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8 ways to use social media for market research

Written by by Annette Chacko

Published on  May 30, 2023

Reading time  9 minutes

As marketers, it’s our job to know our target audience’s needs and preferences. It’s why we conduct market research every year to better understand what our customers want and uncover new business opportunities. But traditional market research is no longer enough now that consumer preferences and market dynamics can change overnight.

While focus groups and annual surveys are still useful touchpoints, they reveal little about current events or trending topics among consumers. Social media is overflowing with these in-the-moment insights—it’s market research on steroids. That’s why 93% of business leaders say social media data and insights will be their company’s primary source of business intelligence.

But this dynamic and rich data source hasn’t been fully harnessed. You need to use social media market research to uncover critical customer, competitor and industry insights to maintain an accurate pulse on your market while keeping costs low.

What is social media market research and why is it valuable?

Social media market research is the practice of gathering historical and real-time data from social media channels to improve your business. It gives you critical insights from qualitative data (comments and posts) and quantitative metrics (likes and shares).

While it can be done natively, intelligent tools driven by artificial intelligence, like Sprout, make the process of gathering social intelligence:

• Cost-effective: It’s more affordable than traditional methods like surveys and focus groups that can cost thousands of dollars depending on the size and complexity of the research project.
• Quick: Where traditional market research takes time, social media updates in real-time for immediate results, anytime you want.
• Comprehensive: With over 4.76 billion social media users in 2023 , gather vast and diverse social listening data to analyze conversations and extract more accurate insights about your brand and the entire industry.

Sprout enables you to research different social platforms at the same time and analyze the information in one centralized platform to inform data-driven marketing strategies across the organization.

The benefits of using social media for market research

According to The Harris Poll data in The 2023 State of Social Media report, 90% of business leaders agree that their company’s success will depend on how effectively it can use social media data and insights to inform business strategy.

Social media market research is the tool that will enable you to harness the data that will transform every part of your business , including:

Becoming more customer-centric

Our report also revealed that 91% of business leaders said social insights had an impact on gaining a better understanding of their customers. The granular insight social media marketing research provides into your consumer base helps you develop customer-centric strategies that build stronger relationships, increase retention and improve your growth rate.

Managing brand reputation

Social media research gives you data-driven insights into how your target audience perceives your brand. That’s why 94% of business leaders look at social media insights to build and manage brand reputation.

Keeping ahead of competitors

Ninety-two percent of business leaders say social media insights help improve their brand’s competitive positioning. Social data taps into deep competitor insights , such as what people like about competing brands and how customers respond to them. All of which guide how you can differentiate yourself from the pack.

Predicting future trends and filling market gaps

Market research through social listening helps you know where consumers are going next, per 89% of business leaders, who said that social insights impacted how they predict future trends. Social media market research gives you a holistic view of the market so you can identify emerging trends and plan long-term and short-term growth campaigns. And so, enabling you to take advantage of market gap opportunities and expand your market share in a focused way.

Optimizing your business with less spend

Seventy-six percent of business leaders say that social media insights have positively impacted moving their businesses forward with reduced budgets. With close to five billion people on social media, it provides a cost-effective way to magnify your brand, engage with customers and reach out to new audiences. It helps brands personalize campaigns and customer care more precisely and at scale.

8 insights you can glean from social media market research

Social listening data is a valuable source of market intelligence. But with all that raw data at your disposal, it can be challenging to sift through the noise to capture what is truly important and can make a real impact on your business strategy.

Here are eight actionable insights you should pull from your social media market research and how to find them.

1. Audience intent to know what customers want

Social media market research gives you valuable insights into customer intent when they mention you or your competitors. Deep dive into social listening data to get to know your audience on a personal level, from how they feel about certain topics to what influences their purchase decisions.

How to find it: Build out your community management strategy using social networks. Also, leverage platforms like Reddit to know what your audience is talking about and respond to threads directly. Capabilities like Sprout’s social media engagement tool help you capture customer sentiment from social listening across networks and seamlessly adjust your social strategy accordingly, in one place.

2. How customers use your products and services

Social media chatter gives you an insider’s look into how your customers are using your product and services and what new opportunities are out there for you.

By researching their brand and products through social listening, Lodge Cast Iron learned how customers actually use their cookware. They discovered a new segment of customers, vegans, which led them to create more vegan recipes to better engage with them and their interests.

How to find: Search for your brand and the name of your product on social platforms like Twitter or Instagram to learn how customers actually use your goods and services. Sites like Reddit are also great to tap into customer feedback, including conversations and communities relevant to your brand or products. With a tool like Sprout Social, you can easily monitor all this data including branded keywords and phrases to stay up to date with what customers have to say.

3. What existing customers like and dislike about your brand

Social media listening tools help you understand what people like and dislike about your product and services. In fact, business leaders surveyed by The Harris Poll said that 42% of their company’s product development is influenced by social media data insights.

Customer comments are often not as simple as “I like [brand]” or “I don’t like [brand]”. Some are indirect, don’t tag your handle or misspell your brand name. Analyze all comments through sentiment analysis with a smart social media intelligence platform like Sprout to get a clear idea of what customers expect from you and distinct insights on how to address them.

How to find: There are several ways you can find feedback about your brand. Search for branded keywords and phrases organically on social, or peruse the reviews section on platforms like Facebook, TripAdvisor and Google. Beyond these searches, your inbox is a great space to find customer feedback. It’s also a good idea to reach out to sales or customer service teams who hear directly from customers about their likes and dislikes.

4. Competitor intelligence to know where you stand

Insights from social media market research guide your competitor strategy for both short-term and long-term campaigns. In fact, 92% of marketers in The 2023 State of Social Media report say that social insights play a role in improving their brand’s competitive positioning.

Understand your competitors’ content and ad strategy, track how the market responds to them and know where you are in terms of audience segmentation.

How to find: Identify your competitors and monitor their social presence across their different social channels. With Sprout Social, you can set up a competitive analysis report across various social networks including review websites, like Google My Business, to track competitor benchmarks and understand your customers’ attitudes toward the competition.

5. What customers expect from you in the future

Consumers frequently take to social to share what they want from brands in the future. A brand may receive a request for a future store location or a coffee company might see comments asking for a specific roast or drink to come back on the menu. At Sprout, we often field Tweets from customers with new feature requests that we pass along to our product team for consideration down the road.

Another way to solicit feedback about what customers want from your brand is to simply ask. You’d be surprised how many people respond with their thoughts and ideas to a question published on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

How to find: One place to find this information is right in your inbox. With Sprout’s tagging capabilities , you can label and sort messages by type as they come through, making it easy to pass along product requests to the appropriate teams.

6. Trends your audience is interested in

Be attentive to market drivers and use them to catapult your brand strategy. Take how Netflix used the nostalgia marketing trend for their popular TV show, Stranger Things. The show capitalized on people’s fond memories of days past while using children as the main protagonists to cover a wide age segment.

To harness trends successfully, it’s important to map out your business objectives, data analysis plans and baseline metrics before you start scrolling for inspiration.

How to find: Explore social media networks and other tools like Google Trends to keep a pulse on what’s hot. Also, use Sprout’s listening tool to identify trends and topics in your industry and among customers through keywords. Uncover keywords and terms most used by your target audience and discover related topics frequently mentioned with any terms you’re currently tracking.

7. What content resonates with your audience

With millions of posts published on social daily, you need to be strategic to capture your audience’s attention. Take stock of your existing content to see what themes or content formats fuel your performance goals.

If in-feed video gets you more impressions than text posts, consider investing more in video production. If your goal is to drive conversations, refer to posts with high engagement (likes, comments or shares). And don’t be afraid to ask your audience directly what topics or social content they want to see from you.

How to find: Sprout’s Post Performance Report helps you break down the types of content you’ve published and identify which performed the best. For more granular insights, sort the data by impressions, engagement and clicks to determine what formats and themes are most effective on specific networks.

8. Find who to partner with

Social media market research helps you find the right influencers or content creators to collaborate with. Insights can tell you if they match your brand values, have similar audience types and create content that consistently engages. Your co-creators can also play a key role in product development to expand your reach.

For example, Target offered influencer Tabitha Brown a first-of-its-kind deal following her first year working with the retailer. Their exclusive Tabitha Brown collections include clothing, swimwear, accessories, home and office products, food and kitchenware.

How to find: Monitor collaborations to see how their content is performing and get insights to make tweaks to remain aligned with goals. Also, track your lead conversions and see if you are getting enough return on investment (ROI).

How to share social media market research findings org-wide

Social insights provide rich insights that benefit the whole org including product teams, customer care, sales and support.

To share your findings with these various teams, your data needs to present a holistic narrative and connect your data to company goals to highlight its true impact, without being complicated. This type of strategic data storytelling requires effective visualization elements like charts, graphs and word clouds that synthesize the data alongside other business intelligence. This enables all stakeholders to understand the larger picture, with insights from every key business channel.

Sprout creates presentation-ready charts and graphs that break down customer, competitor and industry insights from across social networks. Also, combine these insights with your Tableau data for a more comprehensive omnichannel view.

With these combined insights you can:

• Track social KPIs org-wide and measure against benchmarks.
• Share crucial product experience insights with the product development teams.
• Inform marketing teams of any negative brand buzz.
• Collaborate with the broader marketing teams to refine messaging and content marketing strategies.

Better research starts with social

When brands demonstrate they understand their customers’ wants and needs, they stand to strengthen their bottom line and develop customers for life. Thanks to social media market research, brands have access to fast and reliable insights that deepen their understanding of what their customers want and expect. From identifying new opportunities to improving customer relationships, data from social empowers you to make smarter decisions that contribute to your business goals.

Ready to turn your social data into valuable insights about your industry and customers? Download this worksheet to learn how to conduct quick and valuable market research in under 90 minutes.

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How to Use Social Media for Market Research

Don’t sleep on social media market research. It can help boost sales, engage followers, and contribute to a winning social media strategy.

Table of Contents

Ask any marketer what they wish their superpower was, and they would tell you: “To read minds.”

To know exactly what people want is a marketer’s dream. After all, understanding your audience’s preferences and needs is the key to business success. Having accurate, insightful information gives you the chance to deliver the best products, write the best messages, and build engagement and customer loyalty.

That’s why marketers regularly conduct market research, investigating industry trends, gathering feedback, and surveying focus groups to try and glean whatever information they can. But in 2023, this research process can be slow and incomplete. This is where social media market research comes in.

By practicing social listening and social media monitoring , marketers can get an accurate, up-to-the-minute understanding of audience attitudes and customer needs.

Basically, with social media market research, you’re as close to being a mind-reader as you’re gonna get. Read on to learn how this superpower can help you boost your business, engage your followers, and implement a winning social media strategy .

Bonus: Download a free guide to learn how to use social media listening to boost sales and conversions today . No tricks or boring tips—just simple, easy-to-follow instructions that really work.

What is social media market research?

Social media market research is collecting data and insights about your target audience via social media platforms. This information can help businesses understand their overall audience demographics and brand sentiment .

Social media market research can offer real-time insights with extreme speed and accuracy—pull an analytics report , and it’ll give you the scoop about what’s happening this very minute.

Social media market research is also far more affordable than traditional focus groups or surveys and offers the potential to study the behavior of a staggering number of users: imagine trying to fit all 4.76 billion social media users into a board room for a chat about your latest ad campaign.

8 ways to use social media for market research

You’re ready to use social media to learn more about your audience. But what exactly are you trying to learn? Here are eight helpful insights you can gather once you start listening in.

Find out what people like about your brand or product

If your fans hang out on social media, they’re probably talking about you there, too.

Stay alert for mentions of your brand or product and keep track of the positive feedback. Watch for users tagging you in posts and Stories, and don’t forget to check your DMS , too, for any fan mail that may be lurking there.

If you use Hootsuite, setting up social listening streams for specific keywords or phrases can be super helpful for catching those not-so-official mentions, too.

For instance, set up streams for misspellings of your brand name or specific product or model names to make sure you never miss a casual-yet-positive tweet like “i swear i run faster in my nikees!”

This genuine feedback from real-life users is extremely helpful for planning future marketing content.

One hot example is the old-school thermos brand Stanley, which started to see an organic uptick in young moms posting about their mugs on Instagram, excited about how it kept their coffee warm while they ran after their toddlers.

So the company started releasing its products in Millennial-cool colors, targeting this new, surprising market of consumers.

@perkinsonparkway Reply to @ajzini I could talk about this all day. #stanleycup #stanleytumbler #stanley40oz #utah #adventurequencher #stanleyadventure #stanley #emotionalsupportwaterbottle #stanley #unboxing #utahcheck ♬ original sound – Krystle Perkins | DIY & Home

Find out what people don’t like about your brand or product

While watching/listening to see what your fans love about your product, you may occasionally get some grumbling from people who aren’t quite as enthusiastic. And that can be helpful, too.

Shake off those hurt feelings and remember that hearing directly from your critics is an opportunity. Genuine complaints or criticism are a chance to do better or address something that you may have missed.

Netflix, for instance, might be interested to see this tweet, which mentions the name Netflix but doesn’t tag the company directly. This subscriber keeps canceling their subscription—and now, Netflix can see why.

I bailed on Netflix 6 months ago as I do every year. I keep a sub about 4 – 5 months then cancel when I've seen everything. — CE Newton (@cnewton_ky) March 21, 2023

If you want to get even more advanced with your social media listening, Hootsuite Insights  takes listening a step further by giving you data from 16 billion new social posts every month.

Boolean search logic can help you find meaningful trends and patterns you might miss by monitoring keywords and hashtags alone. You can then filter your searches by date, demographics, and location to find the conversations most relevant to you.

Insights also makes it easy to track brand sentiment with intuitive word clouds and meters that gauge your sentiment and brand awareness against the competition.

Listen to what people are saying about your competitors

Just like you can use social listening to monitor what people are saying about your brand on social media, you can also keep track of what people are saying about other companies … like, say, your competitors.

Understanding what’s going well (or not-so-well) for your greatest business enemies can offer you an advantage. Fill a gap in the market that they aren’t filling yet. Reach out to an unhappy customer to provide an alternative. Tweak your next marketing campaign to let audiences know you can treat them even better.

If you make yoga pants and you notice that everyone’s raving about the color of Lululemon’s new leggings, maybe it’s time to put your own similar style front and center in your upcoming Instagram grid redesign.

Watch your industry for insights

As you’re setting up all your other social listening streams, you may want to add a few that include industry keywords, too.

Keeping up with what’s happening in your industry is going to help you understand what consumer expectations are for your specific type of product or how healthy the industry is overall. Are you a luxury realtor noticing that others in the real estate industry are flocking to TikTok… and racking up the views?

What can this tell you about what your own followers might like to see?

@markonyc The perfect 1 bedroom! And this building has insane amenities🔝 What do you think? #fyp #foryourpage #nycrealestate #realestate ♬ awkward sped up sza – rem

Use analytics to understand what content resonates

You can guess what your audience will like… or you can just crunch the numbers and know the truth.

Social analytics tools allow you to see exactly what kind of content clicks with your audience. If your celebrity home tours are getting likes and shares, now you know your followers love their interior design content with a side of star power. If your Instagram carousel posts are popping off, maybe it’s time to stop wasting time with Reels.

With Hootsuite Insights, you can even schedule recurring reports that compile your fave key metrics into cool, easy-to-understand infographics.

Study how your audience communicates

Social media marketing research involves putting on your sociologist’s hat and studying the way your audience likes to express itself.

What platforms are they most active on? Do they prefer tagging you in their “get ready with me” TikToks, or are you more likely to receive a private message to gush about your new plus-sized line of pajamas?

By practicing social listening, you’ll also learn what language and tone your target audience is comfortable using. Certain communities embrace specific slang or emoji use. If you’re going to be hanging with this crew online, you’d better study up.

Keeping all your social media monitoring and management in one place makes it easy to spot cross-platform trends. (Features like Hootsuite Inbox make it easy to get a birds-eye view of private messages from all your different accounts at once.)

If you haven’t claimed your free 30-day Hootsuite trial yet , what are you waiting for?

Explore trends that might click with your customer base

Even beyond your own analytics, social media is a place to observe the world. Trends come and go at a rapid-fire pace but watch for long enough, and you’ll start to understand what kind of content really thrives on each platform.

Resources like Hootsuite’s annual Digital Trends Report and Social Trends Reports can give an interesting macro-view of how different demographics use social media and what they love to see and do.

Ask your audience directly

If you really want to know what your audience is thinking, social media allows you a chance to ask them point-blank.

Put up a poll on your Instagram Stories asking followers to pick their favorite new package design, ask your fans to share TikToks of how they style your fanny packs or prompt your Facebook audience to dish about their dream suitcase color.

Fashion Brand Company is the master of this. The avant-garde clothing brand regularly asks followers to vote on what products they’d like to see available for sale next.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Fashion Brand Co Inc Global (@fashionbrandcompany)

Challenges of using social media for market research

Of course, for all of its benefits, social media marketing research can be challenging, too.

Without analytics, it’s meaningless

If you’re just watching the Tweets come in and not crunching the numbers, your data is going to be flawed. To get big-picture data that’s truly useful, you must go beyond anecdotal evidence and individual examples.

Embrace the power of social media analytics, using tools like Hootsuite to create regular reports that can identify growth, trends, and audience behavior with precision.

You need big reach to get an accurate analysis

If only 10 people are seeing your posts (and two of those are your employees), then the insights you get aren’t be that helpful. Make sure your social media content is actually getting in front of your target audience so you can accurately see what type of posts really engage their interest.

Using a scheduling tool like Hootsuite can help you plan your content for when the maximum number of your followers is online. More about scheduling your social posts here.

If you are just starting out on social and have a small audience, consider experimenting with paid ads or boosting your posts to reach more people.

The loudest voices might overwhelm the quieter ones

There’s a danger in social media listening of over-valuing the loudest super-fans (or critics). But just because someone is tagging you in every Facebook Live unboxing video doesn’t mean they represent a whole community.

That’s where streams and alerts (which you can set up in Hootsuite) can be helpful: they’ll grab mentions and references from even the smallest of accounts to make sure that every voice is heard.

Ready to get started with social media marketing research? Step one is setting up your social listening streams in Hootsuite. Start your 30-day free trial here.

Get Started

Do it better with Hootsuite , the all-in-one social media tool. Stay on top of things, grow, and beat the competition.

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Stacey McLachlan is an award-winning writer and editor from Vancouver with more than a decade of experience working for print and digital publications.

She is editor-at-large for Western Living and Vancouver Magazine, author of the National Magazine Award-nominated 'City Informer' column, and a regular contributor to Dwell. Her previous work covers a wide range of topics, from SEO-focused thought-leadership to profiles of mushroom foragers, but her specialties include design, people, social media strategy, and humor.

You can usually find her at the beach, or cleaning sand out of her bag.

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Social media marketing strategy: definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda

• Conceptual/Theoretical Paper
• Open access
• Published: 10 June 2020
• Volume 49 , pages 51–70, ( 2021 )

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• Fangfang Li   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4883-1730 1 ,
• Jorma Larimo 1 &
• Leonidas C. Leonidou 2  

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Although social media use is gaining increasing importance as a component of firms’ portfolio of strategies, scant research has systematically consolidated and extended knowledge on social media marketing strategies (SMMSs). To fill this research gap, we first define SMMS, using social media and marketing strategy dimensions. This is followed by a conceptualization of the developmental process of SMMSs, which comprises four major components, namely drivers, inputs, throughputs, and outputs. Next, we propose a taxonomy that classifies SMMSs into four types according to their strategic maturity level: social commerce strategy, social content strategy, social monitoring strategy, and social CRM strategy. We subsequently validate this taxonomy of SMMSs using information derived from prior empirical studies, as well with data collected from in-depth interviews and a quantitive survey among social media marketing managers. Finally, we suggest fruitful directions for future research based on input received from scholars specializing in the field.

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Introduction

The past decade has witnessed the development of complex, multifarious, and intensified interactions between firms and their customers through social media usage. On the one hand, firms are taking advantage of social media platforms to expand geographic reach to buyers (Gao et al. 2018 ), bolster brand evaluations (Naylor et al. 2012 ), and build closer connections with customers (Rapp et al. 2013 ). On the other hand, customers are increasingly empowered by social media and taking control of the marketing communication process, and they are becoming creators, collaborators, and commentators of messages (Hamilton et al. 2016 ). As the role of social media has gradually evolved from a single marketing tool to that of a marketing intelligence source (in which firms can observe, analyze, and predict customer behaviors), it has become increasingly imperative for marketers to strategically use and leverage social media to achieve competitive advantage and superior performance (Lamberton and Stephen 2016 ).

Despite widespread understanding among marketers of the need to engage customers on social media platforms, relatively few firms have properly strategized their social media appearance and involvement (Choi and Thoeni 2016 ; Griffiths and Mclean 2015 ). Rather, for most companies, the ongoing challenge is not to initiate social media campaigns, but to combine social media with their marketing strategy to engage customers in order to build valuable and long-term relationships with them (Lamberton and Stephen 2016 ; Schultz and Peltier 2013 ). However, despite the vast opportunities social media offer to companies, there is no clear definition or comprehensive framework to guide the integration of social media with marketing strategies, to gain a rigorous understanding of the nature and role of social media marketing strategies (SMMSs) (Effing and Spil 2016 ).

Although some reviews focusing on the social media phenomenon are available (e.g., Lamberton and Stephen 2016 ; Salo 2017 ), to date, an integrative evaluation effort focusing on the strategic marketing perspective of social media is missing. This is partly because the social media literature largely derives elements from widely disparate fields, such as marketing, management, consumer psychology, and computer science (Aral et al. 2013 ). Moreover, research on SMMSs mainly covers very specific, isolated, and scattered aspects, which creates confusion and limits understanding of the subject (Lamberton and Stephen 2016 ). Furthermore, research deals only tangentially with a conceptualization, operationalization, and categorization of SMMSs, which limits theory advancement and practice development (Tafesse and Wien 2018 ).

To address these problems, and also to respond to repeated pleas from scholars in the field (e.g., Aral et al. 2013 ; Guesalaga 2016 ; Moorman and Day 2016 ; Schultz and Peltier 2013 to identify appropriate strategies to leverage social media in today’s changing marketing landscape, we aim to systematically consolidate and extend the knowledge accumulated from previous research on SMMSs. Specifically, our objectives are fivefold: (1) to clearly define SMMS by blending issues derived from the social media and marketing strategy literature streams; (2) to conceptualize the process of developing SMMSs and provide a theoretical understanding of its constituent parts; (3) to provide a taxonomy of SMMSs according to their level of strategic maturity; (4) to validate the practical value of this taxonomy using information derived from previous empirical studies, as well as from primary data collection among social media marketing managers; and (5) to develop an agenda for promising areas of future research on the subject.

Our study makes three major contributions to the social media marketing literature. First, it offers a definition and a conceptualization of SMMS that help alleviate definitional deficiency and increase conceptual clarity on the subject. By focusing on the role of social connectedness and interactions in resource integration, we stress the importance of transforming social media interactions and networks into marketing resources to help achieve specific strategic goals for the firm. In this regard, we provide theoretical justification of social media from a strategic marketing perspective. Second, using customer engagement as an overarching theory, we develop a model conceptualizing the SMMS developmental process. Through an analysis of each component of this process, we emphasize the role of insights from both firms and customers to better understand the dynamics of SMMS formulation. We also suggest certain theories to specifically explain the particular role played by each of these components in developing sound SMMSs. Third, we propose a taxonomy of SMMSs based on their level of strategic maturity that can serve as the basis for developing specific marketing strategy concepts and measurement scales within a social media context. We also expect this taxonomy to provide social media marketing practitioners with fruitful insights on why to select and how to use a particular SMMS in order to achieve superior marketing results.

Defining SMMS

Although researchers have often used the term “social media marketing strategy” in their studies (e.g., Choi and Thoeni 2016 ; Kumar et al. 2013 ; Zhang et al. 2017 ), they have yet to propose a clear definition. Despite the introduction of several close terms in the past, including “social media strategy” (Aral et al. 2013 ; Effing and Spil 2016 ), “online marketing strategy” (Micu et al. 2017 ), and “strategic social media marketing” (Felix et al. 2017 ), these either fail to take into consideration the different functions/features of social media or neglect key marketing strategy issues. What is therefore required is an all-encompassing definition of SMMS that will capture two fundamental elements—namely, social media and marketing strategy. Table 1 draws a comparison between social media and marketing strategy on five dimensions (i.e., core, orientation, resource, purpose, and premise) and presents the resulting profile of SMMS.

• Social media

In a marketing context, social media are considered platforms on which people build networks and share information and/or sentiments (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010 ). With their distinctive nature of being “dynamic, interconnected, egalitarian, and interactive organisms” (Peters et al. 2013 , p. 281), social media have generated three fundamental shifts in the marketplace. First, social media enable firms and customers to connect in ways that were not possible in the past. Such connectedness is empowered by various platforms, such as social networking sites (e.g., Facebook), microblogging sites (e.g., Twitter), and content communities (e.g., YouTube), that allow social networks to build from shared interests and values (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010 ). In this regard, “social connectedness” has also been termed as “social ties” (e.g., Muller and Peres 2019 ; Quinton and Wilson 2016 ), and the strength and span of these ties determine whether they are strong or weak (Granovetter 1973 ). Prior studies have shown that tie strength is an important determinant of customer referral behaviors (e.g., Verlegh et al. 2013 ).

Second, social media have transformed the way firms and customers interact and influence each other. Social interaction involves “actions,” whether through communications or passive observations, that influence others’ choices and consumption behaviors (Chen et al. 2011 ). Nair et al. ( 2010 ) labeled such social interactions as “word-of-mouth (WOM) effect” or “contagion effects.” Muller and Peres ( 2019 ) argue that social interactions rely strongly on the social network structure and provide firms with measurable value (also referred to as “social equity”). In social media studies, researchers have long recognized the importance of social influence in affecting consumer decisions, and recent studies have shown that people’s connection patterns and the strength of social ties can signify the intensity of social interactions (e.g., Aral and Walker 2014 ; Katona et al. 2011 ).

Third, the proliferation of social media data has made it increasingly possible for companies to better manage customer relationships and enhance decision making in business (Libai et al. 2010 ). Social media data, together with other digital data, are widely characterized by the 3Vs (i.e., volume, variety, and velocity), which refer to the vast quantity of data, various sources of data, and expansive real-time data (Alharthi et al. 2017 ). A huge amount of social media data derived from different venues (e.g., social networks, blogs, forums) and in various formats (e.g., text, video, image) can now be easily extracted and usefully exploited with the aid of modern information technologies (Moe and Schweidel 2017 ). Thus, social media data can serve as an important source of customer analysis, market research, and crowdsourcing of new ideas, while capturing and creating value through social media data represents the development of a new strategic resource that can improve marketing outcomes (Gnizy 2019 ).

• Marketing strategy

According to Varadarajan ( 2010 ), a marketing strategy consists of an integrated set of decisions that helps the firm make critical choices regarding marketing activities in selected markets and segments, with the aim to create, communicate, and deliver value to customers in exchange for accomplishing its specific financial, market, and other objectives. According to the resource-based view of the firm (Barney 1991 ), organizational resources (e.g., financial, human, physical, informational, relational) help firms enhance their marketing strategies, achieve sustainable competitive advantage, and gain better performance. These resources can be either tangible or intangible and can be transformed into higher-order resources (i.e., competencies and capabilities), enabling the delivery of superior value to targeted buyers (Hunt and Morgan 1995 ; Teece and Pisano 1994 ).

Different marketing strategies can be arranged on a continuum, on which transaction marketing strategy and relationship marketing strategy represent its two ends, while in between are various mixed marketing strategies (Grönroos 1991 ). Webster ( 1992 ) notes that long-standing customer relationships should be at the core of marketing strategy, because customer interaction and engagement can be developed into valuable relational resources (Hunt et al. 2006 ). Morgan and Hunt ( 1999 ) also claim that firms capitalizing on long-term and trustworthy customer relationships can help design value-enhancing marketing strategies that will subsequently generate competitive advantages and lead to superior performance.

From a strategic marketing perspective, social media interaction entails a process that allows not only firms, but also customers to exchange resources. For example, Hollebeek et al. ( 2019 ) assert that customers can devote operant (e.g., knowledge) and operand (e.g., equipment) resources while interacting with firms. Importantly, Gummesson and Mele ( 2010 ) argue that interactions occur not simply in dyads, but also between multiple actors within a network, underscoring the critical role of network interaction in resource integration. Notably, customer-to-customer interactions are also essential, especially for the higher level of engagement behaviors (Fehrer et al. 2018 ).

Thus, social media interconnectedness and interactions (i.e., between firm–customer and between customer–customer) can be considered strategic resources, which can be further converted into marketing capabilities (Morgan and Hunt 1999 ). A case in point is social customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities, in which the firm cultivates the competency to use information generated from social media interactions to identify and develop loyal customers (Trainor et al. 2014 ). With the expanding role of social media from a single communication tool to one of gaining customer and market knowledge, marketers can strategically develop distinct resources from social media based on extant organizational resources and capabilities.

Drawing on the previous argumentation, we define SMMS as an organization’s integrated pattern of activities that, based on a careful assessment of customers’ motivations for brand-related social media use and the undertaking of deliberate engagement initiatives, transform social media connectedness (networks) and interactions (influences) into valuable strategic means to achieve desirable marketing outcomes. This definition is parsimonious because it captures the uniqueness of the social media phenomenon, takes into consideration the fundamental premises of marketing strategy, and clearly defines the scope of activities pertaining to SMMS.

Although the underlying roots of traditional marketing strategy and SMMS are similar, the two strategies have three distinctive differences: (1) as opposed to the traditional approach, which pays peripheral attention to the heterogeneity of motivations driving customer engagement, SMMS emphasizes that social media users must be motivated on intellectual, social, cultural, or other grounds to engage with firms (and perhaps more importantly with other customers) (Peters et al. 2013 ; Venkatesan 2017 ); (2) the consequences of SMMS are jointly decided by the firm and its customers (rather than by individual actors’ behaviors), and it is only when the firm and its customers interact and build relationships that social media technological platforms become real resource integrators (Singaraju et al. 2016 ; Stewart and Pavlou 2002 ); and (3) while customer value in traditional marketing strategies is narrowly defined to solely capture purchase behavior through customer lifetime value, in the case of SMMS, this value is expressed through customer engagement, comprising both direct (e.g., customer purchases) and indirect (e.g., product referrals to other customers) contributions to the value of the firm (Kumar and Pansari 2016 ; Venkatesan 2017 ).

Conceptualizing the process of developing SMMSs

The conceptualization of the process of developing SMMSs is anchored on customer engagement theory, which posits that firms need to take deliberate initiatives to motivate and empower customers to maximize their engagement value and yield superior marketing results (Harmeling et al. 2017 ). Kumar et al. ( 2010 ) distinguish between four different dimensions of customer engagement value, namely customer lifetime value, customer referral value, customer influence value, and customer knowledge value. This metric has provided a new approach for customer valuation, which can help marketers to make more effective and efficient strategic decisions that enable long-term value contributions to customers. In a social media context, this customer engagement value enables firms to capitalize on crucial customer resources (i.e., network assets, persuasion capital, knowledge stores, and creativity), of which the leverage can provide firms with a sustainable competitive advantage (Harmeling et al. 2017 ).

Customer engagement theory highlights the importance of understanding customer motivations as a prerequisite for the firm to develop effective SMMSs, because heterogeneous customer motivations resulting from different attitudes and attachments can influence their social media behaviors and inevitably SMMS outcomes (Venkatesan 2017 ). It also stresses the role of inputs from both firm (i.e., social media engagement initiatives) and customers (i.e., social media behaviors), as well as the importance of different degrees of interactivity and interconnectedness in yielding sound marketing outcomes (Harmeling et al. 2017 ). Pansari and Kumar et al. ( 2017 ) argue that firms can benefit from such customer engagement in both tangible (e.g., higher revenues, market share, profits) and intangible (e.g., feedbacks or new ideas that help to product/service development) ways.

Based on consumer engagement theory, we therefore conceive the process of developing an SMMS as consisting of four interlocking parts: (1) drivers , that is, the firm’s social media marketing objectives and the customers’ social media use motivations; (2) inputs , that is, the firm’s social media engagement initiatives and the customers’ social media behaviors; (3) throughputs , that is, the way the firm connects and interacts with customers to exchange resources and satisfy needs; and (4) outputs , that is, the resulting customer engagement outcome. Figure 1 shows this developmental process of SMMS, while Table 2 indicates the specific theoretical underpinnings of each part comprising this process.

A conceptualization of the process of developing social media marketing strategies

Firms’ social media marketing objectives

Though operating in a similar context, SMMSs may differ depending on the firm’s strategic objectives (Varadarajan 2010 ). According to resource dependence theory (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978 ), the firm’s social media marketing objectives can be justified by the need to acquire external resources (which do not exist internally) that will help it accommodate the challenges of environmental contingencies. In a social media context, customers can serve as providers of resources, which can take several forms (Harmeling et al. 2017 ). Felix et al. ( 2017 ) distinguish between proactive and reactive social media marketing objectives, which can differ by the type of market targeted (e.g., B2B vs. B2C) and firm size. While for proactive objectives, firms use social media to increase brand awareness, generate online traffic, and stimulate sales, in the case of reactive objectives, the emphasis is on monitoring and analyzing customer activities.

Customers’ social media use motivations

Social media use motivations refer to various incentives that drive people’s selection and use of specific social media (Muntinga et al. 2011 ). The existence of these motivations is theoretically grounded on uses and gratifications theory (Katz et al. 1973 ), which maintains that consumers are actively and selectively involved in media usage to gratify their psychological and social needs. In a social media context, motivations can range from utilitarian and hedonic purposes (e.g., incentives, entertainment) to relational reasons (e.g., identification, brand connection) (Rohm et al. 2013 ). Muntinga et al. ( 2011 ) also categorize consumer–brand social media interactions as motivated primarily by entertainment, information, remuneration, personal identity, social interaction, and empowerment.

Firms’ social media engagement initiatives

Firms take initiatives to motivate and engage customers so that they can make voluntary contributions in return (Harmeling et al. 2017 ; Pansari and Kumar 2017 ). These firm actions can also be theoretically explained by resource dependence theory (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978 ), which argues that firms need to take initiatives to encourage customers to interact with them, to generate useful autonomous contributions that will alleviate resource shortages. Harmeling et al. ( 2017 ) identify two primary forms of a firm’s marketing initiatives to engage customers using social media: task-based and experiential. While task-based engagement initiatives encourage customer engagement behaviors with structured tasks (e.g., writing a review) and usually take place in the early stages of the firm’s social media marketing efforts, experiential engagement initiatives employ experiential events (e.g., multisensory events) to intrinsically motivate customer engagement and foster emotional attachment. Thus, firm engagement initiatives can be viewed as a continuum, where at one end, the firm uses monetary rewards to engage customers and, at the other end, the firm proactively works to deliver effective experiential incentives to motivate customer engagement.

Customers’ social media behaviors

The use of social media by customers yields different behavioral manifestations, ranging from passive (e.g., observing) to active (e.g., co-creation) (Maslowska et al. 2016 ). These customer social media behaviors can be either positive (e.g., sharing) or negative (e.g., create negative content), depending on customers’ attitudes and information processes during interactions (Dolan et al. 2016 ). Harmeling et al. ( 2017 ) characterize customers with positive behaviors as “pseudo marketers” because they contribute to firms’ marketing functions using their own resources, while those with negative behaviors may turn firm-created “hashtags” into “bashtags.” Drawing on uses and gratifications theory, Muntinga et al. ( 2011 ) also categorize customers’ brand-related behaviors in social media into three groups: consuming (e.g., reading a brand’s posts), contributing (e.g., rating products), and creating (e.g., publishing brand-related content).

Throughputs

Within the context of social media, both social connectedness and social interaction can be explained by social exchange theory, which proposes that social interactions are exchanges through which two parties acquire benefits (Blau 1964 ). Based on this theory, such a social exchange involves a sequence of interactions between firms and customers that are usually interdependent and contingent on others’ actions, with the goal to generate sound relationships (Cropanzano and Mitchell 2005 ). Thus, successful exchanges can advance interpersonal connections (referred to as social exchange relationships) with beneficial effects for the interacting parties (Cropanzano and Mitchell 2005 ).

Social connectedness

Social connectedness indicates the number of ties an individual has on social networks (Goldenberg et al. 2009 ), while Kumar et al. ( 2010 ) define connectedness with additional dimensions, including the number of connections, the strength of the connections, and the location in the network. Social media research suggests that connectedness has a significant impact on social influence. For example, Hinz et al. ( 2011 ) show that the use of “hubs” (highly connected people) in viral marketing campaigns can be eight times more successful than strategies using less connected people. Verlegh et al. ( 2013 ) also examine the impact of tie strength on making referrals in social media and confirm that people tend to interpret ambiguous information received from strong ties positively, but negatively when this information comes from weak ties.

Social interaction

Social interaction within a social media context is quite complex, as it represents multidirectional and interconnected information flows, rather than a pure firm monologue (Hennig-Thurau et al. 2013 ). This is because, on the one hand, social media have empowered customers to be equal actors in firm–customer interactions through sharing, gaming, expressing, and networking, while, on the other hand, customer–customer interactions have emerged as a growing market force, as customers can influence each other with regard to their attitudinal or behavioral changes (Peters et al. 2013 ). Chen et al. ( 2011 ) identify two types of social interactions—namely, opinion- or preference-based interactions (e.g., WOM) and action- or behavior-based interactions (e.g., observational learning)—with each requiring different strategic actions to be taken. Chahine and Malhotra ( 2018 ) also show that two-way (multiway) interaction strategies that allow reciprocity result in higher market reactions and more positive relationships.

• Customer engagement

The outputs are expressed in terms of customer engagement, which reflects the outcome of firm–customer (as well as customer–customer) connectedness and interaction in social media (Harmeling et al. 2017 ). Footnote 1 It is essentially a reflection of “the intensity of an individual’s participation in and connection with an organization’s offerings and/or organizational activities, which either the customer or the firm initiates” (Vivek et al. 2012 , p. 127). The more customers connect and interact with the firm’s activities, the higher is the level of customer engagement created (Kumar and Pansari 2016 ; Malthouse et al. 2013 ) and the higher the customer’s value addition to the firm (Pansari and Kumar 2017 ). Although the theoretical explanation of the notion of customer engagement has attracted a great deal of debate among scholars in the field, research (e.g., Brodie et al. 2011 ; Hollebeek et al. 2019 ; Kumar et al. 2019 ) has also begun adopting the service-dominant (S-D) logic (Vargo and Lusch 2004 ) because of its emphasis on customers’ interactive and value co-creation experiences in market relationships. Following the service-dominant (S-D) logic, Hollebeek et al. ( 2019 ) stress the role of customer resource integration, customer knowledge sharing, and learning as foundational in the customer engagement process, which can subsequently lead to customer individual/interpersonal operant resource development and co-creation.

Despite its pivotal role in social media marketing, extant literature has not yet attained agreement on the specific measurement of customer engagement. For example, Muntinga et al. ( 2011 ) conceptualize customer engagement in social media as comprising three stages: consuming (e.g., following, viewing content), contributing (e.g., rating, commenting), and creating (e.g., user-generated content). Maslowska et al. ( 2016 ) propose three levels of customer engagement behaviors: observing (e.g., reading content), participating (e.g., commenting on a post), and co-creating (e.g., partaking in product development). Moreover, Kumar et al. ( 2010 ) distinguish between transactional (i.e., buying the product) and non-transactional (i.e., sharing, commenting, referring, influencing) behaviors of customer engagement derived from social media connectedness and interactions.

Taxonomy of SMMSs

The distinctive differences among firms engaged in social media marketing with regard to their strategic objectives, organizational resources and capabilities, and focal industries and market structures, imply that there must also be differences in the SMMSs pursued. In this section, we first explain the criteria classifying SMMSs into different groups and then provide an analysis of their content.

Classification criteria of SMMSs

Drawing from the extant literature, we propose three important criteria that can be used to distinguish SMMSs: the nature of the firm’s strategic social media objectives with regard to using social media, the direction of interactions taking place between the firm and the customers, and the level of customer engagement achieved.

Strategic social media objectives refer to the specific organizational goals to be achieved by implementing SMMSs (Choi and Thoeni 2016 ; Felix et al. 2017 ). These can range from transactional to relational-oriented, depending on the strategist’s mental models of business–customer interactions (Rydén et al. 2015 ). Different mental models have a distinctive impact on managers’ social media sense-making, which is responsible for framing the specific role defined by social media in their marketing activities (Rydén et al. 2015 ). Rydén et al. ( 2015 ) identify four types of social media marketing objectives with four different mental models that can guide SMMSs —namely, to promote and sell (i.e., business-to-customers), to connect and collaborate (i.e., business-with-customers), to listen and learn (i.e., business-from-customers), and to empower and engage (i.e., business-for-customers).

The direction of the social media interactions can take three different forms. These include (1) one-way interaction , that is, traditional one-way communication in which the firm disseminates content (e.g., advertising) on social media and customers passively observe and react (Hoffman and Thomas 1996 ); (2) two-way interaction , that is, reciprocal and interactive communication with exchanges on social media, which can be further distinguished into firm-initiated interaction (in which the firm takes the initiative to begin the conversation) and customer participation (by liking, sharing, or commenting on the content) and customer-initiated interaction (in which the customer is the initiator of conversations by inquiring, giving feedback, or even posting negative comments about the firm, while the firm listens and responds to customer voice) (Van Noort and Willemsen 2012 ); and (3) collaborative interaction, that is, the highest level of interaction that builds on frequent and reciprocal activities in which both the firm and the customer have the power to influence each other (Joshi 2009 ).

With regard to the level of customer engagement, as noted previously, this heavily depends on the strength of connections and the intensity of interactions between the firm and the customers in social media, comprising both transactional and non-transactional elements (Kumar et al. 2010 ). Because customer engagement is the result of a dynamic and iterative process, which makes specifying the exact stage from participating to producing rather difficult (Brodie et al. 2011 ), we adopt the approach proposed by various scholars in the field (e.g., Dolan et al. 2016 ; Malthouse et al. 2013 ) to view this as a continuum, ranging from very low levels of engagement (e.g., “liking” a page) to very high levels of engagement (e.g., co-creation).

Types of SMMSs

With these three classificatory criteria, we can identify four distinct SMMSs, representing increasing levels of strategic maturity: social commerce strategy, social content strategy, social monitoring strategy, and social CRM strategy. Footnote 2 Fig.  2 illustrates this taxonomy for SMMSs, Table 3 shows the differences between these four strategies, while Appendix Table 6 provides real company examples using these strategies. In the following, we analyze each of these SMMSs by explaining their nature and characteristics, the particular role played by social media, and the specific organizational capabilities required for their adoption.

Taxonomy of social media marketing strategies

Social commerce strategy

Social commerce strategy refers to the “exchange-related activities that occur in, or are influenced by, an individual’s social network in computer-mediated social environments, whereby the activities correspond to the need recognition, pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase stages of a focal exchange” (Yadav et al. 2013 , p. 312). Rydén et al. ( 2015 , p. 6) claim that this way of using social media is not to create conversation and/or engagement; rather, the reasons for “the initial contact and the end purpose are to sell.” Similarly, Malthouse et al. ( 2013 ) argue that social media promotional activities do not actively engage customers because they do not make full use of the interactive role of social media. Thus, social commerce strategy can be considered as the least mature SMMS because it has a mainly transactional nature and is preoccupied with short-term goal-oriented activities (Grönroos 1994 ). It is essentially a one-way communication strategy intended to attract customers in the short run.

In this strategy, social media are claimed to be the new selling tool that has changed the way buyers and sellers interact (Marshall et al. 2012 ). They offer a new opportunity for sellers to obtain customer information and make the initial interaction with the customer more efficient (Rodriguez et al. 2012 ). Meanwhile, firms are also increasingly using social media as promising outlets for promotional/advertising purposes given their global reach (e.g., Dao et al. 2014 ; Zhang and Mao 2016 ), especially to the millennial generation (Confos and Davis 2016 ). However, as firms’ social media activities in this strategy are more transactional-oriented, customers tend to be passive and reactive. Customers contribute transactional value through purchases, but without a higher level of engagement. Therefore, we conclude that, within the context of this strategy, customers exchange their monetary resources (e.g., purchases) with the firm’s promotional offerings.

To better develop this strategy, Guesalaga ( 2016 ) highlights the need to understand the drivers of using social media in the selling process. He further stresses that personal commitment plays a crucial role in using social media as selling tools. Similarly, Järvinen and Taiminen ( 2016 ) urged for an integration of marketing with the sales department in order to gain better insights from social media marketing efforts. The importance of synergistic effects between social media and traditional media (e.g., press mentions, television, in-store promotions) has also been stressed in supporting social commerce activities (e.g., Jayson et al. 2018 ; Kumar et al. 2016 ; Stephen and Galak 2012 ). Thus, selling capabilities are crucial in this strategy, requiring the possession of adequate selling skills and the use of multiple selling channels to synergize social media effects.

Social content strategy

Social content strategy refers to “the creation and distribution of educational and/or compelling content in multiple formats to attract and/or retain customers” (Pulizzi and Barrett 2009 , p. 8). Thus, this type of SMMS aims to create and deliver timely and valuable content based on customer needs, rather than promoting products (Järvinen and Taiminen 2016 ). By attracting audiences with valuable content, the increase in customer engagement may ultimately boost product/service sales (Malthouse et al. 2013 ). Holliman and Rowley ( 2014 , p. 269) also claim that content marketing is a customer-centric strategy and describe the value of content as “being useful, relevant, compelling, and timely.” Therefore, this strategy provides a two-way communication in which firms take the initiative to deliver useful content and customers react positively to this content. The basic premises of this strategy are to create brand awareness and popularity through content virality, stimulate customer interactions, and spread positive WOM (De Vries et al. 2012 ; Swani et al. 2017 ).

Social media in this strategy have been widely used as communication tools for branding and WOM purposes (Holliman and Rowley 2014 ; Libai et al. 2013 ). On the one hand, firms generate content by their own efforts on social media (termed as ‘firm-generated’ or ‘marker-generated’ content) to actively engage consumers. On the other hand, firms encourage customers to generate the content (termed as ‘user-generated’ content) through the power of customer-to-customer interactions, as in the case of exchanging comments and sharing the brand-related content. In this way, firms provide valuable content in exchange for customer-owned resources, such as network assets and persuasion capital, to generate positive WOM and achieve a sustainable trusted brand status.

To pursue a social content strategy, firms build on capabilities focusing on how content is designed and presented (expressed in the form of a social message strategy) and how content is disseminated (expressed in the form of a seeding strategy). Thus, understanding customer engagement motivations and social media interactive characteristics is central to designing valuable content and facilitating customer interactions that would help to stimulate content sharing among customers (Malthouse et al. 2013 ). Designing compelling and valuable content in order to transform passive social media observers into active participants and collaborators is also key capability required by firms adopting this strategy (Holliman and Rowley 2014 ). Empowering customers and letting them speak for the brand is another way to engage customers with brands. Therefore, in this strategy, marketing communication capabilities are important for effective marketing content development and dissemination.

Social monitoring strategy

Social monitoring strategy refers to “a listening and response process through which marketers themselves become engaged” (Barger et al. 2016 , p. 278). In contrast with social content strategy, which is more of a “push” communication approach with content delivered, social monitoring strategy requires the firm’s active involvement in the whole communication process (from content delivery to customer response) (Barger et al. 2016 ). More specifically, social monitoring strategy is not only to observe and analyze the behaviors of customers in social media (Lamberton and Stephen 2016 ), but also to actively search for and respond to customer online needs and complaints (Van Noort and Willemsen 2012 ). A social monitoring strategy is thus characterized by a two-way communication process, in which the initiation comes from customers who comment and behave on social media, while the company takes advantage of customer behavior data to listen, learn, and react to its customers. Thus, the key objective of this strategy is to enhance customer satisfaction and cultivate stronger relationships with customers through ongoing social media listening and responding.

With today’s abundance of attitudinal and behavioral data, firms adopting this strategy use social media platforms as “tools” or “windows” to listen to customer voices and gain important market insights to support their marketing decisions (Moe and Schweidel 2017 ). Moreover, Carlson et al. ( 2018 ) argue that firms can take advantage of social media data to identify innovation opportunities and facilitate the innovation process. Hence, social media monitoring enables firms to assess consumers’ reactions, evaluate the prosperity of social media marketing initiatives, and allocate resources to different types of conversations and customer groups (Homburg et al. 2015 ). In other words, customers in this strategy are expected to be active in social media interactions, providing instantaneous and real-time feedback. This has in a way helped product development and experience improvements with resource inputs from customers’ knowledge stores.

Social monitoring strategy emphasizes the importance of carefully listening and responding to social media activities to have a better understanding of customer needs, gain critical market insights, and build stronger customer relationships (e.g., Timoshenko and Hauser 2019 ). It therefore requires firms to be actively involved in the whole communication process with customers, as customer engagement is not dependent on rewards, but is developed through the ongoing reciprocity between the firm and its customers (Barger et al. 2016 ). Thus, organizational capabilities, such as marketing sensing through effective information acquisition, interpretation and responding, are essential for the successful implementation of this strategy. More specifically, monitoring and text analysis techniques are needed to gather and capture social media data rapidly (Schweidel and Moe 2014 ). Noting the damage caused by electronic negative word of mouth (e-NWOM) on social media, firms adopting this strategy also require special capabilities to appropriately respond to customer online complaints and requests (Kim et al. 2016 ).

Social CRM strategy

Among the four SMMSs identified, social CRM strategy is characterized by the highest degree of strategic maturity, because it reflects “a philosophy and a business strategy supported by a technology platform, business rules, processes, and social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment” (Greenberg 2009 , p. 34). The concept of social CRM is designed to combine the benefits derived from both the social media dimension (e.g., customer engagement) and the CRM dimension (e.g., customer retention) (Malthouse et al. 2013 ). In contrast with the traditional CRM approach, which assumes that customers are passive and only contribute to customer life value, social CRM strategy emphasizes the active role of customers who are empowered by social media and can make a contribution to multiple forms of value (Kumar et al. 2010 ). In brief, a social CRM strategy is a form of collaborative interaction, including firm–customer, inter-organizational, and inter-customer interactions, that are intended to engage and empower customers, so as to build mutually beneficial relationships with the firm and lead to superior performance.

Social media have become powerful enablers of CRM (Choudhury and Harrigan 2014 ). For example, Charoensukmongkol and Sasatanun ( 2017 ) argue that the integration of social media and CRM provides a possibility for firms to segment their customers based on similar characteristics, and can customize marketing offerings to the specific preferences of individual customers. With social CRM strategy, firms can enhance the likelihood of customer engagement through one-to-one social media interactions. Customers at this stage are collaborative and interactive in value creation, such as voluntarily providing innovative ideas and collaborating with brands (Jaakkola and Alexander 2014 ). Hence, besides resource like network assets, persuasion capital, and knowledge stores, engaged customers also contribute their creativity resource for value co-creation.

Social CRM capability is “a firm-level capability and refers to a firm’s competency in generating, integrating, and responding to information obtained from customer interactions that are facilitated by social media technologies” (Trainor et al. 2014 , p. 271). Therefore, firms should be extremely creative to combine social media data with its CRM system, as well as to link the massive social media data on customer activities to other data sources (e.g., customer service records) to generate better customer-learning and innovation opportunities (Choudhury and Harrigan 2014 ; Moe and Schweidel 2017 ). Social CRM strategy also emphasizes the significance of reciprocal information sharing and collaborations that are supported by the firm’s culture and commitment, operational resources, and cross-functional cooperation (Malthouse et al. 2013 ; Schultz and Peltier 2013 ). To sum up, social CRM capabilities, organizational learning capabilities connected with relationship management and innovation are essential prerequisites to building an effective social CRM strategy.

Validation of proposed SMMSs

Using the previously developed classification of SMMSs (i.e., social commerce strategy, social content strategy, social monitoring strategy, and social CRM strategy) as a basis, we reviewed the pertinent literature to collate useful knowledge supporting the content of each of these strategies. Table 4 provides a summary of the key empirical insights derived from the extant studies reviewed, together with resulting managerial lessons.

To validate the practical usefulness of our proposed classificatory framework of SMMSs, we first conducted a series of in-depth interviews with 15 social media marketing practitioners, who had their own firm/brand accounts on social media platforms, at least one year of social media marketing experience, and at least three years’ experience in their current organization (see Web Appendix 1 ). Interviewees represented companies located in China (8 companies), Finland (5 companies), and Sweden (2 companies) and involved in a variety of industries (e.g., digital tech, tourism, food, sport). All interviews were based on a specially designed guide (which was sent to participants in advance to prepare them for the interview) and were audiotaped and subsequently transcribed verbatim (see Web Appendix 2 ).

The main findings of this qualitative study are the following: (1) social media are mainly used as a key marketing channel to achieve business objectives, which, however, differentiates in terms of product-market type, organization size, and managerial mindset; (2) distinct differences exist across organizations in terms of their social media initiatives to deliver content, generate reactions, and develop social CRM; (3) there are marked variations in customer engagement levels across participant firms, resulting from the adoption of different SMMSs; (4) the firm’s propensity to use a specific SMMSs is enhanced by infrastructures, systems, and technologies that help to actively search, access, and integrate data from different sources, as well as facilitate the sharing and coordination of activities with customers; and (5) the adoption of a specific SMMS does not follow a sequential pattern in terms of strategic maturity development, but rather, depends on the firm’s strategic objectives, its willingness to commit the required resources, and the deployment of appropriate organizational capabilities.

To further confirm the existence of differences in profile characteristics among the four types of SMMSs, we conducted an electronic survey among a sample of 52 U.S. social media marketing managers who were randomly selected. For this purpose, we designed a structured questionnaire incorporating the key parameters related to SMMSs, namely firms’ strategic objectives, firms’ engagement initiatives, customers’ social media behaviors, social media resources and capabilities required, direction of interactions, and customer engagement levels (see Web Appendix 3 ).

Specifically, we found that: (1) each of the four SMMSs emphasize different types of strategic objectives, ranging from promoting and selling, in the case of social commerce strategy, to empowering and engaging in social CRM strategy; (2) experiential engagement initiatives geared to customer engagement were more evident at the advanced level, as opposed to the lower level strategies; (3) passive customer social media behaviors were more characteristic of the social commerce strategy, while more active customer behaviors were observed in the case of social CRM strategy; (4) the more advanced the maturity of the SMMS employed, the higher the level customer engagement, as well as the higher requirements in terms of organizational resources and specialized capabilities; and (5) one-way interaction was associated more with social commerce strategy, two-way interaction was more evident in the social content strategy and the social monitoring strategy, and collaborative interaction was a dominant feature in the social CRM strategy (see Web Appendix 4 ).

Future research directions

While the extant research offers insightful information and increased knowledge on SMMSs, there is still plenty of room to expand this field of research with other issues, especially given the rapidly changing developments in social media marketing practice. To gain a more accurate picture about the future of research on the subject, we sought the opinions of academic experts in the field through an electronically conducted survey among authors of academic journal articles written on the subject. We specifically asked them: (1) to suggest the three most important areas that research on SMMSs should focus on in the future; (2) within each of the areas suggested, to indicate three specific topics that need to be addressed more; and (3) within each topic, to illustrate analytical issues that warrant particular attention (see Web Appendix 5 ). Altogether, we received input from 43 social media marketing scholars who suggested 6 broad areas, 13 specific topics, and 82 focal issues for future research, which are presented in Table 5 .

Among the research issues proposed, finding appropriate metrics to measure performance in SMMSs seems to be an area to which top priority should be given. This is because performance is the ultimate outcome of these strategies, for which there is still little understanding due to the idiosyncratic nature of social media as a marketing tool (e.g., Beckers et al. 2017 ; Trainor et al. 2014 ). In particular, it is important to shed light on both short-term and long-term performance, as well as its effectiveness, efficiency, and adaptiveness aspects (e.g., Barger et al. 2016 ). Another key priority area stressed by experts in the field involves integrating to a greater extent various strategic issues regarding each of the marketing-mix elements in a social media context. This would help achieve better coordination between traditional and online marketing tools (e.g., Kolsarici and Vakratsas 2018 ; Kumar et al. 2017 ).

Respondents in our academic survey also stressed the evolutionary nature of knowledge with regard to each of the four SMMSs and proposed multiple issues for each of them. Particular attention should be paid to how inputs from customers and firms are interrelated in each of these strategies, taking into consideration the central role played by customer engagement behaviors and firm initiatives (e.g., Sheng 2019 ). Respondents also pinpointed the need for more emphasis on social CRM strategy (which is relatively under-researched), while there should also be a closer assessment of new developments in both marketing (e.g., concepts and tools) and social media (e.g., technologies and platforms) that can lead to the emergence of new types of SMMSs (e.g., Ahani et al. 2017 ; Choudhury and Harrigan 2014 ).

Respondents also noted that up to now the preparatory phase for designing SMMSs has been overlooked, and that therefore there is a need to shed more light on this because of its decisive role in achieving positive results. For example, issues relating to market/competitor analysis, macro-environmental scanning, and target marketing should be carefully studied in conjunction with formulating sound SMMSs, to better exploit opportunities and neutralize threats in a social media context (e.g., De Vries et al. 2017 ). By contrast, our survey among scholars in the field stressed the crucial nature of issues relating to SMMS implementation and control, which are of equal, or even greater, importance than those of strategy formulation (e.g., Järvinen and Taiminen 2016 ). The academics also indicated that, by their very nature, social media transcend national boundaries, thus leaving plenty of room to investigate the international ramifications of SMMSs, using cross-cultural research (e.g., Johnston et al. 2018 ).

Implications and conclusions

Theoretical implications.

Given the limited research on SMMSs, this study has several important theoretical implications. First, we are taking a step in this new theoretical direction by providing a workable definition and conceptualization of SMMS that combines both social media and marketing strategy dimensions. The study complements and extends previous research (e.g., Harmeling et al. 2017 ; Singaraju et al. 2016 ) that emphasized the value of social media as resource integrator in exchanging customer-owned resources, which can provide researchers with new angles to address the issue of integrating social media with marketing strategy. Such integrative efforts can have a meaningful long-term impact on building a new theory (or theories) of social media marketing. They also point to a deeper theoretical understanding of the roles played by resource identification, utilization, and reconfiguration in a SMMS context.

We have also extended the idea of “social interaction” and “social connectedness” in a social media context, which is critical because the power of a customer enabled by social media connections and interactions is of paramount importance in explaining the significance of SMMSs (Hennig-Thurau et al. 2013 ). More importantly, our study suggests that firms should take the initiative to motivate and engage customers, which will lead to wider and more extensive interactions. In particular, we show that a firm can leverage its social media usage through the use of different engagement initiatives to enforce customer interactivity and interconnectedness. Such enquiries can provide useful theoretical insights into the strategic marketing role played by social media in today’s highly digitalized and globalized world.

We are also furthering the customer engagement literature by proposing an SMMS developmental process. As firm–customer relationships evolve in a social media era, it is critical to identify those factors that have an impact on customer engagement. Although prior studies (e.g., Harmeling et al. 2017 ; Pansari and Kumar 2017 ) have demonstrated the engagement value contributed by customers and the need for engagement initiatives taken by firms, we are extending this idea to provide a more holistic view by highlighting the role of insights from both firms and customers to better understand the dynamics of SMMS formulation. We also suggest certain theories to specifically explain the role played by each of the components of the process in developing sound SMMSs. We capture the unique characteristics of social media by suggesting that these networks and interactions are tightly interrelated with the outcome of SMMS, which is customer engagement. Our proposed SMMS developmental process may therefore provide critical input for new studies focusing on customer engagement research.

 Finally, we build on various criteria to distinguish among four SMMSs, each representing a different level of strategic maturity. We show that a SMMS is not homogeneous, but needs to be understood in a wider, more nuanced way, as having different strategies relying on different goals and deriving insights from firms and their customers, ultimately leading to different customer engagement levels. In this regard, the identification of the key SMMSs stemming from our analysis can serve as the basis for developing specific marketing strategy constructs and scales within a social media context. We also indicate that different SMMSs can be implemented and yield superior competitive advantage only when the firm is in a position to devote to it the right amount and type of resources and capabilities (e.g., Gao et al. 2018 ; Kumar and Pansari 2016 ).

Managerial implications

Our study also has serious implications for managers. First, our analysis revealed that the ever-changing digital landscape on a global scale calls for a reassessment of the ways to strategically manage brands and customers in a social media context. This requires companies to understand the different goals for using social media and to develop their strategies accordingly. As a starting point, firms could explore customer motivations for using social media and effectively deploy the necessary resources to accommodate these motivations. They should also think carefully about how to engage customers when implementing their marketing strategies, because social media become resource integrators only when customers interact with and provide information on them (Singaraju et al. 2016 ).

Managers need to set objectives at the outset to guide the effective development, implementation, and control of SMMSs. Our study suggests four key SMMSs achieving different business goals. For example, the goal of social commerce strategy is to attract customers with transactional interests, that of social content strategy and social monitoring strategy is to deliver valuable content and service to customers, and that of social CRM strategy is to build mutually beneficial customer relationships by integrating social media data with current organizational processes. Unfortunately, many companies, especially smaller ones, tend to create their social media presence for a single purpose only: to disseminate massive commercial information on their social media web pages in the hope of attracting customers, even though these customers may find commercially intensive content annoying.

This study also suggests that social media investments should focus on the integration of social media platforms with internal company systems to build special social media capabilities (i.e., creating, combining, and reacting to information obtained from customer interactions on social media). Such capabilities are vital in developing a sustainable competitive advantage, superior market and financial performance. However, to achieve this, firms must have the right organizational structural and cultural transformation, as well as substantial management commitment and continuous investment.

Lastly, social media have become powerful tools for CRM, helping to transform it from traditional one-way interaction to collaborative interaction. This implies that customer engagement means not only encouraging customer engagement on social media, but also proactively learning from and collaborating with customers. As Pansari and Kumar et al. ( 2017 ) indicate, customer engagement can contribute both directly (e.g., purchase) and indirectly (e.g., customer knowledge value) to the firm. Therefore, interacting with customers via social media provides tremendous opportunities for firms to learn more about their customers and opens up new possibilities for product/service co-creation.

Conclusions

The exploding use of social media in the past decade has underscored the need for guidance on how to build SMMSs that foster relationships with customers, advance customer engagement, and increase marketing performance. However, a comprehensive definition, conceptualization, and framework to guide the analysis and development of SMMSs are lacking. This can be attributed to the recent introduction of social media as a strategic marketing tool, while both academics and practitioners still lack the necessary knowledge on how to convert social media data into actionable strategic marketing tools (Moe and Schweidel 2017 ). This insufficiency also stems from the fact that the adoption of more advanced SMMSs requires the possession of specific organizational capabilities that can be used to leverage social media, with the support of a culture that encourages breaking free from obsolete mindsets, emphasizing employee skills with intelligence in data and customer analytical insights, and operational excellence in organizational structure and business processes (Malthouse et al. 2013 ).

Our study takes the first step toward addressing this issue and provides useful guidelines for leveraging social media use in strategic marketing. In particular, we provide a systematic consolidation and extension of the extant pertinent SMMS literature to offer a robust definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, and validation of SMMSs. Specifically, we have amply demonstrated that the mere use of social media alone does not generate customer value, which instead is attained through the generation of connections and interactions between the firm and its customers, as well as among customers themselves. These generated social networks and influences can subsequently be used strategically for resource transformation and exchanges between the interacting parties. Our conceptualization of the SMMS developmental process also suggests that firms first need to recognize customers’ motivations to engage in brand-related social media activities and encourage their voluntary contributions.

Although the four SMMSs identified in our study (i.e., social commerce strategy, social content strategy, social monitoring strategy, and social CRM strategy) denote progressing levels of strategic maturity, their adoption does not follow a sequential pattern. As our validation procedures revealed, this will be determined by the firm’s strategic objectives, resources, and capabilities. Moreover, the success of the various SMMSs will depend on the firm’s ability to identify and leverage customer-owned resources, as in the case of transforming customers from passive receivers of the firm’s social media offerings to active value contributors. It will also depend on the firm’s willingness to allocate resources in order to foster collaborative conversations, develop appropriate responses, and enhance customer relationships. These will all ultimately help to build a sustainable competitive advantage and enhance business performance.

Although in our conceptualization of the process of developing SMMSs we treat customer engagement as the output of this process, we fully acknowledge that firms’ ultimate objective to engage in social media marketing activities is to improve their market (e.g., customer equity) and financial (e.g., revenues) performance. In fact, extant social media marketing research (e.g., Kumar et al. 2010 ; Kumar and Pansari 2016 ; Harmeling et al. 2017 ) repeatedly stresses the conducive role of customer engagement in ensuring high performance results.

SMMSs are difficult to operationalize by focusing solely on the elements of the marketing mix (i.e., product, price, distribution, and promotion), mainly because many other important parameters are involved in their conceptualization, such as relationship management, market development, and business innovation issues. However, each SMMS seems to have a different marketing mix focus, with social commerce strategy emphasizing advertising and sales, social content strategy emphasizing branding and communication, social monitoring strategy emphasizing service and product development, and social CRM strategy emphasizing customer management and innovation.

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Li, F., Larimo, J. & Leonidou, L.C. Social media marketing strategy: definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 49 , 51–70 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-020-00733-3

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How to Use Social Media for Market Research

1. Track Trends with Social Media for Real-Time Insights

Most social media platforms, such as Twitter or Facebook, offer numerous ways to analyze trends and conduct market research. By simply searching the latest posts and popular terms, you can gain insight into emerging trends and see what customers are talking about in real-time. One example of this is conducting hashtag searches on Twitter. By setting up a few searches with hashtags related to your brand, industry or product, you can receive instant notifications when customers, clients or competitors use key terms.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Role of social media marketing activities in influencing customer intentions: a perspective of a new emerging era.

• 1 School of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, China
• 2 Department of Management Sciences and Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China
• 3 Faisalabad Business School, National Textile University, Faisalabad, Pakistan

The aim of this study is to explore social media marketing activities (SMMAs) and their impact on consumer intentions (continuance, participate, and purchase). This study also analyzes the mediating roles of social identification and satisfaction. The participants in this study were experienced users of two social media platforms Facebook and Instagram in Pakistan. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from respondents. We used an online community to invite Facebook and Instagram users to complete the questionnaire in the designated online questionnaire system. Data were collected from 353 respondents, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data. Results show that SMMAs have a significant impact on the intentions of users. Furthermore, social identification mediates the relationship between social media activities and satisfaction, and satisfaction mediates the relationship between social media activities and the intentions of users. This will help marketers how to attract customers to develop their intentions. This is the first novel study that used SMMAs to address the user intentions with the role of social identification and satisfaction in the context of Pakistan.

Introduction

There has been tremendous growth in the use of social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook over the past decade ( Chen and Qasim, 2021 ). People are using these platforms to communicate with one another, and popular brands use them to market their products. Social activities have been brought from the real world to the virtual world courtesy of social networking sites. Messages are sent in real time which now enable people to interact and share information. As a result, companies consider social media platforms as vital tools for succeeding in the online marketplace ( Ebrahim, 2020 ). The use of social media to commercially promote processes or events to attract potential consumers online is referred to as social media marketing (SMM). With the immense rise in community websites, a lot of organizations have started to find the best ways to utilize these sites in creating strong relationships and communications with users to enable friendly and close relationships to create online brand communities ( Ibrahim and Aljarah, 2018 ).

Social media marketing efficiently fosters communications between customers and marketers, besides enabling activities that enhance brand awareness ( Hafez, 2021 ). For that reason, SMM remains to be considered as a new marketing strategy, but how it impacts intentions is limited. But, to date, a lot of research on SMM is focused on consumer’s behavior, creative strategies, content analysis and the benefits of user-generated content, and their relevance to creating virtual brand communities ( Ibrahim, 2021 ).

New channels of communication have been created, and there have been tremendous changes in how people interact because of the internet developing various applications and tools over time ( Tarsakoo and Charoensukmongkol, 2020 ). Companies now appreciate that sharing brand information and consumer’s experience is a new avenue for brand marketing due to the widespread use of smartphones and the internet, with most people now relying on social media brands. Therefore, developing online communities has become very efficient. Social groups create a sense of continuity for their members without meeting physically ( Yadav and Rahman, 2017 ). A community that acquires products from a certain brand is referred to as a virtual brand community. Customers are not just interested in buying goods and services but also in creating worthwhile experiences and strong relationships with other customers and professionals. So, when customers are part of online communities, there is a cohesion that grows among the customers, which impacts the market. Therefore, it is up to the companies to identify methods or factors that will encourage customers to take part in these communities ( Ismail et al., 2018 ).

The online community’s nature is like that of actual communities when it comes to creating shared experiences, enabling social support, and attending to the members’ need to identify themselves, regardless of the similarities and variances existing between real-world communities and online communities ( Seo and Park, 2018 ). Regarding manifestations and technology, online communities are distinct from real-life communities since the former primarily use computers to facilitate their operation. A certain brand product or service is used to set up a brand community. Brand communities refer to certain communities founded based on interactions that are not limited by geographical restrictions between brand consumers ( Chen and Lin, 2019 ). Since consumers’ social relationships create brand communities, these communities have customs, traditions, rituals, and community awareness. The group members learn from each other and share knowledge about a product, hence appreciating each other’s actions and ideas. So, once a consumer joins a particular brand community, automatically, the brand becomes a conduit and common language linking the community members together because of sharing brand experiences ( Arora and Sanni, 2019 ).

Based on the perspective of brand owners, most research has focused on how social communities can benefit brands. However, there are also some discussions regarding the benefits that come from brand community members according to the members themselves to analyze how social community impacts its members ( Shareef et al., 2019 ). Consumer’s behavior is influenced by value so, when a consumer is constantly receiving value, it leads to consumer’s loyalty toward that brand. According to Alalwan et al. (2017) , a valuable service provider will create loyalty to a company and enhance brand awareness. Consumer value is essentially used in evaluating social networking sites. With better and easier options to create websites coming around, most consumers are attracted to a social community to know about a company and its goods. Furthermore, operators can learn consumer’s behavior through maintaining social interactions with customers. However, the social community should have great value. It should be beneficial to the potential customers by providing them with information relevant to the brand in question. Furthermore, customers should be able to interact with one another, thus creating a sense of belonging. From that, it is evident that a brand social community’s satisfaction affects community retention and selection.

Literature Review

Social media marketing activities.

Most businesses use online marketing strategies such as blogger endorsements, advertising on social media sites, and managing content generated by users to build brand awareness among consumers ( Wang and Kim, 2017 ). Social media is made up of internet-associated applications anchored on technological and ideological Web 2.0 principles, which enables the production and sharing of the content generated by users. Due to its interactive characteristics that enable knowledge sharing, collaborative, and participatory activities available to a larger community than in media formats such as radio, TV, and print, social media is considered the most vital communication channel for spreading brand information. Social media comprises blogs, internet forums, consumer’s review sites, social networking websites (Twitter, Blogger, LinkedIn, and Facebook), and Wikis ( Arrigo, 2018 ).

Social media facilitates content sharing, collaborations, and interactions. These social media platforms and applications exist in various forms such as social bookmarking, rating, video, pictures, podcasts, wikis, microblogging, social blogs, and weblogs. Social networkers, governmental organizations, and business firms are using social media to communicate, with its use increasing tremendously ( Cheung et al., 2021 ). Governmental organizations and business firms use social media for marketing and advertising. Integrated marketing activities can be performed with less cost and effort due to the seamless interactions and communication among consumer partners, events, media, digital services, and retailers via social media ( Tafesse and Wien, 2018 ).

According to Liu et al. (2021) , marketing campaigns for luxury brands consist of main factors such as customization, reputation, trendiness, interaction, and entertainment which significantly impact customers’ purchase intentions and brand equity. Activities that involve community marketing accrue from interactions between events and the mental states of individuals, whereas products are external factors for users ( Parsons and Lepkowska-White, 2018 ). But even though regardless of people experience similar service activities, there is a likelihood of having different ideas and feelings about an event; hence, outcomes for users and consumers are distinct. In future marketing, competition will focus more on brand marketing activities; hence, the marketing activities ought to offer sensory stimulation and themes that give customers a great experience. Now brands must provide quality features but also focus on enabling an impressive customer’s experience ( Beig and Khan, 2018 ).

Social Identification

A lot of studies about brand communities involve social identification, appreciating the fact that a member of a grand community is part and parcel of that community. Social identity demystifies how a person enhances self-affirmation and self-esteem using comparison, identity, and categorization ( Chen and Lin, 2019 ). There is no clear definition of the brand community or the brand owner, strengthening interactions between the community and its members or creating a rapport between the brand and community members. As a result, members of a community are separated into groups based on their educational attainment, occupation, and living environment. Members of social networks categorize each other into various groups or similar groups according to their classification in social networks ( Salem and Salem, 2021 ).

Brand identification and identification of brand communities emanate from a similar process. Users can interact freely, hence creating similar ideologies about the community, alongside strengthening bonds among members, hence enabling them to identify with that community. The brand community identity can also be considered as a convergence of values between the principles of the social community and the values of the users ( Wibowo et al., 2021 ).

According to Lee et al. (2021) , members of a brand social community share their ideas by taking part in community activities to help create solutions. When customers join a brand community, they happily take part in activities or discussions and are ready to help each other. So, it is evident that social community participation is impacting community identity positively. Community involvement entails a person sharing professional understanding or knowledge with other members to enhance personal growth and create a sense of belonging ( Gupta and Syed, 2021 ). According to Haobin Ye et al. (2021) , it is high time community identity be incorporated in virtual communities since it is a crucial factor that affects the operations of virtual communities. Also, community identity assists in facilitating positive interactions among members of the community, encouraging them to actively take part in community activities ( Assimakopoulos et al., 2017 ). This literature review suggests that social communities need members to work together. Individuals who can identify organizational visions and goals become dedicated to that virtual company.

Satisfaction

Customer’s satisfaction involves comparing expected and after-service satisfaction with the standards emanating from accumulated previous experiences. According to implementation confirmation theory, satisfaction is a consumer’s expected satisfaction with how the services have lived up to those expectations. Customers usually determine the level of satisfaction by comparing the satisfaction previously experienced and the current one ( Pang, 2021 ).

According to recent studies, community satisfaction impacts consumer’s loyalty and community participation. A study community’s level of satisfaction is determined by how its members rate it ( Jarman et al., 2021 ). Based on previous interactions, the community may be evaluated. When the members are satisfied with their communities, it is manifested through joyful emotions, which affect the behavior of community members. In short, satisfaction creates active participation and community loyalty ( Shujaat et al., 2021 ).

Types of Intentions

A lot of studies about information and marketing systems have used continuance intention in measuring if a customer continues to use a certain product or service. The willingness of customers to continue using a good or service determines if service providers will be successful or not. According to Zollo et al. (2020) , an efficient information marketing system should persuade users to use it, besides retaining previous users to guarantee continued use.

Operators of social networks must identify the reason propelling continued use of social network sites, alongside attracting more users. Nevertheless, previous studies on information systems in the last two decades have mainly concentrated on behavior–cognition approaches, for instance, the technology acceptance model (TAM), theory of planned behavior (TPB), and theory of reasoned action (TRA) with their variants ( Tarsakoo and Charoensukmongkol, 2020 ; Jamil et al., 2021b ). According to Ismail et al. (2018) , perceived use and satisfaction positively impact a user’s continuance intention. The continued community members’ participation has two intentions. Continuance intention is the first one. It defines the community member’s intent to keep on using the community ( Beig and Khan, 2018 ; Dunnan et al., 2020 ). Then, recommendation intention, also known as mouth marketing, describes every informal communication that takes place among community members regarding the virtual brand community. Previous studies about members of a virtual community mostly entailed the continuous utilization of information systems ( Seo and Park, 2018 ; Sarfraz et al., 2021 ). Unlike previous studies, this study focuses on factors that support the continued participation of community members. So, besides determining how usage purpose affects continuance intention, the study also investigated the factors that influence users’ willingness to take part in community activities ( Gul et al., 2021 ).

Nevertheless, it is hard to determine and monitor whether a certain action occurred (recommendation or purchase) during empirical investigations. Consumers will seek relevant information associated with their external environment and experiences when purchasing goods ( Shareef et al., 2019 ). Once they have collected significant information, they will evaluate it, and draw comparisons from which customer’s behavior is determined. Since purchase intention refers to a customer’s affinity toward a particular product, it is a metric of a customer’s behavioral intention. According to Liu et al. (2021) , the probability of a customer buying a particular product is known as an intention to buy. So, when the probability is high, it simply means that the willingness to purchase is high. Past studies consider purchase intention as a factor that can predict consumer’s behavior alongside the subjective possibility of consumer’s purchases. According to Chen and Qasim (2021) , from a marketing viewpoint, if a company wants to retain its community besides achieving community targets while establishing successful marketing via the community, at least three objectives are needed. They include membership continuance intention, which entails members living up to their promises in the community and also the willingness to belong to the community ( Yadav and Rahman, 2018 ; Naseem et al., 2020 ). On the other side, community recommendation intention entails the willingness of members to recommend or refer community members to other people who are not members ( Jamil et al., 2021a ; Mohsin et al., 2021 ). The next consideration is the community participation intention of a member, which involves their willingness to participate in the activities of the brand community. Unlike past literature about using information systems, this study demystified how SMMAs influence purchase intention and participation intention ( Alalwan et al., 2017 ).

Development of Hypotheses

People with similar interests can get a virtual platform to discuss and share ideas courtesy of social media. Sustained communication of social media allows users to create a community. Long-lasting sharing of growth and information fosters the development of strong social relationships. The information posted on social media platforms by an individual positively correlates with the followers the user has. Regarding the discussion above, we proposed the following hypothesis:

H1: Social media marketing activities (SMMAs) have a significant impact on social identification.

The study of Farivar and Richardson (2021) on users’ continuance intention confirmed that it is influenced by satisfaction after service. Social media studies are also of the thought that satisfaction significantly affects continuance intention. So, a consumer will measure the satisfaction of service after using it. Mahendra (2021) claims that satisfaction influences repurchase behavior. Repurchase intention emanates from a customer’s satisfaction with a good or service. People who have similar interests may interact and cooperate in a virtual world via social media platforms. A community on social media may be formed by regularly connecting with people and exchanging information with them. Members benefit from long-term information and growth exchanges that enable them to create strong social relationships. A lot of studies have pointed out that repurchase intention and customer’s satisfaction are positively and highly related. Besides, marketing studies noted that satisfactory experience after using a product would impact the intention of future repurchase. Hence, we proposed the following hypothesis:

H2: SMMAs have a significant impact on satisfaction.

The study by Suman et al. (2021) on American consumer’s behavior suggested that members taking part in community activities (meetups, discussion, and browsing) influence their brand-associated behavior. According to Di Minin et al. (2021) , the brand identity of a consumer has a positive impact on satisfaction. Consumers capitalize on online communities to share their experiences and thoughts about a grand regularly and easily ( Sirola et al., 2021 ). These experiences make up the customer to brand experiences and establish a sense of belonging, trust, and group identity. In a nutshell, this study suggests that identity will enable members to recognize their community, hence confirming that members have similar experiences and feelings with a particular brand and feel united in the group ( Shujaat et al., 2021 ). Strong group identity means that members are integrated closely into the brand communities and highly regard the community. Hence, we proposed the following hypothesis:

H3: Social identification has a significant impact on satisfaction.

Brand communities are beneficial in the sense that they enable sharing of marketing information, managing a community, and exploring demands ( Dutot, 2020 ). These activities are likely to enhance consumer’s rights and increase customer’s satisfaction ( Sahibzada et al., 2020 ). A customer who makes an online transaction will be highly satisfied with a website that provides a great experience ( Koçak et al., 2021 ). Enhancing customer’s satisfaction, encouraging customer intentions, creating community loyalty, and fostering communication and interactions between community users are crucial to lasting community platform management ( Pang, 2021 ). Hence, we proposed the following hypotheses:

H4: Satisfaction has a significant impact on continuance intention.

H5: Satisfaction has a significant impact on participate intention.

H6: Satisfaction has a significant impact on purchase intention.

Thaler (1985) proposed transaction utility theory, in which consumers’ willingness to spend money is influenced by their perceptions of value. Researchers such as Dodds (1991) claimed that buyers only become ready to purchase after they have established a sense of value for a product. According to Petrick et al. (2001) , a product’s quality is dependent on the customer’s satisfaction. Several studies have shown that enjoyment, perceived value, and behavioral intention are all linked together. Hence, we proposed the following hypothesis:

H7: Social identification mediates the relationship between SMMA and satisfaction.

When it comes to information systems, Bhattacherjee et al. (2008) discovered that people’s continual intention is derived from their satisfaction with the system after they have used it. Studies on employee’s satisfaction in the workplace have shown that it has a substantial influence on CI. The amount of satisfaction that users have with the system that they have previously used is the most important factor in determining their CI, according to research on information system utilization intention.

In other words, the customer’s contentment with the product leads to the establishment of a desire to buy the thing again, as mentioned by Assimakopoulos et al. (2017) . Numerous studies show a strong link between customer’s satisfaction and their propensity to return for another transaction. According to a lot of marketing studies, customers who have a pleasant experience with a product are more likely to repurchase it. Hence, we proposed the following hypotheses:

H8: Satisfaction mediates the relationship between social identification and continuance intention.

H9: Satisfaction mediates the relationship between social identification and participate intention.

H10: Satisfaction mediates the relationship between social identification and purchase intention.

Figure 1 shows the research framework of this study.

Figure 1. Conceptual framework.

Conceptual Framework

Research methodology.

This study designed a questionnaire according to the hypotheses stated above. The participants in this study were experienced users of two social media platforms Facebook and Instagram in Pakistan. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from respondents. A pilot study with 40 participants was carried out. Since providing recommendations, revisions were made to the final questionnaire to make it more understandable for the study’s respondents. To ensure the content validity of the measures, three academic experts of marketing analyzed and make improvements in the items of constructs. The experts searched for spelling errors and grammatical errors and ensured that the items were correct. The experts have proposed minor text revisions to social identification and satisfaction items and advised that the original number of items is to be maintained. This study used an online community to invite Facebook and Instagram users to complete the questionnaire in the designated online questionnaire system. Online questionnaires have the following advantages ( Tan and Teo, 2000 ): (1) sampling is not restricted to a single geological location, (2) lower cost, and (3) faster questionnaire responses. A total of 353 questionnaires were returned from respondents. There were 353 appropriate replies considered for the final analysis.

The study used items established from prior research to confirm the reliability and validity of the measures. All items are evaluated through 5-point Likert-type scales where “1” (strongly disagree), “3” (neutral), and “5” (strongly agree).

Dependent Variable

To get a response about three dimensions of intention (continuance, participate, and purchase), we used eight items adopted from prior studies;

1. Continuance intention is measured by three items from the study of Bhattacherjee et al. (2008) , and the sample item is, “I intend to continue buying social media rather than discontinue its use.”

2. Participate intention is evaluated by three items from the work of Debatin et al. (2009) , and the sample item is, “my intentions are to continue participating in the social media activities.”

3. Purchase intention was determined by two items adapted from the work of Pavlou et al. (2007) , and the sample item is, “I intend to buy using social media in the near future.”

Independent Variable

To analyze the five dimensions of SMMAs, we used eleven items adopted from a prior study of Kim and Ko (2012) .

1. Entertainment is determined by two items and the sample item is, “using social media for shopping is fun.”

2. Interaction is evaluated by three items, and the sample item is, “conversation or opinion exchange with others is possible through brand pages on social media.”

3. Trendiness is measured by two items, and the sample item is, “contents shown in social media is the newest information.”

4. Customization is measured by two items, and the sample item is, “brand’s pages on social media offers customized information search.”

5. Word of mouth is measured by two items, and the sample item is, “I would like to pass along information on the brand, product, or services from social media to my friends.”

Mediating Variables

We used two mediating variables in this study,

1. Social identification was measured with five items adopted from the prior study of Bhattacharya and Sen (2003) , and the sample item is, “I see myself as a part of the social media community.”

2. Satisfaction was evaluated with six items adopted from the study of Chen et al. (2015) , and the sample item is, “overall, I am happy to purchase my desired product from social media.”

This research employs a partial least square (PLS) modeling technique, instead of other covariance-based approaches such as LISREL and AMOS. The reason behind why we pick PLS-SEM is that it is most suitable for confirmatory and also exploratory research ( Hair Joe et al., 2016 ). Structural equation modeling (SEM) has two approaches, namely covariance-based and PLS-SEM ( Hair et al., 2014 ). PLS is primarily used to validate hypotheses, whereas SEM is most advantageous in hypothesis expansion ( Podsakoff et al., 2012 ). A PLS-SEM-based methodology would be done in two phases, first weighing and then measurement ( Sarstedt et al., 2014 ). PLS-SEM is ideal for a multiple-order, multivariable model. To do small data analysis is equally useful in PLS-SEM ( Hair et al., 2014 ). PLS-SEM allows it easy to calculate all parameter calculations ( Hair Joe et al., 2016 ). The present analysis was conducted using SmartPLS 3.9.

Model Measurement

Table 1 shows this study model based on 31 items of the seven variables. The reliability of this study model is measured with Cronbach’s alpha ( Hair Joe et al., 2016 ). As shown in Table 1 , all items’ reliability is robust, Cronbach’s alpha (α) is greater than 0.7. Moreover, composite reliability (CR) fluctuates from.80 to.854, which surpassed the prescribed limit of 0.70, affirming that all loadings used for this research have shown up to satisfactory indicator reliability. Ultimately, all item’s loadings are over the 0.6 cutoff, which meets the threshold ( Henseler et al., 2015 ).

Table 1. Inner model evaluation.

The Cronbach’s alpha value for all constructs must be greater than 0.70 is acceptable ( Hair et al., 2014 ). All the values of α are greater than 0.7 as shown in Table 1 and Figure 2 .

Figure 2. Measurement model.

Convergent validity is measured by CR and AVE, and scale reliability for each item ( Hair Joe et al., 2016 ). The scholar says that CR and AVE should be greater than 0.7 and 0.5, respectively. By utilizing CR and average variance extracted scores, convergent validity was estimated ( Fornell and Larcker, 1981 ). As elaborated in Table 3 , the average variance extracted scores of all the indicators are greater than 0.50 and CR is higher than.70 which is elaborating an acceptable threshold of convergent validity and internal consistency. It is stated that a value of CR, that is, not less than 0.70, is acceptable and evaluated as a good indicator of internal consistency ( Sarstedt et al., 2014 ). Moreover, average variance extracted scores of more than 0.50 demonstrate an acceptable convergent validity, as this implies that a specific construct with greater than 50% variations is clarified by the required indicators.

Table 2. A mediation analysis.

Table 3. Discriminant validity.

This study determines the discriminant validity through two techniques named Fornell–Larcker criterion and heterotrait–monotrait (HTMT) ( Hair Joe et al., 2016 ). In line with Fornell and Larcker (1981) , the upper right-side diagonal values should be greater than the correlation with other variables, which is the square root of AVE, which indicates the discriminant validity of the model. Table 3 states that discriminant validity was developed top value of variable correlation with itself is highest. The HTMT ratios must be less than 0.85, although values in the range of 0.90 to 0.95 are appropriate ( Hair Joe et al., 2016 ). Table 3 displays that all HTMT ratios are less than 0.90, which reinforces the statement that discriminant validity was supported in this study’s classification.

To determine the problem of multicollinearity in the model, VIF was calculated for this purpose. The experts said that if the value of VIF is greater than 5, there is no collinearity issue in findings ( Hair et al., 2014 ). The results indicate that the inner value of VIF for all indicators must fall in the range of 1.421 to 1.893. Furthermore, these study findings show no issue of collinearity with data, and the study has stable results.

To evaluate “the explanatory power of the model,” the R 2 value was analyzed for every predicted variable. It shows the degree to which independent variables illustrate the dependent variables. R 2 value in “between 0 and 1 with higher values shows a higher level of predictive accuracy. Subsequent values of R 2 describe 0.25 for weak, 0.50 for moderate, and 0.75 for” substantial. An appropriate model is indicated by R 2 greater than 0.5 in primary results. In Figure 2 , the value of R 2 greater than 0.5 on all exogenous constructs, which also means that the model has strong predictive accuracy ( Hair Joe et al., 2016 ).

Table 4 displays the percentage of variance clarified for every variable: 62.7% of continuous intention, 55.5% of participate intention, 54.5% for purchase intention, 80.9% for satisfaction, and 81.8% for social identification. In general, results demonstrate that values of R 2 of endogenous variables are greater than 80%, which is the sign of a substantial “parsimonious model” ( Sarstedt et al., 2014 ). Most importantly, the outputs give a significant validation of the model. Q 2 values of all four 5 latent variables suggest that the model is extremely predictive ( Hair et al., 2014 ).

Table 4. Predictive accuracy and relevance of the model.

Hypothesis Testing

This study evaluates the significance of relationships using bootstrapping at 5,000 with a replacement sample ( Hair Joe et al., 2016 ; Awan et al., 2021 ). The findings show that SMMAs have significant relationship with social identification (β = 0.905, t -value = 36.570, p = 0.000) which accept the H1. The findings show that SMM significantly influences the satisfaction (β = 0.634, t -value = 8.477, p = 0.000). Social identification has significant positive relationship with satisfaction as shown in Table 5 (β = 0.284, t -value = 4.348, p = 0.000) which accept the H3. The results show that satisfaction has significant relationship with continuous intention (β = 0.792, t -value = 15.513, p = 0.000) which support the H4. The findings show that satisfaction has strong positive relationship with participant intention (β = 0.745, t -value = 12.041, p = 0.000), which support the H5. The findings show that satisfaction has strong positive relationship with purchase intention (β = 0.739, t -value = 12.397, p = 0.000) which support the H6. The findings of the current investigation support H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6. The results show that H4, H1a, H1b, H3a, H3b, H2a, and H2b are accepted (refer to Table 5 and Figure 3 ).

Table 5. Hypothesis testing.

Figure 3. Structural model.

Preacher and Hayes (2008) argue that if the VIF value is greater than 80%, then it shows full mediation, and value of VIF equal to 20 to 80% which indicate the partial mediation and if VIF falls below 20%, then there is no mediation. The findings show that social identification mediates the relationship between SMM and satisfaction (β = 0.213, t -value = 3.570, p -value = 0.000) and indirect effect (β = 0.257, t -value = 4.481, p -value = 0.000) with variance accounted for (VAF) 75% which show partial mediation. In this, the VAF describes the size of the indirect effect in relation to the total effect ( Hayes and Preacher, 2010 ). The findings show that satisfaction mediates the relationship between social identification and continuous intention (β = 0.342, t -value = 3.435, p -value = 0.000) and indirect effect (β = 0.225, t -value = 4.636, p -value = 0.000) with VAF 64% which show partial mediation. In this, the VAF describes the size of the indirect effect in relation to the total effect ( Hayes, 2009 ). The findings show that satisfaction mediates the relationship between social identification and participant intention (β = 0.324, t -value = 5.325, p -value = 0.000) and indirect effect (β = 0.211, t -value = 4.338, p -value = 0.000) with VAF 73% which show partial mediation. The findings show that satisfaction mediates the relationship between social identification and purchase intention (β = 0.312, t -value = 3.434, p -value = 0.000) and indirect effect (β = 0.3.213, t -value = 5.437, p -value = 0.000) with VAF 78% which show partial mediation (refer to Table 2 ).

Discussion and Conclusion

The study was about SMMAs as proposed by Kim and Ko (2012) , and it investigated which factors influence social media usage. The findings of the study include the following:

Most studies about social websites have not exhausted the impact of SMMAs. According to this study, SMMAs significantly affect social identification, which ultimately influences purchase decisions, participation decisions, continuance intention, and satisfaction. The study demystified social media usage intention. The findings were that SMMAs could sustain corporate brands. According to Beig and Khan (2018) , unlike blog marketing and keyword advertising that were associated with content, SMM gets to the targeted audiences to enhance the impact of the information being shared by creating strong relationships in the online community. Therefore, service providers of social media must put into consideration means of increasing the impact of SMMAs. To boost SMMAs, operators should increase activity on the forum. The members of a community can be allowed to explain the guiding factors behind choosing a particular brand over that of competitors for other members to know the competing brands. From the discussions and sharing of knowledge, members get an opportunity to understand why they like a particular brand, thus enhancing brand loyalty and community cohesion ( Yadav and Rahman, 2017 ).

The study also confirmed that most administrators are concerned with the influence of brand community management in creating business advantage. According to Tarsakoo and Charoensukmongkol (2020) , marketing strategies and tools have undergone tremendous changes since the inception of social media. Consumers no longer must rely on traditional media to acquire information about a product before making their purchase since social media can effectively and easily avail such information. For that reason, social media service providers must come up with effective measures of controlling publication timing, frequency, and content to achieve the set marketing targets. According to this study, if a company can successfully assist users to easily identify with a particular brand community, strong relationships will be fostered between the consumers and the brand, hence creating customer’s loyalty ( Ebrahim, 2020 ). Besides, users may stop using competitors’ products. So, companies need to appreciate that proper management of online strategies and brand community in creating community identity enhances brand’s competitiveness and inspires members of the brand community to shun using goods and services from competitors.

Limitations and Recommendations

Regardless of the efforts geared toward enabling in-depth data collection, research methodology, and research structure, there were still various limitations that ought to be dealt with in studies to be conducted in the future. For instance, using online questionnaires in data collection, some members might have been very willing to fill them because of their community identity, hence enabling self-selection bias that may impact the validity and authenticity of the outcomes. Besides, a cross-sectional sample was used in the study; hence, results from the analysis can only demystify individual usage patterns on well-known social media. Nevertheless, the different social media platforms provide different services; hence, long-term usage needs long-term observation. The outcomes of growth model analysis with the experimental values and browsing experiences of users at the various phases in longitudinal studies to be conducted in the future may be increasingly conclusive on casual relationships with variables. The third limitation of the study is that different countries or areas have different preferences regarding social media. Future studies should unravel the reasons behind individuals from various cultural backgrounds or countries using different social media platforms and what might be the demands and motivations behind their preferences. Besides, new social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have unique characteristics which are different from traditional sites. Future studies should also focus on this shift. For this study, the emphasis was on SMMAs’ influence on user’s behavior and usage demands.

Data Availability Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusion of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

This study was partly supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (no. 19ZDA081).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

The reviewer ZA declared a shared affiliation with one of the authors, SG, to the handling editor at time of review.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords : social media marketing activities, social identification, satisfaction, continuance intention, participate intention, purchase intention

Citation: Jamil K, Dunnan L, Gul RF, Shehzad MU, Gillani SHM and Awan FH (2022) Role of Social Media Marketing Activities in Influencing Customer Intentions: A Perspective of a New Emerging Era. Front. Psychol. 12:808525. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.808525

Received: 03 November 2021; Accepted: 20 December 2021; Published: 17 January 2022.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2022 Jamil, Dunnan, Gul, Shehzad, Gillani and Awan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Syed Hussain Mustafa Gillani, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Social Media Content Plan: What You Need to Succeed

Craft a winning social media content plan that boosts engagement, enhances brand visibility, and aligns with your marketing goals. This guide covers all you need to succeed.

If your brand has an online presence, having an effective social media content plan should be the core of your digital marketing strategy.

So, why is it worth putting time and effort into a content plan for social media?

In short, a social media content plan acts to foster engagement between you and your audience. Paired with a social media content calendar, it can guide you to deliver the right messages to the right people.

After all, a thought-out plan can spotlight your brand and turn potential customers into loyal clients. Content planning has never been so valuable.

The best plans for social media content begin with setting clear goals and conducting some investigation into what makes your audience tick. After that, you'll be on a path to creating content that both resonates with your audience and showcases your brand.

Once your content plan is in action, we'll look at how to analyze whether it's doing its job properly, and leave you with a few tips for changing course if required.

In this article we cover:

Understanding the social media landscape

Developing a social media strategy, crafting a content strategy, operations and management tools, building an actionable content calendar, implementing your social media content plan, measuring success and optimization, maintaining a dynamic social media approach.

• Final notes on creating a content plan

First, let's cover some basics.

Before you get started on drafting a content plan for social media, it's important to have a wider understanding of the social media landscape. Consider the social media platforms available for you to use, and then think about which of these your target audience tend to gravitate towards. Which communities can you tap into? And which apps have the largest number of your target audience on them?

This groundwork will help you focus your efforts, so let's look at those steps in more detail.

Defining social media marketing

Social media marketing is essentially just using social media to tell people about your brand, products, or services.

It involves lots of different types of content – anything from straightforward text (for example, in a tweet) to carefully edited video or images.

As you develop your social media strategy, you'll be thinking about things like:

• Which platforms your audience uses
• What type of content your brand should be using to convey it's message
• How often you plan to post on social media
• How to encourage user engagement

The role of different social platforms

Different social media platforms cater to specific purposes and audiences. Unless you have a big social media team, you'll probably be focusing your efforts on creating content for a few social media channels, rather than every single one. Think quality over quantity.

For example, you might choose to build a presence on Instagram in the first instance, then add content for TikTok later as your brand grows.

If your brand does a lot of business-to-business marketing, you might decide that more LinkedIn activity would be useful. Alternatively, you might decided that Facebook has a place in your strategy.

Next up in the quest to develop your social media strategy, let's look at some factors like your current activity on social media, your audience, and your social media marketing goals.

This is also a good opportunity to have a closer look at what your competitors are getting up to on social media, too.

Assessing your social media presence

Before diving into a new social media content plan, take a moment to think about your current social media activity. A social media audit, of sorts.

Look at which platforms are performing the best in terms of engagement, followers, and conversions.

Cast a critical eye over the content you've published in the past to determine if it resonates with your audience. It's important to be honest here. If you spent months on a social media campaign that didn't work, then admit it didn't and learn from those mistakes.

Check, too, that you've been posting consistently across all platforms you have a presence on. This initial assessment will give you a better idea of where your current social media efforts stand.

Once you have these answers in mind, you can identify areas that need improvement.

Setting social media marketing goals

It's also good to have some clear and measurable social media marketing goals to guide your strategy.

You might decide to focus on things like increasing brand awareness, lead generation, driving website traffic, or getting more engagement.

Remember, your social media goals should match up with your overall marketing objectives.

Want to know more? Read our blog on social media management tips.

Identifying your target audience

Knowing your audience will help you create social media content that resonates and inspires people to click like, share, comment, or follow.

When thinking about your target audience, first consider their demographics (age, gender, or income), then consider things like geographic location, interests, and challenges or pain points.

By knowing your audience, you can learn how to create content that appeals to their interests, which in turn, will result in higher engagement and conversions.

Conducting a competitive analysis

A bit of competitive analysis can tell you all you need to know about your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.

Start by listing your top competitors. This part is usually pretty easy, as you've probably been bumping into them online as they offer similar products or services in your market.

Next up, gather data that gives you information about your competitors’ social media accounts. Look at the types of content they are publishing, and how many people are engaging with them.

After that, draw a few comparisons between your social media performance and theirs. Look for patterns, trends, and opportunities for improvement.

With this information, you can brainstorm ways to differentiate your social media activity from your competitors and capitalize on the unique aspects of your brand.

Read our extensive Competitor Analysis guide for more info.

So, you should now have an understanding of the current social media landscape, have a few goals in mind, and know what your competitors are doing.

Now it's time to use all of this to create an amazing social media strategy.

There are a few techniques to cover here, so we'll dive right in.

Audience engagement techniques

Engagement is a really important part of a successful social media strategy.

If people don't engage with your social media content, then your posts will be hidden by algorithms that prioritize high engagement rates. So you want people to like, comment, save, or share your posts.

On the flip side, high levels of engagement will increase brand awareness, attract more followers, and boost conversions.

So, it's a good idea to include some specific techniques for increasing engagement in your content plan.

This might look like asking questions that encourage people to share their opinions, experiences, or suggestions in the comments. You could also try polls and quizzes. These can to be quite irresistible to audiences – a lot of people will click just to see the results. Of course, the results also double up as data about your audience for you to use elsewhere in your strategy.

Video content and livestreams are another way to drive higher engagement rates, as they often bring more views than still images.

Finally, educational content can bring more eyes to your posts as your audience will look to you as a knowledgeable source and come back to learn more.

Remember, if you're not seeing engagement rates go up after putting your strategy into action, you can always change course when needed.

Incorporating user generated content

Sharing user generated content (UGC) is another smart way to boost your social media content strategy.

For example, a clothing brand could share a reel from a style influencer featuring products that were gifted from their brand.

We love UGC. Not only does it save time and money by making the most of existing content, it's also exciting for your customers to see their content on your social media account.

You could try contests and giveaways to encourage UGC. Give users who share content related to your brand a chance to win prizes or recognition.

Testimonials and reviews can also count as UGC, endorsing your brand's authenticity.

Finally, if you share your audience's experiences or stories related to your brand, this will help to build a sense of community and trust.

Remember to always ask for permission before using someone's content, and give proper credit when sharing it.

Planning for diverse content types

A well-rounded content strategy includes a mix of evergreen content, engaging content, and educational content. By mixing things up with different content types, you keep your social media channels fresh and provide opportunities for users to find something that resonates.

A carefully curated social media content calendar can help you plan for a variety of content, and analytics will help you understand which which content types perform best.

Keep an eye on trends too, in case you want to tap into them yourself!

Part of planning your social media content is knowing how you will be able to put it into action.

Here's our top tip: the easiest way to action your plan is to use a social media planning tool, or management tool.

In this section we'll take a look at the options available, and we'll also share some advice about choosing the right tool to oversee all your social media campaigns.

Choosing social media management tools

A social media management tool is the perfect partner for your social content strategy.

Some popular options include Brandwatch , Buffer, and Sprout Social. Remember though, it's a good idea to research and compare a few tools to find one that suits your needs.

Think about factors such as the platforms supported, ease of use, team collaboration features, and pricing.

Want to know more about Brandwatch? Learn how to master social media management with us!

Scheduling and automation

A consistent posting schedule is vital to keep your audience engaged and maintain your brand's presence on social media.

This can help you plan and prepare your content ahead of time, and ensure that content is shared automatically according to your plan.

Most social media management tools offer automation features that enable you to schedule posts across multiple platforms from a single dashboard, which can be super useful for social media marketers.

Tracking performance with analytics

To check if your content plan is bringing in results, it's a good idea to keep an eye on performance using social media analytics.

By monitoring engagement metrics and assessing things like follower growth and reach, you can check how your content is playing with both existing followers and new audiences.

A good social media management tool will come with built-in analytics, allowing you to easily measure the success of your posting efforts and make data-driven decisions.

Creating a social media posting schedule will involve categorizing your content and strategizing the timing and frequency of posts to bring maximum eyes to your content.

Here's a bit more detail to help guide you through these tasks.

Structuring your social media calendar

An organized social media content calendar is a must-have in any social media content strategy. There are many digital tools available to help transform your social media calendar dreams into a reality.

We suggest using a management tool like Brandwatch with a built-in social media calendar to keep everything in one place.

Simply categorize your content and tag accordingly, then make sure that different content types are spread across multiple posts.

Timing and frequency of social posts

Social media algorithms tend to favor accounts that post consistently.

For this reason, it's important to consider the timing and frequency of your social posts.

In order to increase post visibility, you should find out when your audience are most active on social platforms and use this information in your social media content calendar.

Aim for a steady flow of content to keep your followers engaged, but avoid flooding their feeds. Balance is crucial.

If you need help with this, your tool may offer you AI-led optimization. This means you can post at a time when your audience is most engaged. AI is now used is most top social media calendar tools, so look out for it!

Now that you have a content plan and a social media content calendar to guide your publishing schedule, you can start to push your content out into the world.

Here are three areas you need to focus on:

Content publishing best practices

When rolling out your content plan, there are a few best practices to keep in mind.

First, stick to a consistent posting schedule to maintain your appearance on social media and keep your audience engaged. Remember, your content calendar can help guide you through this.

Secondly, prioritize creating quality content over the quantity of content. Great social media posts published in a steady flow will always win over substandard content that's posted in a rush.

Finally, don't forget to optimize your social media content for each platform by using the appropriate image sizes, character limits, hashtags, and keywords. Your all-in-one software might have a tool that resizes posts to fit each platform, making the content creation process a whole lot easier.

Employee advocacy and involvement

You could also use your own employees as brand ambassadors – this is called employee advocacy.

To do this, simply encourage your team members to share your company's content on their personal social media channels. This will expand your reach and create a more robust, authentic social media presence.

A few guidelines can help employees feel more confident in this area, as they can access to a content library with ready-to-share posts, images, and articles.

You could also try recognition and rewards for employees who consistently demonstrate brand advocacy.

Learn how to leverage employee advocacy for social media success here!

Responding and adapting to feedback

As your audience interacts with your social media content, you'll want to monitor their feedback and adapt your plan accordingly.

The most important thing here is to respond to comments, messages, and inquiries in a timely manner. This will build trust and establish a positive relationship with your audience.

Adjust your content planning habits, posting schedule, or social media strategy as needed.

Once you've polished up your social media plan and put it into action, it's time to check that it's bringing the results you hoped for. This is where social analytics come into play.

Understanding analytics and KPIs

To measure the success of your content plan, it's essential to look at analytics and set relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Your social media metrics will give you an idea of how well your content is performing.

Pay attention to KPIs like engagement, reach, impressions, and conversions. Of course, there are more KPIs worth tracking than just these three.

The KPIs you choose should align with your social strategy and overall goals, such as increasing brand awareness or driving website traffic.

Continuous improvement process

Once you've gathered and analyzed your data, it's time to tweak your social strategy to make it even better. This is known as a continuous improvement mindset.

Start by pinpointing top-performing content – in other words, the posts that received the most engagement. If you understand why it performed well, you can create more content with similar qualities.

You could also test various content formats such as images, videos, polls, or links to articles to see which ones resonate the most with your audience.

If nothing is sticking, you could try adjusting your posting schedule to different times of the day.

Be prepared to make changes and test new ideas to see what works best for your brand.

A brand's social media presence can quickly sour if the company doesn't appear to be evolving or doing anything new or exciting.

In order to maintain a dynamic social media approach, you should keep a close eye on your audience's preferences and the latest social media trends.

Keep things fresh by trying a new social media platform where your audience may be active.

You should also take advantage of new product features in your existing social media accounts.

Four actions to create a social media plan with meaning

But how do you do all this in practice? Below are four actionable steps you can take to broaden your content and create a social media plan that meets your audience's interests:

1. Plan content on a channel-by-channel basis

Remember that not all stories will work on every social media channel, so adapt and customize content accordingly.

Some careful reading of your analytics will also reveal which of your posts are working well and which aren't.

You might find that your LinkedIn posts fails to match the audience interests found on your Facebook channel. Use this information to plan future content that really strikes a chord with your audience.

2. Stay creative with visual content

A picture is worth a thousand words, so make sure your visual content is compelling and eye-catching. Even better – a video that keeps viewers hooked until the final second will play well for the algorithm.

This is particularly important for TikTok and Instagram, while Facebook and X favor content on how much engagement it receives.

Experiment with different formats such as images, infographics, and videos, and tap into your social media team for fresh ideas.

3. Optimize your content with relevant hashtags

Depending on the platform, relevant hashtags or keywords in your posts can increase their visibility and reach.

LinkedIn, for example, is a surprisingly useful platform for industry leaders. You can easily create your own unique hashtags and make an impact in a space that not all businesses are aware of.

So, be sure to research popular hashtags and maybe have a few industry-specific ones in your back pocket, too. Tread carefully here, though – too many hashtags or irrelevant tags could be seen as spammy.

4. Engage with your audience

A dynamic social media approach involves more than just posting content.

Take time to interact with your followers by acknowledging their comments, questions, and reactions. This not only strengthens your relationship with your audience but can also tell you a little more about their needs and preferences.

It can also help you with your overall social media goals by driving more interest to your brand, when other users see their friends interacting with you.

And there you go – you did it! You created a content plan to boost your brand's social media activity. Don't forget to check that content plan regularly. In particular, keep an eye out for any new social platforms or trends that you might want to add to your publishing rota.

Perhaps your brand has pivoted, and the social marketing strategy needs some adjustment, too? Remember to update your content ideas and social media content calendar as the brand naturally evolves.

Keep it fresh and you'll stay ahead of the competition.

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Despite calls for social-media platforms to increase transparency (see, for example, C. Budak et al. Nature 630, 45–53; 2024 ), researchers now have few tools to understand the potential harms of the online world. On 14 August, Meta shut down CrowdTangle, a tool that gave researchers and journalists easy access to data from Facebook and Instagram. Early last year, X, then known as Twitter, removed free access to its application programming interface, which allowed researchers to collect data.

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Creator Licensing: Mitigating Legal Risk with a New Social Marketing Trend

With the growth of social media marketing, brands have recently turned to “creator licensing” (also known as “whitelisting” or “allow listing”) as a way to leverage the reach of influencers while still maintaining control over advertising campaigns that feature their products. Creator licensing is a marketing technique whereby a brand runs its advertising campaign directly under an influencer’s social media handle, after the influencer has granted the brand advertising permissions to access his or her social media accounts, such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. In this article, we examine what creator licensing entails, its potential benefits and risks, and considerations for legal drafting when including creator licensing in social media influencer agreements.

What is creator licensing?

Creator licensing is a type of legal marketing permission – which can be further enabled through technical permissions – allowing a brand to post directly on a social media influencer’s social media accounts without the influencer taking any direct action. For example, a brand can publish content under the influencer’s handle, but can also boost previously posted content, add a call-to-action button such as “shop now” to a post, extend the longevity of a post, and view the influencer’s analytics in real time.

A notable type of creator licensing is so-called “dark posting,” where ads are displayed using an influencer’s handle but do not appear on either the brand’s or the influencer’s page, making the ad appear more “authentic” without cluttering either party’s social media feed. 1 Although popular with brands, “dark posting” has been somewhat controversial given concerns that these types of posts can be used to spread false information without accountability. In response to calls for increased transparency, Meta has added a “Show Ads” button on its pages, which allows users to see all published and unpublished ads on a page, including dark posts. 2

Many social media platforms offer tools to facilitate creator licensing. These tools and permissions vary from platform to platform, but might include, for example, a feature that allows the social media influencer to approve a post by a brand on his or her account.

What are the benefits of creator licensing?

When done correctly and in compliance with laws and regulations, creator licensing can benefit both brands and creators. Creator licensing allows a brand to leverage the style and audience of an influencer, as the ad is posted under the influencer’s handle and preserves the influencer’s voice, which audiences may find more engaging. A brand may have more professional experience or resources than an influencer to carry out a marketing campaign, and a brand can have more control of both the content and conduct of such campaign. Additionally, a brand can edit a campaign in real time, allowing the brand to optimize performance and target specific audiences.

Influencers can also benefit from these partnerships. When a brand boosts any post, it can reach a wider audience, which may help grow the influencer’s number of followers. Creator licensing can also save an influencer time by reducing the need to exchange multiple scripts for approval and content creation, which influencers must do in traditional sponsorships.

What are the risks of creator licensing?

Creator licensing arrangements are not without risks. Most importantly, any advertising by a brand (whether directly or via an influencer) must comply with applicable advertising rules and regulations, including the FTC’s Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (the “FTC Guides”). 3 Among other requirements, any endorsements by an influencer must reflect the influencer’s actual opinion and experiences, and any material connection with the brand must be disclosed. A risk of using creator licensing in particular is that the content published by a brand directly onto an influencer’s page may not accurately reflect the influencer’s opinions or experiences with the product. Brands will need to be careful to have procedures and policies in place to ensure that they have an agreement with an influencer in advance about what substantive statements will be made about the product from the influencer’s perspective. Also, brands and influencers will both have to be careful not to mislead consumers who are interacting with the relevant posts and social media pages.

Further, a significant amount of time and money goes into creator licensing. Setting up approval flows and access requirements to influencer content can be complicated, time consuming, and costly, adding to the costs that are already associated with monitoring influencers’ posts and engaging with influencers in a more traditional sponsorship arrangement. Additionally, influencers tend to charge more for creator licensing as opposed to traditional digital advertising, as the brand is requesting additional rights and permissions. A survey by Lumanu found that 51% of influencers polled charged additional fees for creator licensing, with larger influencers (those having over 50,000 followers) being more likely to do so than smaller influencers. 4

Of course, a risk with any influencer advertising (whether or not utilizing creator licensing) is that any post made by an influencer outside of the sponsorship arrangement could potentially affect the brand’s reputation. A brand is borrowing an influencer’s authenticity, reliability, and reputation to sell its product. If any of those things are called into question, the brand’s reputation may also potentially be affected.

For influencers, creator licensing inherently involves risk, as control of the social media platform must be given to the brand. An influencer can potentially take on reputational or legal risk if any post by a brand is morally repugnant, generally distasteful to consumers, or otherwise not compliant with applicable law. This risk can be minimized in arrangements where the influencer individually consents to each post, as is the case on Tik Tok. However, in many cases, influencers may only provide general permissions. This risk can be compounded if the two parties do not agree up front on the standards for any post, or if the brand does not have a robust legal compliance program around marketing – or at least familiarity with marketing laws and regulations.

Legal drafting considerations with creator licensing

Both brands and influencers should consider the following topics when negotiating marketing or other sponsorship arrangements:

Degree of Access: Agreements should clearly spell out the nature of access granted by the influencer. For example, which social media platforms does the brand have access to? Does the influencer need to provide passwords and passcodes to the brand? Does the brand have the right to engage in paid media amplification of the content? Does the brand have the ability to interact with followers (such as via responses to posts or through direct messages) and use other audience tools? Does the brand have the ability to view data analytics or other audience engagement metrics with the post? Agreements should spell out the specific rights that the brand has.

Content for Campaign: The parties should also discuss what content will be posted by the brand to the influencer’s platform. For example, will there just be a general description of the content in a statement of work or other work plan? Will the social media influencer have any specific number of rounds of review and approval prior to publication, and if so, how much time should the influencer have to review content and under what circumstances may the influencer object to content? The parties will need to balance the influencer’s need to control his or her reputation with the need for the brand to respond in real time to audience and other market dynamics. To address these concerns, parties could potentially include clauses prohibiting any content that tends to shock, insult, or offend the community or public morals or decency, or may otherwise bring the influencer into public disrepute, contempt, scorn, or ridicule – however, these standards can often be subjective and lead to disputes. The parties should also agree in advance on the scope of the influencer’s experience with specific products, and confirm that certain types of statements reflect the influencer’s actual opinions.

Time Period of Control: Influencers and brands should expressly identify the length of time in which the brand has access to the social media accounts. For example, does the brand have only 24-48 hours’ access to the account or a longer period of time? Does the influencer also have control of the account at the same time? How long should the brand’s review of data analytics extend for?

Use Rights: The parties should also consider how long the brand has rights to the posted content. For example, brands will likely want rights to use content in perpetuity, allowing them to make use of the content even after the paid advertising period ends, while an influencer may want to limit this to a defined period of time, such as six or 12 months. Alternatively, the parties can consider whether the campaign will involve only “dark posting.”

Exclusivity: It is common for influencers to have multiple industry sponsors. Therefore, brands will want to ensure that the influencer does not promote the brand’s competitors, and the influencer will want to be compensated for this exclusivity. To avoid disagreements, the scope and length of these obligations should be carefully laid out in an agreement.

Modification Rights: Parties should consider the degree either party is able to modify content after posting. For example, can an influencer change content posted on his or her account by a brand? Could a brand make any immaterial changes to content after the influencer has approved the content? At what point, or under what circumstances, could an influencer delete the content posted by a brand? Likewise, under what circumstances can the brand require the influencer to delete posts that relate to or purport to relate to the brand?

Termination: Brands often have an ability to terminate social media influencer agreements for convenience or for other cause (e.g., through “morals” clauses), but parties should carefully consider how creator licensing might change this dynamic (both the conditions for termination and the effects of termination). For example, if the brand does not materially comply with the agreement, does the influencer have the right to immediately suspend access by the brand to the account, or should the brand have an opportunity to cure or otherwise discuss any concerns with the influencer? If account access is suspended, should the influencer receive full payment or only a pro rata portion of payment?

Legal Compliance Obligations: As discussed above, both parties should also make sure that the legal agreement spells out compliance obligations with marketing laws and regulations. Brands should be aware of the FTC Guides, and keep abreast of updates to such guidance issued by the FTC from time to time. To ensure compliance with such FTC guidance, agreements should make clear the need for clear and conspicuous disclosures regarding material connections between the influencer and the brand (e.g., through hashtags such as #ad, #paid, and #sponsored). More broadly, the agreement should prohibit social media content that makes deceptive or misleading claims, or uses any third-party copyrights, trademarks or other materials without appropriate licenses or permissions. In particular, use of music in social media posts is the subject of recent high-profile copyright litigation, so brands’ and influencers’ obligations in licensing music associated with any posts should be specifically addressed. Brands and influencers should also be careful not to engage in any fraudulent activity to artificially increase “likes” and “comments,” and brands should also review the applicable social media site’s terms of use and privacy policies to ensure compliance with their terms.

Risk Allocation: Parties should also carefully review the indemnification and limitation of liability clauses in the agreement. Is the brand responsible for any gross negligence, willful misconduct, fraud, or other breach of applicable law with respect to its use of the social media account? Brands will want to ensure that there is a liability cap for any potential damages arising from its use of the social media account, while influencers may want to ensure that indemnification obligations, breaches of confidentiality, gross negligence, and willful misconduct are carved out of the liability cap.

Despite offering potentially lucrative opportunities for influencers and the brands that sponsor them, social media creator licensing is not without risk. However, brands and social media influencers can help manage these risks by adopting appropriate legal terms in agreements, keeping open lines of communication between the brand and the influencer, and making use of various technical tools offered by social media platforms to manage creator licensing.

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Maximizing Social Media: Uniquely Use Creator and Brand Content

Maximize your social media strategy with the unique benefits of brand and influencer content 🥇

In today's social media-driven world, both brands and influencers play a pivotal role in influencing consumer behavior. 

Whether it's through the relatable storytelling of influencers or the authoritative voice of brands, each type of content serves a unique purpose in guiding potential customers from consideration to conversion.

Table of Contents

How we know: research at later, the dual impact of brand and influencer content, the power of influencers: why consumers follow them, what consumers want from brands: accuracy and relevance, striking the right balance.

Later has a full team of researchers who support our product, marketing, and service teams to make sure our user’s needs are front and center in everything we do. 

This survey ran in February 2024 with a panel of 361 US based social media users to understand how they’re using social media, and their attitudes towards influencer marketing and brand content.

Based on our survey of 361 US based social media users, consumers rely on a mix of content types when making purchase decisions. 

33% of consumers reported being influenced by organic brand posts when making a purchase

33% of consumers were also swayed by brand ads on social media

This highlights the importance of brands maintaining an active and engaging presence on social media . Consumers look to brands for authoritative information, so ensure  the content you share is accurate , informative , and aligned with your brand values .

On the other hand, influencers provide a more personal touch:

31% of consumers are influenced by unsponsored recommendations from creators, demonstrating the power of authentic, organic content

25% of consumers are influenced by sponsored posts from creators

31% of Gen-Z cite sponsored posts as a key factor in purchase decisions.

This suggests that influencer marketing is especially effective when targeting younger audiences.

Influencers play a unique role in the social media ecosystem. 

55% of consumers follow influencers to see entertaining content 

46% of consumers follow influencers to learn something new  

When influencers share content about your product, it should be done in a way that is both engaging and educational. Useful types of sponsored content included:

42% of social media users cited how-tos and tutorials  

39% said product reviews were also useful 

These posts allow influencers to showcase your product in action, helping potential customers see its real-world benefits. These authentic narratives resonate with consumers because they feel relatable and genuine, building trust in your brand.

While influencers bring a personal and entertaining touch, the expectations for brands are slightly different. Creating entertaining and interesting content is still important, but it’s not the core reason:

45% of consumers follow brands on social platforms to stay updated with brand news

43% of consumers follow brands to learn more about the brand

Your brand’s social media content should focus on providing accurate, and informative posts that embody your brand’s voice and values.

40% of consumers are more likely to unfollow brands if the content is perceived as inauthentic or misleading

29% of consumers would unfollow brands if the content is too sales oriented

To maintain a loyal following, it's essential to clearly keep your followers up to date in a way that aligns with your brand identity and values. Some content ideas include:

Interactive contests or giveaways

Showcasing products in use 

Educational content like how-tos or tutorials

Content plays on social trends

The key to a successful social media strategy lies in understanding the distinct roles that brands and influencers play. By leveraging influencers to provide entertaining, authentic, and educational content, while focusing your brand’s posts on accurate, up-to-date information, you can create a balanced and effective presence on social media. This approach not only maximizes your reach but also builds stronger, more meaningful connections with your audience.

Remember, the goal is to provide value —whether through an influencer’s entertaining tutorial or your brand’s informative updates. By aligning your content strategy with consumer expectations, you can ensure your brand remains relevant, trustworthy, and top of mind.

Freya is a Vancouver-based Senior User Researcher at Later. When she's not interviewing users or neck deep in survey data you can find her rowing, reading, or baking something that may not turn out.

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