VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI SCHOOL OF BUSINESS TRAN THI THU TRANG SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING IN VIETNAM A STUDY OF CONSUMER PROFILES Major: Business Administration Code: 60 34 05 MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION THESIS Supervisor: Dr Tran Doan Kim Hanoi – Oct 2011 TABLE OF CONTENT Introduction Motivations Goals and Scope Limitations .3 Chapter 1.1 Review of social media marketing Concepts in social media marketing 1.1.1 Word-of-mouth .5 1.1.2 User-generated content and Web 2.0 1.1.3 Social technographic ladders 1.1.4 User-centered marketing communication .7 1.2 Social media types 1.2.1 Blogs .8 1.2.2 Chatting software and microblogging 1.2.3 Forums 10 1.2.4 Social news, social bookmarking and content aggregators 10 1.2.5 Social network sites 11 1.2.6 Media sharing and content communities 11 1.2.7 Integrated and mobile social media 13 1.3 More on social media marketing practices 14 1.4 Social media and social media marketing in Vietnam .16 vii 1.4.1 Social media landscape 16 1.4.2 Social media marketing 18 Chapter Methodology for consumer research for social media users in Vietnam 20 2.1 Review of existing research .20 2.1.1 Thesis of (Ivanauskas, 2009) for the UK market 20 2.1.2 Thesis of (Khan, 2009) for markets of Italia, Spain, Pakistan and Uzbekistan 22 2.2 Research strategy 23 2.2.1 Questionnaire design 23 2.2.2 Data collection process 24 Chapter Consumer analysis and recommended entry strategy for marketing management into social media 27 3.1 Consumer analysis 27 3.1.1 The consumer profile of web 2.0 citizen in Vietnam 27 3.1.2 User patterns in interaction with company 33 3.1.3 The profile of Vietnam social media users – an overview 38 3.1.4 The profile of Vietnam social media users – a deeper look 40 3.1.5 The influence of social media on Vietnamese consumers in marketing communication 47 3.1.6 3.2 Findings 54 Recommended strategy for marketing management into social media .58 Conclusion and Future Work 61 References 63 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1: Gender distribution of respondents 27 Figure 3.2: Distribution of age groups 28 Figure 3.3: Income distribution amount respondents 29 Figure 3.4: Average rank of social media services in terms of popularity (the higher rank – the more popular - means the smaller numerical value) 30 Figure 3.5: Distribution of places and locations 31 Figure 3.6: Distribution in usage time per week 32 Figure 3.7: Usage time among young people per week .33 Figure 3.8: Preference of content types .33 Figure 3.9: Reasons for users to start a conversation with company 34 Figure 3.10: Reasons for users to stay engaged with the company .35 Figure 3.11: Reasons for users to stay engaged with the company, among the age groups 35 Figure 3.12: Reasons for users to stay engaged with the company, among the genders 36 Figure 3.13: the personal reason to participate in conversation or interact with the company through social media applications .37 Figure 3.14: The main obstacles to interact with the company through Social Media Sites 37 Figure 3.15: Roles playing among respondents (a person may play multiple roles) .38 ix Figure 3.16: Roles playing by US users (Source: Forrester Research) 38 Figure 3.17: Role distribution of the two age groups 15-24 and 25-34 .39 Figure 3.18: Online behavior with respect to genders 40 Figure 3.19: Preferences of content when Creators interact with the company 41 Figure 3.20: What Creators will after interacting with the company .41 Figure 3.21: Social media that belong to the top two choices among Creators 42 Figure 3.22: Time spent on social media sites by Creators and Critics .43 Figure 3.23: Personal gains for using social media among Critics and Collectors 44 Figure 3.24: Preferences of content in interaction with the company by Joiners 45 Figure 3.25: Main obstacles that stop Joiners from joining social media sites .46 Figure 3.26: Reasons for interacting with the company by Joiners and Spectators 46 Figure 3.27: Preferences of content when Spectators interact with the company .47 Figure 3.28: What users may after interacting with the company through social media services 48 Figure 3.29: User responses to the question whether the company should contact them for marketing purposes 50 Figure 3.30: Media and their powers of influencing customer‟s mind 53 x LIST OF TABLES Table 1.3: Online community needs Source: Ivanauskas (2009) Table 1.1: How social media tools will meet business goals, Henna (2009) 14 Table 1.2: Opportunities and challenges of social media, Henna (2009) 16 Table 1.4: Why the Vietnamese go online? (Asia Digital Marketing Yearbook 2010, citing from Cimigo Netcitizens) 17 Table 3.1: Correlation between social media types used and expected outcomes after company-consume interaction (the numbers are the count of responses) 49 Table 3.2: Correlation between social media choice and responses to marketing purposes 51 Table 3.3: Preferences of commercial messages with respect to media choices and origin of the messages 52 Table 3.4: Technographics with respect to ads on different media .54 Table 3.6: Summary of Vietnamese technographics 57 xi Introduction Motivations With the advent of Internet in the last quarter of the 20th century and the public availability of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s, the digital landscape has completely changed Access to a massive amount of information is just a click away Communication is made easy – we can now send emails to colleagues, perform instant chats with friends, or even make long distant calls at the rate that was not previously possible In the last few years, the change has been more profound – users are no longer a passive consumer of existing Web content, they are actively creating new content and sharing it The change has resulted in a fairly firm body of knowledge known as social media (sometimes, the citizen media) As the name suggested, this new media is characterized by the social dimensions – the many-to-many interactivity between users and the content being generated by the users rather than the traditional publishers According to Zarrella (2010), there are more than 346 million people who read blogs and more than 184 million people are bloggers themselves The move catches the attention of the general public by the constant appearance of new buzzwords For example, the word-of-the-year was “Blog” in 2004, “Podcast” in 2005, “Facebook” in 2007, and “Unfriend” in 2009 (New Oxford American Dictionary) This poses great challenges and opportunities for both businesses and academia to study this fast changing cultural and social phenomenon It is important to understand the users of the new media One of the most profound changes in users is the shift from being the audience of the media to being the media themselves Thus the access to users is made easier, but the users have so much power in generating the content, filtering out the messages, defining how the messages will be passed Social interaction is redefined substantially since there are virtually no constraints on geography, physical presense in any conversation, and on the number of audiences The only limitations are perhaps the amount of information processed by a typical user for a period of time, the difficulty of cross-language communication, and the privacy concerns when going online The nature of new communication methods asks for a new look for the area of marketing In particular, we need to characterize the users as well as the ways messages are generated, transmitted and received For example, the nature of word-of-mouth communication gives rise to two broad categories of users: opinion leaders and opinion seekers (Gilly et al, 1980) A deeper look at the nature of online usage, five types of users can be recognized: those who create the content, those who make comment on content, those who simply join the social network, those who collect and share the content and those who simply consume content created by the others (Li & Bernoff, 2008) Although social media in generally and social media marketing in particular are in the current research agenda of many institutions, the number of studies is still limited The materials are in fact mostly made by marketing practitioners and consultants, and those people who have positioned themselves as social media experts (e.g see Weinberg, 2009; Scott, 2010; Zarrella, D 2010) These are more about proposing marketing strategies for companies rather than understanding the users, and there is little backup evidence on the proposed strategies Furthremore, very little research has been done for culture-specific social media marketing: most research is reported on the US or European markets, and very little is on other areas like Vietnamese users Goals and Scope This thesis is aimed at deeper understanding of social media users in general, and in the Vietnam market in particular Despite lagging behind those leading countries, Vietnam is catching up fast The current Internet penetration rate is estimated to be 35%, which accounts for roughly 30 million users – and is ranked 7th worldwide (Asia Digital Marketing Yearbook, 2010) Almost all young generation users will be expected to go online in the next few years More specifically, we would like to answer three research questions First, what are the characteristics of Vietnamese users in the comparison with those of users from other countries Second, what are the impacts that the social media users have on company‟s marketing goals? And third, what can companies to utilize the new media for their marketing/branding strategies? We therefore aim to achieve three related goals:  Constructing a questionnaire that can help company to create social media consumer profiles in Vietnam,  Determining whether social media can be considered as an effective marketing channel, from the user perspectives, and  Deriving a list of recommendations for marketing management for entering social media Limitations In carrying out this study, we indentify that there are constraints that will limit our results:  The time constraints for the Master thesis, as well as the resources allocated to obtain answers in questionnaires from both users and companies  The subject is new, and prior research materials are limited (although there are currently a dozen of books and many websites devoted to the subject – but these are generally non-research with little numerical evidences to backup claims) Chapter Review of social media marketing In this chapter, we review the literature on social media marketing In particular, we will briefly describe social media concepts, their implications for marketing, and finally the current state of social media and social media marketing in Vietnam 1.1 Concepts in social media marketing Social media refers to those “relate to sharing of information, experiences and perspectives throughout community-oriented websites” (Weinberg, 2009, p.1) This community-based sharing idea is indeed an old concept, for example, it can date back to a conferencing system called WELL (Whole Earth eLectronic Linkm 1985), which allowed public conversations as well as private exchanges (Rheingold, 2000) One of the very first social networking websites was SixDegrees (1997) which let people create profiles and connect with friends However, it was not until the early 2000s, social media took off once it reached a critical mass of users Social media is now accepted as a new media – competing well with traditional media (such as news papers, radio and TV) in number of users and attention Examples of social media include blogs, forums, message boards, user-generated sites, multimedia sharing sites, social network sites, wikis and podcasts The new media opens a new room for marketing practitioners – the set of practices known as social media marketing (SMM) According to Garnyte and Perez (2009), SMM is “a process that empowers individuals to promote their websites, products or services through online channels and to communicate with and tap into a much larger community that may not have been available via traditional advertising channels” Further, SMM is “about listening to the community and responding in kind” 10 – 20 hours 20+ hours Social Media sites, applications and tools I use: (IMPORTANT! must change the place for at least one of the options - rank them from the most used to the least used) Blog Micro-blogs (Twitter, Plurk and etc) Social networks (Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and etc.…) Content communities (Youtube, Flickr, Wikipedia, Digg, Slideshare, Delicious and etc) Forums/ bulletin boards (epinions, ReviewCenter and etc) Content aggregator (sites based on personalized RSS and Widgets iGoogle, My Yahoo, Netvibes, and etc.) Using at (please tick all that aplicable): Home Work School / University On the go (Mobile phone, iPod and etc.) How are you using Social Media properties? You are: “Creator” - Publish a blog/website; upload your created videos/music; write articles or stories and post them; “Critic” - Post ratings/reviews; comment on blogs and forums; contribute to articles or wikis; “Collector” - Use RSS feeds, add tags to web pages or photos; “Joiner” - Maintain a profile/ an account on social media site (Social network, Content community); 72 “Spectator” - Read blogs or customer reviews, watch video or listen to audio (podcasts); Are you a member of any online community? Yes No What kind of content you prefer to interact with (share, rate and comment)? User-generated content (Blogs, wikis and content posted by other users) Company provided content (Tv/Radio shows, newspapers, company's newsletters) A mixture of both (i.e Blogs in “Guardian” or “IBM” website) No difference 10 First Step You are most likely to start interacting/communicating with the company through social media properties (Blogs, Social Networks, Content Comunities, forums): Company provides me with information about the possibility to that I approach the company on social media site myself Friends recommend me to that Other 11 What are the reasons that keep you engaged with the company through social media properties ? There are different tools and platforms provided by the company (Social network, Blog, Wiki, etc.) The content is relevant to you The content is popular among other users or friends of yours The content is updated frequently 73 There is a reward for participation Other 12 What are the personal reasons to participate in conversation or interact with company through Web 2.0? (maximum answers) Personal satisfaction and actualization (e.g self expression) Brand myself Develop myself The feeling of power and influence Sense of belonging to the community Possible reward from the company 13 Social media applications and services should be used by company to approach you for these purpose: Strongly Agree Strongly Disagree (1) (2) Advertising & PR Branding Selling Customer service Product or service co-creation Market research Creating and maintaining 74 (3) (4) (5) relationship Generating feedback (reviews, recommendations) 14 How with you like to interact with the company through social media sites? (on which platforms – what type of content you would like to find/share) Audio Video Graphic Text Blogs Micro blogs (twitter, etc), video Social networks Content networks (wiki, youtube, flickrs, etc) Opinions networks (Review sites, etc.) RSS Widgets 15 After the interaction between company and you through social media tools, you are more likely: (please tick all that applicable) Interact more with the company Buy more products from the company Recommend the company to your friends Trust the company more (enter into a better relationship) Be encouraged to interact with other companies though web 2.0 Other 16 The main obstacles to interact with the company on Social media sites: Privacy concerns 75 Time consuming Poor content (e.g only branded content, non-trusted sources) Technical capabilities (don‟t know how to that – like creating a blog) Not enough information about the platforms and applications Do not want to share any information with strangers Other 17 Please say if you are agree or disagree with each of the following statements: Strongly Agree Strongly Disagree (1) I am willing to give personal information in order to receive better content/messages or services The advertising messages received through the social media sites are more relevant than through other channels The messages received through social media from other users are likely to adjust my attitudes towards products or services The messages received through social media from – the company – are likely to adjust my attitudes towards products or services The messages received through social media stimulates me to 76 (2) (3) (4) (5) spread them (word of mouth) 18 The most memorable messages to me are delivered these media channels (combinations of options) Tivi Press Radio Internet (banners, advertisements on search) Internet with Social media applications (based on conversation) Outdoor advertisement Word-of-mouth 19 My chances to remember the messages are increased by (IMPORTANT! Must change the place for at least one of the options – rank them by navigating the arrange) The content of the messages The number of channels used (TV + Newspaper + Internet + mobile) The single channel itself (TV, radio, Internet) The tools delivering the messages (Social media, advertising, PR, etc.) 77 Appendix C: Survey questionnaire (Italy) MARKETING COMMUNICATION PHENOMENON WITHIN SOCIAL NETWORKS AND BLOGS Hi! I am MSc General Management student representing LUISS Guido Carli I am doing a market research to assess A STUDY ON “MARKETING COMMUNICATION PHENOMENON WITHIN SOCIAL NETWORKS AND BLOGS; IMPACT ON CONSUMER‟S BUYING BEHAVIOR” I will be obliged if you spare few minutes from your time to fill up this questionnaire I assure you that the information imparted by you will be kept confidential Thanks in advance for your cooperation YOU USE ANY SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES? IF YES, CONTINUE OTHERWISE TERMINATE Yes No Do you use any social networking sites? If yes, continue Otherwise terminate HOW MANY SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES DO YOU USE ACTIVELY? and above 3 SELECT THE SITES THAT YOU USE: Facebook My space Bebo Friendster Hi5 Orkut Perfspot Zorpia Netlog Twitter HOW MANY HOURS PER DAY DO YOU SPEND ON USING THESE SITES? 78 10-14 6-9 3-5 1-2 less than WHAT DO YOU USE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES FOR? acquire product information to follow brand marketing campaign ; to find good offers about product intend to buy to exchange product experiences to know more about the usage of purchased product DO YOU FEEL THESE NETWORKING SITES HAVE CREATED POSITIVE IMPACT ON YOUR BUYING/ PURCHASING BEHAVIOR? IF YES, THEN WHAT DO YOU FEEL CAN BE THESE IMPACTS? YES Time saving Information search Pre-purchase extensive knowledge of product Promotions and discounts Helps in decision making process Up-gradation with Brand Communication DO YOU PLAN YOUR PURCHASE? yes no sometimes WHAT ARE THE BASED OF YOUR PURCHASE DECISION? 79 NO newspaper TV ads radio WOM (social media, blog, viral marketing) Internet/ Mobile Custom publications Branded entertainment Any other DO YOU PREFER WORD OF MOUTH INFORMATION WHILE BUYING OR PURCHASING? everytime sometime never 80 Appendix D: Survey questionnaire (Spain, Uzbekistan, Pakistan) MARKETING COMMUNICATION PHENOMENON WITHIN SOCIAL NETWORKS AND BLOGS – A consumer propective Hi! I am MSc General Management student representing LUISS Guido Carli, Rome Italy I am doing a market research SOCIAL NETWORKS AND BLOGS” I will be obliged if you spare few minutes from your time to fill up this questionnaire I assure you that the information imparted by you will be kept confidential SELECT THE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES THAT YOU USE ((IF NO THEN TERMINATE THE QUESTIONNAIRE) Facebook My space Twitter Hi5 Orkut Friendster Netlog Yahoo 360 LinkedIn HOW MANY SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES DO YOU USE ACTIVELY? and above 3 HOW MANY HOURS PER DAY DO YOU SPEND ON USING THESE SITES? Weekdays (Mon – Fri): Weekend (Sat – Sun): WHAT DO YOU USE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES FOR? to make new friends to find old friends to communicate with existing friends 81 to find someone I can share a relationship with to interact with people with common other DIFFERENT PEOPLE WHOM I HAVE SPOKEN TO HAVE MENTIONED DIFFERENT WAYS IN WHICH NETWORKING SITES HAVE HAD AN IMPACT ON THEIR BUYING BEHAVIOR PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHICH OF THESE DO YOU AGREE WITH IF YES, THEN WHAT DO YOU FEEL CAN BE THESE IMPACTS? YES NO Time saving Information search Pre-purchase extensive knowledge of product Promotions and discounts Helps in decision making process Up-gradation with Brand Communication HOW HAS SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES AND BLOGS BENEFITED YOU AS A USER? I find it a great way to enjoy my leisure or whenever I am alone I link with prospective recruiters and find employment I find it helpful to acquire product information I can exchange product experiences I find it useful took to follow brand Other DO YOU PLAN YOUR PURCHASE; CHOOSE APPROPRIATE ANSWER ACCORDING TO THE TYPE OF CONSUMER GOODS? Convenience Consumer Goods(fast foods, ice cream): Shopping Consumer Goods (clothing items, home furnishing) Specialty Consumer Goods (antiques, jewelry, cars) Durable Consumer Goods (kitchenware, consumer electronics) 82 WHAT ARE THE BASED OF YOUR PURCHASE DECISION? newspaper TV ads radio WOM (social media, blog, viral marketing) Internet/ Mobile Custom publications Branded entertainment Any other KINDLY FILL YOUR PARTICULARS BY KEEPING IN VIEW THE FOLLOWING INSTRUCTION: EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATION A UNDERGRADUATE B GRADUATE C POST GRADUATE THANKS FOR KIND YOUR CO-OPERATION Name : City/Country : Educational: 83 Appendix E: Company Interview Guide Evaluation of social media influence on company’s marketing activities – the perspectives from Vietnamese marketers Introduction My name is Tran Thi Thu Trang, a MBA student from School of Business Administration, Hanoi National University Currently I am conducting a research on evaluation of the effectiveness of social media tools with respect to marketing activities from the perspectives of users and of professional marketers Marketing activities through social media services is a new and very promising trend – this has been widely recognized by marketers around the world and in Vietnam for the last several years However, Vietnamese marketers have been questioned about the most effective ways of mixing social media tools, and whether or not social media are and useful communication channel to reach customers Your opinions and sharing from a marketer angle will help to sketch social media marketing strategies for companies which are more doable and more applicable for meeting the need of Vietnamese customers Some key terminologies are defined as follows: Social media: are online applications, platforms and media which aim to facilitate interactions, collaborations and the sharing of the content Social media are generally divided into the following key catergories:  Blogs such as Wordpress, Blogspot and Yahoo! 360 Plus,  Mircro-blogs such as Twitter,  Social networks such as Facebook, My Space, Cyworld, Youbanme and Zing Me,  Content communities such as YouTube, Flickr, Slideshare, Wikipedia, Tamtay and Phunu.net,  Forums/ Bulletin boards such as Webtretho, Watgia, Ttvn, Eva and Zing forums, and  Content aggregators such as Igoogle, My Yahoo, Baomoi and Timnhanh Company: the company which you want to interact with (for buying/selling or exchanging information, and communicating.) 84 If you agree, the content of the interview will be summarized in the report of this research Yes No Interview content Part 1: Introducing the company Please briefly introduce your company, e.g business model (B2B or B2C), business size, types of customers, types of products and services, the distribution system, etc Please briefly describe your position in the company and the degree you are involved in marketing activities which employ social media Phần 2: Marketing activities of the company and the applications of social media tools and services Question 1: How long has your company used social media tools and applications? For what reasons did your company choose social media for marketing purposes? Question 2: What were the first social media tools which your company uses for marketing purposes? Why did your company choose them as the first tools when using social media? Question 3: Which social media tools are your company currently using for marketing purposes?  If your company uses blogs, then how long have they been employed? How many articles are they until now? Is this a blog of the company or of a person in the company?  If your company uses Twitter, then how long has it been employed? How many followers are there? Is this a company or personal account?  If your company uses social networks (e.g Facebook), then how long have they been applied? How many active friends are there on these accounts? Are these company‟s accounts or personal ones?  If your company users forums, then how many forums are you currently participating? Which forum is the most invested? Question 4: What are social media tools and applications that your company has not used? For what reasons does/has the company not use/used? Question 5: For what marketing purposes is your company using social media? (Hint: advertising, PR, branding, customer services, product development, marketing research, collecting customer‟s opinions, building relationship with customers) 85 Question 6: Does your company measure the effectiveness of marketing activities when using social media? If yes, then what are the criteria (e.g the increase in number of buying customers, or in the number of prospects)? Question 7: At present, which media channels are the most effective in delivering company messages? (We not distinguish between advertising messages or any messages sent to customers) Examples of channels include TV, the press, radio, Internet with social media apps, or word-of-mouth Question 8: Does your company deploy both the social media and traditional media marketing at the same time? Thank your for your opinions! Best wishes for your company‟s business and the lasting relationship with your customers Best regards, Tran Thi Thu Trang 86 ... describe social media concepts, their implications for marketing, and finally the current state of social media and social media marketing in Vietnam 1.1 Concepts in social media marketing Social media. .. challenges of social media 15 Table 1.3: Opportunities and challenges of social media, Henna (2009) 1.4 Social media and social media marketing in Vietnam 1.4.1 Social media landscape According to... Social media and social media marketing in Vietnam .16 vii 1.4.1 Social media landscape 16 1.4.2 Social media marketing 18 Chapter Methodology for consumer research for social