Managing Information Flows from Companies to Customers : Impact of commercial world-of-mouth in social media

• Published in: 2020 International Conference on Engineering Management of Communication and Technology (EMCTECH) pp. 1 - 4
• Main Authors: Syrovatkova, Jana, Pavlicek, Antonin
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 20.10.2020
• Subjects: average user activity; blue horse; business communication; children; Companies; corporate communication; corporate groups; Economics; Electronic publishing; formal promotion; informal promotion; information flows; information management; Internet; marketing data processing; Mouth; noncorporate groups; social media; social networking (online); social networks; specialized social network; sponsored brand ambassadors; world-of-mouth
• DOI: 10.1109/EMCTECH49634.2020.9261549

In the article we compare the communication of the companies towards customers on social networks. We measure the effectiveness of communication by comparing groups managed by sponsored brand ambassadors and managed by regular non-affiliated users. The article measures the reactions to this corporate communication (likes) and how users interact to the corporate communication (comments). This is compared to how users respond and comment in non-corporate groups. We obtain data using our own parser after downloading it from a specialized social network, the blue horse, focused on parents and children. Although the research is done on a smaller and specialized network, it is safe to expect, that similar principles apply in targeted groups on larger networks such as Facebook as well. Both formal and informal promotion from a paid ambassador increases the average user activity in the group, rising not just the number of contributions, but also engagement (ie comments and likes) and brand awareness. Such comparison of activity and communication in corporate and unmanaged groups is unique.