Service Management and Marketing: Managing the Service Profit Logic, 4th Edition

CHAPTER 12SOCIAL MEDIA IN SERVICE MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING

Written by Johanna Gummerus

“In social media, a firm is just as good as its customers think it is – the truth leaks out one way or another.”

INTRODUCTION

This chapter looks at the role of social media in service management and marketing. Also, different types of social media are discussed. Then, the chapter presents the social media communication circle, after which the influence of social media on service marketing and management will be explained. After reading the chapter the reader should know what kinds of social media there are, how they function, and how firms can adapt their marketing to various social media.

BACKGROUND TO SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media refer to all those new online media that allow actors to generate and share content with others on a large scale. The content can be text, pictures, video, or audio. The social media platforms enable and encourage sharing, meaning that the content spreads fast to a wide online audience, causing an enormous ripple effect. In essence, then, social media constitute a new way with which people connect to each other.

From a marketing perspective, the most important aspect of social media is their pervasiveness and influence in people’s lives. Most people are today connected to some social media, be it social networking sites¹ such as LinkedIn and Facebook, microblogging services such as Twitter, communication apps such as WhatsApp and Kik, content sharing communities such ...