Internet: Social networking, online communities

 

As buzz around social network Twitter has grown, many retail and e-commerce brands have begun to reap the rewards of using it as a marketing, customer-retention and customer-marketing tool. There are ...

Radical changes in consumer behaviour, sparked by the economic crisis, have created a need to ‘reboot’ established approaches to marketing. Like the reappraisal occurring in the global financial world ...

Technology has brought consumers an almost infinite degree of choice. Products are broken down into smaller and smaller constituent parts so we can customise every aspect of our consumer experience to ...

Enterprise 2.0 is a term encompassing all the web-based tools that facilitate networking and collaboration, and the shift from desktop to web-based applications. This article argues that companies wil

The paper argues that online brand communities often fail because of a false assumption that they develop organically and should be left alone; on the contrary, the most successful resemble hierarchic

Social media are now becoming demographically widespread. Categorising participants as 'professionals', 'paid' and ordinary users is now inadequate; online presences are far more complex than this sug

The article argues the importance for brands of embracing and properly measuring their online impact, especially in social media. What to look for is discussed (a checklist is given). Advantages and d ...

The article discusses the development of `social media, which are based on creating and sharing conversations and relationships, and considers how brands can behave effectively in this context. The be ...

Social networking websites are playing an increasingly fundamental part in the social lives of young adults, making them a potentially attractive -and lucrative - opportunity for advertisers. This Bes ...

The article argues that there is a general tendency to misunderstand online communities: they are seen as 'authentic', 'honest',' open', 'real people', in contrast to companies which are seen as disin

Brand 'friending' is the process by which brands seek to engage and interact with users of social networks. Friending can take many forms, but within three broad approaches: 1) getting users to become

The article describes how marketing has developed from understanding individual needs, based on psychology, to understanding collective actions, based on sociology. Social intercourse has developed fr

In the first of a series of fortnightly pieces for WARC Online, Tummler offers a sceptical view of the potential of social networking websites to generate advertising revenue. He discusses the commerc ...

This article discusses youth research in the Middle East. Technology has enabled Arab youth to connect with the world, overcome social taboos, and create new forms of community. The 'Shabab Tek' appro

The article describes a new method for extracting insights from monitoring social networks. Methods for analysing the unstructured data stream from social networks are classified in various ways: rati

The article describes 'Netnography', an innovative research approach to extract and use online community dialogue for research and innovation purposes. It has four main aspects or research: qualitativ

The article discusses how companies can learn to live with and use social media. Markets have become conversations, and companies are learning to listen. Three types of market conversation (all based ...

The new internet evolutions (Web 2.0 and beyond) have not yet been truly embedded in the market research process. We introduce the term 'connected research' as an embedded form of market research that ...

This article discusses the most influential digital trends of 2008. The first of these is the continued rise of Facebook and other social networking sites such as MySpace. These two services alone had ...

This article discusses the main findings of Ofcom's International Communications Market Report 2008. Among the main findings of the research, which covers countries including the UK, US, Germany and J ...

Cadbury was aware of an online petition for the return of its discontinued Wispa brand, but wanted to measure the full intensity of its appeal to fully understand the scale, and potential, of the dema ...

STA Travel had a good reputation, but also suffered from the mistaken perception that it could only be used by people under the age of 26. This word of mouth campaign thus aimed to spread engaging con ...

This case details Chupa Chups' efforts to use a silent puppet to drive word-of-mouth about its new brand idea, 'Life's Less Serious'. Communications centered around Chuck, a silent puppet, who feature ...

Caterer.com is a specialist recruitment website for the hospitality industry. Having grown out of the major trade publication, it boasts a strong heritage within the industry, which is reinforced thro ...

This word of mouth campaign was based on building a new website for SENSOA, an organisation that aimed to provide information to young people about sex and relationships. The new 'All About Sex' websi ...

As conventional means of maintaining channel loyalty weaken, organisations are forced to invent new ways of ensuring channel partner commitment. One of the most effective ways is to create an enterpri ...

Companies can do themselves severe damage by trying to manipulate word of mouth on the internet without understanding how internet conversations work. For example, attempts by Sony, who created a fake ...

The article reviews campaigns which deliberately used social networks to enhance reach and impact. The campaigns use bespoke content such as Svedka (a Swedish vodka in the US), E4 (a UK digital TV cha ...

This article argues that the debate about whether consumers can drive help innovation has moved to a new level, and the old argument about lack of imagination is now out of date. By carefully choosing ...

The articles discusses how research can use Web 2.0 and online communities. Benefits include convenient and efficient way to engage with consumers, honest response are gathered and deep findings are g