SME fashion brands and social media marketing: from strategies to actions. (2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ananda, Artha Sejati; Hernández-García, Ángel; Lamberti, Lucio
• Is Part Of: International journal of Web based communities. Volume 13:Number 4(2017)
• Page Start: 468
• Page End: 498
• Publication Date: 2017
• Subjects: social media -- social media marketing -- SMM -- marketing strategy -- social media marketing activities -- social media marketing actions -- web-based communities -- brand communities -- SME fashion brands; Online social networks -- Periodicals; Social media -- Periodicals; World Wide Web -- Periodicals; 302.30285
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1477-8394

Abstract

Fashion industry, including small and medium enterprises (SMEs), is an important contributor to European economy. This study analyses data from six Spanish and Italian SME fashion companies' in order to understand how fashion brands implement their social media marketing strategies. The research includes a qualitative study, combined with a content analysis of brands' posts on their Facebook brand-pages. The results suggest that perceived importance of social media as part of corporate marketing strategy is the main driver for brands' social media marketing implementation, and that brand awareness is the main objective SMEs would like to achieve. The three Spanish brands and one Italian brand appear to take a transactional marketing approach, while the other two Italian brands adopt a hybrid transactional/relational approach. SMEs focus primarily on representation actions; more specifically, promotion and sales.