the marketing review

Social media marketing and advertising

Yogesh K. Dwivedi, Swansea University, UK*
Kawaljeet Kaur Kapoor, Brunel University London, UK
Hsin Chen, University of Bedfordshire, UK

Introduction

Over recent years, social media has grown to gain recognition as a pronounced
and paramount marketing factor guiding the success of a product/service/
business (Hawkins & Vel, 2013). Durkin (2013) claims that people in the
early 1990s had begun forming opinions that the Internet would become
the next futuristic tool of relationship marketing. When referring to social
media, three aspects often come to mind: 1) Web 2.0; 2) websites that
facilitate networking and marketing (Gurney, Chambers, Grant, Shah, &
Sullivan, 2004; Vila & Kuster, 2004); and 3) the huge volume of information
propagation (Willi, Melewar, & Broderick, 2013). Tabloid newspapers, on the
formation of the phrase ‘social media’, suggest names such as Tina Sharkey

*Correspondence details and biographies for the authors are located at the end of the article.

The Marketing Review, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 289-309

http://dx.doi.org/10.1362/146934715X14441363377999
ISSN1469-347X print / ISSN 1472-1384 online ©Westburn Publishers Ltd.
290 The Marketing Review, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 3

(Babycentre.com, CEO), Ted Leonsis (Entrepreneur, ex AOL executive), Steve

Case (founder, AOL), Darrell Berry (writer/researcher), and Chris Shipley
(cofounder, Guidewire Group), as claiming to have been the first people to
have used the aforementioned phrase. Reinhard, Satow and Fadil (2012)
and Weber (2007) support claims that put Chris Shipley in the limelight for
having used the phrase social media for the first time. All these claims travel
back to the first usage of this term in the early 1990s.
Most people regard social media as a mere platform available for
sharing their daily updates and pictures on social networking sites such
as Facebook and Twitter (Papasolomou & Melanthiou, 2012). In a more
informed light, social media has proved itself to be a low cost information
exchange platform available for one and all, be they consumers, businesses,
organisations, governments, or any other entity, to learn, educate, share,
build, market, advertise, and improve on the central idea being circulated.
Recently, social media marketing (SMM) has branched out of social media
to become tech strategists’ favoured platform for marketing purposes, over
conventional marketing. Electronic word of mouth forms the basis of this
form of marketing. Weinberg (2009) defines SMM as an integrative process
aimed at promoting goods and services over platforms of social media which
has the potential to target a far wider consumer base in comparison to the
traditional forms of marketing.
There is a huge body of literature emerging on SMM which is widely
scattered across various categories. Being a fairly recent branch of literature,
it lacks the deserved synthesis, and thus, this paper is aimed at collating
the diverse extant literature on SMM to synthesise and present succinct
understandings into the dynamics of social media marketing. The remaining
part of this paper has been structured as follows - the paper begins by
defining SMM, followed by synthesising the literature available on SMM.
The next sections briefly discuss the synthesised literature, collate research
directions for the future, and list the limitations in this body of literature. The
last section will bring out our key conclusions.

Defining social media marketing

The literature showcases the different emerging definitions for social media
marketing (SMM). According to Pentina and Koh (2012), SMM triggers viral
communications amongst consumers across online communities, brand
and fan pages, and promotion-related content generated by companies/
organisations on popular networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook,
and many others. Jara, Parra and Skarmeta (2014) define SMM as a new
generation marketing tool, encouraging higher attention and participation
from consumers through the use of social networks. Kim and Ko (2012)
describe SMM as an empathy driven communication for young consumers,
with efforts also being targeted at consumers belonging to older age bands.
Richter and Schafermeyer (2011), on the other hand, regard SMM as a
marketing strategy engaging with social platforms to facilitate a two way
communication with consumers. In amalgamating understandings from the
available literature (Jara et al., 2014; Kim & Ko, 2012; Pentina & Koh, 2012;
Richter & Schafermeyer, 2011), SMM can rather be defined as
 Dwivedi, Kapoor & Chen Social media marketing and advertising 291

a dialogue often triggered by consumers/audiences, or a business/

product/service that circulates amongst the stated parties to set in motion
revealing communications on some promotional information, or that
allows learning from one another’s use experiences, eventually benefitting
all of the involved parties.

Synthesising literature on social media marketing

As mentioned in our introduction, the literature on SMM is vast. To synthesise

this literature, it was essential to gain access to the relevant publications.
The search engine, Scopus was used for extracting publications, using either
social media marketing or social media advertising as the two keywords to
be present in the title of those publications. The keyword search for the
relevant literature on social media marketing fetched seventy-one studies,
altogether. These studies were grouped under 11 different categories on
the basis of the area in which SMM was being explored. These categories
were - healthcare and wellbeing, analytics and sentiment analysis, return on
investments, advertising, education, small and medium enterprises (SMEs),
brand fans and followers, banking, general marketing, music industry, mobile
marketing, and RFID. These 71 retrieved articles will be individually discussed
for their key issues across the 12 subsections within this section.

SMM in healthcare and wellbeing

There were nine studies mainly investing efforts in evaluating the role of
SMM in the healthcare and wellbeing industry. Thackeray, Neiger, Hanson
and McKenzie (2008), in their study, suggest that SMM will allow health
practitioners to establish a direct relationship with their clients, and as
such, health promotion planners need to put forward their creative best to
integrate SMM within their strategies to make full use of its potential in
marketing their products. Taubenheim et al. (2008) ran a pilot project to
direct traffic to a webpage dedicated to a health awareness campaign on
heart disease in women. They reported that their SMM advertising turned
out to be cost efficient and helped create a viral impact in promoting the
heart truth message to reach out to a wide range of women, ultimately
showing a drop in the death rate of women from heart disease in 2008
(which is the year when the heart truth team employed SMM) in comparison
to 2002 (which is the year when the heart truth team came into being).
St. Clergy (2012) promoted the use of SMM by medical practitioners to
help them attract new patients. SMM was presented as a highly impactful
networking tool to make a practice visible in a network for encouraging and
propagating referrals through known and trusted people to ensure effective
message communication.
Frandsen, Walters and Ferguson (2013) investigated the viability of
employing social media for appointing a community sample of smokers
for participating in clinical trials. They used both traditional media (flyers,
newspapers) and social media (Facebook) to recruit treatment-seeking
smokers. The participant samples were compared for their demographics,
smoking characteristics, and associated recruitment costs. They concluded
that both forms of media fared equally well, with a special mention about
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social media being more advantageous than the traditional forms of

recruitment. Gupta, Tyagi and Sharma (2013), in reviewing the literature on
SMM in healthcare, mention that few studies explored the role of this media
form in healthcare. They recognise social media to be a boon when it comes
to communicating issues related to public health in general, and in times
of crisis, and declare it to be the most fitting option for making the general
public informed and aware of health related concerns.
A 2013 report by Williams presses on the topic of behavioural marketing,
whereby a critical need for preventing social media from directly marketing
unhealthy foods to adolescents is expressed. The study instead proposes a
rightful and conscious use of social media, whereby measures should be put
in place to promote healthier eating habits especially amongst the youth
(Williams, 2013).
Moving on to wellbeing, Orsini (2010) looks at SMM in homecare.
Whilst many other studies raise the point that one of the problems with
social media is that it is being mostly used by young people, Orsini (2010)
interestingly claims that senior citizens form one of the largest user groups
on Facebook. Orsini identifies blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as the
four most used SMM platforms, and recommends that readers use these
platforms to access and give out home healthcare related information.
Lagrosen and Grundén (2014) investigate the role of SMM across seven spa
hotels, and report that these hotels under-utilise SMM as only a business to
consumer communication medium, as opposed to a consumer to business
interaction tool.
Abrahams’ (2012) research was focused on examining how social media
such as Facebook and YouTube are being used to promote the use of infant
formula, compared to those media promoting the use of breast milk. The
research identifies 11 formula brands available in the US which are on
social media. Abraham identifies some code violations that have remained
unmonitored in the process. Mackey and Liang (2013) explored the darker
side of unregulated SMM by posting fake adverts on Facebook, Google+,
Twitter, and MySpace on illicitly selling ‘no-prescription’ drugs online over
a period of 10 months. The results reveal that this direct to consumer
advertising strategy attracted over 2,500 visitors from all over the world,
with no social media authorities questioning or doubting the presence of
such illicit ads and web links. Along a parallel plane, Miller (2013) accused
social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube of being guilty
of miscommunication, or in other words, communicating and propagating
poorly moderated or wrong information on health-related issues.

Social media analytics and sentiment analysis

According to Cvijikj and Michahelles (2011), capturing consumer feelings
associated with a brand/product is a key element for monitoring social media.
Bruner (2011) looked into what a ‘like’ on a social media site really indicates.
They question Facebook’s metric system and address its lack of ability to point
at the site that directs traffic to a fan page, eventually leading to the ‘likes’
for posts and pictures on that page. Chan and Guillet (2011) used secondary
data from 23 social media sites to investigate the spread of SMM across 67
Hong Kong hotels. They make suggestions along the lines of the importance
of understanding SMM and its roles at different levels, involvement of the
 Dwivedi, Kapoor & Chen Social media marketing and advertising 293

hotel staff in managing SMM, opting for the right social media, generating
content of interest to the guests on such media, sustainable strategies, and
quick access to the hotel’s media page; all of these to be followed through
for effective SMM.
Saravanakumar and SuganthaLakshmi (2012) divide social media and
its forms across eight different categories to emphasise its utilisation by
different types of businesses to promote their brands and interact with their
customers to achieve maximum exposure and visibility. They rank social media
highly as an impactful marketing media. Cambria, Grassi, Hussain and Havasi
(2012) offer an SMM tool in their study that uses artificial intelligence and
semantic techniques to capture and manage user opinions and sentiments
over the web. They propose it as being useful for marketers, as well as users
themselves, for effectively managing information on brands and products
available via social media.
Fan, Zhang, Dang and Chen (2013) employ an integrated framework for
examining the sentiments of Chinese social media users. They use the elastic
net model and support vector machine to undertake two experimental
studies. The ability to interpret offered by the elastic net is revealed to be
promising when it comes to sentiment analysis in social media. Podobnik
(2013) carried out a case study of premier league brands to analyse the
performance indicators of SMM via Facebook. The study proposes and tests
varied hypotheses, and concludes that these sport brands should invest
dedicated efforts in widening their fan base, whilst the managers of these
brands should protect the brands against any fraudulent activities pursued
in the name of the brand by bogus fans on social media. Vorvoreanu,
Boisvenue, Wojtalewicz and Dietz (2013) employ social media analytics
via Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, using keyword and hashtag searches for
assessing people’s perceptions of Indianapolis when it was hosting super
bowl XLVI. They associated the credibility of social media for allowing a real-
time sentiment monitoring of the public, with social media faring better than
traditional media for successful marketing.

SMM and return on investments

Hoffman and Fodor (2010) list and talk about the importance of many social
metrics across brand awareness and engagement that typically capture
brand-specific behaviours (posts/tweets) on social media; they link the use
of such social metrics with marketers becoming capable of putting desirable
cost-effective strategies in place which are sufficient to attract handsome
returns on their investments. Lugmayr (2012) discusses the general role
of social media in advertising and promotion, narrowing it down to its
application as a financial product, particularly for share-trading in the stock
exchange market. They place special emphasis on the timely distribution of
information as being the remarkable quality of social media in comparison
to the other traditional forms. In an alternative type of study, Kumar and
Mirchandani (2012) propose a seven-step method for SMM to increase
returns on investment. They developed metrics such as ‘customer influence
effect’ and ‘customer influence value’ to assist effective SMM that can
reveal important information at organisation and consumer levels. Kumar
and Sundaram (2012) evaluate and recommend regulated SMM where an
encouraging environment is created, where users feel motivated to share
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information on businesses within their social networks. They suggest that

this type of SMM is fitting where flexible marketing and higher returns on
investments are desired. Similarly, Kumar, Bhaskaran, Mirchandani and Shah
(2013) demonstrate use of social media for generating growth in sales,
return on investments, and positive word of mouth.

Social media advertising

Hensel and Deis (2010) bring to the fore the pluses and minuses of using
social media. They suggest that businesses and entrepreneurs should be fully
informed by being up to date with their presence over social media. They also
suggest that businesses should be constantly monitoring the same to learn
from consumer feedback, and at the same time to ensure that no third party
is attempting to defame them. Ramsay (2010), on the other hand, picks on
the etiquette to be followed on social media. They suggest general ‘dos and
don’ts’ for active users of social media and lay out custom specific etiquette
for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn users. Carmichael and Cleave
(2012) advertised on Facebook and monitored two advertisements to capture
the user-advert interaction and its effectiveness for small businesses. For the
amount a small business would invest in such social media advertising, they
found that this form of advertising could substantially improve the visibility of
such businesses and easily direct consumer traffic to the advertised business
page.
Gu and Wang (2012) study the data from 100 enterprises to identify
the problems that arise from the use of microblogging for marketing. They
use ‘comment’ and ‘forwarding’ statistics for their analysis, which they also
recognise are the two significant indicators utilised by enterprises to measure
SMM outputs. They elaborate on the apparent flaw, whereby enterprises
register in haste, but fail to attract substantial attention from their target
users; they conclude that SMM can produce potential results, provided
there is sufficient customer interaction, feedback, and efficient moderation
of the content posted on social media. Powers, Advincula, Austin, Graiko
and Snyder (2012) present an excerpt from extensive research on the role
of social media in consumer purchase behaviour. Combined qualitative
and quantitative research was conducted, involving some big names, such
as General Motors, Google, and others. The results show that consumer
empowerment has achieved a new high with social media, and has opened
platforms for brands and their consumers to openly communicate and
connect, adding value for both parties.
Minton, Lee, Orth, Kim and Kahle (2012) engage in gathering data from
the US, Germany, and South Korea on motives behind using Facebook and
Twitter in the sustainable marketing context using philosophies of psychology.
The study concludes that South Korea leads with social media initiatives
involving sustainable behaviours, with Germany taking a lead specifically on
recycling initiatives. Khang, Ki and Ye (2012) review the literature available on
social media and find out that most SMM-related studies are directed at the
users and uses of social media, and that the numbers of such studies have
increased since the introduction of Facebook and Twitter in 2004 and 2006,
respectively. Okazaki and Taylor (2013) study the existing literature on social
media in international advertising and identify network capability, image
transferability, and personal extensibility to be the three important theoretical
 Dwivedi, Kapoor & Chen Social media marketing and advertising 295

paradigms offering substantial insights into the pluses and minuses of social
media advertising.

SMM in education
In the education field, Richter and Schafermeyer (2011) examine the SMM of
an organisation run by students, whilst paying specific attention to related
activities on Facebook and Twitter. They conclude that SMM complements
traditional marketing strategies in conveying timely information, and
maintaining interaction and transparency. Reinhard et al. (2012) explore
student involvement in developing a marketing strategy to transform a non-
profit community into a profit yielding healthcare company assisting people
seeking to quit smoking. They show how devising an SMM strategy was an
enriching learning experience for the students, and justify its inclusion in the
curriculum, and mark it highly for its practical experience in comparison to
the traditional educational methods.
In another type of study (Palmer, 2012), SMM via Facebook is used to
advertise an academic programme. Contrary to its expectations, Facebook
advertising did not fetch any student applications for the advertised
programme. The study concludes that it is not sufficient to just advertise
on a social networking site; to reap the benefits of SMM, it is important
to dedicate time for monitoring user responses, and interacting with the
individual users. Zehrer and Grabmuller (2012) investigate an Austrian
educational institution’s SMM strategy in using social networking sites to
actively engage with students interested in tourism education. Facebook
emerged a winner with it being the media most used by students. They
emphasise the importance of effective management of a social networking
page and present the pluses and minuses of such SMM in higher education.
Luo, Wang and Han (2013) examine the perception of students of a China-
based academic library’s online video marketing campaign. Their study
reveals that the posted content, the humour induced within that content,
use of social media, and partnering engagements with the students were the
success factors of the campaign being investigated.

SMM and SMEs

A UK based study by Michaelidou, Siamagka and Christodoulides (2011)
investigates the barriers and benefits of using SMM by SMEs. Whilst
confirming the relevance of business with the social networking site that
is being chosen for implementing the SMM strategies, prior mindsets and
lack of familiarity and training are identified as obvious barriers to the
acceptance of SMM by SMEs. Mention is made of the rising awareness of
SMM benefits, such as customer interaction and stronger identity creation,
amongst the same SMEs. Pentina and Koh (2012) invest efforts in developing
a typology of SMM strategies generally employed by the SMEs, which
are basically governed by the nature and objectives of those SMEs. They
recommend employing a strategic mix of SMM and other communication
forms to achieve best results. A Macedonian study by Fetaji and Demiri
(2012) empirically evaluates the acceptance of SMM by SMEs and shows
that perceived usefulness significantly influences the intention to use social
media. The revelation which emerges is that most SMEs in Macedonia are
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inclined towards traditional approaches and they see SMM as a threat, a

view that is expected to diminish in the near future, with SMM eventually
emerging as a winner.

SMM and brand fans and followers

Kim and Ko (2012) empirically examine the influence of SMM on 362
luxury fashion brand users’ intentions. Their findings show that SMM has a
dramatic positive influence where the brand-consumer interaction enhances
the unique brand value, which traditional marketing often fails to offer.
Cvijikj and Michahelles (2011) monitored a Facebook brand page for over
a year to analyse the consumer comments. The authors suggest marketers
have an understanding of the content that people share and their motivation
for doing so. They identify requests and suggestions from participants as
the common intention behind use of the brand page. De Vries, Gensler and
Leeflang (2012) consider 11 international brands and the impact they make
on their customers through their presence on social networking sites. They
find that creating a brand page does increase brand popularity, and insist
on the importance of lending an ear to what the brand users have to say
to address and interact with them efficiently and to reap the full benefits of
using SMM.
Lipsman, Mudd, Rich and Bruich (2012) place special interest in Facebook
and similar social media as common platforms shared by brands and their
consumers. They propose the use of a measurement approach that offers a
deeper insight into the types of audience to enable marketers to better align
their strategies via SMM. In an article by Mccluskey (2012), on the long-term
effects of SMM, one of the field experts strongly suggests that the brand
pages on SMM should not just be aiming to increase the number of fans/
followers but instead they should be focusing on engaging with those fans
in an active manner in different ways to earn their loyalty and to establish
a strong customer-brand connection. Mcluskey strongly recommends using
a social media site/platform that closely resonates with the product/service
being marketed.
Petty (2012) discusses some social media attacks that some brands have
encountered. This study suggests that brands should be mindful of monitoring
the social media content of relevance to them, and carefully regulating any
negative threads running across social media. Petty (2012) recommends
judicious use of the available legal tools to combat the negativities relating
to them, which may be circulating on social media sites. Shen and Bissell
(2013) investigate the use of Facebook by top beauty brands to make an
impact by establishing communications with their customers using social
media. They study different beauty brands by analysing the Facebook pages
and the content posted by these brands. The study concludes that engaging
in electronic word of mouth as an important part of the branding strategies
to enhance brand image has become a ruling strategy with most of the
beauty brands.

SMM and banking

Ramirez (2010) offers tips for integrating social media in recruiting bank
employees, alongside cost savings. The author begins with stressing the
 Dwivedi, Kapoor & Chen Social media marketing and advertising 297

importance of clarity of strategy, and then lists and details the available social
networking sites (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Google) for
attracting prospective quality candidates. Mitic and Kapoulas (2012) carry
out three case studies to explore relationship marketing in retail banking in
South East Europe. Their study revealed that owing to security issues and
poorly aligned relationship management strategies, customers did not prefer
to use social media to interact with banks. Chikandiwa, Contogiannis and
Jembere (2013) examine the SMM models used by South African banks to
create an online presence. While at one end, the use of SMM is encouraged,
at the other, some legal factors surface as barriers to its acceptance.
Although slowly diffusing, presently these banks are pursuing SMM mostly
via Facebook and Twitter.

Social media and marketing

Kaun (2010) writes an article for early SMM enthusiasts, warning that
creating only a profile on social media sites could be unfruitful, unless the
SMM employed is manoeuvred in the right direction. Kaun emphasises the
importance of interactivity and community building, whilst offering basic
sustainable tips for achieving successful SMM. Al Tenaiji and Cader (2010)
explore the extent of SMM usage in UAE organisations and report that it is
still picking up pace in the country and has gained recognition only recently.
They list awareness, advertising, and feedback as the top three motivators
of organisations behind their use of SMM. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and
Flickr were identified at the most used sites for SMM purposes. They highlight
the flaw of SMM under-utilisation, whereby organisations focus more on
communicating to, rather than interacting with, the users on social media.
Akar and Topçu (2011) empirically analyse data gathered from an
academic university where they developed a consumer-based scale to test
hypotheses, and found that the majority of respondents used sites such
as YouTube and Facebook; their usage of these sites defined their attitude
towards SMM. They highlighted that users on social media do not have
a positive perception of SMM activities, and the marketers should more
actively concentrate on producing relevant content on such sites rather
than depending on user activity to propagate the needful. Ralphs (2011)
talks about social currency, which in their article, has been recognised as the
value a business/individual can yield out of being entertaining. Ralphs lays
all emphasis on spotting and building one’s social currency for achieving
successful SMM. Kaplan and Haenlein (2011) discuss the concept of viral
marketing and evaluate the importance of message content, messengers,
and environment. They identify and discuss four categories of such viral
marketing campaigns and offer suggestions from the managerial perspective
for achieving such successful campaigns. Chen, Fay and Wang (2011) study
how the consumer-posted reviews over social media tend to change with
different stages of product maturity. They consider marketing variables and
empirically analyse automobile data from 2001 and 2008 to observe the
evolution of consumer reviews over time.
Ketter and Avraham (2012) discuss place marketing to explore the distinct
roles that audiences are capable of playing as distributors of content, and/or
content creators, showing how SMM can make traditional marketing seem
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entirely outdated. Geho and Dangelo (2012) emphasise the issue of being
up-to-date with any business or entrepreneur’s presence on social media.
They show how social media sites such as Twitter offer all sizes of businesses
a space to market their business campaigns, which should all be done with
a carefully measured amount of caution. Berthon, Pitt, Plangger and Shapiro
(2012) study the managerial perspective on marketing and social media by
proposing five axioms, to conclude how critical it is to stay fully informed of
the current technology, consumer needs, of establishing a connection with
those consumers, training employees with new ways of doing things, and
keeping senior management well informed of the opportunities presented
by social media.
Papasolomou and Melanthiou (2012) contrast social media in public
relations marketing against traditional marketing. They state that SMM takes
marketing public relations to a higher level by creating increased opportunities
where marketers can establish a direct communication with their audience
to propagate ‘buzz’ created for a brand/product. Eagleman (2013) conducts
an online survey across employees of US-based sports’ national governing
bodies to discover that these employees majorly used Facebook and Twitter,
amongst other social media. The study concludes that irrespective of the
respondent demographics, these respondents confirmed increased use of
social media, alongside a revelation that the governing bodies mostly used
social media to communicate rather than for marketing purposes. Recine,
Prichard and Chaudhury (2013) undertake a case study on American Power
Conversion (APC), a part of the European firm, Schneider Electric. The study
concentrates on how APC as an organisation is dealing with the problems of
integrating social media with their existing systems. The global social media
director of APC is reported as recognising APC’s social media presence as still
growing, which is expected to be decentralised in the near future.
A Mauritius-based study by Froget, Baghestan and Asfaranjan (2013)
evaluates Facebook use by employing the uses and gratification theory on a
sample of 392 respondents. The results reveal that Facebook is majorly used
by people for entertainment and discussion purposes, alongside showing
how the use of Facebook differs across users with different income levels.
Thompson (2013) in their article encourages engaging with the target
audience, fully utilising freely available web tools, being aware of competition,
being aware of one’s social impact, identifying which website has the target
consumers for your business, and keeping a contingency plan ready, as the
‘dos’ of social media. At the same time, they identify over-investing, web
silence, over-promoting, and considering SMM as only a marketing medium,
as the ‘don’ts’ of social media.
Zhou and Wang (2014) discuss the topic of city marketing for three
major Chinese cities using SMM within their study, which is basically the
promotion of an urban city under the concept of place management. They
identify microblogging to be the most widespread social media form in
China. They see people posting negative opinions of their tourism experience
as a major problem, which eventually becomes difficult to tackle, putting the
cities’ reputation under threat. They also point out how the authenticity and
validity of such posted information is questionable. Interestingly, they also
bring to the fore the issue of low income groups not having access to such
 Dwivedi, Kapoor & Chen Social media marketing and advertising 299

social media as one drawback of SMM. Their verdict was that traditional
media, in their context, for now, cannot replace SMM.

Social media and the music industry

Florina and Andreea (2012) investigate the success of musicians of Romanian
Popcorn Wave fame, via Facebook and YouTube. They conclude that apart
from the musicians’ own musical credibility, social media plays a major role
in making their presence more pronounced and making their music available
to millions. They discuss how the ripple effect and the wor(l)d of mouth
phenomena strengthens a musician’s standing and overall credibility. Kaplan
and Haenlein (2012) look into the use of social media by pop singer Britney
Spears’ marketing team for reaching out to her fan base. They note the
importance of being alert and active, and also emphasise creating online
content that appears interesting to the target audience. The authors use
insights from Britney Spears’ SMM strategists to highlight the essentials
of maintaining honesty, an aligned media plan, and choosing a particular
social media site, or even making one’s own site, and sticking to it for all
communications related to the brand/product/music. Salo, Lankinen and
Mäntymäki (2013) identified access to music content and level of affinity
towards music as the two strongest motivations for audiences using
social media to relate to the music they most like; they suggest that music
companies should mark their presence across social media, and they should
bear these aspects in mind to attract larger masses of music fans.

Social media and mobile marketing

Kaplan (2012) discusses the concept of mobile social media and its different
facets. They suggest ways in which firms can make use of mobile SMM and
identify integration, individualisation, involvement, and initiation as the four
I’s offered as advice for companies employing mobile social media. A 2013
article by Adam Leposa shows how guests express their hotel stay experiences
on mobile social media, and how important it is for the hotel management
to capture these customer sentiments to improve stay experiences for their
future guests. Leposa gives an example of a hotel that makes efficient
utilisation of such feedback via analytics on their social media dashboard to
appropriately record and address their guests’ sentiments. Jara et al. (2014)
focus on participative marketing and propose that it could be a reliable type
of marketing, involving increased user participation via social networking
sites and mobile phones. They appreciate the credibility of social media in
allowing content creation by millions that becomes instantaneously available
to millions.

Social media and RFID

Only one study explored the conjunction of radio frequency identification
(RFID) technology with SMM. Oinonen, Jalkala and Salo (2012) explore the
aspect of value creation through the integration of RFID with SMM. They
show how important it is for consumers to be willing to be tracked down
and to ultimately allow their location information to be shared on social
media. They conclude that an RFID-equipped SMM system could have a
promising and flourishing future.
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Discussion, limitations, and future research directions

Podobnik (2013) suggested that most companies are are focusing on creating
their online presence over social media due to the increasing importance
of social media for marketing purposes. Kaplan and Haenlein (2009)
categorised the scope of social media under six exclusive headings with sites
such as Wikipedia being put under the collaborative project type, networking
sites such as Twitter being placed under blogging and microblogging type,
sites such as YouTube being called the content community, Facebook and
MySpace being grouped as the social networking type, gaming sites such
as ‘World of Warcraft’ being termed as the virtual gaming world, and lastly,
those such as Second Life being placed under the virtual social world type.
Gu and Wang (2012), on the other hand, organised the social media scope
across five categories, which they call blog, microblog, social networking site,
location-based service, and theme community. All of these aforementioned
social media types are being used in more than one way by marketers and
planners to promote their ideas of interest.
Cambria et al. (2011) refer to a ‘buzz mechanism’ based on which the
entire SMM operates. They describe it as a duplication process of a released
message which is expected to travel rapidly, and turn out to be cost efficient
in comparison to an expensive advert in the newspapers or television, or
a promotional press release. They also explain that a winning marketing
strategy is aimed at capturing the attention of social wielders with its SMM
content. Kooser (2008) takes the discussion on an alternative plane to
suggest that social media is playing a role of more than just a marketing tool.
They exemplify a few organisational responses to social media reports, and
show how customers use this form of media to express their dissatisfaction,
as much as they do to express goodwill. Kooser suggests that businesses
should always be receptive to consumer feedback and complaints posted
online to sense potential problem areas within their businesses, which will
eventually help them earn happy customers. Frandsen et al. (2013) evaluate
social media against conventional advertising for attracting volunteers for
cessation trials, during which they rated social media as more successful,
owing to its potential for a wide reach, profile based audience targeting,
and flexibility.
Of the 11 studies on health and wellbeing, 5 studies (Frandsen et al.,
2013; Orsini, 2010; St. Clergy, 2012; Taubenheim et al., 2008; Thackeray et
al., 2008) discussed the pluses of employing SMM, one study turned out to
be a literature review of SMM in healthcare (Gupta et al., 2013), one study
highlighted how inefficiently SMM was being used in the wellbeing industry
(Grundén & Lagrosen, 2014), and four studies (Abrahams, 2012; Mackey
& Liang, 2013; Miller, 2013; Williams, 2013) critiqued SMM for incorrect
information, or ‘ill health promoting‘ information remaining unmonitored
and circulating social media sites that instilled wrong health notions in the
minds of people. In summary, literature on health and wellbeing offers
insights on both the boons and banes of SMM, and the potential impact
that this media form can have on people’s overall wellbeing.
Of the eight studies in the social media analytics and sentiment analysis
category, 5 studies (Cambria et al., 2012; Chan & Guillet, 2011; Cvijikj &
Michahelles, 2011; Fan et al., 2013; Saravanakumar & SuganthaLakshmi,
 Dwivedi, Kapoor & Chen Social media marketing and advertising 301

2012) reported how consumer sentiments, their feelings or opinions about

a particular product or a service, float through social media, and how
businesses and brands can capture and analyse these sentiments via SMM
to address consumer concerns by improving, and ultimately conveying an
important message to their consumers that ‘they care’. Along a parallel plane,
the remaining three studies (Bruner, 2011; Podobnik, 2013; Vorvoreanu et
al., 2013) particularly touch upon the SMM metrics available to businesses
for monitoring public sentiments and making use of data to their benefit by
tweaking their marketing strategies accordingly.
Next, there were publications available for SMM in return on investments.
Five studies (Hoffman & Fodor, 2010; Kumar & Sundaram, 2012; Lugmayr,
2012; Kumar & Mirchandani, 2012) concentrated on exploring better
management of finances via the use of SMM. These studies invested special
interest in evaluating how different financial metrics across SMM could
be used to extract valuable information at different levels (consumer and
organisational) to be of use for executing practical and profitable strategies
that would maximise the returns on investments for a business/company.
There were eight studies concentrating their interests in social media
advertising. Whilst one study (Okazaki & Taylor, 2013) dedicatedly reviewed
the available literature on social media advertising, another by Khang et
al. (2012), also literature based, reviewed the literature on social media
advertising, marketing, communications, and public relations. The remaining
six studies (Carmichael & Cleave, 2012; Gu & Wang, 2012; Hensel & Deis,
2010; Minton et al., 2012; Powers et al., 2012; Ramsay, 2010) focussed
on how businesses can place intelligent adverts on social media to attract
a high volume of traffic to their web pages, in turn interesting or tempting
consumers to buy the products and services being offered. At the same time,
these studies insist on the critical need for businesses to carefully monitor
their posts and pages on such social media sites to ensure that they are
listening to what the audiences of their social presence have to say.
Five studies evaluated SMM in the educational context, subjectively.
Two studies (Reinhard et al., 2012; Richter & Schafermeyer, 2011) reveal the
outcomes of SMM solely executed by the students themselves, and also speak
of it as being an effective learning experience compared to conventional
teaching methods. Two studies (Luo et al., 2013; Zehrer & Grabmuller, 2012)
examine student perceptions of the SMM campaigns employed by their
educational organisations. One study (Palmer, 2012), along a parallel plane,
marketed an academic programme online using SMM to attract students.
These studies conveyed that creating a social presence is not sufficient, and
that devoted efforts in maintaining that presence to keep their audiences
updated with current information is an essential requisite.
Three studies (Fetaji & Demiri, 2012; Michaelidou et al., 2011; Pentina &
Koh, 2012) investigate how SMEs integrate SMM in their marketing plans.
The low number of studies in this category could indicate that either the
concept of embedding SMM is slow to diffuse within SMEs, or that the
marketing strategies for SMEs should refrain from solely relying on SMM, and
should incorporate other strategies in combination to arrive at a successful
marketing strategy.
Seven studies (Cvijikj & Michahelles, 2011; de Vries et al., 2012; Kim &
Ko, 2012; Lipsman et al., 2012; Mccluskey, 2012; Petty, 2012; Shen & Bissell,
302 The Marketing Review, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 3

2013) emerge as the ones probing into how luxury fashion and other brands
use SMM to reach out to their fans and followers. While most of these
studies showed that the use of SMM helped the brands make their image
more pronounced, all vouched for the fact that SMM can help strengthen
the brand and consumer bond. They also stressed how important it is for
these brands to retain consumer interest whilst maintaining a steady level
of interaction. One study, (Petty, 2012), particularly warns brands against
imposters on such social media sites who are capable of causing potential
damage by releasing misleading information about the brand, in effect
reiterating the importance of monitoring and moderating communications
over these sites.
SMM in banking has also received attention, with three studies exploring
the different facets of SMM in this context. Whilst one study (Ramirez, 2010)
promotes the use of SMM as a recruitment tool, the other two (Chikandiwa
et al., 2013; Mitic & Kapoulas, 2012) show that some legal and security-
related issues have been observed to prevent, or more likely, inhibit the use
of SMM within the banking industry. These studies observe that, in common
with SMEs, SMM has been slow to diffuse within banking.
Out of the 71 studies, 15 specifically investigated the general role and
impact of SMM across different organisations, with all 15 studies carried
out in several different countries. These studies touch on various issues of
establishing a relationship with the audience (Kaun, 2010); failing to exploit
the full potential of SMM in a marketing strategy (Al Tenaiji & Cader, 2010);
generating content of interest to the target audience (Akar & Topçu, 2011);
social currency (Ralphs, 2011), successful viral marketing (Kaplan & Haenlein,
2011); evolving consumer opinions with product maturity (Chen et al., 2011);
place marketing and the major role the consumers/users play in generating
and circulating messages or content of interest (Ketter & Avraham, 2012);
alertness and judicious management of the content released across social
media (Geho & Dangelo, 2012); managerial side of SMM (Berthon et al.,
2012); importance of the ‘buzz mechanism’ in public relations marketing
(Papasolomou & Melanthiou, 2012); SMM serving as a communication
tool and not just as a marketing tool (Eagleman, 2013); decentralised SMM
(Recine et al., 2013); the use of SMM changing with users of varied income
levels (Froget et al., 2013); being conscious of the competition and being
cautious of over-promotion in using social media (Thompson, 2013); and
lastly, Zhou & Wang, 2014.
Three studies (Florina & Andreea, 2012; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2012;
Lankinen & Mantymaki, 2013) explored the impact of SMM in the music
industry. All three studies favoured the role played by SMM in bringing the
music or the musicians and their fans closer. The popularity quotient attached
to a music form was shown to receive a boost, as the music content loved by
the audiences becomes available for all social media users. Concepts of the
ripple effect, honest interaction with the audience, well integrated marketing
plans, and the music content itself were unanimously identified as some of
the integral factors of a successful SMM strategy.
Like the many technologies being made available on a mobile platform,
SMM is also trending as useful for those ‘on the go’. Three studies focus on
the concept of mobile SMM, Kaplan (2012), Leposa (2013) and Jara et al.
 Dwivedi, Kapoor & Chen Social media marketing and advertising 303

(2014). The advantages and drawbacks that come with regular SMM remain
the same with mobile SMM, the only difference being that this form of
marketing media is being made available for use on an alternative platform
for use. Whilst Kaplan (2012) promotes the organisational use of mobile
SMM, and Leposa (2013) explores capturing sentiments of hotels guests
through mobile SMM, Jara et al. (2014) focuses on participative marketing
via mobile SMM.
Lastly, only one study (Oinonen et al., 2012) shared revelations on
creating value in the networks by incorporating RFID in the SMM strategy.

Limitations of existing research and future research directions

Some of the research limitations that the 71 studies revealed have been
summarised here. Some of these studies identified the suggested problem
of the prevailing perception that social media is more often used by the
young, which makes targeting a fair sample, with people from all age
groups, difficult (Frandsen et al., 2013). The studies particularly highlighted
SMM’s inability to target a specific consumer base as its potential drawback
(Reinhard et al., 2012). Given that most of these studies were specifically
targeted at a particular type or case of SMM, their generalisability was limited.
Many studies suggested that similar types of studies to their own should
be conducted in different contexts, which would facilitate the comparison
of results across different contexts to arrive at a thorough understanding
of how impactful SMM can be across different sectors in comparison with
traditional marketing (Kim & Ko, 2012; Lagrosen & Grundén, 2014; Zehrer
& Grabmuller, 2012).
Adding weight to this suggestion is the fact that SMM operates very closely
with consumers, and the opinions and perceptions of these consumers are
likely to be different across different cultures. To gain an overall insight into
the workings of SMM, data from various countries are needed, which future
research can investigate, and show if and how, the culture aspect can control
SMM and its diffusion. There also appeared to be many exploratory studies,
but predictive studies were again very limited. Future studies in this line of
research could add value to the predictive dimension on the acceptance of
SMM across different sectors. More empirical studies could help bring to the
surface the factors controlling the overall diffusion and adoption of SMM.
An interesting future direction offered by Petina and Koh (2012) is for
studies to explore the time associated with a given SMM strategy to diffuse
and fetch outcomes of interest. A rather more global suggestion made by
Papasolomou and Melanthiou (2012) proposes that future research could
explore consumer perceptions of SMM, so whether SMM is being perceived
as a mere marketing tool, or more as a communication medium to broaden
the understanding of the operation of social media.
Recent studies on SMM in education (Palmer, 2012), or for that matter,
as evident from the numbers of publications available for inclusion in this
literature review, on SMM in the banking and music industries, across SMEs,
and mobile SMM are scarce. This field of research on SMM could benefit
from more studies across the aforementioned sectors/industries. Another
2012 study (Oinonen et al., 2012) claims that it is the first ever publication
on RFID in SMM. Of the 71 studies reviewed here, this was the only study to
304 The Marketing Review, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 3

reveal any findings on this topic. More research on how RFID and SMM are
being applied in conjunction would add value to the literature on SMM. As a
specific limitation of this current study, the keywords search for this literature
review was done using only Scopus as the search engine. It could be that
some of the relevant studies might not have been indexed via this search
engine, which means some could have been missed from being reviewed
here.

Conclusions

Employing SMM and maintaining an active social presence that is capable

of drawing in constant benefits for the entity/business being marketed is
entirely a game of tactics. Content communicated to the audience may
attract massive recognition by them at one instant, and may be abandoned
by them, the next. SMM strategists have to consciously generate content
that is of relevance and will appear interesting to the target audience, that
is appreciable, and that is factually correct, in order to maintain a healthy
and loyal relationship with their audiences. Most of the 71 extracted studies
referred to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn as the sites most often
used to reach out to the audience of choice. Given people’s affinity with
these sites, they have become the regulating hubs of Web 2.0, through
which the entire SMM operates.

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 Dwivedi, Kapoor & Chen Social media marketing and advertising 309

About the Authors and Correspondence

Yogesh K Dwivedi is a Professor of Digital and social media and Head

of the Management and Systems Section in the School of Management at
Swansea University, Wales, UK. He obtained his PhD and MSc in information
systems from Brunel University, UK. He has co-authored several papers which
have appeared in international refereed journals such as CACM, DATA BASE,
EJIS, IJPR, ISJ, ISF, JCIS, JIT, JORS, TMR and IMDS. He is Associate Editor of
European Journal of Marketing and European Journal of Information Systems,
Assistant Editor of JEIM and TGPPP, Senior Editor of JECR and member of the
editorial board/review board of several journals. He is a life member of the
IFIP WG8.6 and 8.5.
Corresponding author: Professor Yogesh K. Dwivedi, Head of
Management and Systems Section, School of Management, Room 1,
Haldane Building, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, SA2 8PP,
Wales, UK.
E [email protected]

Kawal Kapoor is a Research Fellow in the Business School at Brunel

University, London. She has a PhD in business management and an MBA,
both from Swansea University, Wales, and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical
engineering. Her PhD research was on the subject of diffusion of innovations.
She has first-/co-authored many publications for international refereed
journals such as ISM, ISF, TMR, and others. She also has three years of industry
experience from working as a software engineer at Accenture services, India.
Dr Kawaljeet Kaur Kapoor, Brunel Business School, Brunel University,
London, UK.
E [email protected]

Hsin Chen is a lecturer of web analytics in the Department of Business

Systems and Management at University of Bedfordshire, UK. She obtained
her PhD in information systems from Brunel University, UK and an MSc
in information systems and technology from City University, UK. She has
co-authored several papers which have appeared in international referred
journals and is a member of the editorial board/review board of several
journals. She is also a SAP certified associate.
Dr Hsin Chen, Department of Business Systems and Management,
University of Bedfordshire, UK.
E [email protected]