Assignment:
Read the listed journal articles and case study and form your analyses to the following questions:
1. After reading the journal article by Geerts & Veg-Sala, assess and critique it with respect to its value and usefulness for business executives. How would you change the purpose, focus, and research methodology of the article if you were asked to examine the relationship between luxury brands and communication strategy again today?
2. Businesses are beginning to realize that it may be risky to ignore social media (SM) and its underlying opportunity. Fan & Gordon apply a life-cycle framework to explain how social media analytics can address top concerns of managers regarding identifying ROI and creating effective strategies. According to the authors, what types of opportunities do social media analytics offer during the product utilization stage? Explain!
Use one specific example (from your professional experience and/or business viewpoint) to illustrate SM business opportunities.
3. After reading Alaimo (2016), Dutta (2010), and Powell (2015), answer the following questions:
a) Why should senior leaders be heavily involved in understanding and using social media?
b) Which SM platforms should leaders be focusing on and why?
c) Which communication strategies or tools should leaders use in the social media environment?
d) How can SM be exploited during crises?
4. Company leaders realize that customer advocates are extremely powerful marketing channels since people trust and listen to what their peers say. Use the Fan & Gordon paper and the Johnson and Johnson case to elaborate (in several concise paragraphs) on the following question: How can company leaders link social media objectives to their company's strategic objectives?
5. Research a luxury brand of your choosing (you can choose a brand from any industry - service, manufacturing, and others.)
* Succinctly explain the brand's business model (1 product, 2 customers, 3 pricing model).
* Use two of Fan & Gordon's key techniques (e.g., sentiment analysis, topic modeling, social network analysis, visual analytics) to analyze how effectively the company uses social media.
* Use the Geerts/Veg-Sala framework (see tables 1 thru 6) to analyze and explain the company's brand value, traditional communication, and internet communication to show how effectively or ineffectively "your" brand uses social media and/or other web 2.0 technologies to communicate.
Be sure to number your responses and make paragraphs.
Journal Articles:
Alaimo, K. (2016). Takeaways from the mobile marketing leadership forum. Public Relations Tactics, July 2016.
Dutta, S. (2010). What's your personal social media strategy? Harvard Business Review, November 2010, 127-130.
Fan, W., & Gordon, M.D. (2014). The power of social media analytics. Communications of the ACM, 57 (6), 74-81. DOI:10.1145/2602574 (Must find article on your own.)
Geerts, A., & Veg-Sala, N. (2011). Evidence on internet communication management strategies for luxury brands. Global Journal of Business Research 5, (5), 81-94.
Powell, F. (2015). What business leaders are doing on social media. New Zealand Management Magazine, November 2015.
Textbook: O'Rourke, J. S. (2013). Management Communication: A Case-Analysis Approach, 5th ed. Pearson Prentice Hall.
Download Attachments **Posted in the "Reply"/Comment Section Due to Copyrighted Materials:
Alaimo Article.pdf
Case Study 7.2 - Johnson & Johnson.pdf
Dutta Social media strategy 2010.pdf
Fan & Gordan Article.pdf
Geerts & Veg-Sala Article.pdf
Powell Article.pdf