Effectiveness of Social Media Networks as a Strategic Tool for Organizational Marketing Management

Abstract

Social media gained rapid prominence within few years of its existence. It is generally the medium to socialize and many are awed by the transformation of communications processes especially among generations Y midwifed by the media platforms. Social media has now crept into the boardrooms of business organizations and just like the internet; it has transformed the selling and buying processes. Though social media is a recent phenomenon, it has proven to be just as effective as or even more effective than traditional marketing. Several organizations now struggle to have a presence in the web in order to interface with customers far and near. Furthermore, the use of social media by some organizations starts with simple marketing and the creation of awareness about their products and services. However, these have advanced to public communications and interactions with customers and other stakeholders. Despite these huge advantages, it is fraught with challenges. This paper discusses the benefits and limitations of social media as a strategic tool for organizational marketing management. It also reviewed the benefits and challenges of this massive conundrum which has taken business management by storm and concludes with vital recommendations for organizational managers.

Full text

Open Access
Oyza and Edwin, J Internet Bank Commer 2015, S2
http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/1204-5357.S2-006
Review Article Open Access
Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce
J Internet Bank Commer Recent Research on E-commerce and M-commerce ISSN: 1204-5357 JIBC, an open access journal
Keywords: Social media; Organizations; Marketing management;
Stakeholders; Strategic tool
Introduction
Social media was coined from the two operating words – social and
media. Social, in this context, simply means the interaction between
individuals of common interest, a group, or even a community. And
media as the name implies, is the medium, channel, or platform on
which allows for creation and exchange of user-generated contents.
Social media is less than two decades in existence but have gained
widespread acceptance. In 2003, Linkedin was launched and this
was followed by Myspace and Facebook in the year 2004. Due to the
characteristics if Facebook, it received a wider acceptance in social
circles more than others. Youtube was launched in 2005 followed by
Twitter, followed by others such as Blogging, Google+, Instagram,
Pinterest, Podcasting, Snapchat, etc. All these have gained more than
one billion users wordwide in just over ten years of existence. As the
name implies, social media networks meant as sites where individuals
could socialize, meet old and new friends and interact with each other.
Just as the internet was applied into business organizations from the
military, so also the commercial value of social media networks became
apparent and gained the attention of business managers and became
the best friends of marketers in virtually all organizations with presence
on the internet [1]. Relationship building and interactions are the
major reasons for the adoption of social media networks by individuals,
however, organizations leverage the ubiquitous usage of these sites and
views them as platforms on which to interact directly with existing and
new customers for their goods and services. is is a clear paradigm
shi from the traditional methods of interacting with customers as
more than one customer can be reached easily and cheaply as well with
just a click of the button. Personal interaction with customers instills
smooth feeling of loyalty and questions are answered with ease [2]. is
paper sets out to unravel the eectiveness of social media networks
adopted by various business organizations can serve as a strategic
tool for organizational marketing management. e remainder of the
paper is as follow: the next section reviews the related literature and
this is followed by discussion, conclusion and recommendation. It is
Effectiveness of Social Media Networks as a Strategic Tool for
Organizational Marketing Management
Icha Oyza1 and Agwu Edwin2,3*
1BSc Marketing, Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria
2Associate Professor of Strategic Management and Marketing, School of Business, Covenant University, Ogun State, Nigeria
3Adjunct Lecturer and External dissertation supervisor for Global MBA students at Manchester Business School, UK
Abstract
Social media gained rapid prominence within few years of its existence. It is generally the medium to socialize
and many are awed by the transformation of communications processes especially among generations Y midwifed
by the media platforms. Social media has now crept into the boardrooms of business organizations and just like
the internet; it has transformed the selling and buying processes. Though social media is a recent phenomenon, it
has proven to be just as effective as or even more effective than traditional marketing. Several organizations now
struggle to have a presence in the web in order to interface with customers far and near. Furthermore, the use of
social media by some organizations starts with simple marketing and the creation of awareness about their products
and services. However, these have advanced to public communications and interactions with customers and other
stakeholders. Despite these huge advantages, it is fraught with challenges. This paper discusses the benets and
limitations of social media as a strategic tool for organizational marketing management. It also reviewed the benets
and challenges of this massive conundrum which has taken business management by storm and concludes with vital
recommendations for organizational managers.
believed that this study will assist organizational marketing managers
and management on the suitable platform for exposing their products
and services.
Review of Related Literature
Social media networks are platforms or sites that facilitate the
building of social relationships among people of dierent races
and provide opportunities for them to share interests, activities,
backgrounds, or real-life connections, [3]. Social network services
consist of a representation of each user’s social connections, and a variety
of additional services. Social media is the medium to socialize as well as
market and today, the plethora of social media networks are among the
nest opportunities available to organizational marketers in their bids
to connect with existing and prospective customers. e social media
network community services are groups centered and considered as
a social network service. Social networks are contents created online
by people using highly scalable and accessible communication
technologies. It represents how people discover, read and share news,
information and contents. Social network applications provide users
with new forms of empowerment and means of information sharing.
Customers are able to communicate online exchanging information,
comments and product reviews beyond the marketer’s control [4].
*Corresponding author: Agwu M. Edwin, Associate Professor of Strategic
Management and Marketing, School of Business, Coven ant Univers ity, O gun
State, Nigeria and Adjunct Lecturer, External dissertation supervisor
for Global MBA students at Manchester Business School, UK, Tel:
002 348136765276; E-mail: edwinagwu@yahoo.co.uk
Received October 03, 2015; Accepted November 30, 2015; Published December
03, 2015
Citation: Icha Oyza, Agwu M. Edwin (2015) Effectiveness of Social Media
Networks as a Strategic Tool for Organizational Marketing Management. J Internet
Bank Commer S2: 006. doi:10.4172/1204-5357.S2-006
Copyright: © 2015 Icha Oyza, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under
the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and
source are credited.

Page 2 of 9
Citation: Icha Oyza, Agwu M. Edwin (2015) Effectiveness of Social Media Networks as a Strategic Tool for Organizational Marketing Management. J
Internet Bank Commer S2: 006. doi:10.4172/1204-5357.S2-006
J Internet Bank Commer Recent Research on E-commerce and M-commerce ISSN: 1204-5357 JIBC, an open access journal
Social media marketers make use of social media sites to raise visibility
on the internet and to promote products and services. Social media
sites are useful for building social (and business) networks, and for
exchanging ideas and knowledge. Social media sites are becoming the
go-to place for consumers who want to learn more about a business.
at’s because these sites allow businesses to oer the most up-to-date
information about anything from products, services, or upcoming
events. Also, much of organizational activities and proles on social
media sites can be made public meaning they can be indexed by search
engines — one more way to make sure your business or organization
comes up as the answer when someone is searching for a local solution
to a problem. e publicity emanating from social media marketing
is such that can be trusted by consumers because the source is within
the peer group either through a comment on ‘Facebook’ or a ‘retweet’
on twitter about a particular organization or product [2]. In today’s
globalized world, communication is available and constant and Just-in-
Time, real time basis, everyone is updated on what is happening around
the globe depending on which river of information you wish to drink
from. Traditionally, the Word of Mouth (WOM) approach has been
an important marketing strategy adopted by various organizations for
decades but the Electronic Word of Mouth (EWOM) and Consumer’s
Online Brand Related Activities (COBRAs) reaches a wider horizon
because it is based on the internet and therefore can be assessed by
anybody around the world with internet access or a device [4,5].
Benets of social media marketing
Stelzner [6] in his 2014 report published by Social Media Examiners
stressed that the top two benets of social media marketing are
increasing exposure and increasing trac. e report further revealed
that a signicant 92% of all marketers indicated that their social media
eorts have generated more exposure for their businesses. Increasing
trac was the second major benet, with 80% reporting positive results.
ese days, almost everyone and every organization have a presence
on the social media, particularly the popular ones such as Facebook,
Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+ and Pinterest. As
at March 2015, there were 1.415 billion active users on Facebook,
and 288 million monthly active users on Twitter. With the explosive
youth population in Nigeria, you can imagine what chunk of those
statistics we boast as a nation. However, most corporatepresenceand
iconic presence (prominent individuals) on the social media are
mere presence with no marked focus, strategy, or intent to engage
the teeming online public/market [7]. is conundrum is largely to
due to not knowing what it takes to maintain a vibrant online-cum-
social media presence. Bacon [1] pointed out that there are 4 basics to
maintaining a successful online and social media presence. ey are:
Contents: Content is the backbone of social media. Unless you
publish fresh, relevant informationon a regular basisfor your audience
to consume, your online and social media platforms will not command
trac. Social media accounts that don’t churn out fresh contents are
considered dead.
Engagement: the second nitty-gritty for running a successful
online/social media campaign is audience engagement. Organizations
and individuals who engage their online audience are generally seen
as friendly and responsive plus many other positive perceptions, all
of which translate into sales, patronage, goodwill, brand aliation,
loyalty and an army of brand ambassadors who will go to any length to
promote/defend your name, brand, product, service or cause.
Skills:ere are potpourri related skills required to drive a vibrant
social media presence ranging from graphics, research, designs,
backend management, analytics, optimization, monitoring, etc. Not
knowing which to deploy, when and how to deploy it or utilizing them
wrongly is a sure road to virtual comatose or disaster.
Consistency:Knowing what to do to have a winning social media
presence and how to do it does not guarantee success unless such
knowledge is backed by painstaking eorts and commitment to doing
it day in, day out. Lack of consistence accounts mostly for the online
failure of multinationals, institutions and public gures, who have all it
takes as well as the budget to be vibrant and visible online, but whose
activities there are a whimper [8].
Colliander et al. [9] stressed that most marketers are using social
media to develop loyal fans (72%) and gain marketplace intelligence
(71%). Changes since 2013 study: Marketers reported increased
benets across all categories since 2013. e largest increases were
developing loyal fans, which increased to 72% from 65% in 2013,
followed by increased sales, which jumped to 50% from 43% in 2013.
Some questions that naturally emerge from the above chart might
include, “Can I achieve more benets by investing more time in social
media?”, “Are marketers who have been using social media for years
gaining even better results?” and “Is there a dierence between B2B and
B2C?” e following, according to Drury [10] and Dean [11] addresses
these questions.
• Improved sales: It takes time to develop relationships that
lead to sales. However, a large percentage of marketers who take the
time nd great results. For example, more than half of marketers
who’ve been using social media for at least three years report it has
helped them improve sales. More than half who spend 6 or more
hours per week nd the same results and 74% of those who spend 40+
hours earn new business through their eorts. Conversely, 50% of all
marketers taking this survey report social media have not helped them
improve sales. is may be because they lack the needed tools to track
sales [10]
• Increased exposure: With as little as 6 hours per week,
Dean [11] stressed that the vast majority of marketers indicated their
social media eorts increased exposure for their businesses. Nearly all
marketers who have been employing social media marketing for one
year or longer report it generates exposure for their businesses
• Grew business partnerships: e more time marketers invest
in social media networking, the more they gain business partnerships.
More than half of marketers who’ve invested at least 1 year in social
media marketing report that new partnerships were gained. More than
half of those investing as little as 6 hours per week in social media were
able to build new partnerships. Marketers selling to other businesses
were more likely to achieve this benet than those selling to consumers
[11]
• Generated leads: By spending as little as 6 hours per week,
66%+ of marketers see lead generation benets with social media. More
than half of marketers with at least one year of social media experience
were generating leads with social platforms
• Reduced marketing expenses: Nearly half of those who
spend at least 6 hours per week on social media eorts saw a benet
of reduced marketing expenses. At least 57% of businesses with 10 or
fewer employees agreed social media reduced marketing expenses,
while only 40% of businesses with 1000 or more employees agreed [2]
• Improved search rankings: Improved search engine
rankings were most prevalent among those who’ve been using social
media for one year or longer, with 58%+ reporting a rise. At least 60%

Page 3 of 9
Citation: Icha Oyza, Agwu M. Edwin (2015) Effectiveness of Social Media Networks as a Strategic Tool for Organizational Marketing Management. J
Internet Bank Commer S2: 006. doi:10.4172/1204-5357.S2-006
J Internet Bank Commer Recent Research on E-commerce and M-commerce ISSN: 1204-5357 JIBC, an open access journal
of those investing a minimum of 6 hours per week in social media
marketing saw improvements in search engine rankings
• Increased trac: A signicant number of participants found
that increased trac occurred with as little as 6 hours per week invested
in social media marketing. And those who’ve used social media for one
year or more reported substantially better results reported benets)
compared with those with less experience
• Provided marketplace insight: Kietzmann [4] stressed that
of those with at least one year of experience, 69% or more found social
platforms provided marketplace insight; At least 74% of those spending
at least six hours per week were more likely to gain marketplace insight
• Developed loyal fans: B2C marketers were much more likely
to develop a loyal fan base through social media than B2B marketers. Of
those who have been using social media for at least 1 year, 69% found
it useful for building a loyal fan base. Time invested makes a dierence.
Of those spending at least 6 hours a week, 78% found benet compared
to 56% of those spending 5 hours or fewer per week [2]
Negative eect of social media marketing
Although the negative eects of social media marketing could
aect the brand of the organization and aect the overall performance
of the organization. It is a new era in marketing where there is a shi
in power from the producer to the consumer, consumers can now
literally voice out their concerns either negatively or positively while
at the same time making it known to millions of potential customers,
making consumers the driving force of organizations, Marketers are
now faced with the challenge to rethink the way they communicate
with potential consumers [4]. Individuals feel free on the internet,
it allows them the chance to express themselves and mostly without
consequences making it one of the factors that render social media
marketing unpredictable and uncontrollable because you can’t stop
people from expressing their thoughts. Social networking websites
allow individuals to interact with one another and build relationships.
When companies join the social channels, consumers can interact
with them and they can communicate with consumers directly, that
interaction feels more personal to users than traditional methods of
strictly outbound marketing and advertising, this personal interaction
can instill a feeling of loyalty into followers and potential customers
[2]. Also, by choosing whom to follow on these sites, products can
reach a very narrow target audience. According to Richard [12-14]
organizational performance comprises the actual output or results
of an organization as measured against its intended outputs or goals
and objectives [15]. A performance measure is a dened method
for observing an attribute of organizational performance [16]. is
method species what, when, and how data will be collected about a
specic attribute of performance selected for the purpose of evaluating
performance. In order to interpret performance data comparison
would have to be made between observed performance at an earlier
time (before social media marketing) with a performance criterion
such as a goal, target, standard or a prior performance period (aer
social media marketing). Social media hasn’t only had an impact on
organisations but on marketing itself, the era of catchy punch lines and
striking images is no longer the be all and end all; it is about a continual
dialogue, building trust and interacting with the right audience in the
right way, as fast as possible, marketers are now in the front of the line
facing consumers and controlling the brand [1].
Social Media Networks
Social network sites are dened as web-based services that allow
individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public prole within a
bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they
share a connection, (3) view and traverse their list of connections and
those made by others within the system [17,18].
Major social media networks
Facebook: It is one of the largest social media networks and it was
founded by Mark Zuckerberg, this network was originally meant to
be only available to Harvard university students [19]. Facebook is a
popular free social networking website that allows registered users to
create proles, upload photos and video, send messages and keep in
touch with friends, family and colleagues. e network is translated
into 37 languages it has features, which include;
1. Marketplace - allows members to post, read and respond to
classied ads
2. Groups - allows members who have common interests to nd
each other and interact
3. Event - allows members to publicize an event, invite guests and
track who plans to attend
4. Pages - allows members to create and promote a public page
built around a specic topic
5. Presence technology - allows members to see which contacts
are online and chat [11]
ese are the following statistics of Facebook:
1. 864 million daily active users on average for September 2014
2. 703 million mobile daily active users on average for September
2014
3. 1.35 billion Monthly active users as of September 30, 2014
4. 1.12 billion Mobile monthly active users as of September 30,
2014
5. Approximately 82.2% of the daily active users are outside the
US and Canada
Facebook has also been involved with organizations and their
brand campaigns. In April 2011, Facebook launched a new portal
for marketers and creative agencies to help them develop brand
promotions on Facebook. Hardly any organization now doesn’t have a
Facebook account; it has been recognized as both a social and business
front for individuals and their businesses which is one of its unique
features, it is also recognized as a portal for political access.
Word of mouth has been one of the most important and ecient
marketing strategy, organizations rely heavily on word of mouth.
Facebook helps businesses amplify their word-of-mouth marketing
in the places where their customers are spending more of their time,
online and on mobile devices [4].
Here is new data that illustrates the scale at which people are
connecting with small businesses in U.S.A on Facebook.
a) ere are more than 2 billion connections between local
businesses and people
b) In an average week, there are over 645 million views of, and
13 million comments on, local business Facebook Pages
c) Approximately 70% of monthly active users in the U.S and
Canada are connected to a local business on Facebook

Page 4 of 9
Citation: Icha Oyza, Agwu M. Edwin (2015) Effectiveness of Social Media Networks as a Strategic Tool for Organizational Marketing Management. J
Internet Bank Commer S2: 006. doi:10.4172/1204-5357.S2-006
J Internet Bank Commer Recent Research on E-commerce and M-commerce ISSN: 1204-5357 JIBC, an open access journal
ese numbers illustrate the extensive reach for small businesses
on Facebook according to Nielsen’s Global Trust in Advertising Survey
of more than 28,000 internet respondents in 56 countries which was
performed in April 2012.
Twitter: It was created by Dorsey, Williams, Stone and Glass and
was launched in March 2006 [20]. It is an online social networking
and micro blogging service that enables users to send and read short
140-character text messages, called “tweets” where registered users can
read and post tweets, but unregistered users can only read them. Its
mission is ‘To give everyone the power to create and share ideas and
information instantly, without barriers’. It was ranked among the ten
most visited website and as of June 2014 has over 500 million users with
271 million monthly active users 500 million Tweets are sent per day
77% of accounts are outside the U.S and supports 35 plus languages
according to Twitter’s home page [4,21].
Twitter gives its users the opportunity to either ‘retweet’ ‘favorite’
or ‘reply’ any initial tweet and the occasional ‘trending topic’ which
will enable an organization know what the consumers are buying at
that particular period. It allows for direct communication between
an individual and any organization. Organizations have the chance
to purchase ads on twitter, buying twitter ads is very dierent from
newspaper ads. In newspaper you are buying a square on a piece of
paper which may or may not be read or entertained by thousands of
readers but when you purchase a twitter ad you are actually buying
space on an individual’s (which you can choose) timeline. In April 2013,
Twitter made this feature even more unique by allowing advertisers to
send ads only to people who mention specic keywords that may relate
to their product or organization in their timelines. is feature has
enabled organizations to not only handpick their target individuals but
to also have an idea on the amount of prospects available. e creation
of the ‘hash tag’ this enables your attendees to tweet about the event
putting the hash tag sign in the tweet, anybody who views the hash tag
will be able to review other’s view with the same hash tag.
Youtube: It is a free video sharing site and social network. Anybody
can watch and share videos on YouTube (the content ranges from
music videos to how-to demos to amateur lmmaking) but to access
additional features a person must register for an account, according to
a segment published in 2006 by BBC news YouTube is now a subsidiary
for Google aer being purchased for $1.65 billion. It was founded by
Hurley, Chen and Karim. According to an article written by Woda in
2014 the attributes of YouTube are stated below:
a) ird most visited site on the internet (behind Google and
Facebook)
b) 2,000,000,000 Video views per day, worldwide
c) 829,440 Videos are uploaded each day
d) e average internet user spends 900 seconds on You Tube pe r da y
Communication through YouTube was enabled through the
comment section which appears under every video. Businesses place
ads and can actually see what consumers think of the advertisement
itself, this is really new for marketers, normally when an advertisement
is sent out a marketer or the business has no idea how it is perceived by
the consumer the main aim at that point was just to create awareness
[22]. is new method of communication has le organizations
venerable to backlash or criticism from consumers who may feel some
adverts are inappropriate or oensive to a particular gender, race or
social status. Organizations have to undergo deep screening for their
adverts before they are allowed to air in order to prevent criticism
from consumers. YouTube users can communicate with each other in
several ways, they can:
1) Post comments on a video and respond to others’ comments
2) Record a video response to something they watched
3) Share videos via email, embedding the video on their blog, or
using Twitter or Facebook
4) Post comments directly to a person’s channel
5) Privately message the owner of a channel
Brands such as Sony are building their reputations on YouTube,
serving as a platform for the era of online video domination. ere is
a variety of methods brands can use to promote their messages. ere
are pre-roll ads, which run before videos and may be able to skip so the
advertiser only pays when someone watches at least 30 seconds of the
ad. Brands can also buy display advertising on the site and ads which
appear at the bottom of the screen during video [22].
Social media networks impact on organizations
In this modern day the internet is singlehandedly the fastest way to
gain consumer attention and at a wide reach, one of the ways in which
organizations have found to connect with their consumers is through
the social media. Social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter,
Google+ and Pinterest represent a huge opportunity for businesses to
grab the attention of customers while simultaneously building a brand
image. Businesses have been well educated of ways in which they can
use social media sites as a stepping stone to create brand awareness or
campaign to the consumers.
Word of mouth: Social media platforms provide the perfect
opportunity to take advantage of word of mouth and to see it spread.
Social media is growing at its fastest rate in developing countries.
People are connected on a global scale and casually participate in
each other’s lives through online observation. “Liking” a brand on
Facebook can spread virally very quickly throughout the various social
media channels. Kietzmann [4] stressed that consumers feel more
comfortable regarding opinions of their peers than paid advertisement
by businesses. Videos can also act as reference for review of products
and services through YouTube, which in many cases is then shared and
disseminated via various other social media websites these reviews can
act as bases for consumer buying decisions. As a result, companies can
and do provide products to popular YouTube users to review for their
subscribers as well as create their own branded YouTube channels with
branded videos about their products [21].
Communicating with customers: Social media is not without
its demerits [18] but organizations can use it as an advantage by
communicating with the dis-satised consumers directly thereby
taking full advantage of the social media and can promise to change or
improve the product they are oering. Organizations have even taken
this opportunity to ask its consumers opinions about upcoming events
concerning their brands especially consumer based organizations.
Considerations and inuence: Social media has had a huge
inuence on business, marketing and on how organizations engage
with their target market. e use of social media to share and engage
with others continues to grow, so it would be wise for any business
to develop and implement a sustainable social media strategy in order
to successfully take advantage of this rapidly changing environment.
Another inuence of the social media is the invention of ‘Trending
Topics’, A trend on Twitter refers to a hash tag-driven topic that is

Page 5 of 9
Citation: Icha Oyza, Agwu M. Edwin (2015) Effectiveness of Social Media Networks as a Strategic Tool for Organizational Marketing Management. J
Internet Bank Commer S2: 006. doi:10.4172/1204-5357.S2-006
J Internet Bank Commer Recent Research on E-commerce and M-commerce ISSN: 1204-5357 JIBC, an open access journal
immediately popular at a particular time, Trends are determined by
an algorithm that monitors hot subjects based on who you follow
and where you’re located [3,18]. ese ‘trends’ assist organizations in
knowing what are acceptable and what is not at a particular time in the
market.
Social bakers: Social Bakers is a social media analytics and
publishing company that provides social media management services
and deep data analytics for thousands of brands that market on
Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and
VK. It gives organizations the opportunity to monitor and optimize
the eectiveness of their social media campaigns, benchmark against
competitors and industry standards, and track the right social
media Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in order to improve their
marketing success and eciency. e site provides data on fastest
growing presence on social media according to industry i.e., celebrity,
brands, entertainment.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is a recent phenomenon that began
with social media dominating online communication. Social media
marketing is a form of internet marketing that implements various
social media networks in order to achieve marketing communication
and branding goals. Social media marketing primarily covers activities
involving social sharing of content, videos, and images for marketing
purposes. Social media marketing programs usually center on eorts
to create content that attracts attention and encourages readers to
share it with their social networks, resulting electronic word of mouth
(EWoM) [4]. When the underlying message spreads from user to
user and presumably resonates because it appears to come from a
trusted, third-party source, as opposed to the brand or company itself,
this form. Marketing techniques adopted by social media marketing
include Targeting, Consumer’s online brand related activities
(COBRAs), electronic word of mouth (EWOM), and these techniques
are used to successfully advertise online. Social media networks such
as Facebook and Twitter provide advertisers with information about
the likes and dislikes of their consumers which is crucial, as it provides
the businesses with a “target audience”. Consumer’s online brand
related activities (COBRAs) are another method used by advertisers
to promote their products. An activity such as uploading a picture
of a product purchased on Facebook is an example of a COBRA.
Another technique for social media marketing is the electronic word
of mouth (EWOM). Electronic recommendations and appraisals are
a convenient manner to have a product promoted via “consumer-to-
consumer interactions. An example would be a review of a company
online. A good service would result in a positive review which gets the
company free advertising via social media, however a poor service will
result in a negative consumer review which can potentially ruin the
company’s reputation of marketing results in earned media rather than
paid media.
Social media marketing versus online marketing
Online marketing which is also referred to as internet marketing
is the process of promoting a brand, service or product on the internet
combining the technical and creative aspects of the World Wide Web;
it includes website development, blog marketing, email marketing
and article marketing. Social media marketing and online marketing
are oen used interchangeably, however they are not the same, social
media marketing is a component of online marketing [5]. Online
marketing has become a useful tool to entrepreneurs or small business
owners as well as corporations. Whereas social media marketing is
conducted through social networks i.e., Facebook, Twitter; Social
media marketing helps in creating business and consumer relationships
through interaction with other members of these social networks.
YouTube is popular for video marketing, which is also considered as
part of social media marketing since it is becoming a social networking
site. YouTube is an excellent tool to market your products and services
to your target audience.
Challenges with social media marketing
According to a global survey stated in an article by Bennett in 2014
which was conducted in October 2014 by Hootsuite and Harris Poll
which included professional marketers, the major challenges of social
media marketing involved; Assessing the eectiveness of social media
activities received 67%, designing an overall social media strategy 62%,
taking data gathered from social media and turning it into something
actionable 61%, educating sta on how to use social media 59%,
making sense of all the data gathered via social media 56%, aligning
social media strategies throughout dierent departments within the
company 55%, creating ‘buy in’ among executives at the company
about the importance of social media 44%, knowing when to take
action about data obtained through social media 42%, keeping social
media accounts safe from security breaches 27%, diculty controlling
brand 23%, other 1%, none of the above 5% [8,18].
Organizational brand
A brand is a sign, symbol, logo, term that a producer or group
of producers put on their product or group of products in order to
ensure dierentiation from other competitive products in the market.
Branding is a process that is used by the businesses to utilize marketing
strategies to enhance their product or service image so that it is more
readily recollected by the customer [23]. Branding can as act as a
promotional strategy to produce consumer patronage and loyalty
and also inuencing their buying patterns, For a brand to achieve the
following, the elements will come into play, the brand elements include;
Brand name, Logo, URL, Character, Slogan, Jingle, Packaging and
the criteria’s for these elements to work are; Memorability, Meaning
fullness, Likability, Transferability, Adaptability and Protect ability
[24]. In order for a brand to be established for the long run, there are
constants that must be followed:
A brand must be simple: Popular brands today have simple
and easy to remember logos, the reason backing this concept it that
consumers like to associate themselves with simple things and forget
the complex things.
A brand should be dierent: A brand should have its own level of
uniqueness in order for it to be able to stand out from similar products
or competition in the market, the individuality of the brand make it
easy for consumers to seek out the product to use again.
A brand should be safe: Research should be carried out by the
marketers when seeking a logo or a symbol for the brand in order to
choose appropriately without oending a particular culture. is is
used mainly for international organizations [25].
A company’s brand is its denition in the world the name that
identies it to itself and the market place. A strong brand is a promise
or bond with customers and in return for their loyalty, customers
expect the rm to satisfy their needs better than any other competitors.
Brands will always be important given their fundamental purpose to
identify and dierentiate products and services. Good brand makes
people’s lives a little easier and better by allowing them to identify goods
according to the quality of the product associated with the brand and

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Citation: Icha Oyza, Agwu M. Edwin (2015) Effectiveness of Social Media Networks as a Strategic Tool for Organizational Marketing Management. J
Internet Bank Commer S2: 006. doi:10.4172/1204-5357.S2-006
J Internet Bank Commer Recent Research on E-commerce and M-commerce ISSN: 1204-5357 JIBC, an open access journal
making shopping very ecient. People are loyal to brands that satisfy
their expectations and deliver on its brand promise. e predictably
good performance of a strong brand is something that consumer will
always value. Building a corporate brand requires a lot of planning
and patience because your future prot and increase in market share
depend on it. Brand equity refers to the intangible value that occurs to a
company as a result of its successful eorts to establish a strong brand,
it exist as a function of consumer choice in the market place.
Consumer purchase intention
According to Ajzen [26] “intentions are assumed to capture the
motivational factors that inuence a behavior, they are indications
of how hard people are willing to try, of how much of an eort they
are planning to exert, in order to perform the behavior”. Purchase
intention can be dened as the decision to act or physiological action
that shows an individual’s behavior according to the product [27].
Competitive tools
Competitive dierentiation is a tactic used by organizations to
help set their products or services apart from that of the competitors.
Dierentiation can be achieved through packaging, marketing
campaigns and aer-market product support. Startup companies oen
develop products or services in niche markets in order to competitively
dierentiate themselves around a specic consumer need. A positioning
statement can provide a basis for competitive dierentiation, dening
specic advantages a particular oering provides [21].
Brand campaigning
Specic activities designed to promote a product, service or
business. A marketing campaign is a coordinated series of steps that can
include promotion of a product through dierent mediums (television,
radio, print, online) using a variety of dierent types of advertisements.
e campaign doesn’t have to rely solely on advertising, and can
also include demonstrations, word of mouth and other interactive
techniques.
Organizational performance
According to Richard [12-14] organizational performance
encompasses three specic areas of rm outcomes: (i) nancial
performance which includes; prots, return on assets, return on
investment, etc., (ii) product market performance which includes;
sales, market share, etc., (iii) shareholder return which includes; total
shareholder return, economic value added, etc.
e balance scorecard
Firstly it is important to note that the balance scorecard apart from
being a means of measurement for organizations, it also acts a means
of management which monitors the performance of all or part of an
organization, towards strategic or operational goals. It was originated
by a Robert Kaplan and David Norton in the 1990’s, It is a strategic
planning and management system which is used to align business
activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve
internal and external communications, and monitor organization
performance against strategic goals and it is used extensively by non-
prot organizations, government and private organization [28]. It uses
nancial and non-nancial performance measures to highlight areas
where the organization is failing to do what is required or was expected.
In order for it to be useful it has to have the right measures and targets.
Balanced scorecard has also been selected by the editors of Harvard
Business Review as one of the most inuential business ideas of the
past seventy ve years. e balance scorecard is a hybrid approach that
considers both nancial and non-nancial measures. According to
Kaplan and Norton the balanced scorecard suggests that organizations
be viewed from four perspectives, and to develop metrics, collect data
and analyze it relative to each of these four perspectives:
e learning and growth perspective: is perspective includes
employee training and corporate cultural attitudes related to both
individual and corporate self-improvement. People being the only
repertory of knowledge are the main resource. Kaplan and Norton
emphasize that ‘learning’ is more than ‘training’, in the continuous
rapid technological change; it is becoming necessary for knowledge
workers to be in constant learning mode.
e business process perspective: is perspective refers to
internal business processes. Due to the perspective based metrics,
managers know how well their business is running and if customers
are getting maximum satisfaction from their goods and services.
e customer perspective: ere is increasing realization by
organizations concerning the importance of consumer satisfaction; if
consumers are not satised there can move to the competition who
will eventually attend to their needs. If an organization performs poorly
in this area it is an indicator of future decline no matter the nancial
status.
e nancial perspective: One of the highest priorities is the
timely and accurate funding of nancial data and manages are tasked
to do what is necessary to provide it. Kaplan and Norton do not
disregard the traditional need for nancial data. ere is hope that
processing can become centralized and automated which follows aer
the implementation of a corporate database, but the point is that the
current emphasis on nancials leads to the “unbalanced” situation with
regard to other perspectives [18].
Strategic performance measurement system
Strategic performance measurement system can take many forms
but its distinctive feature is that they are designed specially to provide
information on both nancial and non-nancial measures which
covers dierent perspectives which when combined provides a way
of translating to strategy into performance measures [29]. Examples
include performance pyramids and hierarchies. It is the integrative
nature of SPMS that provides the organization with potential
information to enhance organization’s strategic competitiveness. In
addition, evidence shows that non-nancial performance indicators
can be best combined with nancial performance indicators to come
up with the best organizational performance measurements model in a
competitive environment in which organizations operate [29].
Strategic performance measurement systems have three
characteristics in common:
• Financial measures of performance are relevant to senior
managers as short-term feedback on the results of their past initiatives
aimed at increasing shareholder value, revenue growth, asset utilization,
and cash ows [30]
• ey supplement nancial measures with nonnancial
measures that indicate operational achievements likely to drive future
nancial performance
• ey are designed to fulll multiple purposes, from simple
cost determination to complex value creation, with an emphasis on
strategy execution

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Citation: Icha Oyza, Agwu M. Edwin (2015) Effectiveness of Social Media Networks as a Strategic Tool for Organizational Marketing Management. J
Internet Bank Commer S2: 006. doi:10.4172/1204-5357.S2-006
J Internet Bank Commer Recent Research on E-commerce and M-commerce ISSN: 1204-5357 JIBC, an open access journal
Recent research on the performance eects of SPMS has established
that characteristics and outcomes of the SPMS do not directly inuence
business performance; rather, through a complex set of cause-and-
eect relationships, performance gains at dierent aspects of the
business lead to improved overall performance [31].
e production of welfare framework (pow)
is framework is measured using three indicators: e rst
indicator is the outcome of the project i.e., performance should be
assessed in terms of what changes brought through its project. e
second indicator focuses on invested nancial, material and human
resources to pursue organizational objective for measurement against
what has been achieved. e third is the perception success and
achievement of the organization and people within the organization
and perceived success of the organization by stakeholders. is
framework has two categories as presented by Kendall and Knapp:
• Meso context refers to the internal environment i.e., culture,
internal aairs etc
• Macro context refers to the external environment i.e.,
social, economic, political, legal and technological environments.
Organizations have no control over this context
e POW framework also presents eight performance measurement
indicators which are nancial issues, eectiveness, choice/pluralism,
eciency, equity, participation, advocacy and innovation, it should
also be noted that this framework is usually executed by nonprot
making organizations [32,33].
eories Underpinning Social Media
Media and modernity theory: e rst theory is Media and
modernity theory by ompson in 1995. is theory states that the
development of communication media from its early days of print to
recent days of electronic communication was due to the rise of modern
societies. It takes into consideration technological advancements,
changes in income and culture of people from the primitive to the
modernity stage as well as education and social economic variables.
e theory further argues that in order to fully understand the nature
of modern societies we must rst look into communication media
and their impact. ompson gave an instance of print media and how
it started to spread during the early days of its development due to
factors such as urbanization, industrial development, technological
advancement, and increased number of elites by 1500s [34]. e
focal contention is that the way of social media is an impression of
modernizing advancement methodologies or stages that a general
public would have arrived at. In perspective of this hypothesis,
social networking is an aereect of modernizing ICT that impacts
association and individual correspondence, it is a consequence of the
relationship between innovative headway and changing worldwide
society of correspondence and relating past national state limits. e
theory is subject to criticism based on the fact that in reality there
are circumstances under which the advancement of media cannot
be controlled by level of innovation alone but instead exchange of
numerous variables, for example, innovative exchange starting with
one nation then onto the next, steady government arrangements on
media and worldwide nancial exchanges.
Resource mobilization theory of social media
Another social media theory is the “Resource Mobilization eory
of Social Media” by Wiest et al. [27]. e theory borrows from the
work of scholars on resource mobilization theory such as Jenkins [35]
which states that resources (time, money, organizational skills, and
certain social or political opportunities) are very central toward success
in any social movements. It is argued that these scarce resources can
be mobilized through social media, something which would not have
otherwise happened. An example is the Arab spring social movement
in Egypt and Tunisia where social media was used to mobilize people
for demonstrations or to seek political support from individuals or
organizations, social media proved resourceful in mobilizing people
and getting them to participate in anti-government movements in
Egypt [27]. Other examples of social media use among “resource
poor” actors include HIV/AIDS activism and the activities of some
Muslim feminists. e HIV/AIDS media activism grew signicantly
between the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initiated mostly by
collectives of HIV/AIDS victims with the aim of publicizing AIDS
health and treatment options HIV/AIDS and also the cultural and
political activities of people with HIV/AIDS [36]. ese groups lacked
the power and resources to eciently spread their messages to a mass
audience through traditional means but the Internet has now enabled
mobilization of people with HIV/AIDS in developing countries as well
as AIDS dissidents. At its inception, resource mobilization theory was
unlike earlier theories of collective action in its treatment of social
movements as normal, rational, institutionally rooted activities that
are structured and patterned, thus allowing for analysis in terms of
organizational dynamics [35].
Organizational theory
Murphy argued that in organization principle; three elementary
theoretical strategies to measuring organizational eectiveness have
progressed:
• e objective-based mostly method: which suggests that
a business can be evaluated by the ambitions that it sets for itself
although organizations have various and sometimes contradictory
goals, producing cross-rm comparisons tough
• e systems technique: this method partially compensates
for the weakness of the goal-based method by thinking about the
simultaneous achievement of several, generic functionality aspects
• e several constituency strategies: this strategy factors in
these dierences in perspectives and examines the extent to which the
agenda of various stakeholders teams are satised.
Discussion
Research of social media is still at its infant stage due to the fact that
it is a recent phenomenon but there is an amount of interest amongst
practitioners and researchers in studying the issues related to social
media and social media marketing. Hensel et al. [37] suggested that
in order to positively increase advertising and improve marketing that
all possible avenues must be considered, also stating that there are
benets, drawback and challenges that are associated with any social
media strategy and they must all be dealt with before a specic strategy
is chosen. ese strategies should be used to track the organization’s
presence on social media in order to monitor the activities associated
with their brand and. ey also stated that social media has made it
possible for one individual to communicate with hundreds or even
thousands of other individuals and therefore amplifying word of
mouth. Colliander et al. [9] compared the eects of brand publicity
in social media advertising (blog) and traditional media (magazines,
newspapers). ere was a demonstration regarding the greater publicity
eectiveness of social media and underlying factors behind it and also
the eects of perceived writer – brand relationship, eects of writer

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Citation: Icha Oyza, Agwu M. Edwin (2015) Effectiveness of Social Media Networks as a Strategic Tool for Organizational Marketing Management. J
Internet Bank Commer S2: 006. doi:10.4172/1204-5357.S2-006
J Internet Bank Commer Recent Research on E-commerce and M-commerce ISSN: 1204-5357 JIBC, an open access journal
credibility and publicity eectiveness, purchase intentions and social
interactions are the variables taken into consideration when comparing
social media advertising to traditional media. It was established that
social media (blogs) generated higher brand attitudes and purchase
intentions due to the social interaction between the readers and the
blogger, the readers socialize with the blogger and also with each other,
sharing experiences they have had with a particular product or service.
Kunz et al. [38] conducted an experiment to further understand the
use of social media. Top 18 retailers and ve of the social media sites
were taken, the number of subscribers belonging to each retailer was
monitored for a number of weeks; there was a signicant change in
sales during that period. It was discovered that consumers enjoyed the
control that came along with social media and they enjoy being part
of the community than the target of an organization. Based upon the
usage rate and statistics, retailers are quickly incorporating the use of
social networking sites into their marketing communication strategy.
Retailers now encourage consumers to visit their prole pages and to
also take advantage of the promo’s and it is also used to boost seasonal
sales.
Conclusion and Recommendation
Conclusion
e objectives of this study was to determine if social media
marketing aected organizational brand, if it inuenced consumer
behavior, if it could be used as a competitive tool and also if it can
increase organization eciency. ese hypotheses were tested and
three out of four tested positive. It shows social media marketing is
eective even if it is relatively new to the marketing world, it is just
as useful and eective if not more than other traditional forms of
marketing. Managers have to understand that there has been a shi
of power from the producers to the consumers; social media provides
a platform for consumers to speak their thoughts regarding a new
ad, product or even service. Organizations have to take advantage
of the two way communication to respond and communicate with
consumers to nd out how a particular brand is perceived or if they are
enjoying the use of a product taking full advantage to electronic word of
mouth. e researcher concluded by stating that the business world is
developing rapidly and that with the constant communication that has
been made available marketers have been given the chance to handpick
potential consumers and at the same time getting the loyalty from
present consumers. Marketers have also been given the opportunity
to better understand their consumers directly from the thoughts and
views expressed by them; if marketers can fully understand the way to
manipulate the use of social media then the power could be taken back
from the consumers.
Recommendation
Based on the ndings established during the course of this study,
the following is recommended to managers of various organizations.
• Social media marketing is a recent phenomenon but it has
proven to be very eective and should be considered a major player
in creating awareness. Managers should use this platform to their
advantage by encouraging employees and not just the marketing
department to participate in social media marketing which in turn will
cover more ground
• Although they all have the same advantages and functions,
a manager would still have to choose a suitable social media platform
to advertise products. Some products are better advertised through
demonstration which can be done through videos placed on YouTube.
e marketing department has to gure out the best way to present the
product or service to the consumers
• One of the major challenges of social media marketing
is turning data and information given into something actionable,
I recommend that social media should instead be used as tracking
system; trac on organization pages can be monitored comparing the
attention given to a particular product or campaign on the prole pages
to the sales of that product or brand. Polls can also be useful
• Social media can also be a good platform for building goodwill
and improving corporate image, I recommend that organizations
engage consumers in friendly competitions hosted on their social
media pages and also take part in self-promotion by uploading photos
of events i.e., charity events
Electronic Word Of Mouth (eWOM) is a wider horizon than
word of mouth, a comment weather negative or positive placed on the
internet is seen by everyone even potential customers. I recommend that
managers have a damage control team on standby in case a campaign
is not well received by the public causing a backlash. Organizations
should never partake in word battles with consumers or competitors
on social media, the way an organization handles criticism on social
media could go a long way.
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Citation: Icha Oyza, Agwu M. Edwin (2015) Effectiveness of Social Media
Networks as a Strategic Tool for Organizational Marketing Management. J
Internet Bank Commer S2: 006. doi:10.4172/1204-5357.S2-006