Challenges and opportunities of Social Media: Evidence from Greek food manufacturing firms Vlachvei A. a and Notta O. b a
Technological Educational Institute of West Macedonia, Dept. of International Trade, Kastoria Campus, Fourka Area, 52100, Kastoria,Greece b Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, Dept. of Agricultural Technology, (Agricultural Economics Program) P.O.Box 141, 57400, Thessaloniki, Greece *Corresponding author: E-mail:
[email protected] Abstract The objective of this study is to improve our understanding about Greek food manufacturing social media involvement and to investigate the perceptions of Greek managers about the use and effectiveness of social media marketing. In order to achieve the above research aims, descriptive data for two hundred firms were collected and discussed and case studies of 72 Greek food manufacturing firms were developed. Social media usage was investigated: a) in respect of use of social media and most popular networks b) by identifying manager’s perceptions about the benefits and effectiveness of social media used by company. The preliminary results show that there is a significant effort of Greek food manufacturing firms to take advantage of the potential of social media. However, still only almost 50% of the firms are involved with social media, and Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube are the top four platforms used by Greek food firms, with Facebook leading the pack. Most of the firms that already use social media (36%) answered that they plan to give emphasis on YouTube platform in the near future. Most of the marketing directors of firms that are involved in social media (66.6%) believe that Facebook is mainly used for engaging with consumers and generate new product idea. According to marketing directors of Greek food firms the top three benefits of social media marketing are building brands, develop a community and engaging customers and increase word of mouth advertising effectiveness. Keywords: Social media, Greek food firms INTRODUCTION Over the last decade the use of social media for commercial networking purposes has increased (Griffiths et al. 2010). Social Networks have a number of benefits such as a better understanding of consumer needs (Ferneley et al. 2009a, 2009b) and possibilities for fast and easy collaboration. The social relationships play active roles in the internationalization of firms as they serve as an effective means of generating knowledge about both the geographical and physical markets that the firm may be interested in exploiting (Prah, 2011). Also, social media are used as an effective online tool for customer word of mouth communication and building a community (Jansen et al. 2009). Social media comprises an array of channels through which interaction between individuals and entities, such as organizations, is facilitated and disseminated. Typically, social media are highly accessible (easy to get to) and scalable (can be used to reach large numbers) ( Zarella, 2010). These channels use Internet- and Web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many).The implications for corporations using several social media platforms as part of their overall marketing strategy are extremely interesting and empirical investigation on the effectiveness and the ROI of social media has not been discussed enough in the literature. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: first, to review both the academic and industry literature pertaining to social media marketing tools, goals, measurement and manager’s perceptions. Second, to improve our understanding about Greek food manufacturing social media marketing and to investigate the perceptions of Greek managers about the use and effectiveness of social media marketing. In order to achieve the above research aims, descriptive data for two hundred firms were collected and discussed and case studies of 72 established, Greek food manufacturing firms were developed. Social media usage was investigated: a) in respect of use of social media and most popular networks b) by identifying manager’s perceptions about the benefits and effectiveness of social media used by company.
LITERATURE REVIEW There is a rich empirical literature about the goals of the use of social media by firms. For example Parise and Guinan (2008), conducted an interview survey of 30 marketing managers and senior executives and concluded that there were four principles which guided managers’ marketing actions using Web 2.0: 1) facilitate users in generating content, 2) focus on building a community, 3) ensure authenticity of the message, and 4) look for marketing opportunities through experimentation. Also, Jansen et al. (2009) found micro-blogging (Twitter) to be an effective online tool for customer word of mouth communications, and discuss the implications for corporations using micro-blogging as part of their overall marketing strategy. There is a rich literature also about model formation with key business process steps and guidelines for effective Social Media program design and implementation. In particular, Social Media platforms have been studied because of their implications for global commerce (Piskorski and McCall, 2010; Van der Lans, et al. 2010). Much literature exists, for example, in the usage of Web 2.0 and SM platforms in the marketing areas of electronic word of mouth advertising (Parise and Guianan, 2008; Jalilvand, et al, 2011) and viral marketing (Leskovec,et.al. 2007; Hartline et al., 2008). Constantinides & Fountain (2008), as well as Jobs (2011), and Gilfoil and Jobs (2011) have further studied the use of Social Media platforms for global buy and sell activities and have provided evidence of effective corporate use of SM platforms to engage user communities, prospects, and end customers in both active and passive ways. Finally, several researchers and experts have identified/discussed key elements from a complex set of ROI measurement issues of social media, such as direct and indirect measures (Mangiuc, 2009), short vs. long term impact (Pooja, et al., 2012), financial vs. non-financial indicators (Blanchard, 2009) and a need for a social media balanced scorecard approach (Nair, 2011). More recently, Gilfoil and Jobs (2012) suggest that the SM ROI issue is far more complex than most report, and provides a business “unit of analysis” framework for better understanding this complexity, while Peters et al. (2013) propose a holistic framework that covers the major elements of social media, drawing on theories from marketing, psychology, and sociology and support and detail these elements—namely ‘motives,’ ‘content,’ ‘network structure, ’and ‘social roles & interactions’ and suggest nine guidelines that may prove valuable for designing appropriate social media metrics and constructing a sensible social media dashboard. Regarding Greek data, there is a limited number of studies that presents the use and effectiveness of social media mainly either in the area of tourism and hospitality, or in the area of e-government and political campaigns (Sigala et. al, 2012; Sigala, 2011; Afouxenidis, 2013), while Vlachvei et al (2014) compare social media strategies as a part of e-marketing strategies between Greek and Italian wine firms. This work aims to contribute preliminary research to the gap in the literature concerning usage of social media platforms as marketing/business tool for Greek food SMEs.
DATA AND RESULTS We collected data on social media from a sample of 200 food Greek firms. The sample has been selected based on two criteria: first all firms have internet presence for more than five years and second there are firms from all 9 3-digit subsectors according to NACE classification of food industry. In addition most of firms (92%) have more than 1 million euros sales in 2013. We used sales as an indicator of firm’s size in order to investigate if there is correlation between size or 3-digit industry and usage of social media strategies. According to the descriptive data that are presented in Table 1, 6.5% of sample firms are meat processing firms, 1.5% fish processing, 3.5% fruits and vegetables processing firms, 7% olive oil processing firms, 13.5 dairy firms, 4% mills, 7.5% bakery and farinaceous products, 19% cocoa, chocolate and confectionary and 36.5% are beverage firms (12.5% water and spirits, 3% breweries, 22% wine firms). Regarding size 26.5% of firms have sales more than ten and less than 50 million euros, and 31% of firms have sales 1-5 million euros. The empirical data on social media usage practices, obtained by firms’ websites from a survey conducted in March 2013. Our analysis shows that there is a significant effort of Greek food manufacturing firms to take advantage of the potential of social media especially in the case of medium and large sized firms. However, still only almost 50% of the firms are involved with social media, when the relevant data for the global business environment shows that 93% of marketers use social media for business, 70% of marketers have used Facebook to successfully gain new customers and now there are over 1.15 billion Facebook users (Social mediatoday.com).
Table 1. Descriptive sample data Production, processing and preserving of meat and meat products Processing and preserving of fish and fish products Processing and preserving of fruit and vegetables Manufacture of vegetable and animal oils and fats Manufacture of dairy products Manufacture of grain mill products, starches and starch products Manufacture of bakery and farinaceous products Manufacture of cocoa, chocolate, sugar and sugar confectionary Manufacture of wines Manufacture of beer Production of mineral waters and soft drinks Sales >100 million euros Sales 50-100 million euros Sales 10-50 million euros Sales 5-10 million euros Sales 1-5 million euros Sales
