700
Facebook fans shares a post, compared to one share for every 9,500
Google+ followers. Users on Google+ are therefore more than twice as
likely to share the news and activities of the brands and companies they
are following. As already mentioned, it is particularly important that
postings are shared by users in order to reach their individual connections.
Therefore, these numbers show that the quantity of fans alone is not a
good indicator of the success of a brand on social networks. Another fact
is that each of the analysed companies, compared to the other two, has the
highest number of fans on at least one social media platform. While Disney
is leading the statistics of the most fans on Facebook, Intel has the highest
number of followers on both Google+ as well as LinkedIn, and Samsung
Mobile outperforms the other companies on both YouTube and Twitter.
These differences can be partly explained by the fact that social media
platforms have different target user groups. Another possible explanation
may be that companies are focusing their attention and/or allocating their
budgets unequally. It is especially striking that Disney has the lowest SMU
on YouTube, which is a key platform to advertise movies and TV series.
Overall, it can be seen that Intel is posting the highest number of messages
and uploading most videos, but receives the lowest number of views,
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International Journal of Market Research Vol. 57 Issue 2
‘likes’, comments and shares, while Samsung Mobile’s and Disney’s posts
seem to be more popular among their fans and followers.
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