LITERATURE REVIEW - SOCIAL MEDIA
2.3 Social Media and Image Formation
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core of the environmental view of Internet freedom” (Shirky, 2011a: 34). Shirky’s main point is that Social Media is not a replacement for real actions, but a supplement, a tool to coordinate the public and strengthen civil society.
These views entailed an enormous amount of literature, especially after the break out of the ‘new’ Arab revolts in the beginning of 2011. Malcolm Gladwell (Gladwell, 2011) addresses the question of whether these uprisings could have happened in the absence of Social Media. Similarly, Lisa Anderson (Anderson, 2011) refers back to the protests of the Arab world in 1919 when there was no Social Media and indeed, there wasn’t even a need of it to spark upheavals. Shirky (2011b) replies that Social Media only provides a tool for altering the picture of the public sphere. It enables citizens to raise their voice, express their opinions and organize actions at a higher level than before these tools were at hand. Social Media cannot substitute traditional media, but should be a supplement of it.
The above discussion serves as a proof for the power of Social Media, indicated by political related discourses. It is clear that Social Media offers a range of possibilities, however, those are not entirely exploited yet.
2.3 Social Media and Image Formation
Many studies have pointed out the role of Social Media in political image shaping.
Election campaigns on Social Networking Sites, candidate-blogs, politically centered Facebook groups, public summons are all examples of Social Media usage for attracting public attention and influencing public opinion. However, the role of Social Media to provide governments and businesses with a practical way to reexamine how they do things, to monitor how they are perceived by the public, and to change practices in a way that improves their images, have not yet been fully understood.
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Landsbergen (2010: 135) claimed that Social Media is a response to the increased need for social communication, and the government [and businesses have] to understand how Social Media can support these needs: First, the expansion and universal accessibility of
‘human networks’ as a third institution besides the government and the private sector makes it urgent to get access to the control of the flow of information. Second, the focus on one-way or broadcast communication via traditional media has shifted to a two-way or interactive communication proceeded through Social Media. In addition, rather than only using texts, Social Media allows a simple usage of video and audio (multimedia) as well. Since humans are visual creatures, multimedia can make a greater impact than texts. These three characteristics facilitate and hasten communication.
The private and public sectors have the chance to be an integral part of these networks and thus, participate in the process of information shaping or stay on the margin and let the information flow to take its own path. Users of networks encounter fewer communication barriers through “the reduction of formality, the highly interactive and rapid nature of technology, and the blurring of what public and private is” (Landsbergen, 2010: 136). Hereby, if it stays on the margin, Social Media will still ‘operate’ and its technology will enable people to interact, share, collaborate and construct ideas and information (see p. 20).
Edosomwan et al. (2011: 85-86) listed the following as the most important benefits of Social Media in the case of businesses: it strengthens “brand experience which will support brand building [and thus] a company becomes more attractive to the customers…As a result, Social Media will help in building a good reputation for a business organization… Social Media forum acts as a powerful way to communicate the brand value and brand attributes as they facilitate open forms of communication.” Social Media “helps to communicate collaboratively between current and potential customers, in receiving feedback, product
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definition, product development, or any forms of customer service and support… it becomes a good venue for discussions and becomes a classic goal of marketing and communications.”
By establishing a new forum for stakeholders or simply becoming a part of the existing ones, companies can build good reputation and advocacy, moreover control the flow of negative information and rumors. Social Media is a cost effective way to advertise and market the products of the company, moreover, attain a feedback from customers, react to these opinions and make a customer-to-customer conversation as well. The most significant feature of Social Media is the creation and encouragement of discussion or interactive communication, which guides all of the aforementioned benefits (Edosomwan et al., 2011:
86-87).
Hastings and Saperstein (2010) referred to an example of the Microsoft’s advertising agency (Wunderman), about how corporations can apply Social Media to infiltrate into customer dialogues. The author claimed that businesses need to acknowledge the fact that today, current and potential consumers have to be involved in shaping the company’s activities and developing product features, via extensive dialogues with customers. With the existence and easy accessibility of Social Media technology, such interaction is not unattainable anymore.
Microsoft launched a project called ‘Heroes Happen Here’ (HHH) in 2008. In the frame of this campaign, Microsoft organized events in 61 cities to promote three of its new products. What Microsoft soon discovered was that Social Media played an enormous role in increasing market participation in the events (Hissom, 2011). The aim became to improve dialogue between the company and its customers via Social Media. Michael Joseph, the account director for the HHH campaign, stated that “consumers are actively gathering information to really determine – no matter what a company may say or how a company might position itself – what a brand and offering are all about. There always has been the
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power of referrals and peer-to-peer word of mouth. But technology just makes it much easier and more scalable for opinions to be formed quickly and perceptions to be influenced. Social Media, developed through web 2.0 products, now redefines customer communications”
(Hastings and Saperstein, 2010).
Microsoft engaged with different types of Social Media channels and entered into conversations to monitor perceptions and attitude toward the company. It could obtain information on what topics people are concerned about, how the companies overall reputation is and what the most influential Social Media channels are. As a matter of fact, Microsoft could learn about consumer desires in real-time. The project was based on the conviction that customers are no longer waiting to be addressed by businesses, but they are reaching out as the Internet makes it possible for them (Hastings and Saperstein, 2010). Therefore, a company needs to research and understand consumer needs and perceptions via these channels, rather than attempt to make an influence through traditional advertising.
Microsoft launched a program, which made it possible to monitor conversations in real-time through a system, which could scan Social Media by keywords. Microsoft could listen to people, understand them and join to their discussion. Although it is certainly a good way for reaching customers, but simply establishing blogs, user forums, voting polls can provide companies with similar tools to understand current public impressions of the company and its products, and even serve to form these perceptions (Hastings and Saperstein, 2010; Hissom, 2011). A major point is to understand that Social Media has already become a part of our lives and it is in fact harder to ignore it than to engage with it.
Tewksbury et al. (2001) researched unintentional news-information gathering as disclosed on Social Media channels. The authors found evidence that unintentional exposure can lead to great knowledge of current affairs. Although traditional media already has made
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this possible, but now “the Web provides the infrastructure for a much wider dissemination of breaking news headlines” (Tewksbury et al., 2001: 547).
Similarly, Baresch et al. (2011) was interested in the role of Social Networking Sites, particularly that of Facebook, in unintentional information transmission. They stated that since there is so much information in our environment, we are overwhelmed and tend to rely on filters. The authors called this the social filter as contrasted to the professional filter of traditional media and defined it as a technological version of the old political tool: word of mouth (Baresch et al., 2011: 7). They argued that Social Networking Sites (with Facebook taking the leading role) are not only becoming news services, but also searching engines. In addition, just the simple “likes” on these sites can transmit information to hundreds of other members, not to mention “posts” carrying even more information. These functions are becoming more important to businesses as well. “The e-commerce platform company ChompOn (2011) estimated that “likes” on Facebook are each worth $8 for its clients in terms of the immediate next sale” (Baresch et al., 2011: 8).
In conclusion, Social Media exists and it is used by a great amount of people. Among others, it stands as a way of informal, open and two-way communication, as a cost-effective marketing channel and as a platform for information transmission. Governments and businesses both can turn it to their own advantage if they know how to adapt to it.
Information shapes images as it turns into impressions and perceptions about any organization.
In order to control this information flow, organizations have the chance to engage in communication with the public via Social Media.
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