Social media research facilitate the firm’s business growth in the global marketspace

Research of social media in the global marketspace can be beneficial for a business and its growth in the global market space. Statistics provided by Chaffey (2016) show that at January 2016, there were 2.307 billion active social media users across the globe, which is a 10% (219 million people) growth from January 2015. These figures show that social media is a profound channel of communication for businesses and a promising facilitator of growth. With social media use rapidly growing globally, businesses can capitalise on this to gain mass exposure for their brand. Social media research can help facilitate business growth by providing vital information to a firm’s strategy when choosing to actively advertise or participate in social media interactions. Old Spice can use social media research as a tool to obtain information about the male personal care market, such as personal behaviour of consumers, social behaviour, and the social aspects theory. More importantly, Netnographic studies and sentiment analysis.

Netnography is primarily a qualitative research method in studying behaviours of online communities and provides consumer insights in regard to a product or service.  “Netnography is essentially ethnographic research applied to the web” (Rocca, 2014). This research involves a business to follow conversations online between consumers about its products on its social media sites (Facebook, twitter etc.) and develop a data set that can be analysed for commonalities (What is netnography?, 2011) and using that information, the firm can determine common trends with certain cultures or with different age groups and adapt its strategy to further improve or maintain certain patterns of consumer reactions. By using netnographic as a research method, Old Spice can gain a better understanding of its consumers and how they receive the products being offered and their experiences with the products. For example, Old Spice may conduct netnographical research on its Facebook page, monitoring discussions on threads about its deodorants and may discover that some consumers react negatively to the odours that old spice offer and may discuss probabilities of new scents that they may desire or are using from other companies. Old Spice can take this information and discover a business opportunity to introduce new scents for its deodorants in addition to those currently on offer.

“Sentiment analysis and opinion mining is the field of study that analyzes people's opinions, sentiments, evaluations, attitudes, and emotions from written language.” (Liu, 2012). It is paramount that firms understand how consumers are talking about their products and understand how consumers are perceiving the brand and expressing that to other users or potential users. With the internet being the fastest and easiest way to express positive or negative opinions about products, it has become one of the main channels that consumers use to gain information about a product or brand pre purchase and use this information to come to a purchasing decision (Browning, 2013). Old Spice can use a sentiment analysis to track negative reviews, new product perception (suggestions for new products), brand perception (how consumers feel about Old Spice as a brand), and reputation management.

Social media research can facilitate business growth in the global marketspace by providing firms with the necessary information to further develop products and advertisements based on consumer opinions and input rather than guessing what consumers want.

References:

What is netnography?, 2011, video recording, SAGE Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA. Viewed 10 May 2016, doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/null.

Liu, B 2012, Synthesis Lectures on Human Language Technologies, May 2012, Vol. 5, No. 1 , Pages 1-167

Browning, V. So, K. & Sparks, B. A. (2013). The Influence of Online Reviews on Consumers’ Attributions of Service Quality and Control for Service Standards in Hotels, Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 30 (1-2) 23-40.