Book review: Tracy L. Tuten and Michael R. Solomon,Social Media Marketing

Tracy L. Tuten, PhD, is a Professor at East Carolina University with an expertise in social media marketing and advertising. Her publications have appeared in various journals such as Journal of Marketing Communications, Psychology and Marketing and Journal of Business Research. In 2013, she was inducted into the Incredible Women of ECU series.

Professor Michael R. Solomon, PhD, is a professor of marketing and director of the Centre for Consumer Research in the Haub School of Business, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has published a wide array of books before this, the most recent being The Truth About What Consumers Want.

With the evolution of Internet there has been a fundamental change, which is characterized by the presence of social media, in the way we live, work or play. Social medial platforms are becoming the new means of communication, collaboration, conveyance and cultivation among today’s interconnected network of communities. In this transitional era, a new approach to marketing is required which can harness the power of social media to understand customers and succeed in business situations. The book, Social Media Marketing, by Tuten and Solomon explains the evolution of digital marketing using the building blocks of traditional marketing and provides insights, using essential theory and examples from real world situations, on how social media can be used as a tool for strategic planning to achieve core objectives by facilitating exchanges between consumers and organization. The text builds on by highlighting the four channels (zones) of social media and summarizes by stating the metrics that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of strategies.

The book, in the beginning, discusses the horizontal revolution, a change which social media is bringing in the daily lives of ‘digital natives’, modern day consumers. A culture of participation, open access to venues to freely interact with others is encouraging people to not just join social communities but rather also contribute. The literature analyses how user generated content has enabled businesses to be in a state of perpetual beta, always responding to changes like in a beta test, and how social media infrastructure has developed to evolve a 5th P of marketing: Participation, the process of creating new customers through customers. Continuous consumer interaction is becoming an essential component in marketing strategies in order for brand to succeed and social media provides a platform at all stages of a brand life cycle be it increasing awareness, influencing desire, encouraging trial, facilitating purchase or cementing brand loyalty which results in further advocacy to other users. With access to CRM software, brands also have the capability to fine-tune customer information so as to build further intimacy between organizations and consumers. The volume discusses the three phases of social media maturity: trial, transition and strategic. Social media marketing plan needs a clear identification of situation analysis, marketing objectives, relevant customer profiles and correct communication channels. It is also important to devise organizational structure to efficiently support and manage social media systems. The standards of conduct, disclosure requirement and standards of posting, at minimum, should be pre-identified.

The book essentially highlights, what the authors call, four zones of social media channels which conveniently organize social media into a compact space by grouping similar channels together. These four zones, social community, social publishing, social entertainment and social commerce, provide an efficient way to focus on the essential functions of various social media platforms on the basis of which various social media platforms can be segregated to better understand their usage in marketing activities. Authors describe social communities, as channels that focus on relationships and common activities that people indulge in using easy to use tools and applications. They also highlight how brands can use social networking communities for promoting and branding activities by continuous engagement. Social publishing sites are described as those sites that help in the dissemination of online content such as blogs and micro-sharing sites. The authors educate the readers about who creates the content, what kind of published content enhances perceived quality and value and how social media content can be promoted. Social entertainment comprises of channels that provide opportunity for play and enjoyment. The authors discuss how social entertainment is an efficient and effective approach to engage with target customers. Since social games make up the largest active area of social entertainment, the authors have keenly discussed the categorization of social games and their role in game-based marketing and in-game advertising. Social commerce refers to sites that assist in online sell and purchase of products or services. The authors establish a relation between social commerce and ecommerce to highlight how reviews and ratings provide value for both customers and e-tailers. The text also identifies six major psychological factors that help in the purchase decision-making process: affinity, authority, scarcity, consistency, social proof and reciprocity.

The authors conclude the book by discussing how social media platforms are used to gather consumer insights and what are the various social media metrics. With enormous amount of data availability on the Internet, a careful and strategic research methodology should be used by the brands for collecting, processing and analysing data. The authors also mention the common errors and biases associated with social media research and how can brands manage the process. They use the DATA approach, define, access, track and adjust, to organize a data measurement plan and shed light on how to calculate social media ROI by accessing the costs and benefits of social media programme.

The book is written in a simple, easy to understand language and has dealt with several real-life examples from brands like Honda, Coke, Coldplay, Diigo, 4chan, etc. to demonstrate its point. The authors have used a special column ‘FROM BYTES TO BUCKS’ which highlights various live cases and provides relevance to the mentioned literature. There is also a highlighted ‘DARK SIDE OF SOCIAL MEDIA’ through which the authors communicate why one needs to be careful about the goals and strategies in online marketing and how, if gone wrong, they can lead to administrative burden.

The advent of social media has provided a platform to not only corporates but also to individuals for continuously market himself/herself (or their products) so as to succeed in creating the desired impact (on the society) and this book deals with the concepts and fundamentals of digital marketing in such a comprehensive, well organized and strategic manner that, with the integration in a user friendly layout, it provides a perfect platform even to somebody naïve to the digital world to understand and explore the vast offerings of the modern day Internet. From an academic viewpoint also, the book successfully integrates closely the concepts of traditional digital marketing practices with those of digital marketing that it would encourage and facilitate students, and managers apply digital marketing concepts for succeeding in their business strategies and processes. The book is well versed and neatly covers all the essential components of social media marketing that will enable students to channelize their social media marketing skills.