A Managerial Perspective of Social Media: Managing the Tension Between the Need for an Integrated Communications Approach and Consumers’ Need for Personalization

Abstract

The digital age has modified consumers’ expectations of branded communications. Prior to social networks, mass media communication channels such as TV and radio allowed brand managers to ‘speak to’ customers (Hoffman and Novak 1996). However, the proliferation of social media has instigated a revolution in the communications field, resulting in consumers expecting the brand to ‘interact with’ them in a medium where the consumer controls every aspect of the conversation—the timing, the channel, and the content.