Marketing Individual Assignment

1. INTRODUCTION

This section is summarising on the four journal articles which will be discussed in the criticism part later. The research papers to be critiqued are: (research paper 1) Elements of strategic social media marketing: A holistic framework (Felix, R., Rauschnabel, P. A. & Hinsch, C., 2017); (research paper 2) Social media and human need satisfaction: Implications for social media marketing (Zhu, Y. Q. & Chen, H. G., 2015), (research paper 3) Evaluation and decision making in social media marketing (Keegan, B. J. & Rowley, J., 2017), (research paper 4) Social media networks as drivers for intellectual capital disclosure: Evidence from professional football clubs (Lardo, A., Dumay, J., Trequattrini, R. & Russo, G., 2017).

        Felix and his colleagues (2017) developed a strategic and integrated social media marketing (SMM) framework that clearly explained on the four generic dimensions: defenders to explorers (SMM scopes), conservatism and modernism (SMM cultures), hierarchies and networks (SMM structures), and also autocracy to anarchy (SMM governance). Their research is done based on the theoretical framework and qualitative approach to collect data and information. They also discovered and suggested a new definition of social media marketing. It is defined as an interdisciplinary and cross-functional concept which exploits social media and other communications approaches to attain organisational goals by bringing value for its stakeholders (Felix et al., 2017).

        Zhu and Chen (2015) discussed about the efforts of social media marketing have to be appropriate and aligned with the various demands of social media users. Four aspects which are relationship, self-media, collaboration and creative outlet are suggested by the researches for effective social media marketing.

        Brendan and Jennifer (2017) has developed a social media marketing framework with six stages, which are setting evaluation objectives, identifying key performance indicators (KPIs), identifying metrics, data collection and analysis, report generation and management decision making. The framework is evaluated by identifying the challenges and establishing opinion on the decision making related with social media strategies.

        Alessandra and colleagues (2017) investigated the association of popularity in a social media network and a company’s revenue, expenditure and market value as social media networks are said to be the instruments for involuntary and voluntary intellectual capital disclosure. They indicated that the determinants of value of human and relational capital in professional football clubs is popularity level in social media. This could affect the market capitalisation, player transfer fees and revenue.

1. CRITICISM

Abbreviation of certain terms is often used in the research papers 3 and 4. Sometimes, the usage of large amount of abbreviation throughout the journals might confuse the readers who are not familiar with the terms. The expression of contents might not reach the readers when they are feeling confused and unable to continue the reading. In the research paper 2, there is only one abbreviation, which is “BAM” being used. However, there is no notation for this abbreviation. The readers who are not familiar to the field might not understand the meaning. Abbreviations appeared less in research paper 1. It is much easier to read and understand the article content as the abbreviations used have noted with its full phrases of the terms used.

        Research papers 1, 2 and 4 have expressed their contents in respective sections which arranged accordingly in numerical forms. Such arrangement of sections and sub-sections is better to read and refer. For research paper 3, the sections and sub-sections are not arrayed in any numerical or alphabetical form. Some readers could get confused when they wish to refer to the sections by numbers.

        The research methodology in research paper 1 is clearly stated and comprehensively explained. The methodology is constructed based on theoretical approaches and is using qualitative analysis to analyse the collected data. It is a very good article where readers can easily understand what the research is about. For the result and findings, research paper 1 has provided figure (p121) and explanations for readers’ better understanding on the framework created or the findings obtained. The findings can be easily understood. For research paper 2, the social media typology is summarised expressed in table form with examples provided and in matrix table form so that it is actually not complicated to understand the typology of social media. Research papers 1, 2 and 3 have applied qualitative research method in their studies while researches of research paper 4 using empirical and quantitative research methodology.