Deck 2: Understanding Preconditions of Social Media Storms

Question 1

How new media differs from so-called traditional media?

Answer 1

New media is digital, with no marginal costs of distributing content, and without traditional gatekeepers. In many cases, new media enable a proactive participation of all parties involved, through content creation and co-creation, while (co-)created content is highly visible, widely accessible, and stored long-term. New media is ubiquitous due to the proliferation of mobile devices, and often real-time or synchronous. Finally, new media if forming networks of stakeholders (people, organizations) who can communicate peer-to-peer, and build relationships.

Question 2

Explain the classification of social media platforms according to Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) and how each type of social media platforms relates to the emergence of social media storms?

Answer 2

Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) proposed one of the most cited classifications of social media platforms, by using theories of media research (i.e., social presence theory and media richness theory) and social processes (i.e., concepts of self-presentation and self-disclosure), as a classification criterion. They identify six major types of social media platforms. Collaborative projects are built around collective content creation (e.g., Wikipedia) or bookmarking (e.g., Pinterest), where attention is on the content, and not on its creator or bookmarker. These platforms are important sources of information and inspiration for consumers, which can be important in the context of social media storms. Content communities are also built around content creation, which is mostly done by individual creators who want their content to be shared. Due to their prominent sharing capabilities, they are often used for viral marketing (e.g., viral YouTube videos), which also makes them a place where many social media storms start. Blogs and microblogging sites, are important means for gaining thought leadership in social media due to high visibility of content creators and participators. These platforms also proved to be important entities in social media storms, since they are often used to express dissatisfaction and disappointment with corporate practices. Social networking sites enable users to create their profiles and interact with other users (peer-to-peer) and companies/brands, create and publish content, and engage with content (both UGC and FGC) via comments, likes/dislikes, and shares. High media richness and to some extend immediate communication (e.g., via live streams on Instagram and Facebook), combined with the possibility for users to engage with the content in many ways, makes social networking sites an ideal context for social media storms. Virtual social worlds and virtual game worlds share a very few features with other types of social media, and they are considered more as platforms for gaming than media for social interactions. They are not a suitable context for social media storms.

Question 3

Explain the notion of consumer empowerment.

Answer 3

Marketing literature usually describes the shift of power from marketers to consumers as the most interesting and most surprising trend in marketing during the first decade of the 21st century. Initially, digital interactive transformation in marketing was considered as a scenario where marketers will be able to intrude consumers' lives more deeply and more precisely than ever before. Instead, the digital interactive transformation unfolded on a model of consumer empowerment, which is based on peer-to-peer consumer communication and their power to deal with marketers' intrusion (Deighton & Kornfeld, 2009). Consumers are using the computational power gained through digital technologies (including social media) to fight the computational power of businesses (marketing databases, targeting algorithms, etc.), trying to protect their digital lives.

Question 4

Briefly discuss constructive and destructive nature of negative emotions.

Question 5

What is anti-branding? How it is related to social media storms?