This study aimed to provide public relations professions with insight into the use of Social Customer Relationship Marketing as a marketing 2.0 tool which delivers the potential to elicit the opportunity for organisations to monitor, engage and manage conversations and relationships through Facebook. Drawing on literature from the fields such as new media, public relations, social customer relationship marketing, and public relations, a qualitative content analysis of case studies of selected organisations was conducted including 10 South African organisations that have incorporated Facebook into their Social Customer Relationship Marketing strategies. The content analysis was conducted to determine the amount of communications taking place on each fan page in order to support the data and provide additional insight into the research question, primary data was collected through two survey questionnaires of, firstly, social media users who subscribe to an organisation‘s Facebook page and, secondly, a survey conducted among the social organisations. Surveys were conducted to firstly determine the social organisations interactions with Facebook as secondly, to determine the social media users‘ interactions with the Facebook. The study found that the majority of the organisations under study in the content analysis successfully elicited user generated conversations about the brand, through content that was advocated by the organisations Facebook administrator. It is also evident as seen in the minority of organisations that these platforms are only likely to elicit consumer- driven dialogue on Facebook if the platform is managed effectively through initiated daily conversations about the brand. The continuous involvement by the administrator in encouraging conversations was necessary, as well as response to all wall posts by the social customer, participation in all conversations by providing accurate information to customers and potential customers about the brand. Conclusions from the survey questionnaires among the social identified the social customers need to be communicated with pro-actively by an organisations who can provide, through collaborative conversations, information pertaining to the brand in real time conversation, while the survey among the social organisation concluded the need for an organisation to not only create a social media footprint, but to allow for a space in which through conversation with the social customer, conversations can turn into relationships.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:8415 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Puffett, Lauren |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Arts |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MA |
| Format | x, 133 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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