MGMT 20027

Internet and Electronic Marketing

Assessment Item1

Written Assessment

Web Case Study:

Facebook and small business

Executive Summary
As social media has grown, the amount of virtual communities (VC) and consumer-generated contents have increased and established its power. This provided marketers so many opportunities and advantages to convey their marketing survey or to plan and implement marketing strategies. However, due to enormous amount of data and various possibilities to use this marketing tool, it has become great mystery for some businesses how they can use it wisely. Issues can be seen when some marketers cannot make appropriate decisions related to its purpose of marketing campaign or core values of the businesses.

Hence, This report examines how companies use this one of the most powerful social media, Facebook with a case study of an apparel company, Lorna Jane. This company has succussed operating their Facebook page since they commit to make efforts to engage with their customers rather than push to sell their products too much. This paper reveals their effective strategies such as:

• To appeal their cultural side or their company messages to invite consumers’ agreement and enhance its community. • To respond to customers action on Facebook on real time when needed so that they will not miss the opportunity to increase customers interactions. • To encourage consumers to be actively involved in their Virtual community (VC) so that they can offer them satisfaction.

Through these findings above, this report finally proposes three recommendations which can be applied to small businesses as follows.

(1) Marketers should encourage consumers to be actively involved in the community.
(2) Marketers should grow loyal ambassadors from the brand's Facebook devotees.
(3) Marketers