Marketing opportunities in social networks for client experience management - Дипломная работа

Возможности маркетинга в социальных сетях для управления клиентским опытом Introduction Nowadays new technologies such as access to the high speed Internet and affordable gadgets have attracted many new users. In 2016 approximately 40% of the world population was users of the Internet. What is more, in Russia this number is much higher and equals 71,3% (Internet live statistics, 2016). Moreover, the number of people using the Internet is increasing every year as there was approximately 8% growth from 2015 to 2016. The number of social network users is growing even faster. It increased by 9% from 2015 to 2016 (The statistics portal, 2016). Thus, social networks play a significant role in people’s life. They have become not only a way of communication and entertainment but also a method to promote goods and services. Companies understand that actions in social networks can significantly influence company marketing and sales. According to the research of IBM (2011), 80 of companies CEOs say that they have a profile or presence on social networks, and more than 50% of them use microblogging sites and media sharing sites. However, the difficulty of developing SMM refers to the fact that many social media marketing activities are customer-driven, which means that customers’ actions in social networks cannot be influenced by companies directly (Baird, Parasnis, 2011). Thus, it is crucially important to understand the processes from the point of customer’s view that is why concepts considering customer experience (in particular customer journey) are becoming more popular (Lemon, Verhoef, 2016). Customer journey is a contemporary approach conceptualizing customer experience in the process of sequence of stages. This approach enables companies to have a complex view on customer interactions with company. Understanding customer journey leads to increased customer loyalty and higher company performance (Rawson et al, 2013). Overall, many works were devoted to analyzing SMM tools or concepts regarding customer experience. However, there is a research gap in studying possible ways to SMM activities to different stages of customer journey. Thus, a theoretical significance of this work refers to the necessity of more detailed investigation of social media marketing activities from the theoretical point of view and application them to the modern concept of customer journey. Therefore, the goal of this paper is investigating which SMM activities are appropriate in managing customer journey. Moreover, in my work I am going to make the analysis of customers from different countries to compare customers’ behavior from Russia and abroad, which can be useful for companies operating in more than one market or preparing for entering a new market. To achieve the goal, several objectives are performed. 1) To analyze literature about social media marketing and customer journey. 2) To create a theoretical framework suggesting which SMM activities are the most appropriate on different stages of a customer journey. 3) To conduct a research investigating SMM activities on which customers pay attention for each of the stages of customer journey. 4) To give recommendations about SMM in managing customer journey based on the results of the research. The object of the study is customer social media activities form customers’ perspective. The subject of the study is managing customer journey through social media marketing. The practical significance of the study is determined by the fact that social media networks are becoming popular and can be used for business purposes. Understanding which SMM activities suit better for different stages of customer journey can be crucial as it allows company to improve relations with customers. This work contributes to explaining which SMM activities are more appropriate and helping to avoid extra expenses on activities which are unnecessary. Moreover, the study is devoted to comparing what consumers from different countries think about SMM activities, therefore, the work will be useful for companies operating in different countries or entering a foreign market since successfully developed and fulfilled social media marketing strategy can lead to increased sales and profits. The structure of my work is the following. Theoretical part will describe and analyze the main concepts I am going to use, which are social media marketing and customer journey. In practical part I will set up the several suggestions considering which SMM activities are appropriate on every stage of customer journey. Next, I will describe the results of conducting field research. After analyzing those results, I will make a conclusion about SMM activities on each stage of customer journey. Finally, I will discuss the practical implications, limitations of my work and directions for future research. The method of conducting field research is an online questionnaire. It was chosen for the several reasons. First, it is convenient for respo