Dissertation_George_Douligeris

HELLENIC OPEN UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
Master in Business Administration (MBA)
DISSERTATION
The use of the Social Media as a marketing tool for Startups
-The Greek case
STUDENT: GEORGE DOULIGERIS
SUPERVISOR: ΑΙΚΑΤΕΡΙΝΙ SARRI
PATRAS
SEPTEMBER, 2016

ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΟ ΑΝΟΙΚΤΟ ΠΑΝΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΙΟ
ΣΧΟΛΗ ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΚΩΝ ΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΩΝ
Πρόγραμμα Μεταπτυχιακών Σπουδών στη Διοίκηση
Επιχειρήσεων (MBA)
ΔΙΠΛΩΜΑΤΙΚΗ ΕΡΓΑΣΙΑ
Η χρησιμοποίηση των Κοινωνικών Μέσων ως εργαλείο
μάρκετινγκ για νεοφυείς επιχειρήσεις-Η Ελληνική
περίπτωση
ΦΟΙΤΗΤΗΣ: ΓΕΩΡΓΙΟΣ ΔΟΥΛΗΓΕΡΗΣ
ΕΠΙΒΛΕΠΟΥΣΑ: ΑΙΚΑΤΕΡΙΝΗ ΣΑΡΡΗ
ΠΑΤΡΑ
ΣΕΠΤΕΜΒΡΙΟΣ,2016

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Table of Content
Summary.......................................................................................................................4
Περίληψη......................................................................................................................5
1. Introduction ..........................................................................................................6
2. Literature Review...............................................................................................11
2.1 Related research ..........................................................................................11
2.2 Social Media.................................................................................................12
2.2.1 Defining Social Media..........................................................................12
2.2.2 Functionality of Social Media .............................................................16
2.2.3 Presentation of the Major Social Media Tools..................................25
2.2.3.1 Facebook ...........................................................................................25
2.2.3.2 Twitter...............................................................................................27
2.2.3.3 LinkedIn............................................................................................29
2.2.3.4 YouTube............................................................................................30
2.2.3.5 Pinterest.............................................................................................31
2.2.3.6 Blogs...................................................................................................31
2.2.3.7 Others Forms....................................................................................32
2.3 Startups ........................................................................................................32
2.3.1 Defining Startups .................................................................................32
2.3.2 International Experience (Greece included) .....................................36
2.3.3 Startups and marketing.......................................................................42
3. The social media landscape for the startups ....................................................52
3.1 Strategy for Social Media ...........................................................................52
3.2 Social Media Landscape for Startups firms .............................................54
3.3 Practical directions and aspects from utilization of social media by
startups....................................................................................................................66
4. Methodology........................................................................................................70
4.1 Research Strategy........................................................................................70
4.2 Data Collection ............................................................................................72
5. Startups in Greece ..............................................................................................74
5.1 Presentation of Greek Startups..................................................................74
5.2 Peer Analysis................................................................................................76

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5.3 Effectiveness of Selected Greek Startup based on Startupranking and
Socialmention sites .................................................................................................79
5.3.1 What the Startupranking score is ..........................................................79
5.3.2 Greek Startups in Startupranking.........................................................80
5.3.3 Greek Startups in Socialmention.com site ............................................83
6. Conclusions..........................................................................................................85
Appendix.....................................................................................................................87
Books:..........................................................................................................................94
Information on the Web:...........................................................................................99
Table Figures:
Figure 2-1 Social Technologies and the Speed of Adoption ...................................13
Figure 2-2 Social Technologies and the Scale of Adoption ....................................14
Figure 2-3 The Honeycomb of Social Media ...........................................................17
Figure 2-4 Connecting Goals, Strategies and Social media Functionalities .........18
Figure 2-5 Social Technologies and its applications ...............................................21
Figure 2-6 Extra Functionalities by utilizing Social Media ...................................22
Figure 2-7 Social Technologies and Value in firm's functionalities ......................23
Figure 2-8 Connecting Goals, Strategies and Social Media Functionalities.........24
Figure 2-9 Number of Monthly Active Facebook Users.........................................26
Figure 2-10 Number of Monthly Active Twitter Users ..........................................28
Figure 2-11 Types of startups ...................................................................................35
Figure 2-12 The World's Most Valuable Startups..................................................36
Figure 2-13 Best Cities for Startups.........................................................................37
Figure 2-14 Number of Startups per Country ........................................................40
Figure 2-15 Core Marketing Concepts ....................................................................43
Figure 2-16 Challenges for Marketing in New Ventures .......................................45
Figure 2-17 Cross the Chasm-TALC .......................................................................46
Figure 2-18 Buying Process.......................................................................................47
Figure 2-19 Customer Development Process...........................................................50
Figure 2-20 The Startup Pyramid ............................................................................51
Figure 3-1 Strategy for Social Media .......................................................................53

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Figure 3-2 Landscape for Startups...........................................................................59
Figure 3-3 Enhancing the Marketing tool kit incorporating Social Media ..........65
Figure 3-4 Inbound Marketing and Startups..........................................................66
Figure 4-1 Contribution of each source ...................................................................73
Figure 5-1 Year of Foundation .................................................................................74
Figure 5-2 Disciplines of Startups ............................................................................75
Figure 5-3 Country of establishment........................................................................76
Figure 5-4 Percentage of unique utilization per medium.......................................77
Figure 5-5 Combined Utilization per medium ........................................................78
Figure 5-6 Distribution based on SR Score .............................................................81
Figure 5-7 Distribution based on SR Web Score ....................................................82
Figure 5-8 Distribution based on SR Media Score .................................................82

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Summary
The remarkable growth of social media and the internet affects the way of thinking
about marketing. The latter is one of the key success factors for a firm to survive. The
above statements lead us to examine the role of social media as a marketing tool.
Furthermore, our primary interest for the startups steer our attention to this object.
Hence, this dissertation has a dual aim. First, we tried to record the Greek startups that
operate inside and outside Greece. Second, we presented data related on how startups
utilize social media. Additionally, one of our major concerns is to provide the
framework that startups can utilize in order to achieve their objectives. Finally, we
tried to evaluate their efforts. The above evaluation is based on secondary sources
which were collected either through their web-sites or through other sites such as:
www.startupranking.com and www.socialmention.com .
From our research we have found that 317 organizations could be characterized as
Greek startups, operating inside and outside Greece. These firms possess in average 4
means and among their most popular choices are Facebook and Twitter. Our analysis
detected that in terms of performance and awareness Greek startups have still a long
way to go compared to the non-Greek ones. On the other hand, the benefits provided
through social media and the diverse functionalities-elaborated in our dissertation-
dictate the social media as appropriate means for startups to accomplish theirs
marketing plans.

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Περίληψη
Η αξιοσημείωτη ανάπτυξη των κοινωνικών μέσων και του διαδικτύου επηρεάζει τον
τρόπο που σκεφτόμαστε για το μάρκετινγκ. Το τελευταίο αποτελεί βασικό παράγοντα
για την επιβίωση μιας εταιρίας. Τα παραπάνω μας οδήγησαν να εξετάσουμε τον ρόλο
των κοινωνικών μέσων ως εργαλείο μάρκετινγκ. Επιπρόσθετα, το πρωταρχικό μας
ενδιαφέρον για τις νεοφυείς επιχειρήσεις εταιρειών μας οδήγησε στο να εξετάσουμε
το εν λόγω φαινόμενο
Έτσι, η εργασία αυτή έχει διττό στόχο. Πρώτον, επιχειρεί να καταγράψει τις νεοφυείς
Ελληνικές επιχειρήσεις που δραστηριοποιούνται εντός και εκτός Ελλάδος.
Δευτερεύοντος, θέλει να παρουσιάσει στοιχεία για το πώς οι τελευταίες αξιοποιούν τα
κοινωνικά μέσα (social media). Επιπλέον, έχει ως επιδίωξη να περιγράψει τον
πλαίσιο στο οποίο μια νεοφυής επιχείρηση περιβάλλεται προκειμένου να επιτύχει
τους σκοπούς της σε όρους μάρκετινγκ. Τέλος, επιχειρείται να αξιολογηθεί η
προσπάθεια αυτών των οργανισμών. Όλα τα παραπάνω στοιχεία προκύπτουν από
δευτερογενή δεδομένα που συλλέγονται είτε μέσω των εταιρικών σελίδων (web-
sites), είτε μέσω των εξειδικευμένων σελίδων (www.startupranking.com και
www.socialmention.com).
Από την έρευνα μας προέκυψε ότι 317 επιχειρήσεις μπορούν να χαρακτηριστούν ως
νεοφυείς, οι οποίες δραστηριοποιούνται εντός και εκτός Ελλάδος. Οι εταιρίες αυτές
κατέχουν κατά μέσον όρο περίπου 4 μέσα, ενώ στα δημοφιλέστερα κοινωνικά μέσα
τοποθετούνται το Facebook και το Twitter. Η ανάλυση έδειξε ότι σε όρους
αποτελεσματικότητας και αναγνωσιμότητας οι ελληνικές νεοφυείς επιχειρήσεις
απέχουν έναντι των αλλοδαπών. Από την άλλη οι λειτουργίες που παρέχονται μέσω
των κοινωνικών μέσων, τα οφέλη που προκύπτουν και οι ποικίλοι τρόποι
αξιοποίησης τους, όπως περιγράφονται στην παρούσα εργασία, επιβάλλουν τα
κοινωνικά μέσα ως απαραίτητα εργαλεία υλοποίησης του πλάνου μάρκετινγκ των
νεοφυών οργανισμών.

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1. Introduction
Startup is a broad term that many researchers, scholars, students and media recently
added in their vocabulary. Among them there are people who believe that it is a
fashionable trend like the firms of high technology who lead us to the state of internet
bubbles in the recent past. The above perspective is faulty. The business landscape is
different from the past. According to Compass (2015): “It is likely that the
powerhouses that will drive the global economy in 2025 are companies you’ve never
heard of today”. As they mention briefly but contently: “Welcome to the rise of the
Startup”.
In Greece startups formation drew the attention of the public and especially of the
mass media such as newspapers and periodicals (Daily Telegraph, 2014; EMEA,
2013). The popularity may be derived from the fact that a new generation of
entrepreneurs lately has been trying to set up new and innovative firms. Another
reason for their attractiveness is that many startups have succeeded to gain capital
from external investors (EMEA, 2013; MIT Enterprise Forum, 2015). Therefore,
entrepreneurship is in the spotlight. According to the Media Attention for
Entrepreneurship index - an index that is adopted by the Global Entrepreneurship
monitoring (GEM) – there is an increasing trend in startup formation since 20091
. In
Greece, official statistics display an increasing trend of the Total early-stage
Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) index since 20102
. More specifically, the index has
been increased by 124 units from 2010 to 2015 according to IOBE (2016). Definitely
a part of this entrepreneurial activity is the startups firms.
Many scholars and institutions such as Provatas (2013), Kakoula (2015) and Endeavor
Greece (2016), recognize this type of firm as one of the opportunities to gain the
Greek economy a part of losses after of the seven years of continuous depression and
struggling of the Greek economy. On the other hand IOBE (2016a) underlines the fact
the recession leads more people-compared with other countries-to start a business out
of necessity instead of opportunity. Thus, Greek entrepreneurship is motivated by
1
The index is denoted as follow: Percentage of 18-64 population who agree with the statement that
in their country, you will often see stories in the public media about successful new businesses (Global
Entrepreneurship monitoring published data).
2
The index is denoted as follow: Percentage of 18-64 population who are either a nascent
entrepreneur or owner-manager of a new business (GEM).

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opportunity (34.4%) is much lower than the average performance of innovation
countries (54.9%).
Despite this enthusiasm to set up startups, there are many tackles that policy makers
should consider and startups overcome. According to Iefimerida (2014), three factors
affect negatively the establishing process. Firstly, it is the lack of national strategy
about entrepreneurship. Secondly, the continuous changes on tax/legal regimes.
Thirdly, it is the bureaucracy. Besides the above circumstances, the startups have
different needs and resources. Hence, the specific attributes of those organizations
seem to match with the social media as tool for promotion, marketing and public
relation. Utilizing social media may help them to build theirs brands and establishing
awareness.
Similarly, social media is becoming increasingly significant in our online world. The
proliferation of social media is the logical result of increasing usage of the Internet3
and the penetration of always-on broadband access. Jones and Damien (2009) refer:
“We’re biologically programmed to be social and gregarious creatures. The need to
interact with other is hard-coded into our DNA. That’s one of the main reasons so
many us find social media incredibly compelling”.
Thanks to social media, on-line communities are emerging and growing breaking
frontiers, building relations and enhancing communication on real time basis. Many
relate social media with the process of sharing information. It is not only that. Social
media are the tools that through interaction, engagement and connection among the
members (consumers, companies and organizations) exchange their experiences,
beliefs, ideas and finally suggestions about products and services. The whole process
does not only affect their daily decisions about products, services and firms but also
changes our mindset for the whole world perspective. In other words, the social
media has changed the way we live. Hundreds of people have adopted new behaviors,
conducting social activities through social media, joining and setting up communities.
People are relying more on social connections meeting friends, meeting friends of
3
According to the Weber L. (2009) we are witnesses of four generations of the Web development. The
first generation (1990-1995) was primarily focused on the HTML and site building. The advent of
browser and the increasing interactivity, searching, click-through and pop-ups lead us to the second
phase. This phase lasted ten years and the next u-point is the third phase that the major aspect is the
emergence of social web. The last phase is now coming with the advent of rich media, full video and
sound (Web 4.0).

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friends virtually or from distance participating on social communities. By getting
advice and referrals from the forums and blogs affects our mindset and changes the
consumer behavior. As McKinsey (2012a) refers: “In just few years, the use of social
technologies has become a sweeping cultural, social, and economic phenomenon”.
Hence, from the side of businesses the social media is a tool to gain more insight for
the customers and the market trends. Now firms have the opportunity to engage
directly with their audience. It is important to refer here that the average customer see
about one million marketing messages per year (Godin S., 1999). Thus, it’s important
to engage with your audience. Therefore, the social media are communication tools
that make the startups visible and their products known. Additionally, the firms may
use social media to generate buzz and gain insight for the targeted customers
(Wikipedia b).
All the above issues motivated us to examine these two mentioned elements the
Startups and the social media. Furthermore, we have recognized a gap of knowledge
about the specific number of Startups operating in Greece. Although, the variety of
resources the provided information is unorganized and presented in unsystematic way.
Moreover, many scholars keep their focus on specific sample without the grasp for the
whole group. Their adopted methodologies are based on interviews from cofounders
without providing the peer picture. For that reason we attempt to gather information
from various resources (sites, summits, incubators, etc.) to provide a cohesive picture
about the Greek scene of the startups. In addition, my personal curiosity about the
subject has motivated me to propose this subject.
The dissertation consists of six chapters. Starting our presentation the next part
focuses on the relative research questions. Chapter two is devoted to the literature
review. It tries to shed some light on the social media concept. Among the scopes of
this chapter is to define the social media and introduce the reader to the major social
media tools. Moreover, this chapter provides details, statistics and the main features
for selected social media and it presents their functionality providing information
about their use. The second part of this chapter is devoted to startups. First, it provides
definitions about startups and then the international experience including the Greek
cases is presented. The last part in this chapter provides an insight of the interrelated
terms of marketing and startups. The third chapter deals with the landscape where the

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startups faces regarding the social media. The fourth chapter presents our research
methodology and the data collection that we use. The fifth chapter is associated with
the presentation of the Greek startups. Among the scopes of this section is not only
the presentation of the Greek startups but also to provide indications about which
social media are the most popular choices for those firms and the effectiveness of
selected Greek startups is denoted. The last chapter presents the concluding remarks
and tries to recap our findings and to provide the areas for further research while
underlining the limitations of our study. The last part is the appendix that presents the
detailed list of the examined Greek startups.

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Main research questions
Amongst the aims of this dissertation is to answer the following issues:
1. According to the relevant theory what is the suitable tools- strategy and
tactics to raise the odds of success?
We provide a framework that is suitable for the startups. The third chapter
aims to provide the directions for the proper utilization of social media.
2. How many startups operate in Greece?
To conclude how the startups utilize social media firstly it is important to
define the number of Greek Startups. The fifth chapter is devoted to answer
this question.
3. How do they utilize the social media to market themselves?
The research is trying to detect the social media which the startups utilize to
accomplish their objectives. The fifth chapter and more specifically the second
subsection provides the relative conclusions.

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2. Literature Review
2.1 Related research
Among the purposes of this chapter is to provide the concepts of Social Media and
Startups. Starting from a brief mention of the related research on the two concepts we
continue our analysis with the definition of the Social Media and we present the most
common forms. The second part is devoted to the startups company. Firstly, we
denote the concept of startups. Secondly, we provide evidence from international
experience. The last section is focused on the role of marketing for startups
companies.
Research on social media is an emerging field on the academic journals. The review is
starting from the paper of Sharma and Bharathi (2013). The research methodology
was based on case studies. The authors have focused on four social media tools
(Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube) and found that it is essential for startups
to understand social media tools. Among many interesting issues that have been
derived, a specific point worth referring to: Facebook platform seems to be a more
efficient type of social media as it accomplishes to fulfill and capture reach,
awareness, visibility and relationship. Popovic (2005) has referred that on the first
steps on high-tech startups companies should focus on the websites (uploading
technical publications). Additionally, the paper recognizes as equally important the
word of mouth (WOM) advertising-it is appropriate at this stage. Avino et al (2014)
focus on the promotion of startups. They have proposed a three stage model that
gradually eliminates non-optimal advertising methods. The adopted model was
applied on Italian early-stage startups. They found that Social media, Blogging,
Search Engine Optimizations (SEO) and SEM have high impact. Also, the scholars
insist on the argument that the related tools need low expensive support which
enhances further this argument. Akula (2015) has proposed general directions for
appropriate utilization of social media. An interesting issue that is mentioned in the
article was that the funding process may be facilitated from the existence of social
media. This is crucial mainly on the later stages of growth for the respective firms.
Furthermore, many students have focused theirs efforts to examine the specific topic.
More analytically, Giakoumis (2014) has proposed a marketing model (S.M.A.R.T)
for software and technology startups. He admits that: “Despite the development of

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web 2.0 the social media usage is still in infant level”. Moreover, the author insists on
the fact that social media can play an important role for start-up success. Vinther
(2013) has examined the resources allocation within US Tech startups. He found that
the examined startups haven’t any specific strategy for branding. Additionally, the
marketing function seems not to be the 1st
priority of strategy. Finally, all the startups
are far away from Lean theory (it is presented at the next section). Kvarnstrom and
Martensson (2012) have explored how social media such as Facebook and blogs could
be useful tool to sustain and attracting customers. The examined specific cases come
from Sweden. They argue by utilizing social media startups firms get gains in broad
viewpoint. Moreover, they found that Facebook is more effective to spread word of
mouth (WOM). Fomicheva (2015) has examined the factors that influence the
utilization of social media for Business to Business (B2B) startups. Key findings of
her attempt are: Firstly, “the key in social media marketing success is to post relevant
content” and secondly: “B2B companies are using social media as a complementary
marketing tool”. Peltovuori and Westrin (2014) have examined the relation of buzz
marketing and startups. Among theirs finding was that the startups can use social
media and theirs major activity is related by creating content. A recent dissertation
(Kakoula, 2015) has examined the relation between Web 2.0 marketing tools and the
Greek startups. She found that many firms have started to utilize them but the scale is
low and theirs efforts could be characterized as experimental. Finally, Provatas
(2013) has focused on the Greek startups. One of his aims was to shed light on the
web startup ecosystem and how different actors that participate inside affect the
startups. Among his results was the point that Greece needs serious reformations to
boost the start-up creation. On the next section we will describe the term of the social
media.
2.2 Social Media
2.2.1 Defining Social Media
Undoubtedly, the advent of Internet technology and the relationship platforms change
the landscape of media in general. More specifically we can say that the social media
is an active and fast moving domain. The development of the technology affects it
positively and enhances this trend. Nowadays, the Internet connection is cheaper and
more efficient (in terms of speed and connectivity) than ever before. The Internet

13
users are constantly increasing. Also, their spending time in social media is going up.
In sum, as Neti mentions (2011): “social media is hot”.
Hence, the adoption of social media is remarkable about the speed and the scale. The
following graphs give us an insight.
Figure 2-1 Social Technologies and the Speed of Adoption
Source: McKinsey. 2012a. (p. 22, Exhibit 3)
According to the above picture it is worth to refer that the radio took 38 years to reach
50 million users. On the other hand, the Internet took only 3 years to reach the same
number. In similar way, Facebook and Twitter took only one year and 8 months
respectively. The referred numbers depict the dynamic attribute and the exponential
growth of the social media. Despite the huge scale of social media at consumer level
the adoption from organizations is not at the same scale. McKinsey’s report (2012a)
points out: “while organizations have adopted social technologies at about half of the
rate of consumers”. The following figure demonstrates this:

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Figure 2-2 Social Technologies and the Scale of Adoption
Although the research based on data of 2012, gives us a clear picture about how
distance should firm walk to capture all the untapped potentiality. Additionally, in the
same research data depicts that the adoption of social technologies is not the same
across the industries. High tech and telecom firms are placed in the lead of these
efforts. So, at this point, social media are connected with the other central issue of our
dissertation which is the startups. Primarily, these firms are recognized as high tech
organizations which are designed to grow fast. Additionally, to provide the
significance of the social media revolution, McKinsey has recognized this wave that
could have a more far-reaching organizational impact than technologies adopted in the
1990s-such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management
(CRM) and supply chain (McKinsey, 1999).
Social media is a broad concept. Due to these large content and related functionalities,
many definitions are proposed. Many scholars have matched the social media with the
concept of Web 2.04
. Chaturvedi and Gupta (2014) adopted this approach. According
to Konstantinides (2009) the term Web 2.0 includes: “A collection of open resource,
interactive and user controlled online applications expanding the experiences,
4
From Wikipedia we found that the term Web 2.0 suggests a new version of the World Wide Web.
Key elements are: user-generated content, usability and interoperability.

15
knowledge and market power of the users as participants in business and social
processes. Web 2.0 applications support the creation of informal users’ networks
facilitating the flow of ideas and knowledge by allowing the efficient generation,
dissemination, sharing and editing/refining of content”. In similar way, Kaplan and
Haenlein (2010) denote that social media as a group of Internet-based applications
that allow the creation and exchange of user generated content (UGC). Larson &
Watson (2011) expand the definition as describing the social media: “the set of
connectivity-enabled applications that facilitate interaction and the co-creation,
exchange, and publication of information among firms and their networked
communities of customers”. According to Jones and Ryan (2009) social media is the
umbrella term for web-based software and services that allow users to come together
online and exchange, discuss, communicate, participate in any form of social
interaction. This interaction can encompass text, audio, images, video and other media
individually or in any other combination. Mangold and Faulds (2009) have heavily
focused on the feature of consumer generated content (CGC).
Another attribute that is essential on the social media is the dialogic transmission
system. The latter means that many sources exist and many receivers get. In similar
way, Weinberg (2009), Zarrella (2010) and McKinsey & Company (2011), emphasize
on this two-way dialogue. That feature and the fact that anyone can publish his own
content, make them distinct from the traditional media (TV, Newspapers, etc.). Safko
and Brake (2010) relate social media with the following elements: “Activities,
practices and behaviors among communities of people who gather on line to share
information, knowledge and opinions using conversational media. The social media
are Web-based applications that make possible to make and transmit easily content
such as: words, pictures, videos, audios”. Carvill and Taylor (2015) emphasize on the
feature of continuous conversation. With the adoption of social media we have moved
from a traditional linear conversation to a truly networked conversation. Furthermore,
they refer that: “Given the pace at which social media are being embraced by all
sectors of society, and the ever-growing pace of technology, businesses that don’t get
social media are seriously likely to get behind”.
Jones and Ryan (2009) refer that there is a big misconception about social media.
Online social interaction has been around from the beginning. The technology has

16
changed the level of reach and the penetration of social media. In the past online had
adopted only from early adopters. Nowadays, we are familiarizing with the
framework of social media.
Apart from the above definitions we can generalize by saying that social media is
about engagement. To start the interaction with others, firstly we should join as
member in the team. The engagement or connection among people is the central point.
In the context of social web, engagement means that customers and stakeholders are
participants rather than viewers. McKinsey (2011) has leaded their efforts on this
concept. Last but not least according to Godin (2011): “People are more connected
than they ever were before. We have dramatically more friends of friends and we can
connect with them faster and more frequently than ever”.
This interconnection fosters more the role of the social media as medium for
marketing purposes. To put it simply: “Business is Social and Social is Business”.
Before analyze the utilization of social media as marketing tool firstly it is appropriate
to stay on the provided functionalities of social media.
2.2.2 Functionality of Social Media
Given the growing interest for social media and the positive impact that generates in
terms of marketing should refer the functions that social media offers. Kietzmann et
al. (2011) provide the framework. According to the last, there are seven blocks.
Furthermore, to have a clear picture it is appropriate to stay on implications that
related with building blocks. The following figure reveals them.

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Figure 2-3 The Honeycomb of Social Media
Source: Kietzmann J. Hermkens K. McCarthy I. Silvestre B. 2011. (p.243, Figure
1).
Starting to analyze the above concepts, identity is connected with the disclosing
information (age, gender, etc.). The implication is that you can use it for commercial
purposes especially when firms seeking to develop their own social media sites. The
conversation block indicates the extent and the direction that each member
communicates each other. An interesting issue here is the manipulation of the last.
Safko and Brake (2009) refer an interesting argument that in social media you can’t
control the conversation but only influence it. The third function is the sharing utility.
This is connected with the exchange, distribution and the acceptance of content. The
main goal for firm is to search what content people interest and exchange. This
implication may reveal the general interests for these groups. The building block
presence represents the extent to which users can know the other users and who are
accessible. User’s locations may be useful for marketing purposes. Another block that
is mentioned on the framework is related with relationships. Behind this block are the
forms of association and the referrals. One implication of the relationships is to see if
the member is influential, through the examination his relevant position in the total
network. Reputation is matter of trust. Respective to this Shih (2009) refers: “Trust is
transitive to a degree”. Moreover, reputation has implication for firms and individual

18
users. For many of them is the “holy grail”. The last block is related with groups.
This is connected with the form of communities and the formation of subgroups.
Kietzmann et al. (2011, p.247) mention: “The more social a network becomes, the
bigger the group of friends, followers, and contacts”.
According to Motameni and Nordstrom (2014) their research has focused on goals,
strategies and media functionalities. According to their framework the firms provide
and obtain value through utilization of social media. From their findings we can say
that Blogs, micro-blogs (Tweeter) and shared endorsements are important on the case
of seeking new exchange relationships. The table below reveals all the related
information and insight.
Figure 2-4 Connecting Goals, Strategies and Social media Functionalities

19
Source: Motameni R. Nordstrom R. 2014 (p.41, Exhibit 3)
Carvill and Taylor (2015) stay on the different usages of social media. To give the
importance of the social media we provide a detailed list of them:
 Customer support and service
With the advent of social media, customers can communicate directly with the
firms via sites like Facebook or Twitter. The communication can be achieved
in different ways, each of which requires a different approach. Customers may
develop a conversation with the brands privately or people may use their own
social media profiles to voice their concerns or complaints. Each of the case
companies should be ready to handle them properly (resources, procedures,
training) the related issues.
 Brand reputation management
It is important not only to manage your online presence but also monitor what
is being said about you. Conversations are developed everywhere: blogs,
forums, social media sites. You should stay not only on positive comments
but also on negative comments and should have a policy to handle these
negative signs. According to Carvill and Taylor (2015) the speed of response
is the key. The 24-hours a day process needs continuous following up policy
and carefully management.
 Lead generation
There is a misunderstanding here about the role of social media as purely
generation tools. Of course sales leads may come from organic or paid
methods (such pay per click, email campaigns) but the appropriate step that
should make is to build trust and awareness. Thus, it is important not only to
broadcast your content, but also to listen to your audience. It is a difficult task
that requires time and effort. A more detailed approach will be described on
the next sections.
 Lead conversion
Many brands move their conversation from traditional media (TV, magazines)
to social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) and finally to their sites for
signing up. Again here is the quality of content that plays a crucial role.
 News distribution and public relations

20
As Clayton and Taylor argue: “We’re living in the age of influencer rather
than public relation… the companies need not only to reach out to the
journalists but also to influence the influential bloggers.” The suitable vehicle
is the Twitter where we can find the influencers and may affect their attitude.
Moreover, through the social media like: Twitter, Google+ you can inform
your audience about products, services and convey your message across the
big audience.
 Brand awareness and establishment
Before the advent of social media the only medium was the company site and
the traditional mediums (TVs, Newspaper, Radio, etc.). Now, the firms can
create a much more varied, dynamically, consistent and dimensional presence.
Thus, firms can reach the widest range of people. Additionally, the content
that is presented across the social media provides insight and valuable
information to your target.
 Product promotion and launch
With the social media you can get the products/services in front of your
targeted audience. The usage of paid-advertising methods (pay per click-
Facebook, Sponsored tweets on Twitter, promoted content on LinkedIn
showcase pages) facilitates the above process. We shed more light on the
referred methods on the next sections.
 Making your brand more human
Clayton and Taylor (2015) argue that the relations of Business to Business
(B2B) and Business to Consumers (B2C) have transformed. As points out now
we are in the state of people to people (P2P). Again through the social media
may be used to present a friendlier and humanized picture of your brand. Your
workforce could contribute on that picture, by participating on the effort
through LinkedIn profiles and differentiating the proposed value from those of
the rivals.
 Networking
The Oxford English Dictionary denotes the networking as: “Interacting with
others to exchange information and develop professional or social contacts”.
Thus, by definition social media provides the suitable conditions to enhance
the above process.

21
 Business Intelligence
The wealth of information derived from the blogs, forums, networking sites
provide insights about how the customers feel, think and act. For this
utilization the medium of Twitter seems more suitable. Capturing the
conversations on this medium may gain insight about products and other
brands. Thus, you can gain insight not only for your customers but also for
your rivals and the market. Furthermore, many trends can be derived from the
conversations make the strategic decisions simpler.
In a broader approach McKinsey (2012a) provides how social technologies5
can be
used from both consumers and firms. According to the last analysis, social
technologies include many of the technologies known as: social media, Web 2.0 and
collaboration tools. According to the last social technologies tap into the most basic
human traditions: founding groups, exchange information, enjoying entertainment,
communicating content. The following figure displays all the range of applications.
Figure 2-5 Social Technologies and its applications
5
The term social technologies means all that digital technologies used by people to interact socially
and together to create, enhance and exchange content (McKinsey,2012a p.16)

22
Interesting attributes of the above framework are the social gaming and shared work-
spaces aspects. But they are not strictly related with the scope of this essay. The rest
of applications give more content on social media tools and make them more valuable
for firms. Some applications are important but we don’t give heavy weight in this
essay due to our strategic perspective. In similar way, Ryan and Jones (2009) provide
many explanations why a firm should get involved with social media. One basic
argument is that your customer is here and already online. Furthermore, you can gain
deeper engagement with the customers and get insights not available any other way.
Figure 2-6 Extra Functionalities by utilizing Social Media
Source: Jones and Ryan (2009, p. 157) and author
The above figure reveals some of the potential benefits that Ryan and Jones (2009)
refer. In more detailed, the authors emphasize on the information that may gain from
the social media. By knowing your customers you put yourself a step ahead. By
engaging you raise your profile, provide your expertise and build your reputation.
Through social media you can see your audience. It is important to know what feel for
Stay informed
• Find what your customers really think about products, services,brands,industry
Raise your Profile
• By engaging you appear responsive and build your reputation and present your
expertise.
Level the playing Field
• Through this medium can discover what consumers are talking about and how
they feel (sentiment analysis).
Influence the Influencers
• These indivduals have already gained the trust and respect so can fostering their
good opinion may affect in positive way your reputation.
Nurture brand advocacy
• By engaging positively you can nurture passionate brand evangelists through
social media.
Pass it on
• One of powerful aspect of social media is its capacity for viral propagation.
The wisdom of the Crowd
• Through collective intelligence of online communities organizations can find
answers

23
you (level the playing field). Also, it is important to recognize the influencers of the
market. By leveraging influencers increase your odds of success. This fact is intensely
recognized from Swenson et all (2012; 2014). Lastly, another usage that is often
ignored is the fact that social media may provide valuable feedback for your minimum
valuable product (MVP) or testing product. Through your site and some landing pages
may gain insight about the demand (Hubspot, 2014). To put it differently, the wisdom
of the crowd may constitute the compass for the startups by giving insights about
consumer’s preferences.
The Social media is not only related with external environment. McKinsey (2012a)
provides in detail ten ways that social technologies may add value in organizational
function of the firms and worth to present it. The essay recognizes four segments of
the value chain: Product development, operations and distribution, marketing and
sales and customer service. Additionally, their framework includes value generated
across the firm which is related with better collaboration and communication and the
matching of talent with tasks (Enterprise wide levers). The following picture displays
the framework.
Figure 2-7 Social Technologies and Value in firm's functionalities

24
Thus, the benefits are not strictly connected with external factors but also with
internal efficiency across entire enterprise and can be seen as valuable resources that
provide great advantage comparing with your rivals.
A different framework proposed from Kaplan A. and Haenlein M. (2010) that is
illustrated on the following table. More analytically, they have developed a
classification of social media based on presence/media-richness and self-
presentation/self-disclosure. The self-presentation is related to the concepts of
impression and influence. The self-presentation is connected with self-disclosure
(unconscious or conscious) of personal details/information. The personal information
concerns with feelings, thoughts, preferences, dislikes. Social presence/Media
richness are related with the content that social media allows to exchange. In other
words, it is related with the degree of information that can be mediated. The above
classification is useful due to great number and forms of social media. In our
dissertation we focus on blogs, social networking sites (Facebook, LinkedIn), Micro
blogging (Twitter), content communities (YouTube) and possession of own site.
Figure 2-8 Connecting Goals, Strategies and Social Media Functionalities
Source: Kaplan A. Heinlein M. 2010 (p.62, Table 1)
Our choice is due to the fact that those attributes are more related with the goals of
startups firms that will be presented in separate section. Furthermore, the provided
framework by Motameni and Nordstrom (2014) supports our decision. On the
following subsection we will present the major social tools.

25
2.2.3 Presentation of the Major Social Media Tools
According to the Social Media Examiner (2015) the most commonly media platforms
that marketers are using in 2014 are the follows: Facebook (93%), Twitter (79%),
LinkedIn (71%), Google+ (56%), YouTube (55%), Pinterest (45%) and Instagram
(36%). In similar way, marketers are asked to select the single most important social
platform and the results are follows: Facebook (52%), LinkedIn (21%), Twitter
(13%), and YouTube (4%). The above figures reveal that the Facebook continues to
be the leader on this race. The first social media that we present is the Facebook.
2.2.3.1 Facebook
Facebook launched in 4 February 2004. As we mentioned before, Facebook is the
dominant player. Facebook is categorized in the group of social networking platforms.
Carvill and Taylor (2015) have characterized it as the new newspaper due to the
content and the ads facilities. At the 3rd
quarter Facebook has over 1.500 million users
worldwide. Zarrella (2010) refers that the main segment of Facebook are people older
than 35. The following figure reveals the Facebook’s growth. One remarkable point
that is worth to refer is the acquisitions of companies such as: Instagram and
WhatsApp. These firms provide different ingredients on the Facebook business
model.
The general purpose of the Facebook is to interact you’re your “Friends” as if you are
interacting in real life. Their mission statement is: “To give people the power to share
and make the world more open and connected” (Clayton and Taylor, 2015). Facebook
business page can act as a hub for your customers, vendors and even employees to
communicate with your business (Hootsuite notes, 2016).
The first step is to create a page that incorporates all the relevant information and
matches with their profile. The second step is the posting process. From this point,
you can start building your audience.

26
Figure 2-9 Number of Monthly Active Facebook Users
Source: Statista (Retrieved at 05/12/2015) available at:
http://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-
facebook-users-worldwide/
For commercial reasons Facebook permits business to set-up pages where the last
make theirs profile. These pages may contain texts, photos, videos, events, customer
feedback and other applications. Also, the messaging wall exists that facilitates the
communication process. In such way, it offers the opportunity to support or establish
brand communities (Kaplan A. Heinlein M., 2010). Additionally, the Facebook offers
applications such: RSS Feed Reader6
, Twitter app7
, Static FBML8
. These applications
transform Facebook in more effective and attractive way. Macarthy (2015) mentions:
“Facebook as the king of social networks, your target audience is almost guaranteed
to be there”. By suitable strategy, you can build your brand, market the business and
form your engaged customers. In more detailed Jones and Damien (2009) refer that
social network sites offer advertising options. There are several advert formats that a
firm can utilize (Promote page posts, Get new users, Increase Attendance by
targeting). Another benefit that derives is that a firm may increase its on-line exposure
6
The acronyms means: Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. An RSS document (called
"feed", "web feed" or "channel") includes full or summarized text, and metadata, like publishing date
and author's name. Subscribing to a website RSS removes the need for the user to manually check the
website for new content. Instead, their browser constantly monitors the site and informs the user of any
updates. The browser can also be commanded to automatically download the new data for the user.
7
Offer the opportunity to incorporate twitter messages in the Facebook page.
8
This application should be used for adding special HTML content or images on the Facebook page.

27
and reputation. Holloman (2014) uses a quote that reveals the importance of this
medium: “Facebook is the Gateway for your customers”. According to Carvill and
Taylor (2015), globally over 70% of people who access Facebook do from a mobile
device (smartphone, tablet, games console and smart TV). Last but not least worth to
refer here that 93% of businesses marketers use Facebook to promote their brands
(Wikipedia, b).
2.2.3.2 Twitter
Twitter launched in March 2006.It is the second most used medium. Many put this
application on micro blogging area. Eighty per cent of world leaders have a twitter
account (Carvill and Taylor, 2015). Thus, there are serious conversations taking place
there. Twitter is a network of relationships and it is growing from recommendations
of connections and through sharing or re-tweeting posts. The site’s current mission
statement is: “To instantly connect people everywhere to what’s most important to
them” (Carvill and Taylor, 2015).
Furthermore, the provided data reveals the Twitter’s growth. In more detailed, at the
3rd
quarter of 2015 the monthly average users were about 307 millions. The tweets are
about 400 million per day (Holloman, 2014). Another interesting statistic is that the
average lifetime of twitter is only 22 seconds. Moreover, 44% of active twitter
accounts don’t tweet. Hence, they use it as news feeder (Carvill and Taylor, 2015). A
useful figure provided by Macarthy (2015) is the fact Twitter users were more likely
to buy from brands they follow on the site by a margin of 64 percent. For the above
facts, many characterize Twitter as the most sophisticated marketing and
communication tool that has ever existed (Carvill and Taylor, 2015). According to
Hootsuite (2016), Twitter allows your message to share exponentially across the
network. Additionally, 80% of twitter’s active users are on mobile. Thus, you can
reach them even on the go.

28
Figure 2-10 Number of Monthly Active Twitter Users
Source: Statista (Retrieved at 05/12/2015)
Available at: http://www.statista.com/statistics/282087/number-of-monthly-active-
twitter-users/
According to Zarrella (2010) due to little investment on time and the easiness, firms
should put it on its agenda. Holloman (2014) refers that it can be utilized as an online
brand platform where organizations can build their profile. Through Twitter a
company make announces for new products or events. Additionally, it can promote
content such as: blogs, Facebook posts, stories and news. Similarly, it has introduced
more visual content such as photos and videos. Twitter is all about two-way
conversation. Jones and Damien (2009) underline the benefits from this medium.
More specifically, you can communicate with your customers. Another argument that
is relevant is that a firm can understand theirs influencers and generally speaking
catch the pulse. The vast majority of influencers, journalists, publications, bloggers
are on the site, making it the premier 21st
century public relation tool (Carvill and
Taylor, 2015). Furthermore, through Twitter increases your traffic to your official
website and other blogs. Last but not least Twitter can be utilized to provide customer
service, thus improving brand loyalty and appreciation (Wikipedia b). Finally, the

29
integration with other tools of social media is essential. The provided messages can
link to the product’s website, Facebook profile, photos and videos.
2.2.3.3 LinkedIn
This media belongs to the social networking applications like Facebook but focus on
the business professionals. Originally, the LinkedIn set up for recruitment purposes
(Carvill and Taylor, 2015). The reason to join in this network is to raise the
professional profile. The core concept here is the provided connections. These are
ranked through an algorithm that counts the degree of closeness. First degree contacts
are direct. The communication is directly (through email). The second and third
degree members need to use services as Open Mail or In Mail to call introductions.
The importance of this medium is given by the following fact: “One to three
professionals on the planet now has a profile on the site (Carvill and Taylor, 2015)”.
Additionally, there are LinkedIn company pages. In these pages firms may provide
information about their services and products. Any LinkedIn user can follow the page
provided his interest and receiving the latest news and updates. Also, there is a
sponsor option that enables companies to sponsor a group. This medium offers many
facilities like LinkedIn Marketing solutions and LinkedIn Ads. Additionally, offers a
suite of product including: Showcases Pages, Target advertising, Sales navigator and
Pulse that make the life of companies easier.
According to the firm’s site there are more than 400 million members in over 200
countries. Furthermore, every second two or more member is registered9
. Despite the
commonly usage, this tool is more restrictive comparing with Facebook. The
restrictions are related with the content (for example photo sharing) and the
mechanism that the contacts emerged. Another difference is based on economic
terms. This platform continues to have charges for the premiums memberships
(Personal Plus, Business, Pro). One of benefit that a firm may reap is by finding the
influencers (evangelists) of their industry they can use them to influence their social
network. Additionally, to understand the strength of this medium Macarthy (2015)
refers that you only need 100-200 followers of your company page to reach the
tipping point to start making an impact and driving engagement. Other useful stats
9
https://press.linkedin.com/about-linkedin (retrieved: 15/12/2015).

30
provided by Carvill and Taylor (2015) give us insights about the importance of this
medium are:
1. 17 minutes per day for average user
2. 35% of users access daily
3. 41% users access the site from a mobile device (enhancing continuous
conversation and interaction)
4. 25 million profiles are viewed every day
2.2.3.4 YouTube
As we have mentioned before the YouTube is a medium that many marketers are
using. Originally, it was set up as a video-sharing site and now it is the third most
visited website and the second most used search engine in the world. This medium is
now owned by Google who boost its functionalities. Despite the multiple
functionalities we have categorized it on the content communities. Users can view,
share and upload videos. Based on statistics provided from the site, over 1 billion
unique users visit the platform per month —and everyday people watch hundreds of
millions of hours on YouTube and generate billions of views10
. It’s a globalized
medium that over 70% of YouTube traffic comes outside U.S (Holloman, 2014).
Another statistic that give us the importance of this medium is that 300 hours of video
are uploaded every minute and a half of YouTube views are on mobile devices In fact
one in three professionals on the planet now has a profile on the site (Carvill and
Taylor, 2015).
Through uploading videos you can provide information, entertainment and
advertisement messages. Also, the video can be linked with the official site of the firm
enhancing the position of your site. Furthermore, the utilization of this medium as
advertisement tool is remarkable. The True View enables to target users by providing
breakdown of demographic information. The targeting relies not only on the
demographics but also on search behavior of the member.
Individuals and firms may use this channel in both ways. The first way is by selecting
videos from others users and upload to theirs site. The second way is to upload its
10
https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html (retrieved: 15/12/2015).

31
own video. Furthermore, the site’s integration with Google+, as well as Google itself,
improves their online visibility (Carvill and Taylor, 2015). Finally, firms and
individuals can evaluate theirs efforts through analytics metrics. For example, it is
worth mentioning the audience retention11
and viewer counter. Both measures should
be combined with demographics data to have concrete results about your audience.
2.2.3.5 Pinterest
Pinterest launched in March 2010. As we have mentioned Pinterest is the sixth more
important media for marketers. According to the last statistics the written members
are about 170 million and the active members are about 100 million12
. Macarthy
(2015) refers that Pinterest is the second biggest driver of web traffic amongst social
media sites and 75% of who browse the site comes from mobile devices. Like
Facebook, Pinterest is a socially network that allows user to visually share and
discover new interests by posting (or pinning) images, photos to their own or others’
boards (Meng, 2014). The sharing process is not limited on the Pinterest board. The
content (pins) can be posted on others social networks platforms.
From Pinterest’s site is derived theirs vision: “The visual bookmarking tool that helps
you to discover and save creative ideas”. Generally speaking, Pinterest focus on the
goal to networking people with similar interests. The most popular topics on Pinterest
are food, drink, travel and home décor. This medium is largely adopted by the women
that consist the 80% of users (Carvill and Taylor, 2015). The average Pinterest user
spent about 90 minutes per month on the website in 201213
.Due to this fact and its
functionality it is similar with other network tools like Facebook, Pinterest can help to
create brand awareness and make suitable web leads.
2.2.3.6 Blogs
The blogs are webpages and the format is like a journal. The word is an acronym of
the words web and log (b+log). The purposes of blogs are directly related with the
owners/publishers. Many people use this type of media to express their thoughts.
According to Carvill and Taylor (2015) blogging is probably one of the simplest and
most common methods and the organizations should utilize it to convey a more
11
This metric count how long a viewer stays on video. The low audience retention may indicate loss of
interest or the content is too long from the perspective of viewer.
12
http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/pinterest-stats/ (retrieved: 15/12/2015).
13
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinterest (retrieved: 15/12/2015).

32
human side of their business. The variety of topics is remarkable. The motives behind
blogs differ. Many established blogs for commercial interest. Others use blogs for
political propaganda or to express their arguments and beliefs. The most popular
applications to generate blogs are WordPress and Tumblr14
. According to Statista, the
cumulative total of Tumblr blogs between May 2011 and October 2015 is about 260
million blogs15
. Thus, given the astonishing number of the blogs theirs importance is
broadly recognized. Additionally, there is a unique attribute that is related with the
Search Engines Optimization (SEO). Blogs help to achieve other social media and
web sites higher ranking score. Hence, your visibility increases in social web by
setting up a blog.
2.2.3.7 Others Forms
The variety is noteworthy. There are many other forms that we haven’t referred to due
to the limited space and the strict directions. Thus, we owe to mention them even
briefly. Other popular social media types are: Wikis, podcasts, Reviews and rating
sites (Trip Advisor), Forums, etc. Relative to the above media a point that worth to
underline here is the fact that these media are equally important to listening, engaging
and finally influencing prospect customers. The next section is covered by analyzing
the other central topic of this dissertation that is the startups.
2.3 Startups
2.3.1 Defining Startups
Startups are entrepreneurial ventures that can take many forms. Blank (2013) has
characterized them as temporary organizations designed to search for a repeatable and
scalable business model. He emphasizes on the facts: “these types of firms are not
smaller versions of big companies” and “One of the critical differences is that while
existing companies execute a business model, Startups look for one”. In other words,
the startups are organizations designed for a viable business model. At this point
emphasize the Startup Genome Report (Blog.Compass, 2012). Startups are temporary
organizations designed to scale into large companies. Early stage startups are
designed to search for product/market fit under conditions of extreme uncertainty.
14
Tumblr is a micro blogging website and social media platform that is now owned by Yahoo.
15
http://www.statista.com/statistics/256235/total-cumulative-number-of-tumblr-blogs/ (retrieved:
15/12/2015).

33
Late stage startups are designed to search a repeatable and scalable business model.
Thus, the main goal is to discover a winning business model. Moreover, “A startup is
a company working to solve a problem where the solution is not obvious and success
in not guaranteed” (Shontell, 2014). All the above lead us to the argument that these
organizations can take many forms (company, spinoff from a multinational
corporation, even a small creative team).
According to Graham (2012)-a venture capitalist- start-up is a company designed to
grow fast. This growth is connected with a big market. The last point suggests that it
is matter to make something that lots of people want and finally you can reach and
serve all those people. Murphy and Duncan (2014) argue that startups tend to look for
disruptive opportunities provided by new knowledge or technology that allows them
to go where others are not. Ries (2011) defines startups as: “A startup is a human
institution designed to create a new product or service under condition of extreme
uncertainty”. The last is connected with the state that the firms do not know their
customer or how the final product should be. Innovation is the heart of the business
success. These organizations are setting up to face and confront the extreme
situations. As Ries (2011) points out: “To open up a new business that is an exact
clone of an existing business all the way down to the business model, pricing, target
customer, and product may be an attractive economic investment, but it is not a
startup because its success depends only on execution”. Specifically, Blank (2012)
argues that the startups are all about unknowns. In similar way, Gruber (2004)
emphasizes on the attributes of those new ventures. In more detail, he mentions that
newness of the organization, small size and uncertainty and turbulence affects those
new ventures.
Mistakenly the startups are connected only with high technology firms. The last may
derive from the remarkable success of web-companies such as: Facebook, Google,
etc. Broadly spoken we can define a startup as an organization who adopts a
revolutionary business model. The last is completive advantage against the
competition. This model offers the opportunity for remarkable growth. The essence of
startups has more to do with high ambition, innovativeness, scalability and growth.
Ries (2011) goes few steps beyond and says: “We often lose sight of the fact that a

34
startup is not a just about a product, a technological breakthrough, or even a brilliant
idea. A startup is greater than the sum of its parts; it is an acutely human enterprise”.
The startups should not be considered as a unique group with same features and
needs. Ellis (2012) has categorized them on two groups:
 “Disruptor” startups
These are businesses that enter an existing category with a breakthrough feature or
very disruptive pricing model. These firms can get substantial traction by harvesting
the existing demand.
 “Innovator” startups
These types of firm are more challenging to take to market. The main problem is to
find the way to reach the target users and messaging them. Similarly, Blank and Dorf
(2012) have categorized them on those with invention to risk and those with
customer/market risk. The last category is the case where the unknown factor is
whether customers will adopt the product. The other category is that it’s questionable
whether the technology can ever be made to work. If the last works huge gains will
derive.
Another grouping for startups is provided by Startup Genome (2012). The group is
divided in four types with different attributes. The following figure provides this
categorization with specific cases.

35
Figure 2-11 Types of startups
Source: Startup Genome Report Extra on Premature Scaling.2012. p. 7-8
Despite the above analysis, there is not a common accepted definition for the Startups.
As far as this dissertation is concerned a Startup as an innovation-driven organization.
According to Fomicheva (2015), these types of firm are started from the beginning
and it is expected to bring novelty. Growth, scalability and innovation are attributes
that should incorporate in the DNA of startup firm. Last but not least, it is worth to
say the startup has a specific time horizon. Hence, the startup passes through
milestones of development. These stages may affect its type of formation even the
legal form.
According to Provatas (2013), the timeframe is up to 5 years. After that period, a
small fraction of startups continue in another legal form or publicly traded by IPO
while the others ceasing to exist. On the next session we present a brief picture from
international experience.
The Automator
These startups are product centric with a
self-service customer acquisition strategy,
that focus on quick execution and often
automate a manual process. The majority of
them target consumers in existing markets.
Examples: Google, Dropbox, Eventbrite,
Slideshare, Mint, Pandora, Kickstarter,Zynga,
Playdom, Box.net, Basecamp, Kayak
The Social Transformer
These startups have a self-service customer
acquisition strategy and often create new
ways for people to interact. They are almost
always confronted with the challenge of
reaching critical mass. If they surpass this
threshold they can often have runaway user
growth in a winner-take-all
market.Examples: eBay, OkCupid, Skype,
Airbnb, Craigslist, Etsy, IMVU, Flickr,LinkedIn,
Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare,
YouTube, Mechanical Turk,PayPal, Quora
The Integrator
These companies thrive on acquiring
customers by generating leads with
marketing and closing them with inside sales
reps. They are product-centric and rely on
early monetization typically through
subscriptions in smaller markets. They often
take innovations from Automator startups
and rebuild it for smaller enterprises.
Examples:Intuit, Square, Adobe, PBworks,
Uservoice, Mixpanel, Dimdim, HubSpot,
Marketo, Xignite, Zendesk, GetSatisfaction,
Flowtown
The Challenger
These startups are focused on closing high
paying customers in large but fragmented
markets. They are highly dependent on a
small number of deals being successful and
usually operate in complex and rigid
markets. To be successful they need to find a
repeatable and scalable sales
process.Examples: Oracle, Salesforce,
MySQL, Red Hat, Jive, Atlassian,
Palantir,NetSuite, WorkDay, Zuora, Cloudera,
SuccessFactor, Yammer
Four -Types of
startups

36
2.3.2 International Experience (Greece included)
The diffusion of technology and the digital revolution enhance the development of
startups. The advent of the Internet has facilitated this process. To further support this
argument many researchers, refer that we are moving on the fifth wave of evolution.
At this wave social media play crucial rule.16
Another factor that is important for this
trend is the remarkable abundance of funds provided from ventures capitals and angel
investors. The raising appetite for profitable investment and the paradigm of
successful startups companies such as: Facebook, Twitter & Google accelerates this
process. The following figure is related with the above argument. Only to mention
here the huge valuation of that investors and ventures capitalists derives from the
concern that behind these firms a successive business model exists that secure growth.
Figure 2-12 The World's Most Valuable Startups
Source: Statista (retrieved: 07/12/2015)
This explosion of Startups as referred to The Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking 2015
is due to specific factors:
 Startups can now be built for thousands, rather than millions of dollars
16
The first wave (1975-1977) had defense orientation. Examples of organizations are: NASA, HP,
Stanford Research Institute. The second wave (1979-1985) had focus on Integrated Circuits. Noticeable
firms are: Intel, AMD. After that we are witness of the 3rd
wave and the medium is now Personal
Computers. It is worth to refer the cases: Xerox and Apple. The 4rth wave is signed by Internet.
Famous companies are: Netscape, Cisco and Google (Source: Compass, 2015).

37
 A higher resolution venture finance industry
 Entrepreneurship developing its own management science
 Speed of consumer adoption of new technology
Figure 2-13 Best Cities for Startups
Source: Startup Genome Report Extra on Premature Scaling.2012. p. 7-8
Furthermore, except the fact that the amounts are noticeable, it is illustrated that the
list contains non-USA firms such as: Didi Kuaidi & Xiaomi (China). At this point
should say that the explosion of Startups is a global phenomenon. To support this
argument the figure above reveals the cities provide the best conditions to establish a
startup. The ranking derives from the total score according to the following attributes:
 Performance on the funding and exit valuations of startups
 Funding on VC investment in the ecosystem and the time it takes to raise
capital
 Talent on the quality of technical talent, its availability and cost
 Market reach on the size of the local ecosystem’s GDP and the ease of
reaching customers in international markets

38
 Startup Experience on first-party survey data that is linked to success of
startups, such as having veteran startup mentors or founders with previous
startup experience
Statistics from the site Startupranking, (http://www.startupranking.com/countries)
reveal that Startups are established in more than 100 countries. Greece is located at
41th position, with 80 startups. The 1st country is the United States with more than
5K startups. The data are presented on the following figure.
The creation process is connected with the situations that firms face on the respective
countries. In the leader countries have developed many startup ecosystems providing:
Incubators, accelerators, mentors, Venture capitals and other key players, in order to
support the nearly established organizations. Hence, should refer that the entire
ecosystem is a factor of success. In the Startup genome report has proved that
entrepreneurs with mentors has three and a half times more growth and raised seven
times more money than those without (Blog.Compass,2012). Given their importance
we display the following list with major key players in Greece17
:
1. Athens Incubator (http://www.theathensincube.gr/)
2. Attica Business Innovation Center (http://www.bicofattika.gr)
3. Corallia (http://www.corallia.org/ )
4. i4G (http://www.i4g.gr )
5. Incubation Attica (http://www.incubator.gr )
6. IQbility (http://www.iqbility.com/)
7. Science Park Patra (http://www.psp.org.gr )
8. SEV Ekinisi Lab (http://ekinisilab-sev.gr/)
9. Star Tech Ventures (http://www.starttech.eu/)
10. Technopolis Business Park Thessaloniki (http://www.technopolis.gr)
11. THEA Incubator (http://www.theathensincube.gr/)
12. Thermi Group (http://www.thermi-group.com/)
13. Found.ation (http://thefoundation.gr/)
14. Endeavor Greece (http://endeavor.org.gr/)
15. The Cube Athens (http://thecube.gr/)
17
The data are primarily relied from the site Startupnation.gr
(http://www.startupnation.gr/category/incubators.) and the author research.

39
16. Impact Hub Athens (http://athens.impacthub.net/)
Last point that we owe to refer is the importance of new ventures and specifically for
startups is broadly recognized (Peltovuori et al. (2014), Fomicheva (2015), Startup
Genome team, Provatas (2013), Compass (2016), Endeavor Greece (2016)). In such
way the authorities should support the Startup ecosystem and more specifically the
nearly established organizations at earlier stages. This may be beneficial not only for
those companies, but also for the total economy.

40
Figure 2-14 Number of Startups per Country
Source: Startupranking (Retrieved: 15/11/2015)
Available at: http://www.startupranking.com/countries

41
Regardless of the increasing meaning, the startups suffer from high failure rates.
According to Peltovuori et al. (2014), 50% of newly founded firms will fail to during
the first five years. Similarly, Gruber (2004) refers that the 70% of new ventures
discontinue in the first five years. According to Blog.Compass (2012), 90% of
startups fail. In addition, the 10% of remaining startups, the most encounter several
near death experience. The specific report admits: “We just are not very good at
creating startups yet”. In more detailed, this huge failure rate is correlated with
premature scaling (Blog.Compass, 2012)18
. According to Avino et al. (2015) the
mortality rate reaches to 45% by the fifth year and reaches to 80% by the tenth year.
Although, the failure rates vary-due to different samples, research approaches-the
noteworthy fact is the mortality rate which is stayed high for that industry.
Akula (2015) has tried to explain this failure by referring: “Improper social media
utilization could also be one of the reasons behind the startup fails”. At this point is
worth to analyze more the concept of fail. Gage (2012) refers: “if failure means
liquidating all assets, with investors losing all their money, an estimated 30% to 40%
of high potential U.S startups fail”. And continues: “If failure is defined as failing to
see the projected return on investment-say a specific ROI (Return on Investment), a
specific revenue growth rate or date to break even on cash flow-then more 95% of
startups fail. Although, the negative impact of failure it is a prerequisite to learn (Ries,
2011).
Despite the above dismal statistics all evidences lead us to the conclusion that Startups
creation will enhance in the next years. A business function that is of critical
importance to the success of most entrepreneurial ventures is marketing. In more
detail Lodish et al. (2011) found that the marketing function was rated greater
comparing with other business function (Managing people, Financial Strategies,
Information Technology, Product innovation). By continuing their approach they
state: “Venture failure rates can be reduced as much as 60 percent using pre-venture
marketing analysis. Additionally, they have referred that the marketing may impact
18
Based on their research they break the stages of growth in a startup on five dimensions: Customer,
Product, Team, Financials, and Business Model. When an organization have one or more of these
dimensions far ahead or far behind the customer dimension lead them on the premature state. Thus,
consistent startups keep the customer dimension in tune with the other dimensions (Blog. Compass,
2012).

42
raising capital more than sales in a company’s early life. Thus, in the next section we
try to shed light on the marketing function for startups organizations.
2.3.3 Startups and marketing
Many scholars and entrepreneurs have stressed the importance of the marketing for
SME’s and startup companies especially on the early steps. To give the prominence
about the role of marketing Walling (2010)-an experienced start-upper- put it briefly:
“Product last marketing first”.
Given its importance, firstly it is appropriate to refer a specific notation about
marketing. According to the Kotler (2011) and American Marketing Association
(AMA) : “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating,
communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for consumers,
clients, partners, and society at large”. Constantinides (2014) argues that a marketing
organization should focus on offering high value to customers by delivering high
quality products and services. Others use more narrow definition and stay only
specific aspects. For example Kim and Ko (2012) argue that: “Marketing is a
multidimensional process made up of various strategies. However a primary goal of
any marketing strategy is to increase sales and profitability”. Furthermore, Ries and
Trout (2002) believe: “Marketing is not a battle about products. It is a battle of
perception”. Trying to illustrate the marketing function for Startups, it is important to
refer core concepts as presented by Kotler et al. (2005).The following figure reveals
them.
For marketing purposes all planning starts from the recognition of specific needs. The
second step is the offering (product, service, experience). The next level is the
satisfaction of customer and the recognition of the provided value. After that the
relationships and transactions are critical to generate. All the above steps lead again to
the market. This is an ideal virtuous cycle.

43
Figure 2-15 Core Marketing Concepts
Source: Kotler P. Wong V. Saunders J. Armstrong G.2005. (p.6, Figure 1.1)
All the above elements are critical for effective and efficient marketing function. But
the startups have different characteristics from established firms who operate for
many years. For example, Lodish et al. (2001) emphasize on the resources.
Entrepreneurs have very limited marketing funds about the provided product or
services. The traditional marketing theory that incorporates in the model of 4P’s
(product, price, place promotion) known as marketing mix seems to be obsolete for
startups organizations. First of all, the referred model is product centric. Martin (2009)
underlines this issue and proposes a different mix that is more related with
entrepreneurial objectives. He has proposed a mix that incorporates new parts such as:
purposes, practices, process, and people. Behind this proposed mix central issues are
relationships and networks that established through interpersonal and organizational
communication. Goi (2009) made similar critic and he has noticed that: the 4P’s
model considers passive consumers (no relationships with the firm), ignore the
customer experience and based on the central hypothesis of the existence only one
product.
To give more insight in the concept of marketing worth to refer another perspective
that includes: Tactics, Strategy and Culture. Martin (2009) has focused on tactics that
are connected with methods of resource leveraging and variety of techniques for
managing risks. Strategy is connected with competitive advantage within a particular
industry or a market. Finally, culture is related with values and beliefs about the
Needs,wants
and demands
Marketing
offers (Products,
Services,
Experiences)
Value &
Satisfaction
Exchange,
transactions &
relationships
Markets

44
importance of the customer. The above concepts differ significantly for a new venture
versus established firms. In the area of culture, key terms are: innovativeness, risk-
taking and pro-action. On the contrary, mature firms focus mainly on established need
among customers and trying to address them. At the level of strategy established firms
give more weight on segmentation, targeting and positioning. On the other hand,
startups have a bottom-up approach with few customers and through and trial-error
process and close interaction with them should generate their offering (Martin, 2009).
This narrow but oriented focus on targeted customers has also referred by Anderson
(2004). As he points out that the company’s first lesson is to embrace niches. Also,
Moore (2001) refers the importance of niche market and how can handle it to “start a
fire”. Another author who adopts similar approach is Grannel (2013). He smartly
emphasizes on it: “should focus on getting a small number of customers who are most
likely to buy”.
For the above reasons the strategy is more fluid and innovative. About the tactics, new
ventures seem to rely more on direct interchanges, building personal relationship and
interactive marketing. Last but not least worth to refer that the new ventures has more
immediate approach of time (Martin, 2009). In sum, the challenges for startups are
coincided in great deal with the new venture needs. For that reason we present them
on the following table:

45
Figure 2-16 Challenges for Marketing in New Ventures
Characteristics Challenges for Marketing in New Ventures
Newness of the Firm
 Unknown entity to potential customers and other parties
 Lack of trust in the abilities and offerings of the new firm
 Reliance on social interactions among strangers
 Lack of exchange relationships
 Lack of internal structures processes/routines in
marketing
 Lack of experience in marketing
 Lack of historical data
Small size of the firm
 Very limited financial resources available
 Few human resources
 Few marketing resources
 Lack of critical skills in marketing
 Limited market presence
 Limited market power, disadvantage in negotiations
Uncertainty and turbulence
 Very low profitability of market & other data
 Only limited information available for marketing
planning and for marketing decisions
 Best practices in marketing have yet to be determined for
the specific industry
 Dominant design of an offering is unknown
 Competitive structure of the industry is changing,
relationships with suppliers, distributors are sample
 High risk of wrong decisions, which may have fatal
consequences for small firm with limited resources.
Source: Gruber M. 2004 (p.170, Table 1).
By definition the startups are innovative. Thus, the organization should realize in
which stage is the public’s product/service awareness. It’s is critical about the
marketing tools that should utilized. Moore (2001) in his famous book “Crossing the
Chasm” provides the Technology Adoption Life Cycle framework. The breakdown of
cycles has essential meaning. Firstly, the early markets consist of Innovators and
Early Adopters. The first group concentrates only the fact that product or service

46
work. They are tech enthusiasts19
and want to test firstly the product. Moore (2001)
calls them as “gatekeepers of technology”. The second group consists of the
visionaries. They want not only an improvement of the product but the breakthrough.
The last cluster drives the high-tech industry. Their existence is critical according to
Moore (2001). Without them a Startup can’t make a market. This segmentation offers
the opportunity to gain the product/service visibility and offer broad awareness.
Hence, both groups are essential on the first steps of start-up firm. The second part is
the mainstream market. Again there two groups: Early Majority (The Pragmatists) and
Late Majority. The pragmatists are the bulk of the market volume for any
technological product. They are royalty once they are satisfied and avoid to taking
risks. Finally, they are price sensitive and care about after bought product service. The
other team is Late Majority and seems to be more conservative. They are against
discontinuous innovations. According to Moore (2001):“Conservatives have
enormous value to high-tech industry in such way that greatly extended the market for
high-tech components that is no longer state of art”. The last part is named as
Laggards (The Skeptics). The key about handling this group is to neutralize their
negative influences. This model hypothesizes a smooth a continuous progression
across segments over the life of product.
Figure 2-17 Cross the Chasm-TALC
Source: Moore Geoffrey 2001 p.10
Despite the flaws of the model or restrictive hypothesis, in marketing terms it is
important. The cycle describes the relationships between the members of each group.
19
Blank (2012, p.133) defines them as most important customers of all.

47
The communication among members of each group gives a certain dynamic character
in the diffusion of the product. At the level of communication, social media facilitates
this process both in the way and the content. Svenson M., Rhoads G. and Whitlark
(2014) encourage the entrepreneurs to “Unleash the Power of Product Advocates”, by
looking for people who have significant influence over the target market. From these
people stems the ability and credibility to highlight, defend, introduce, and promote
their new business and products. In similar way McKinsey (2015) points out the
power of influencers and the long tail phenomenon. In other words, a small number of
active influencers accounted for a disproportionate share of total recommendations.
Secondly, they urge startups to “Empower Early-Adopter Customers”. This means by
exploiting early-adopter customers, with passion for solving the problem addressed by
the new product. Thirdly, the next stage is “Land an Anchor Customer”. According to
theirs framework the key factor is to use the credibility of anchor customers to attract
potential customers and to accelerate product development.
Relative with the above analysis is the customer journey of the potential customer.
Dunford (2015) has focused on specific issue and he elaborates it in the next figure.
Figure 2-18 Buying Process
Source: Dunford. A. 2015

48
The central concept is the point where a customer starts. The different starting point
imposes a different approach for the customers. In new established market it is
common for a customer to feel unaware about his need. For this reason, should be
educated and informed about the offering experience. Thus, from marketing
perspective main goal is to give insight about the problem that customer faces and the
proposed offering. In similar attempt, McKinsey Company (2012b) provides the
conceptual relation between the social media and customer journey. More
analytically, the consumer decision journey is consisted by six steps (Consider,
Evaluate, Buy, Experience, Advocate, Bond). Within those steps, social media can be
used to influence the potential customer. The first process is the stage monitoring.
This is connected with brand monitoring (evaluation of the online content from
different sources: Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc.). The second stage is the responding.
This stage is related with Crisis management and customer service. As authors refers:
“By responding rapidly, transparently, and honestly, companies can positively
influence consumer sentiment and behavior”. The third stage is amplification. This
stage is correlated with referrals and recommendations. Also, at this stage the firm can
foster through communities the brand communication. The last stage is the leading
process which is connected with changes in sentiment or behavior. At this stage main
elements are: Customer input, targeted deals, product launches and brand content
awareness. Hence, the utilization of social media may be beneficial not only
marketing purposes but also for other functions such as: production, customer service.
Furthermore, McKinsey (2015) underlines: “We found that the impact of social media
on buying decision is greater than previously estimated and growing fast, but that it’s
influence varies significantly across product categories. They have estimated that
social recommendations induced an average of 26 percent of purchases across all
product categories”.
As we have mentioned before, the outcome of strategic decisions may be more fatal in
startups comparing with those on matured and established organizations. The odds of
success are small. Thus, before marketing tactics, segmentation of the market,
targeted campaigns, the main effort should primarily focus on the product
development. There are many theories for the product development. For example,
Vinther (2013) has focused on three methods: Linear perspective (traditional model),
the network process perspective and the Lean Methodology. To mention here briefly

49
that the first model represents the old model. The main concern is to do all things in a
right way and in every step should be the management approval. The second model
incorporates self-organized project teams, little formalization, overlapping
development stages, multi-learning environment. This approach is more dynamic and
differs significantly from the first method. The last method is derived from Eric Ries
with his famous book. According to the author the starting point is the vision. The
validated learning through a minimum viable product is the core strategy. The
existence of this product facilitates the startup to proceed in a build-measure-learn-
feedback loop. Through many iterations (loops) and corrections (pivoting) derives the
final product. McKinsey (2014) suggests to firms to set up digital windows shops to
test product ideas and customer interactions and collect rapid feedback without the
need for additional labor or inventory.
In similar way, Blank and Dorf (2012) elaborate the customer development model.
The last constitutes by four steps:
1. Customer Discovery: The founder’s vision turned into a series business
model hypothesis. Then a plan should develop to test customer attitude. Again
MVP plays central role. The mantra here is to get out the building and speak
with customers.
2. Customer Validation: Test whether the model is repeatable and scalable
(production of product, customer acquisition, channel activities). If the answer
is no turn on the previous step (pivoting). Pivoting is not failure (Blank S.
2012).
3. Customer Creation: The stage of execution-the marketing is important here.
It builds on the initial sales success.
4. Company Building: Set up the company. To put it simply is the “graduation”
day.
The above steps are illustrated on the following figure.

50
Figure 2-19 Customer Development Process
Source: Blank S. (2013)
Blank (2013) defends on the Lean methodology as a tool that increases the odds of
success for a start-up. According to the last the Lean approach is not applicable only
in startups organization. The utilization of this framework will have beneficial effect
for the entire spectrum of organizations. A similar roadmap is proposed from Ellis
(2012) and called it: “The Startup Pyramid”. Starting from the Product/Market Fit
continues at the stage of promise. The next level is the stage of Economics and finally
the last stage is the level of scale. At the first level-according his experience-he
proposes to go on the next level when a fraction of 40% of the total sample of the
customers (who test the respective product/service) answer that would be very
disappointed without this. When the rate is below this benchmark, indicates further
revisions of the product or change your plans. At the stage of Promise the consumer
realizes the strengths of the product (according the feedback you have gained from
previous-happy or “must have” users). Then try to adapt the product according to
those strengths (if it is appropriate). At stage of Economics elaborate your business
plan that allows you to profitable acquire the most users. At the last stage make a
repeatable acquisition process by using multiple channels and tracking to improve the
right metrics. The figure below depicts the proposed model.

51
Figure 2-20 The Startup Pyramid
Source: Ellis S. 2012. (p.17)
Concluding our review, we have tried to elaborate all the concepts and offer the
suitable framework that is related with the main topic of the thesis. The basic goal was
to get the reader on a right track for the next sections that are following.
Scale
Optimize
Economics
Promise
Product/Market Fit

52
3. The social media landscape for the startups
3.1 Strategy for Social Media
Social media strategy is the plan related with how a company will incorporate social
media into its business. It is crucial to have a comprehensive plan. This leads to
minimize the waste of financial resources. The framework provided by Carvill and
Taylor (2015), is illustrated on the next figure. Enabling to social media, it is an
activity that needs appropriate preparation and carefully tactics. Thus, the planning is
the starting point. The planning process includes all the stages related with the
preparation. First of all the startup should set its objectives. Thus, the key messages
that you want to convey are vital. Secondly, the organization should focus on the
target or the audience who want to address. Related issue with this step is to gather all
the respective information about them. To understand the key issue here is the
influencers. Hence, you should define the way to work for you. It is crucial here to
understand what others (rivals) are doing.
The next step is to answer the question how can effectively reach them. This step can
lead your thoughts about which medium you ought to use to get them. It is correlated
with the tactics. When you find them the next step is where you want to send them
(website, landing page, call center, etc.). Necessary point here is the way you can
incentivize the audience. Email lists, newsletter, pdf files, books, tips and tactics,
stories, expert advices, and news industry are some of the types that are common
utilized to build the first point of touch. In more general perspective many specialists
stay a lot on the content that a firm may provide to their audience. The content ought
to be compelling.
The following step is the Listening process. The latter is the important stage to see the
customer’s pains and to find a proper way to relief them. Certainly the source of
information is social media. Also, the media may be act as primary source of
innovation. Last but not least should refer that the startups should be ready to listen to
not only positive but also negative comments and find a way to handle them.

53
Source: Carvill Taylor (2015, p.12)
At the middle of map is the analysis stage. The startup should keep resources
(financial, time effort, human) to analyze their audience and the impact of its
participation. It is worth to mention here that the process is continuous, so the
resources should be enough to meet their objectives. The participation in conversation
(engagement) should be in proper way and the voice has to match with the specific
audience20
. Finally, all this process should be measured. Key performance indicators
(KPI’s) such as: Engagement rate, bounce rate, Click through rates, number of likes,
and re-tweets have to be utilized in order to know the startup its impact and give us
essential leads for modifications on the adopted strategy. At the next subsection we
dive in more details and we will propose a framework suitable for startups.
Related with the above concepts there are two basic strategies according to social
media. In more detailed, we recognize the passive and the active approach. The first is
connected with listening-in. The primary goal is to use social media as resources of
customer voice and market information. Hence, we can get what people say online
about your firm, your product and about your competitors (Konstantinides, 2009;
Wikipedia b). Customers’ experience, product reviews and comments may generate
all conditions for generating buzz. Suitable mediums for this process are web blogs
and forums. On the other hand, the active approach is putting the social media on
20
When we refer the issue of voice the term is related with the tune that conversation or
communication is building. It may have formal or informal with friendly style.
Plan Listen Analyse Engage Measure
Figure 3-1 Strategy for Social Media

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