Social media marketing in the wellness industry

Abstract

Purpose
– The advent of social media is dramatically changing the way marketing communication is conducted. This paper reports a study regarding the use of social media in the wellness industry. This industry is competitive and utterly dependent on creating mutually beneficial relationships with customers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of social media marketing in the wellness industry.

Design/methodology/approach
– Qualitative methods have been used. In-depth interviews have been carried out with marketing communication professionals in seven leading Swedish spa-hotels. The data from the interviews were analysed utilising the constant comparative method from the grounded theory approach.

Findings
– Dimensions describing the activities, challenges and results of social media in the hotels have been defined. The findings are related to service quality theory, in particular the service dominant logic of marketing (SDL), and a comprehensive framework is proposed.

Research limitations/implications
– The findings should be useful for the scientific understanding of the effects of social media in marketing. The study is based entirely on qualitative data.

Practical implications
– The results of the study should be useful for managers trying to market their offers effectively through social media.

Originality/value
– The connections between social media and the SDL has not previously been studied in the wellness industry and such studies in other industries are rare.

Full text

Social media marketing in the
wellness industry
Stefan Olof Lagrosen
School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden, and
Kerstin Grunde
´n
University West, Trollha
¨ttan, Sweden
Abstract
Purpose – The advent of social media is dramatically changing the way marketing communication is
conducted. This paper reports a study regarding the use of social media in the wellness industry.
This industry is competitive and utterly dependent on creating mutually beneficial relationships
with customers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of social media marketing in the
wellness industry.
Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative methods have been used. In-depth interviews have
been carried out with marketing communication professionals in seven leading Swedish spa-hotels.
The data from the interviews were analysed utilising the constant comparative method from the
grounded theory approach.
Findings – Dimensions describing the activities, challenges and results of social media in the hotels
have been defined. The findings are related to service quality theory, in particular the service dominant
logic of marketing (SDL), and a comprehensive framework is proposed.
Research limitations/implications – The findings should be useful for the scientific understanding
of the effects of social media in marketing. The study is based entirely on qualitative data.
Practical implications – The results of the study should be useful for managers trying to market
their offers effectively through social media.
Originality/value – The connections between social media and the SDL has not previously been
studied in the wellness industry and such studies in other industries are rare.
Keywords Social media, Service quality, Wellness, Marketing communication,
Service dominant logic of marketing, Spa-hotels
Paper type Research paper
Introduction and purpose
The wellness industry is expanding in most parts of the world. Still, very little research
has been carried out regarding this industry. While there have been large amounts of
research produced regarding traditional health care, recreational health care in the
form of spas, fitness centres, massage therapists, etc., have been almost neglected by
researchers. Nevertheless, this is an industry which is important for the well-being of
many people. This study concerns marketing of spa-hotels. It is part of a larger
research project in the spa-industry in which we examine different aspects of
marketing, management and health in the spa-industry. This particular section
concerns social media marketing. The development of social media and web 2.0 is
rapidly changing the conditions for marketing. In just a few years, people’s media
habits have been substantially altered. This is particularly true for young people
(Ruane and Wallace, 2013). Thus, the purpose for this study has been to investigate the
use of social media marketing in the wellness industry.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1754-2731.htm
The TQM Journal
Vol. 26 No. 3, 2014
pp. 253-260
rEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1754-2731
DOI 10.1108/TQM-12-2013-0129
The authors wish to acknowledge the Swedish Knowledge Foundation for its valuable financial
support.
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The theoretical basis has been the service dominant logic of marketing (SDL), which
lately has become quite wide-spread in the marketing field and many studies have been
based on it. However, there is room for further development of the framework.
In particular, social media marketing, which is becoming ever more important, is not
integrated. Our ambition is that this study will contribute to such integration.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows. First, we will discuss our theoretical
inputs in the form of SDL and social media marketing. Next, we will present the
methodology that we have used followed by the findings and a discussion regarding them.
Finally, we will summarise our conclusions and give some suggestions for further research.
The SDL
In recent years, a new way of approaching marketing related to services has come to
light – the SDL (Vargo and Lusch, 2004a). Its originators claim that this is a completely
new paradigm of marketing thought and that it will change the way marketing is viewed
in the same way that traditional physics was revolutionised by the advent of quantum
mechanics (Lusch and Vargo, 2006). The novelty lies in the fact that it does not focus on
services as such. Services marketing is usually seen as a way of conducting marketing
for a certain kind of products, i.e. services. Therefore, much effort has been wasted on
identifying differences between goods and services while still departing from a goods-
based perspective (Vargo and Lusch, 2004b). SDL in contrast regards service marketing
as an approach, a way of conducting marketing for any kind of products in which the
focus is on providing value for the customer. SDL builds on a number of fundamental
premises which were originally formulated as follows (Vargo and Lusch, 2004a):
(1) the application of specialised skills and knowledge is the fundamental unit of
exchange;
(2) indirect exchange masks the fundamental unit of exchange;
(3) goods are distribution mechanisms for service provision;
(4) knowledge is the fundamental source of competitive advantage;
(5) all economies are service economies;
(6) the customer is always a coproducer;
(7) the enterprise can only make value propositions; and
(8) a service-centred view is customer oriented and relational.
SDL has had a large impact on marketing thought and the framework is evolving. In a
later paper (Vargo and Lusch, 2008) the authors have revised the premises and added
two more:
(9) all social and economic actors are resource integrators; and
(10) value is always uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the
beneficiary.
Despite its impact, critics hold that SDL need further development (Brookes, 2007) and
particularly that more empirical research is needed (Winklhofer et al., 2007). One area that
needs further development is the connection between SDL and branding (Brodie et al.,
2006). Interestingly, SDL may lead to branding being extended into wider communication
modes (Ballantyne and Aitken, 2007).
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Social media and marketing
Social media have revolutionised our social contacts not only in every-day life. The use
of social media has also become more and more popular as a marketing tool for the
establishment and management of customer relationships and they have been found to
influence people’s shopping behaviour (Ruane and Wallace, 2013). According to the
traditional marketing paradigm, marketing is seen according to the one-way
interaction model, where the producer is the sender and the customer is the receiver.
In contrast, the use of social media in marketing is based on a multi-way interaction
approach, in which the roles of sender and receiver are mixed (Scott, 2010).
Social media can create value fusion, in which value is created for a whole network
including both customers and companies (Larivie
`re et al., 2013).
A pull-marketing strategy is more efficient for the use of social media than the
traditional push-marketing approach. This means that the producer uses social media
for the communication of information, knowledge, values and ethics related to the
service or product, in order to entice the customer to interact. When the customer is
interested in taking part in the interaction, valuable information about interests,
preferences and values could be interchanged in an informal process and affect the
further customer relationship and marketing activities in order to make the product or
service more attractive. Contrary to many other market communication efforts, social
media marketing is accepted by most users as long as it is not exaggerated (Hansson
et al., 2013). The combination of the use of different social media could also reinforce
the marketing effects. Social media could be an economic alternative especially for
entrepreneurs and smaller businesses as low costs are needed, apart from working
hours. Nevertheless, many companies are uncertain regarding how to use social media
and many use it just in order to appear modern (Lagrosen and Josefsson, 2011).
Methodology
This study is part of a larger study focusing on quality management, marketing and
health in the wellness industry. The research is financed by the Swedish Knowledge
Foundation and it is carried out in collaboration between a group of researchers and
seven spa-hotels in southern and western Sweden. The hotels are all leading actors in
the Swedish spa-industry. They are presented in Table I.
This part of the study is based on qualitative methodology. In-depth interviews
(Patton, 1990) were carried out with people responsible for social media activities in the
hotels. In total, eight in-depth interviews were carried out, two in one of the companies
and one in each of the others. In addition, a workshop was carried out with the
managers of the hotels as participants. The data from the interviews and the workshop
Spa-hotel Comments
Sankt Jo
¨rgen Park
Resort
A spa-hotel in Gothenburg with many day guests and an integrated
golf course
Stenungsbaden Yacht Club A spa-hotel with a relaxed American east coast image
Ystads Saltsjo
¨bad The leading seaside spa-hotel on the south coast
Varbergs Kurort A seaside spa-hotel with a focus on traditional Swedish treatments
Hotel Tylo
¨sand A seaside spa-hotel with focus on art and music
Bokena
¨s Hav Spa A spa-hotel in a serene rural coastal setting
Hotel Skansen A fashionable spa-hotel in the famous tennis resort, B˚
astad
Tabl e I.
The spa-hotels included
in the study
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were analysed using the constant comparative technique from the grounded theory
approach (Glaser, 1992; Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss and Corbin, 1990).
Findings
When the constant comparative technique was applied to the data, four main categories
emerged, which depict the dimensions of the social media marketing activities. They are
presented below.
Management
This dimension concerns how the social media marketing activities are organised and
managed. Usually, the activities on social media had been started by an enthusiast
having personal interest in social media. Being dependent on one or a few enthusiastic
people was seen as a problem by many of the hotels. Consequently, they tried to further
organise the social media activities and divide the responsibilities between more
people. Nevertheless, they were varyingly successful in this and some of the hotels still
rely to a large degree on the efforts of a very small number of enthusiastic people.
The social media marketing usually falls under the marketing department and is led
by the marketing manager although in some of the companies the “enthusiast” comes
from another department. Often IT-people are more knowledgeable regarding social
media but they may not be skilled in marketing. Some of the hotels also use external
consultants. The people handling social media marketing do not do it full time but as
a part of their other assignments.
Usually, the people handling the social media activities are not very young.
As social media sometimes is seen as a youth phenomenon, some of the hotels have
considered employing youngsters but none of them has realised this. Since the customers
normally are somewhat older people, youngsters may have difficulties creating fruitful
relationships with them.
The social media activities are part of yearly plans but it is difficult to plan them in
detail as the developments in this area are so fast. Thus, flexibility is needed and plans
for longer than one year are never made.
The hotels realise that people handling social media need to have sufficient
competencies for this. However, they do not have any formal training, instead they
learn from experience. Some even learn from their children.
Media
This dimension concerns the choice of social media for the marketing communication.
Facebook is the most common medium by far. All the hotels use it actively. Twitter, blogs
and YouTube are also quite widespread. Some of the hotels also sometimes use Bambuser.
Moreover, they are affected by TripAdvisor and Rata.se which are sites where customers
can share their views of the hotels. Some of the companies also use MyNewsDesk which
is a public relations medium rather than a social medium. In most hotels, one person is
responsible for all social media activities. However, sometimes the responsibilities are
divided such as, e.g. one person handles Facebook while another handles Twitter.
Facebook is usually connected to the homepage and some hotels have a connection
to a YouTube channel there as well. One of the hotels has a mobile application that is
connected to Facebook in the way that when customers check into it, they also check
into Facebook.
The hotels still use traditional media as a complement to social media for their
marketing communication, particularly since several customers, especially older people,
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do not use social media. However, some of them are dissatisfied with the results of
traditional media advertising and believe that social media marketing will expand its
share of the communication efforts.
Content
In this dimension, the substance of the communication of the companies on the
social media is contained. The amount of content on the social media varies in amount
over time and between the hotels, and it is difficult to plan in advance. The hotels
usually follow each other on social media in order to keep track of their competitors
and get inspiration. The content is usually concerning local matters and it is
always written in Swedish although some of the companies have a fair amount of
international customers.
Creating interest is vital. Contests of different kinds are quite common for this purpose,
for instance photo competitions, which also create a large amount of positive content.
Prizes can be free treatments or gift vouchers, etc. The hotels that have developed
a mobile app present their daily programme and the treatments available on it. One hotel
has created a service that they call “the digital reception” inwhich they try to integrate all
internet communication as well as bookings of rooms, classes and treatments.
Finding the right “tone” is important. Generally, the posts on the social media are
written in a personal, yet correct style. In addition, on Facebook the names of the
individuals writing are usually revealed in order to make it more personal. This is,
however, usually not the case on Twitter. Using pictures is very common as they attract
attention and express much. Creating feelings and impressions is often seen as more
important than conveying factual information. The objective is not hard selling but
maintaining positive relationships. Usually, the hotels also have a policy not writing
about the guests and not writing anything bad about the company.
The timing of publishing content is important. Usually, the late afternoon and
evening are seen as the best times for posting on Facebook since this is the time when
most people use it. One problem with a blog is that it requires frequent updating with
interesting content of some substance. Some hotels experience a difficulty in fulfilling
this. Since the tone is different on the different social media, the content cannot just be
copied and pasted but it has to be rewritten. This is also necessary for improving the
chances of rating high on Google searches. Nevertheless, this requires much attention.
The content posted by customers is generally not seen as a problem, although it is
easier to use a hard language on social media than face-to-face. Negative comments
are not removed unless they are offensive but the hotels try to answer them.
Most comments are posted by female customers, which is logical since most customers
are female, but negative comments are more frequently posted by male customers.
Some hotels present guest feeds from TripAdvisor directly on their web site although
there is some risk in this since they cannot control that content at all.
Nevertheless, the negative comments are rather few and in general the customers
share happy posts describing enjoyable experiences at the hotels. Also some funny
anecdotes are posted. Thus, the social media become something of a living and digital
guestbook. Sometimes the companies get useful tips from their customers regarding
their services. These are imparted to the manager in charge of this particular service.
Effects
This dimension regards the effects that the companies see from their social media
marketing activities. Analysing and measuring the effects of the social media marketing
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is not done in any systematic way. This is something that they realise that they ought to
improve. They can see how many followers they have and how active the followers are
with comments but they are uncertain as to how much this contributes to their sales and
profits. Although they have not really measured it, several of the managers have the
impression that the social media activities have contributed to attract more customers.
This effect comes especially when they begin using a certain social medium or when they
have campaigns in the form of contests and the like. Nonetheless, the customers do not
want to be “bombarded” with offers so there is a certain attrition effect in this.
Social media activities take time from the employees, which means that they
generate costs. In addition, the competency of the people handling social media must be
assured. It might be a good investment to employ someone who is an expert on social
media, although this would be costly.
The main reason for being active on social media seems to be the effect that they are
supposed to have on their brand. The companies believe that their activities on social
media make them seem more modern and hip. In addition, they claim that it would
have seemed very strange for them not to be on social media. This is just something
they have to do in the current media situation, they suppose. They also see social media
as a way of spreading “word of mouth”.
The constructive comments and tips that the companies receive on social media are
very helpful in improving the services and thus achieving higher customer satisfaction.
The feedback is very fast and efficient. Notwithstanding their usefulness, constructive
comments from customers are not always acted upon for various reasons.
Discussion and connection to SDL
Previous research has emphasised the value of the interactive possibilities of social
media for creating meaningful interactions with the customers. The hotels in this study
utilise this to a certain extent. Nevertheless, it seems that they do not really take full
advantage of the interactive possibilities. They have some interaction with the
customers but they still seem to view social media as a communication channel rather
than as an interaction channel.
In SDL, it is emphasised that the customer is always a coproducer of value. This is
particularly true for social media interaction, which is created by active contributions
from consumers and producers alike. The hotels take some advantage of this by
allowing influences from the customers delivered on social media serve as an input to
their service offers. They could probably benefit from doing this to an even higher
degree. Nevertheless, this is time-consuming and requires competency as well as an
organisation that is structured in a way that facilitates this. That is probably the
reason that the interactive possibilities are not utilised to a higher degree.
What is exchanged, according to SDL, is specialised skills and knowledge.
The spa-hotels have extensive knowledge into how to create enjoyable and health
promoting experiences. This knowledge is the basis for their services. Imparting such
knowledge on social media should be possible to a large degree. Nevertheless, this
requires an organisation that supports the social media activities. This has been shown
to be difficult for the studied companies, partly due to social media being so new and
fast developing. Often the companies rely on one or a few enthusiasts, which is hardly
sustainable in the long run.
Moreover, SDL holds that knowledge is the fundamental source of competitive
advantage. This obviously concerns knowledge of the service processes. However,
it should also include the marketing knowledge, not least regarding social media.
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Companies could use social media to create fruitful interaction with customers, which
could give them a competitive advantage not restricted to the social media activities
but also regarding the core activities since the value of them is determined by the
customer and the interaction on social media could help the companies to develop value
propositions that are more oriented to the wishes of their customers.
We have refrained from comparing the different hotels with each other as this
was not part of the purpose. Nevertheless, we can obviously see differences. Some of
the hotels use social media in creative and quite skilled ways. They know which
media to use and have a fairly good idea of what content is appreciated. Others
are beginners and do not at all take advantage of the possibilities that the social
media provides. Notwithstanding their better performance, even the best hotels
find it difficult to organise the social media marketing in an optimal way. In addition,
none of the companies have any well-grounded knowledge into the costs vs effects
of their social media activities. They do not measure or follow this up in systematic
ways. It is probably difficult to do this and this adds to the ambiguity and intricacy
of the whole area of social media marketing. Nevertheless, more knowledge of the
impact of different ways of working should be valuable for companies as well as for
the scientific understanding for this phenomenon.
We saw that one of the main reasons for using social media marketing was the effect
that it is believed to have on the brand. However, branding effects are not really
included in SDL. This is a phenomenon that goes beyond value and is more related
with identification. This is a field where SDL needs further elaboration as Brodie et al.
(2006) suggest. Further research is needed to develop the framework.
Conclusions
The purpose of the study was to investigate the use of social media marketing in the
wellness industry. We have studied the social media marketing of seven leading
Swedish spa-hotels. The study has shown how they organise their activities, what
media they use, what content they post and how they view the effects of their activities.
We have found that the organisation of the activities is difficult and some of the hotels
tend to be too dependent on one or a few enthusiasts. While choice of media and
content seem to be more manageable, the companies have very vague knowledge of the
effects of their efforts. In general, the companies seem not to fully use the interactive
possibilities of social media.
The study has several limitations. It has been carried out in one industry and in one
country. The possibilities of generalising the findings to other contexts are uncertain.
Furthermore, the study was explorative and based on qualitative methodology.
Quantitative studies based on the findings of this study would be interesting for
future research.
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Corresponding author
Professor Stefan Olof Lagrosen can be contacted at: stefan.lagrosen@lnu.se
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