Contributions published at Marketing

Despite the fact that most companies have embraced social media as part of the marketing mix, there still remains a significant lack of knowledge as to what drives communication effectiveness in this new kind of peer-to-peer environment where traditional, well-settled marketing communication paradigms like domination and control do show their limits. Accordingly, corporate attempts to leverage marketing opportunities in the social media ecosystem often prove to be a highly experimental trial-and-error process with uncertain outcomes. Therefore, this book sets out to expand companies’ understanding of how to successfully manage corporate social media sites by providing a set of key drivers, which, when appropriately managed and controlled, can help to increase the audience base of a firm’s social media presence. To this end, the author theoretically and quantitatively investigated within a corporate blog setting how specific characteristics of corporate postings affect future audience size. The selected characteristics are identified on three investigative levels that arise from the generic structure of social media postings, namely the source of information, the presentation of information, and the interaction with information. In this way, the author was able to map and to analyze a customer’s integrated experience with a corporate social media message. The research findings led to some applicable recommendations for companies running a social media presence. For instance, it is shown that selecting the right corporate spokespersons, presenting vivid content, or promoting conversational activity can become important tactical levers when it comes to the augmentation of corporate social media site attractiveness. Hence, this book helps to assist companies to effectively leverage the power of a wide set of pull factors.

Given the relevance and challenges of social media marketing communications, we conducted a study of corporate blogs from Fortune Global 500 companies in order to examine which social media communication metrics, i.e., creators, content and interactions, have the greatest impact on the growth and size of an audience. This article gives an overview of the most important results and the main ideas behind them.

Der Einsatz Sozialer Medien zur Erreichung marketingpolitischer Ziele ist bei KMU inzwischen weit verbreitet. Viele dieser Unternehmen gehen dabei allerdings eher intuitiv denn zielgerichtet vor – selten mit Erfolg. Gleichzeitig liefert der aktuelle Stand der Forschung nur wenig fundiertes Wissen im Hinblick auf die kritischen Erfolgsfaktoren einer mittelständischen Social Media-Kommunikation. Diesbezüglich gewonnene Erkenntnisse fußen größtenteils auf einzelfallbasierten, qualitativen oder empirisch-deskriptiven Untersuchungen. Sie lassen sich damit zwar als Orientierungsmaßstäbe heranziehen, empirisch gültige Kausalaussagen liefern sie jedoch nicht. Vor diesem Hintergrund zielt der vorliegende Beitrag darauf ab, diese mehr oder weniger fragmentiert vorliegenden, erfolgsbezogenen Informationen zu sammeln und mittels quantitativ-explorativer Faktoren- und Regressionsanalyse einige wenige, erfolgsentscheidende Variablen aufzudecken. Der dazu verwendete Datensatz besteht aus den Angaben von 135 KMU zu Social Media-Marketing-Rahmenbedingungen, Handlungen und -Erfolg.

The growth of social media and the decreasing effectiveness of traditional marketing have lead to a surge of interest in using corporate weblogs for marketing purposes. Despite the potential of corporate social media to increase the visibility of brands, products and services without spending millions of dollars in advertising, companies still struggle in finding an effective and traffic generating communication strategy for corporate weblogs. In this paper we analyse the impact of user-generated comments and online conversations between firms and (potential) customers on the attractiveness of corporate weblogs. In particular, we quantitatively analyze the formal as well as content-related characteristics of feedback triggered weblog conversations and their effects on weblog readership measured in the number of visitors and page views. Using a unique cross-sectional sample of corporate blogs of twelve Global Fortune 500 companies, we derive empirical insights about the impact of conversational activity on weblog traffic. The findings of our study provide several insights how micro-conversations on corporate social media such as weblogs can lead to an engagement with current as well as potential customers.

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Angesichts der sich kontinuierlich verschärfenden Wettbewerbsbedingungen auf dem Schweizer Arbeitgebermarkt sowie der ständig wachsenden Bedrohung, im Rennen um die "right potentials" gegenüber Großunternehmen in den Rückstand zu geraten, steigt der Bedarf an strategischen Handlungsalternativen im Personalmanagement von KMU in besonderer Weise. In diesem Zusammenhang zeigt der vorliegende Beitrag zunächst auf, wie sich im Rahmen einer sog. "Employer Branding"-Strategie Erfolgspotenziale im Arbeitsmarkt durch den Aufbau und die Steuerung einer Arbeitgebermarke realisieren lassen. Darüber hinaus wird in einer empirischen Untersuchung bei Personalverantwortlichen und Führungskräften Schweizer KMU die wahrgenommene Relevanz sowie das vorherrschende Grundverständnis von Employer Branding ermittelt.

Die zunehmende Relevanz unternehmerischer Nachhaltigkeit in KMU bedingt auch die Notwendigkeit einer Steigerung nachhaltigkeitsbezogener Kommunikationsanstrengungen. In diesem Kontext geht der vorliegende Beitrag der Frage nach, ob und wie durch den Einsatz von Weblogs die einerseits aus den Zielen der Nachhaltigkeitskommunikation von KMU, sowie andererseits aus den Herausforderungen der Nachhaltigkeitskommunikation für KMU abgeleiteten spezifischen Anforderungen an das Kommunikationsinstrument, erfüllt werden.

Several studies in the marketing literature show that perceptual brand metrics are related to the intangible value of a firm and improve the ability to predict future cash flows. Using perceptual brand data for the three largest economies in Europe, the authors extend previous research by investigating whether perceived brand familiarity, differentiation and energy are reliable customer-based brand equity metrics for predicting future firm value. Furthermore, they investigate what impact these measures have on financial performance, measured as cash flow volatility. The authors find that notwithstanding the revealed cash flow relevance of energy, only changes in brand familiarity are associated with investors’ expectations of future cash flows.

The globalized economic world demands for competitive advantages like technological and economical know-how, motivation of managers and useful networks. Especially small and middle-sized companies are able to adapt and to optimize processes within a company. To be successful appropriate relations to business schools (and their programs) help in a very successful way.