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Reimagining marketing strategy: driving the debate on grand challenges

Ko de ruyter, debbie isobel keeling, kirk plangger, matteo montecchi, maura l scott, darren w dahl.

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Accepted 2021 Jul 28; Issue date 2022.

This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.

A little less conversation…

A little more action, please. There is no record of Elvis Presley's views on responsible marketing, but his 1968 song, “A Little Less Conversation,” could have been written as a reflection on the global marketing community’s current progress in transforming our field. At the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 2015, the leaders of 193 nations adopted an ambitious set of 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) combatting poverty, inequality, and discrimination. Since then, it has been an imperative for organizations to reimagine their marketing strategy with an eye towards global impact. This is not only a matter of international policy; important shifts in stakeholder views on responsible marketing are also starting to emerge. For example, supply chain partners and end-customers across many industries are increasingly interested in end-of-life cycle initiatives, product-emission rates, product provenance, and transparency of production. These stakeholders are steadily demanding more environmentally-friendly packaging and lower carbon footprints. Further, stakeholders expect human dignity to be respected along this process. Consequently, long-term supply chain strategies are being redefined to acknowledge climate change and human rights issues in strategy formulation and execution.

In turn, marketing scholars have increasingly become concerned with responsible marketing, and although these issues have not always been the focus of our scholarship, it is evident from current work that they are now. There is a growing, rich conversation involving notions of responsibility within marketing in the current scholarship base. The past decade has witnessed an expansion of concepts and empirical evidence regarding the challenges of environmental sustainability, social responsibility, (mental) health and social care, wealth disparities and poverty, nationalism and its impact on global trade, identity loss, and a wide array of unintended consequences of digitization (Hensen et al., 2016 ). As an academic marketing community we are well-placed to lead on relevant change across the social, economic, environmental, and political landscapes; doing so will provide further opportunities for novel contributions to marketing strategy knowledge. Moreover, there is a wider call for societal and political action through purposeful engagement with the world’s grand challenges, thereby inspiring scholars and industry to work together as partners to reimagine the very definition of effective marketing strategy.

Key to successfully transforming marketing strategy is the creation of forward-looking intellectual frameworks, which can serve as springboards for future research that can inform creative and critical scholarship and practice. At this point, marketing scholars are primed to develop sustainable solutions by aligning the interests of principal stakeholders, not just shareholders, and by balancing longer-term and shorter-term benefits. The conversation about reimagining marketing strategy started with a fundamental and paradigmatic shift away from the discipline’s earlier focus on agency and transaction costs. A fruitful lens through which to continue this conversation is the emerging theorizing on stewardship (c.f., Mick et al., 2012 ), which can simultaneously be aligned with sustaining contributions to (or even reimagining) the bottom-line. Furthermore, and in the spirit of stewardship thinking, we recognize that the strength of extant marketing scholarship lies in its knowledge exchange and co-creation with stakeholders. This collaborative approach during the various stages of research design and execution can, and does, bring about meaningful change. It also involves consideration of the interplay between customers/consumers, firms, governmental policies, and society.

We begin by introducing the notion of stewardship as a basis for identifying three complementary principles to guide the continued transformation of marketing strategy (i.e., becoming responsible, respectful, and resilient), which we discuss and integrate with the 17 UN SDGs ( https://sdgs.un.org/goals ). Importantly, we argue that the application of these principles to the grand challenges faced by society today will be an effective way to frame marketing investigations and achieve substantive contributions that meet these challenges. Subsequently, we take stock of the current marketing scholarship through the lens of these three principles by applying them directly to the results of a bibliometric analysis of the marketing literature. We conclude by reflecting on the opportunities for academic practice in marketing with respect to meeting the grand challenges that the world faces.

Responsible, resilient, and respectful principles

Central to stewardship theory is recognizing the importance of balancing personal goals with goals of a larger entity (Hernandez, 2008 ). We feel that stewardship provides a robust basis for reimagining marketing strategy for three reasons. First, if individuals are to assume responsibility to support the greater good, they do so based on the development of an ideological and relational commitment. There is an opportunity for marketing scholars to both identify business practices that can promote collective solutions that benefit both society and the firm, and also quantify benefits to firms and customers of taking a broader collective focus in business practices. This may encourage managers and decision-makers to strive for equilibrium between personal and collective interests. For example, how a store manager values collective welfare (e.g., environmental responsibility) can inspire sales associates to engage in selling green products while managing their sales targets, or can shape how novel product attributes, such as recyclability, biodegradability, and ethical sourcing, can best be promoted. Second, the notion of stewardship implies that people may not fully realize the longer-term consequences of near-term actions. Marketing research on self-control and self-regulation can offer insights into the trade-offs between near-term actions and longer-term consequences of such decisions. This underlines marketing’s unique capacity to conceive solutions that are both resilient and sustainable to collective interests across time; this could involve intergenerational product positioning, and potentially influence environmentally-friendly behaviors across different stakeholders. Third, stewardship affords an equitable distribution of rewards, which indicates the integrity and respect of a shared value approach to contributors to economic and social activity. Marketing’s deep understanding of value can inform facilitation of shared value(s) between stakeholders in multiple domains. This is, perhaps, particularly the case in complex services, which are often characterized by complex power, knowledge, and experiential asymmetries (Keeling et al., 2021 ). Based on this foundation from the stewardship literature, we identify three principles to guide the transformation of marketing strategy in becoming increasingly responsible , resilient, and respectful .

The Responsible principle requires giving voice to all marketing stakeholders for a shared vision of what constitutes a well-balanced and sustainable offering. This principle can be advanced by being approached in a manner that is mutually beneficial to other long-term organizational goals, especially when these offerings challenge conventional thinking or center on short-term benefits. For example, marketing scholars can collaborate with organizations to understand how service firms can adapt to support refugees, and how novel approaches can also strengthen relationships with existing customers. This approach requires extending the focus of scholarly marketing research to include themes that are traditionally not considered to be ‘marketing’, as well as articulating social benefits alongside economic ones. For example, marketing scholarship can make a substantive contribution to public health policy by addressing such issues as how to combat stigmatization in mental health campaigns and how to heighten engagement in health communities among stigmatized patients. Conversely, it also involves taking a fresh look at traditional topics of academic inquiry and revisiting them with a responsibility perspective, in which balancing the needs of individuals and societal concerns are in fact key priorities of the organization. For example, the Responsible Research in Business and Management network encourages research that aligns with this principle ( www.rrbm.network ). Thus, marketing scholarship can help to advance UN SDGs, such as promoting good health and wellbeing (SDG 3), and responsible consumption and production (SDG 12).

The Resilient principle is based on continuous improvement through self and group reflections. Here, the focus is on ensuring and enculturating operational effectiveness and sustainability. This is achieved through establishing world class infrastructure and supply chains, and appropriately harnessing innovation and entrepreneurship. The Covid-19 crisis has exposed the vulnerability of international supply chains, as well as cash and information flows; firms need to develop resilience strategies to deal with this moving forward. Firms are currently revisiting their (ethical) sourcing and procuring (e.g., support of local suppliers), and manufacturing and contactless delivering systems (e.g., Amazon’s last mile concept) to fulfil the changing needs of channel partners and end-consumers. Furthermore, the pandemic-driven surge in peer-to-peer home delivery services (e.g., Instacart, UberEats) has introduced novel dilemmas for firms in terms of product safety, brand management and uniformity, and developing a sustainable workforce. Resilience could also be viewed in terms of marketing’s contribution to alleviating poverty and addressing potential issues associated with climate change, natural resource sustainability, and social instability.

The Respectful principle focuses on enabling different levels of aspiration within a fair society. Equality, diversity, and social inclusion underpin this principle to ensure that vulnerable, disadvantaged, and previously marginalized communities are empowered to make their own meaningful contributions in marketplaces. Mars (a manufacturer of confectionery, pet food, and other food products) revised its advertising code based on the principle of respect, pledging to facilitate casting that ‘ reflects the true diversity of the consumer base that we sell to, as determined by gender, race, sexuality, age, ability, class’ and to portray people as ‘empowered actors and full personalities, rather than using stereotypes ’ (Whiteside, 2021 ). There is a plethora of research themes stemming from the respectful principle, such as implicit gender bias in conversational AI-agents, and rebranding and advertising in times of increased social-political movements (e.g., MeToo, Black Lives Matter). Conversely, uncovering research themes from cases like The Wine Noire, an African American women-owned wine collective organized around an equitable and sustainable supply chain and logistic services for female winemakers and winemakers of color, might inform an agenda of research action.

Mapping the conversation

To further the discussion of the Responsible, Resilient, and Respectful principles, we illustrate current scholarly conversations using a bibliometric approach. This approach organizes the literature by identifying important contributors, contributions, and knowledge structures (Zupic & Čater, 2015 ). Informed by past JAMS editorials, four authors debated and selected keywords relevant to the three principles. 1 We used this curated set of keywords to identify and select articles published in the six leading marketing journals listed in the FT 50 journal ranking. 2 An initial search and article extraction performed on Scopus ( www.scopus.com ) resulted in a sample of 536 articles. We examined each article’s title, keywords, and abstract to determine its relevance to the three principles and retained a final sample of 254 articles.

Annual scientific production (in terms of publications) in our sample has increased substantially over the period considered (1973 to May 2021), exhibiting a compound annual growth of 6.12%. The first production peak is in 1997 with nine articles that broadly examine pro-environmental and pro-social marketing strategies, as well as the impact of these strategies on consumers’ perceptions of firms. The annual scholarly outputs have grown steadily every year since 2011, as evidenced by the 18 articles already published by May 2021. Among the six leading marketing journals we selected, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science dominates this literature domain (86 articles), followed by the Journal of Marketing (57 articles) and the Journal of Consumer Psychology (51 articles). We assessed authors’ influence by examining the total number of articles published and citations accumulated by each author. Julie Irwin (McCombs School, University of Texas) is the most prolific author in our sample with a total of seven articles, whereas CB Bhattacharya (Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburg) leads the citations ranking with 5012 total citations across five publications.

To identify the intellectual structure of this literature domain, we constructed a bibliometric network with VOS Viewer using bibliographic coupling (Fig.  1 3 ). Bibliographic coupling examines similarities between articles in a collection by considering the number of cited references that the articles share (Zupic & Čater, 2015 ). This analysis revealed seven clusters of articles representing distinctive lines of inquiry. We named these clusters to reflect the substantive focus of the scholarly contributions included therein, and then grouped them according to the principles (Table 1 ).

Bibliometric visualization of the literature according to the Responsible, Resilient, and Respectful principles

Responsible, Respectful, and Resilient principles literature clusters

Notes: a The table includes the top three articles in each cluster by normalized number of citations. The normalization takes into consideration that more recent articles had less time to accumulate citations. The formula is as follows: N o r m a l i z e d - c i t a t i o n s - f o r - a n - a r t i c l e = T o t a l - c i t a t i o n s - o f - a n - a r t i c l e A v e . - c i t a t i o n s - f o r - a l l - a r t i c l e s - p u b l i s h e d - i n - t h e - s a m e - y e a r - i n c l . - i n - s a m p l e   

b Key: JM = Journal of Marketing; JCP = Journal of Consumer Psychology; JCR = Journal of Consumer Research; JMR = Journal of Marketing Research; JAMS = Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science

The conceptual building blocks of the Responsible principle are reflected in Clusters A, B, and C. Articles in the largest cluster (A – Green consumption) examine factors leading to consumer preferences for environmentally-friendly and ethically sourced products, as well as associated persuasion strategies. Taking a broader perspective, contributions in the second largest cluster (B – Responses to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies) examine how consumers’ react to firms’ CSR associations. The articles within these clusters are closely connected with the research in Cluster C (Stakeholder relationships) that explores how CSR contributes to corporate reputation among external firm’s stakeholders. In short, despite the extensive conversations regarding corporate responsibility issues, further research needs to focus on how marketing approaches the CSR agenda to encourage even more sustainable behaviors that appeal to a wider range of stakeholders.

The Resilience principle is well represented by Clusters D and E. Cluster D’s (Sustainable marketing strategies) research revolves around green approaches that inoculate marketing from environmental challenges, including enviropreneurialism, corporate environmentalism, and organizational capabilities for resilience. Articles in Cluster E (CSR strategies and firm performance) examine strategic outcomes of CSR investments, including firm market value, firm idiosyncratic risk, and customers’ product and brand evaluations. In sum, the Resilience principle incorporates seminal conceptualizations of sustainability and CSR marketing strategies as drivers of firms’ competitive advantage. However, recent external challenges (e.g., the COVID pandemic) call for a re-examination of these ideas to re-imagine marketing capabilities that will increase the resilience of firms.

The Respectful principle is represented by Clusters F and G. Cluster F’s (Ethical consumption) research concentrates on ethical consumer choices in the context of environmental sustainability, cause-related initiatives, stakeholder collaborations, and other ethical initiatives. Articles in Cluster G (Ethical marketing strategies) includes contributions elucidating the relationship between marketing strategy and CSR initiatives to achieve organizational effectiveness and ethical managerial decision making. As depicted in Fig.  1 , research on the Respectful principle is somewhat more dispersed and often disparate from other conversations. However, research inspired by the Respectful principle has the potential for many substantive future contributions that will shape how organizations interact with diverse, vulnerable, and underrepresented stakeholder groups.

A little more impact please …

Current societal expectations set within the broader context of the UN SDGs, recognition of the individual value of research endeavors (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, DORA, https://sfdora.org/ ), and the move towards wide-scale Open Access of research, mean that the position, nature, and value of academic research in society is being reexamined. This is also the case for business research. For instance, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB, www.aacsb.edu/ ) has expanded its accreditation standards to include ‘engagement and social impact’, a change which is directly tied to the UN SDGs. In parallel, the traditional academic role is changing within Higher Education, as distinct career pathways develop that recognize differing, yet complementary, expertise in research, education, and enterprise. Together, these drivers offer opportunities for further innovation in the field of marketing, integral to which is a change in how marketing scholars and practitioners understand, discuss, and measure research ‘impact’ and how changes in our academic environment offer further channels for development.

With respect to research impact, marketing, as an applied discipline, has consistently examined the ‘fitness’ of research as defined by its relevance and robustness in today’s dynamic environment. The Responsible, Resilient, and Respectful principles that we outline can provide a guide toward articulating impactful contributions to knowledge and practice. As a discipline, marketing is well-placed to develop the opportunities within each of these principles with respect to marketing strategy. We offer Table 2 , which identifies example research questions that connect each of the stewardship principles to the UN SDGs, as an initial template in framing research impact for marketing strategy moving forward.

Examples of future marketing research questions at the intersection of stewardship principles and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs)

With respect to the changing academic environment, like many other disciplines, the marketing discipline’s application of impact metrics is in flux and will continue to change in the coming years. The current assessment of output impact based on output levels (typically published journal articles) and using mainly numerical indicators is being challenged (e.g., through institutions committing to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment). Instead, applying the Responsible principle, there is now a demand for broader (e.g., AltMetrics) and more qualitative evaluations of research impact. This demand will drive change in the types of output that articulate how marketing scholars undertake research that generates value for multiple stakeholders. In developing a cohesive narrative of the impact value of scholarly marketing research, there is an opportunity to broaden the definition of impact to include impactful outcomes , in addition to impactful outputs . For example, impactful outcomes due to changes in the marketing strategies that promote electric vehicle adoption will bring a corresponding positive change in the quality of life of consumers by improving air quality. Or consider the example of altering marketing strategies to combat youth obesity by restricting when and where sugary drinks and other junk food can be advertised. At the same time, marketing scholars can also examine the thresholds and timeframes for reasonable expectations about the impact that marketing strategy can achieve.

Furthermore, researchers often navigate the tension between generating research that addresses the need for academic relevance and robustness alongside the need for societal relevance and robustness. Academic relevance (in how contributions and implications are framed) and robustness (in how methodological approaches are framed) are familiar building blocks in the literature. However, due to a broad scope, the marketing discipline has less clarity and consensus on societal relevance and societal robustness . Societal relevance directly asks: ‘What societal challenge does this research contribute to?’ Societal robustness demands not only value for money, but also, more fundamentally, research accessibility and usefulness. An impact framework that integrates outcomes valued by multiple stakeholders can help guide the marketing discipline’s pursuit of high impact research with a societal focus. Such a framework can readily be devised in directly linking the reimagining of marketing strategy to the UN SDGs (such as in Table 2 ) to enable researchers to articulate the value of their research in terms of mutual relevance, robustness and value.

The Resilient principle calls into question the longevity of what marketing research and practice offers, and how this contributes to sustainable solutions for society. The nature of published content undoubtedly needs to be more diversified to effectively meet the demands of differing audiences. Journal articles are an important means of mobilizing knowledge in academia and for other ‘users’ of research who are able to access such sources. However, journal articles are one part of a wider portfolio of content and services that could fulfil the different needs and purposes of society. Many universities and academics are already diversifying their research portfolios, both in terms of the content produced and services offered (e.g., professional development opportunities directly extending from research), alongside the approaches to communication of outcomes (e.g., podcasts, open access toolkits). This trend will help develop sustainable solutions, especially with respect to the UN SDGs. For example, creating health communications in collaboration with the intended audiences can result in tools that are readily accepted by those audiences, in terms of language, format and content, to bring about the intended impact.

The existing tension is often a simple one: How might we best develop and share proven methods or tools to embed them in practice, and in such a way that this effort is also recognized as a valuable scholarly activity? Companies and communities want to work with academics, but the outcomes they value are not always easily aligned with the outputs valued by academia. This is by no means a new challenge, but the conversation about impact potentially changes the perspective of said challenge. One promising development, in our view, to meet this challenge is the current change in emergent specialist career pathways. These pathways will broaden the way in which academic work is conducted and delivered, thus, impacting traditional research portfolios (i.e., in terms of outputs and outcomes). That is, marketing academics specializing in education are updating pedagogical approaches for future academics and practitioners to aid marketing strategy in coping with global challenges. Those specializing in knowledge exchange are innovating how knowledge about developing marketing strategy is mobilized in multiple formats to reach wider and more diverse user groups. Finally, those specializing in relevant enterprise are driving practical changes in marketing strategy through the commercialization of academic research into valuable products to society. The emergence of these new pathways provides opportunities to not only better address the questions laid out in Table 2 , but also presents exciting opportunities for academics to further develop new capabilities, for example, their entrepreneurial skills, that complement existing academic skillsets.

More fundamentally, the move towards embracing representatives of a broader society as both co-creators and drivers of the research process is completely changing the conversation between marketing and society. The Respectful principle assumes co-creation. A distinctive strength that marketing strategy scholars bring to the literature is their experience and expertise in working with stakeholders in the field (e.g., consumer groups, nonprofits, companies, governmental agencies). Thus, marketing strategy can leverage these insights to support the development of rigorous research focused on pursuing the grand challenges that are more directly linked to those who are most impacted. The concept here is that outputs and outcomes are not delivered to ‘users’, but rather co-created with stakeholders in society. There are multiple emerging co-creation processes across disciplines and sectors. In healthcare, for example, the principle of respect is embedded within the process of co-production (e.g., https://www.nihr.ac.uk/documents/co-production-in-action-number-three/26382 ). Engaging non-academic partners as co-creators means being respectful of their lived experiences and how it shapes their active creator roles, as well as rebalancing power structures to allow multiple voices to be heard.

At the same time, it is important to respectfully acknowledge and accommodate individual or group heterogeneity in terms of motivation, knowledge and ability to co-create. New approaches (that are to be celebrated in our estimation) involve training non-academic co-creators in research methods. Conversely, in the future, non-academic co-creators can also train academics in this manner. As marketing scholars are aware, the integration of resources in the form of knowledge, skills, experience, enterprise, and networks creates connections and builds awareness between stakeholders to heighten impact. This connectivity is especially valuable where stakeholders have not had an opportunity to meet, discuss, and share ideas previously. Using the UN SDGs, it is possible to identify situations in which stakeholder groups have not had this opportunity, especially groups who are perceived as more vulnerable. An additional benefit of building co-creation opportunities with vulnerable groups is increased transparency and trust between the academic and wider communities. Conflicts can emerge during such collaboration, especially where there has been little previous interaction, but facilitating resolution of this conflict is impactful in its own right. Marketing, with its keen understanding of stakeholder perspectives, can empower groups of stakeholders to move away from normalized or entrenched expert knowledge and solutions. In doing so, groups of co-creation partners can truly deliver outcomes that are very much ‘fit for purpose’ (e.g., in relation to innovative solutions to address aspects of the UN SDGs). We see marketing as a discipline that is well-positioned to take the lead in developing and fostering diverse multi-disciplinary groups to bring about this shift.

Embracing the broader changes in academia, the outcome we seek here is a renewed call for the facilitation of better marketing strategy that will boldly address society’s grand challenges, and contribute to tackling the UN SDGs through responsible, resilient, and respectful research collaborations with stakeholders.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Our selection of keywords included: societal, corporate social responsibility, social responsibility, CSR, sustainability, sustainable, ethics, ethical, cause-related, environmental, stewardship, vulnerable, disenfranchise, equality, diversity, inclusivity, morality, empowerment . This set of keywords allowed us to extract a comprehensive literature sample that delineates the core themes in marketing strategy relevant to the three principles. We acknowledge that this set of keywords is not comprehensively conclusive. Within the context of this editorial, our analysis is intended as a conversation and action starter.

Journals included: Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Marketing Science .

To reduce visual complexity and aid interpretation, we set the minimum number of article citations to five and excluded articles without links in the collection. This resulted in a total of 196 articles that were visualized in the figure by normalized number of citations.

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Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Market Research: A How-To Guide and Template

Discover the different types of market research, how to conduct your own market research, and use a free template to help you along the way.

MARKET RESEARCH KIT

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What is market research?

Primary vs. secondary research, types of market research, how to do market research, market research report template, market research examples.

Market research is the process of gathering information about your target market and customers to verify the success of a new product, help your team iterate on an existing product, or understand brand perception to ensure your team is effectively communicating your company's value effectively.

Market research can answer various questions about the state of an industry. But if you ask me, it's hardly a crystal ball that marketers can rely on for insights on their customers.

Market researchers investigate several areas of the market, and it can take weeks or even months to paint an accurate picture of the business landscape.

However, researching just one of those areas can make you more intuitive to who your buyers are and how to deliver value that no other business is offering them right now.

How? Consider these two things:

• Your competitors also have experienced individuals in the industry and a customer base. It‘s very possible that your immediate resources are, in many ways, equal to those of your competition’s immediate resources. Seeking a larger sample size for answers can provide a better edge.
• Your customers don't represent the attitudes of an entire market. They represent the attitudes of the part of the market that is already drawn to your brand.

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Why do market research?

Market research allows you to meet your buyer where they are.

As our world becomes louder and demands more of our attention, this proves invaluable.

By understanding your buyer's problems, pain points, and desired solutions, you can aptly craft your product or service to naturally appeal to them.

Market research also provides insight into the following:

• Where your target audience and current customers conduct their product or service research
• Which of your competitors your target audience looks to for information, options, or purchases
• What's trending in your industry and in the eyes of your buyer
• Who makes up your market and what their challenges are
• What influences purchases and conversions among your target audience
• Consumer attitudes about a particular topic, pain, product, or brand
• Whether there‘s demand for the business initiatives you’re investing in
• Unaddressed or underserved customer needs that can be flipped into selling opportunity
• Attitudes about pricing for a particular product or service

Ultimately, market research allows you to get information from a larger sample size of your target audience, eliminating bias and assumptions so that you can get to the heart of consumer attitudes.

As a result, you can make better business decisions.

To give you an idea of how extensive market research can get , consider that it can either be qualitative or quantitative in nature — depending on the studies you conduct and what you're trying to learn about your industry.

Qualitative research is concerned with public opinion, and explores how the market feels about the products currently available in that market.

Quantitative research is concerned with data, and looks for relevant trends in the information that's gathered from public records.

That said, there are two main types of market research that your business can conduct to collect actionable information on your products: primary research and secondary research.

Primary Research

Primary research is the pursuit of first-hand information about your market and the customers within your market.

It's useful when segmenting your market and establishing your buyer personas.

Primary market research tends to fall into one of two buckets:

• Exploratory Primary Research: This kind of primary market research normally takes place as a first step — before any specific research has been performed — and may involve open-ended interviews or surveys with small numbers of people.
• Specific Primary Research: This type of research often follows exploratory research. In specific research, you take a smaller or more precise segment of your audience and ask questions aimed at solving a suspected problem.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is all the data and public records you have at your disposal to draw conclusions from (e.g. trend reports, market statistics, industry content, and sales data you already have on your business).

Secondary research is particularly useful for analyzing your competitors . The main buckets your secondary market research will fall into include:

• Public Sources: These sources are your first and most-accessible layer of material when conducting secondary market research. They're often free to find and review — like government statistics (e.g., from the U.S. Census Bureau ).
• Commercial Sources: These sources often come in the form of pay-to-access market reports, consisting of industry insight compiled by a research agency like Pew , Gartner , or Forrester .
• Internal Sources: This is the market data your organization already has like average revenue per sale, customer retention rates, and other historical data that can help you draw conclusions on buyer needs.
• Focus Groups
• Product/ Service Use Research
• Observation-Based Research
• Buyer Persona Research
• Market Segmentation Research
• Pricing Research
• Competitive Analysis Research
• Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Research
• Brand Awareness Research
• Campaign Research

1. Interviews

Interviews allow for face-to-face discussions so you can allow for a natural flow of conversation. Your interviewees can answer questions about themselves to help you design your buyer personas and shape your entire marketing strategy.

2. Focus Groups

Focus groups provide you with a handful of carefully-selected people that can test out your product and provide feedback. This type of market research can give you ideas for product differentiation.

3. Product/Service Use Research

Product or service use research offers insight into how and why your audience uses your product or service. This type of market research also gives you an idea of the product or service's usability for your target audience.

4. Observation-Based Research

Observation-based research allows you to sit back and watch the ways in which your target audience members go about using your product or service, what works well in terms of UX , and which aspects of it could be improved.

5. Buyer Persona Research

Buyer persona research gives you a realistic look at who makes up your target audience, what their challenges are, why they want your product or service, and what they need from your business or brand.

6. Market Segmentation Research

Market segmentation research allows you to categorize your target audience into different groups (or segments) based on specific and defining characteristics. This way, you can determine effective ways to meet their needs.

7. Pricing Research

Pricing research helps you define your pricing strategy . It gives you an idea of what similar products or services in your market sell for and what your target audience is willing to pay.

8. Competitive Analysis

Competitive analyses give you a deep understanding of the competition in your market and industry. You can learn about what's doing well in your industry and how you can separate yourself from the competition .

9. Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Research

Customer satisfaction and loyalty research gives you a look into how you can get current customers to return for more business and what will motivate them to do so (e.g., loyalty programs , rewards, remarkable customer service).

10. Brand Awareness Research

Brand awareness research tells you what your target audience knows about and recognizes from your brand. It tells you about the associations people make when they think about your business.

11. Campaign Research

Campaign research entails looking into your past campaigns and analyzing their success among your target audience and current customers. The goal is to use these learnings to inform future campaigns.

• Define your buyer persona.
• Identify a persona group to engage.
• Prepare research questions for your market research participants.
• List your primary competitors.
• Summarize your findings.

1. Define your buyer persona.

You have to understand who your customers are and how customers in your industry make buying decisions.

This is where your buyer personas come in handy. Buyer personas — sometimes referred to as marketing personas — are fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers.

Use a free tool to create a buyer persona that your entire company can use to market, sell, and serve better.

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Track and analyze your competitors with these ten free planning templates.

• SWOT Analysis
• Battle Cards
• Feature Comparison
• Strategic Overview

Identifying Content Competitors

Search engines are your best friends in this area of secondary market research.

To find the online publications with which you compete, take the overarching industry term you identified in the section above, and come up with a handful of more specific industry terms your company identifies with.

A catering business, for example, might generally be a “food service” company, but also consider itself a vendor in “event catering,” “cake catering,” or “baked goods.” Once you have this list, do the following:

• Google it. Don't underestimate the value in seeing which websites come up when you run a search on Google for the industry terms that describe your company. You might find a mix of product developers, blogs, magazines, and more.
• Compare your search results against your buyer persona. If the content the website publishes seems like the stuff your buyer persona would want to see, it's a potential competitor, and should be added to your list of competitors.

5. Summarize your findings.

Feeling overwhelmed by the notes you took? We suggest looking for common themes that will help you tell a story and create a list of action items.

To make the process easier, try using your favorite presentation software to make a report, as it will make it easy to add in quotes, diagrams, or call clips.

Feel free to add your own flair, but the following outline should help you craft a clear summary:

• Background: Your goals and why you conducted this study.
• Participants: Who you talked to. A table works well so you can break groups down by persona and customer/prospect.
• Executive Summary : What were the most interesting things you learned? What do you plan to do about it?
• Awareness: Describe the common triggers that lead someone to enter into an evaluation. (Quotes can be very powerful.)
• Consideration: Provide the main themes you uncovered, as well as the detailed sources buyers use when conducting their evaluation.
• Decision: Paint the picture of how a decision is really made by including the people at the center of influence and any product features or information that can make or break a deal.
• Action Plan: Your analysis probably uncovered a few campaigns you can run to get your brand in front of buyers earlier and/or more effectively. Provide your list of priorities, a timeline, and the impact it will have on your business.

Within a market research kit, there are a number of critical pieces of information for your business‘s success. Let’s take a look at these elements.

Pro Tip: Upon downloading HubSpot's free Market Research Kit , you'll receive editable templates for each of the given parts of the kit, instructions on how to use the kit, and a mock presentation that you can edit and customize.

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What is a Competitive Analysis — and How Do You Conduct One?

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28 Tools & Resources for Conducting Market Research

TAM, SAM & SOM: What Do They Mean & How Do You Calculate Them?

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Social media marketing strategy: definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda

• Conceptual/Theoretical Paper
• Open access
• Published: 10 June 2020
• Volume 49 , pages 51–70, ( 2021 )

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• Fangfang Li   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4883-1730 1 ,
• Jorma Larimo 1 &
• Leonidas C. Leonidou 2  

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Although social media use is gaining increasing importance as a component of firms’ portfolio of strategies, scant research has systematically consolidated and extended knowledge on social media marketing strategies (SMMSs). To fill this research gap, we first define SMMS, using social media and marketing strategy dimensions. This is followed by a conceptualization of the developmental process of SMMSs, which comprises four major components, namely drivers, inputs, throughputs, and outputs. Next, we propose a taxonomy that classifies SMMSs into four types according to their strategic maturity level: social commerce strategy, social content strategy, social monitoring strategy, and social CRM strategy. We subsequently validate this taxonomy of SMMSs using information derived from prior empirical studies, as well with data collected from in-depth interviews and a quantitive survey among social media marketing managers. Finally, we suggest fruitful directions for future research based on input received from scholars specializing in the field.

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Introduction

The past decade has witnessed the development of complex, multifarious, and intensified interactions between firms and their customers through social media usage. On the one hand, firms are taking advantage of social media platforms to expand geographic reach to buyers (Gao et al. 2018 ), bolster brand evaluations (Naylor et al. 2012 ), and build closer connections with customers (Rapp et al. 2013 ). On the other hand, customers are increasingly empowered by social media and taking control of the marketing communication process, and they are becoming creators, collaborators, and commentators of messages (Hamilton et al. 2016 ). As the role of social media has gradually evolved from a single marketing tool to that of a marketing intelligence source (in which firms can observe, analyze, and predict customer behaviors), it has become increasingly imperative for marketers to strategically use and leverage social media to achieve competitive advantage and superior performance (Lamberton and Stephen 2016 ).

Despite widespread understanding among marketers of the need to engage customers on social media platforms, relatively few firms have properly strategized their social media appearance and involvement (Choi and Thoeni 2016 ; Griffiths and Mclean 2015 ). Rather, for most companies, the ongoing challenge is not to initiate social media campaigns, but to combine social media with their marketing strategy to engage customers in order to build valuable and long-term relationships with them (Lamberton and Stephen 2016 ; Schultz and Peltier 2013 ). However, despite the vast opportunities social media offer to companies, there is no clear definition or comprehensive framework to guide the integration of social media with marketing strategies, to gain a rigorous understanding of the nature and role of social media marketing strategies (SMMSs) (Effing and Spil 2016 ).

Although some reviews focusing on the social media phenomenon are available (e.g., Lamberton and Stephen 2016 ; Salo 2017 ), to date, an integrative evaluation effort focusing on the strategic marketing perspective of social media is missing. This is partly because the social media literature largely derives elements from widely disparate fields, such as marketing, management, consumer psychology, and computer science (Aral et al. 2013 ). Moreover, research on SMMSs mainly covers very specific, isolated, and scattered aspects, which creates confusion and limits understanding of the subject (Lamberton and Stephen 2016 ). Furthermore, research deals only tangentially with a conceptualization, operationalization, and categorization of SMMSs, which limits theory advancement and practice development (Tafesse and Wien 2018 ).

To address these problems, and also to respond to repeated pleas from scholars in the field (e.g., Aral et al. 2013 ; Guesalaga 2016 ; Moorman and Day 2016 ; Schultz and Peltier 2013 to identify appropriate strategies to leverage social media in today’s changing marketing landscape, we aim to systematically consolidate and extend the knowledge accumulated from previous research on SMMSs. Specifically, our objectives are fivefold: (1) to clearly define SMMS by blending issues derived from the social media and marketing strategy literature streams; (2) to conceptualize the process of developing SMMSs and provide a theoretical understanding of its constituent parts; (3) to provide a taxonomy of SMMSs according to their level of strategic maturity; (4) to validate the practical value of this taxonomy using information derived from previous empirical studies, as well as from primary data collection among social media marketing managers; and (5) to develop an agenda for promising areas of future research on the subject.

Our study makes three major contributions to the social media marketing literature. First, it offers a definition and a conceptualization of SMMS that help alleviate definitional deficiency and increase conceptual clarity on the subject. By focusing on the role of social connectedness and interactions in resource integration, we stress the importance of transforming social media interactions and networks into marketing resources to help achieve specific strategic goals for the firm. In this regard, we provide theoretical justification of social media from a strategic marketing perspective. Second, using customer engagement as an overarching theory, we develop a model conceptualizing the SMMS developmental process. Through an analysis of each component of this process, we emphasize the role of insights from both firms and customers to better understand the dynamics of SMMS formulation. We also suggest certain theories to specifically explain the particular role played by each of these components in developing sound SMMSs. Third, we propose a taxonomy of SMMSs based on their level of strategic maturity that can serve as the basis for developing specific marketing strategy concepts and measurement scales within a social media context. We also expect this taxonomy to provide social media marketing practitioners with fruitful insights on why to select and how to use a particular SMMS in order to achieve superior marketing results.

Defining SMMS

Although researchers have often used the term “social media marketing strategy” in their studies (e.g., Choi and Thoeni 2016 ; Kumar et al. 2013 ; Zhang et al. 2017 ), they have yet to propose a clear definition. Despite the introduction of several close terms in the past, including “social media strategy” (Aral et al. 2013 ; Effing and Spil 2016 ), “online marketing strategy” (Micu et al. 2017 ), and “strategic social media marketing” (Felix et al. 2017 ), these either fail to take into consideration the different functions/features of social media or neglect key marketing strategy issues. What is therefore required is an all-encompassing definition of SMMS that will capture two fundamental elements—namely, social media and marketing strategy. Table 1 draws a comparison between social media and marketing strategy on five dimensions (i.e., core, orientation, resource, purpose, and premise) and presents the resulting profile of SMMS.

• Social media

In a marketing context, social media are considered platforms on which people build networks and share information and/or sentiments (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010 ). With their distinctive nature of being “dynamic, interconnected, egalitarian, and interactive organisms” (Peters et al. 2013 , p. 281), social media have generated three fundamental shifts in the marketplace. First, social media enable firms and customers to connect in ways that were not possible in the past. Such connectedness is empowered by various platforms, such as social networking sites (e.g., Facebook), microblogging sites (e.g., Twitter), and content communities (e.g., YouTube), that allow social networks to build from shared interests and values (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010 ). In this regard, “social connectedness” has also been termed as “social ties” (e.g., Muller and Peres 2019 ; Quinton and Wilson 2016 ), and the strength and span of these ties determine whether they are strong or weak (Granovetter 1973 ). Prior studies have shown that tie strength is an important determinant of customer referral behaviors (e.g., Verlegh et al. 2013 ).

Second, social media have transformed the way firms and customers interact and influence each other. Social interaction involves “actions,” whether through communications or passive observations, that influence others’ choices and consumption behaviors (Chen et al. 2011 ). Nair et al. ( 2010 ) labeled such social interactions as “word-of-mouth (WOM) effect” or “contagion effects.” Muller and Peres ( 2019 ) argue that social interactions rely strongly on the social network structure and provide firms with measurable value (also referred to as “social equity”). In social media studies, researchers have long recognized the importance of social influence in affecting consumer decisions, and recent studies have shown that people’s connection patterns and the strength of social ties can signify the intensity of social interactions (e.g., Aral and Walker 2014 ; Katona et al. 2011 ).

Third, the proliferation of social media data has made it increasingly possible for companies to better manage customer relationships and enhance decision making in business (Libai et al. 2010 ). Social media data, together with other digital data, are widely characterized by the 3Vs (i.e., volume, variety, and velocity), which refer to the vast quantity of data, various sources of data, and expansive real-time data (Alharthi et al. 2017 ). A huge amount of social media data derived from different venues (e.g., social networks, blogs, forums) and in various formats (e.g., text, video, image) can now be easily extracted and usefully exploited with the aid of modern information technologies (Moe and Schweidel 2017 ). Thus, social media data can serve as an important source of customer analysis, market research, and crowdsourcing of new ideas, while capturing and creating value through social media data represents the development of a new strategic resource that can improve marketing outcomes (Gnizy 2019 ).

• Marketing strategy

According to Varadarajan ( 2010 ), a marketing strategy consists of an integrated set of decisions that helps the firm make critical choices regarding marketing activities in selected markets and segments, with the aim to create, communicate, and deliver value to customers in exchange for accomplishing its specific financial, market, and other objectives. According to the resource-based view of the firm (Barney 1991 ), organizational resources (e.g., financial, human, physical, informational, relational) help firms enhance their marketing strategies, achieve sustainable competitive advantage, and gain better performance. These resources can be either tangible or intangible and can be transformed into higher-order resources (i.e., competencies and capabilities), enabling the delivery of superior value to targeted buyers (Hunt and Morgan 1995 ; Teece and Pisano 1994 ).

Different marketing strategies can be arranged on a continuum, on which transaction marketing strategy and relationship marketing strategy represent its two ends, while in between are various mixed marketing strategies (Grönroos 1991 ). Webster ( 1992 ) notes that long-standing customer relationships should be at the core of marketing strategy, because customer interaction and engagement can be developed into valuable relational resources (Hunt et al. 2006 ). Morgan and Hunt ( 1999 ) also claim that firms capitalizing on long-term and trustworthy customer relationships can help design value-enhancing marketing strategies that will subsequently generate competitive advantages and lead to superior performance.

From a strategic marketing perspective, social media interaction entails a process that allows not only firms, but also customers to exchange resources. For example, Hollebeek et al. ( 2019 ) assert that customers can devote operant (e.g., knowledge) and operand (e.g., equipment) resources while interacting with firms. Importantly, Gummesson and Mele ( 2010 ) argue that interactions occur not simply in dyads, but also between multiple actors within a network, underscoring the critical role of network interaction in resource integration. Notably, customer-to-customer interactions are also essential, especially for the higher level of engagement behaviors (Fehrer et al. 2018 ).

Thus, social media interconnectedness and interactions (i.e., between firm–customer and between customer–customer) can be considered strategic resources, which can be further converted into marketing capabilities (Morgan and Hunt 1999 ). A case in point is social customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities, in which the firm cultivates the competency to use information generated from social media interactions to identify and develop loyal customers (Trainor et al. 2014 ). With the expanding role of social media from a single communication tool to one of gaining customer and market knowledge, marketers can strategically develop distinct resources from social media based on extant organizational resources and capabilities.

Drawing on the previous argumentation, we define SMMS as an organization’s integrated pattern of activities that, based on a careful assessment of customers’ motivations for brand-related social media use and the undertaking of deliberate engagement initiatives, transform social media connectedness (networks) and interactions (influences) into valuable strategic means to achieve desirable marketing outcomes. This definition is parsimonious because it captures the uniqueness of the social media phenomenon, takes into consideration the fundamental premises of marketing strategy, and clearly defines the scope of activities pertaining to SMMS.

Although the underlying roots of traditional marketing strategy and SMMS are similar, the two strategies have three distinctive differences: (1) as opposed to the traditional approach, which pays peripheral attention to the heterogeneity of motivations driving customer engagement, SMMS emphasizes that social media users must be motivated on intellectual, social, cultural, or other grounds to engage with firms (and perhaps more importantly with other customers) (Peters et al. 2013 ; Venkatesan 2017 ); (2) the consequences of SMMS are jointly decided by the firm and its customers (rather than by individual actors’ behaviors), and it is only when the firm and its customers interact and build relationships that social media technological platforms become real resource integrators (Singaraju et al. 2016 ; Stewart and Pavlou 2002 ); and (3) while customer value in traditional marketing strategies is narrowly defined to solely capture purchase behavior through customer lifetime value, in the case of SMMS, this value is expressed through customer engagement, comprising both direct (e.g., customer purchases) and indirect (e.g., product referrals to other customers) contributions to the value of the firm (Kumar and Pansari 2016 ; Venkatesan 2017 ).

Conceptualizing the process of developing SMMSs

The conceptualization of the process of developing SMMSs is anchored on customer engagement theory, which posits that firms need to take deliberate initiatives to motivate and empower customers to maximize their engagement value and yield superior marketing results (Harmeling et al. 2017 ). Kumar et al. ( 2010 ) distinguish between four different dimensions of customer engagement value, namely customer lifetime value, customer referral value, customer influence value, and customer knowledge value. This metric has provided a new approach for customer valuation, which can help marketers to make more effective and efficient strategic decisions that enable long-term value contributions to customers. In a social media context, this customer engagement value enables firms to capitalize on crucial customer resources (i.e., network assets, persuasion capital, knowledge stores, and creativity), of which the leverage can provide firms with a sustainable competitive advantage (Harmeling et al. 2017 ).

Customer engagement theory highlights the importance of understanding customer motivations as a prerequisite for the firm to develop effective SMMSs, because heterogeneous customer motivations resulting from different attitudes and attachments can influence their social media behaviors and inevitably SMMS outcomes (Venkatesan 2017 ). It also stresses the role of inputs from both firm (i.e., social media engagement initiatives) and customers (i.e., social media behaviors), as well as the importance of different degrees of interactivity and interconnectedness in yielding sound marketing outcomes (Harmeling et al. 2017 ). Pansari and Kumar et al. ( 2017 ) argue that firms can benefit from such customer engagement in both tangible (e.g., higher revenues, market share, profits) and intangible (e.g., feedbacks or new ideas that help to product/service development) ways.

Based on consumer engagement theory, we therefore conceive the process of developing an SMMS as consisting of four interlocking parts: (1) drivers , that is, the firm’s social media marketing objectives and the customers’ social media use motivations; (2) inputs , that is, the firm’s social media engagement initiatives and the customers’ social media behaviors; (3) throughputs , that is, the way the firm connects and interacts with customers to exchange resources and satisfy needs; and (4) outputs , that is, the resulting customer engagement outcome. Figure 1 shows this developmental process of SMMS, while Table 2 indicates the specific theoretical underpinnings of each part comprising this process.

A conceptualization of the process of developing social media marketing strategies

Firms’ social media marketing objectives

Though operating in a similar context, SMMSs may differ depending on the firm’s strategic objectives (Varadarajan 2010 ). According to resource dependence theory (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978 ), the firm’s social media marketing objectives can be justified by the need to acquire external resources (which do not exist internally) that will help it accommodate the challenges of environmental contingencies. In a social media context, customers can serve as providers of resources, which can take several forms (Harmeling et al. 2017 ). Felix et al. ( 2017 ) distinguish between proactive and reactive social media marketing objectives, which can differ by the type of market targeted (e.g., B2B vs. B2C) and firm size. While for proactive objectives, firms use social media to increase brand awareness, generate online traffic, and stimulate sales, in the case of reactive objectives, the emphasis is on monitoring and analyzing customer activities.

Customers’ social media use motivations

Social media use motivations refer to various incentives that drive people’s selection and use of specific social media (Muntinga et al. 2011 ). The existence of these motivations is theoretically grounded on uses and gratifications theory (Katz et al. 1973 ), which maintains that consumers are actively and selectively involved in media usage to gratify their psychological and social needs. In a social media context, motivations can range from utilitarian and hedonic purposes (e.g., incentives, entertainment) to relational reasons (e.g., identification, brand connection) (Rohm et al. 2013 ). Muntinga et al. ( 2011 ) also categorize consumer–brand social media interactions as motivated primarily by entertainment, information, remuneration, personal identity, social interaction, and empowerment.

Firms’ social media engagement initiatives

Firms take initiatives to motivate and engage customers so that they can make voluntary contributions in return (Harmeling et al. 2017 ; Pansari and Kumar 2017 ). These firm actions can also be theoretically explained by resource dependence theory (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978 ), which argues that firms need to take initiatives to encourage customers to interact with them, to generate useful autonomous contributions that will alleviate resource shortages. Harmeling et al. ( 2017 ) identify two primary forms of a firm’s marketing initiatives to engage customers using social media: task-based and experiential. While task-based engagement initiatives encourage customer engagement behaviors with structured tasks (e.g., writing a review) and usually take place in the early stages of the firm’s social media marketing efforts, experiential engagement initiatives employ experiential events (e.g., multisensory events) to intrinsically motivate customer engagement and foster emotional attachment. Thus, firm engagement initiatives can be viewed as a continuum, where at one end, the firm uses monetary rewards to engage customers and, at the other end, the firm proactively works to deliver effective experiential incentives to motivate customer engagement.

Customers’ social media behaviors

The use of social media by customers yields different behavioral manifestations, ranging from passive (e.g., observing) to active (e.g., co-creation) (Maslowska et al. 2016 ). These customer social media behaviors can be either positive (e.g., sharing) or negative (e.g., create negative content), depending on customers’ attitudes and information processes during interactions (Dolan et al. 2016 ). Harmeling et al. ( 2017 ) characterize customers with positive behaviors as “pseudo marketers” because they contribute to firms’ marketing functions using their own resources, while those with negative behaviors may turn firm-created “hashtags” into “bashtags.” Drawing on uses and gratifications theory, Muntinga et al. ( 2011 ) also categorize customers’ brand-related behaviors in social media into three groups: consuming (e.g., reading a brand’s posts), contributing (e.g., rating products), and creating (e.g., publishing brand-related content).

Throughputs

Within the context of social media, both social connectedness and social interaction can be explained by social exchange theory, which proposes that social interactions are exchanges through which two parties acquire benefits (Blau 1964 ). Based on this theory, such a social exchange involves a sequence of interactions between firms and customers that are usually interdependent and contingent on others’ actions, with the goal to generate sound relationships (Cropanzano and Mitchell 2005 ). Thus, successful exchanges can advance interpersonal connections (referred to as social exchange relationships) with beneficial effects for the interacting parties (Cropanzano and Mitchell 2005 ).

Social connectedness

Social connectedness indicates the number of ties an individual has on social networks (Goldenberg et al. 2009 ), while Kumar et al. ( 2010 ) define connectedness with additional dimensions, including the number of connections, the strength of the connections, and the location in the network. Social media research suggests that connectedness has a significant impact on social influence. For example, Hinz et al. ( 2011 ) show that the use of “hubs” (highly connected people) in viral marketing campaigns can be eight times more successful than strategies using less connected people. Verlegh et al. ( 2013 ) also examine the impact of tie strength on making referrals in social media and confirm that people tend to interpret ambiguous information received from strong ties positively, but negatively when this information comes from weak ties.

Social interaction

Social interaction within a social media context is quite complex, as it represents multidirectional and interconnected information flows, rather than a pure firm monologue (Hennig-Thurau et al. 2013 ). This is because, on the one hand, social media have empowered customers to be equal actors in firm–customer interactions through sharing, gaming, expressing, and networking, while, on the other hand, customer–customer interactions have emerged as a growing market force, as customers can influence each other with regard to their attitudinal or behavioral changes (Peters et al. 2013 ). Chen et al. ( 2011 ) identify two types of social interactions—namely, opinion- or preference-based interactions (e.g., WOM) and action- or behavior-based interactions (e.g., observational learning)—with each requiring different strategic actions to be taken. Chahine and Malhotra ( 2018 ) also show that two-way (multiway) interaction strategies that allow reciprocity result in higher market reactions and more positive relationships.

• Customer engagement

The outputs are expressed in terms of customer engagement, which reflects the outcome of firm–customer (as well as customer–customer) connectedness and interaction in social media (Harmeling et al. 2017 ). Footnote 1 It is essentially a reflection of “the intensity of an individual’s participation in and connection with an organization’s offerings and/or organizational activities, which either the customer or the firm initiates” (Vivek et al. 2012 , p. 127). The more customers connect and interact with the firm’s activities, the higher is the level of customer engagement created (Kumar and Pansari 2016 ; Malthouse et al. 2013 ) and the higher the customer’s value addition to the firm (Pansari and Kumar 2017 ). Although the theoretical explanation of the notion of customer engagement has attracted a great deal of debate among scholars in the field, research (e.g., Brodie et al. 2011 ; Hollebeek et al. 2019 ; Kumar et al. 2019 ) has also begun adopting the service-dominant (S-D) logic (Vargo and Lusch 2004 ) because of its emphasis on customers’ interactive and value co-creation experiences in market relationships. Following the service-dominant (S-D) logic, Hollebeek et al. ( 2019 ) stress the role of customer resource integration, customer knowledge sharing, and learning as foundational in the customer engagement process, which can subsequently lead to customer individual/interpersonal operant resource development and co-creation.

Despite its pivotal role in social media marketing, extant literature has not yet attained agreement on the specific measurement of customer engagement. For example, Muntinga et al. ( 2011 ) conceptualize customer engagement in social media as comprising three stages: consuming (e.g., following, viewing content), contributing (e.g., rating, commenting), and creating (e.g., user-generated content). Maslowska et al. ( 2016 ) propose three levels of customer engagement behaviors: observing (e.g., reading content), participating (e.g., commenting on a post), and co-creating (e.g., partaking in product development). Moreover, Kumar et al. ( 2010 ) distinguish between transactional (i.e., buying the product) and non-transactional (i.e., sharing, commenting, referring, influencing) behaviors of customer engagement derived from social media connectedness and interactions.

Taxonomy of SMMSs

The distinctive differences among firms engaged in social media marketing with regard to their strategic objectives, organizational resources and capabilities, and focal industries and market structures, imply that there must also be differences in the SMMSs pursued. In this section, we first explain the criteria classifying SMMSs into different groups and then provide an analysis of their content.

Classification criteria of SMMSs

Drawing from the extant literature, we propose three important criteria that can be used to distinguish SMMSs: the nature of the firm’s strategic social media objectives with regard to using social media, the direction of interactions taking place between the firm and the customers, and the level of customer engagement achieved.

Strategic social media objectives refer to the specific organizational goals to be achieved by implementing SMMSs (Choi and Thoeni 2016 ; Felix et al. 2017 ). These can range from transactional to relational-oriented, depending on the strategist’s mental models of business–customer interactions (Rydén et al. 2015 ). Different mental models have a distinctive impact on managers’ social media sense-making, which is responsible for framing the specific role defined by social media in their marketing activities (Rydén et al. 2015 ). Rydén et al. ( 2015 ) identify four types of social media marketing objectives with four different mental models that can guide SMMSs —namely, to promote and sell (i.e., business-to-customers), to connect and collaborate (i.e., business-with-customers), to listen and learn (i.e., business-from-customers), and to empower and engage (i.e., business-for-customers).

The direction of the social media interactions can take three different forms. These include (1) one-way interaction , that is, traditional one-way communication in which the firm disseminates content (e.g., advertising) on social media and customers passively observe and react (Hoffman and Thomas 1996 ); (2) two-way interaction , that is, reciprocal and interactive communication with exchanges on social media, which can be further distinguished into firm-initiated interaction (in which the firm takes the initiative to begin the conversation) and customer participation (by liking, sharing, or commenting on the content) and customer-initiated interaction (in which the customer is the initiator of conversations by inquiring, giving feedback, or even posting negative comments about the firm, while the firm listens and responds to customer voice) (Van Noort and Willemsen 2012 ); and (3) collaborative interaction, that is, the highest level of interaction that builds on frequent and reciprocal activities in which both the firm and the customer have the power to influence each other (Joshi 2009 ).

With regard to the level of customer engagement, as noted previously, this heavily depends on the strength of connections and the intensity of interactions between the firm and the customers in social media, comprising both transactional and non-transactional elements (Kumar et al. 2010 ). Because customer engagement is the result of a dynamic and iterative process, which makes specifying the exact stage from participating to producing rather difficult (Brodie et al. 2011 ), we adopt the approach proposed by various scholars in the field (e.g., Dolan et al. 2016 ; Malthouse et al. 2013 ) to view this as a continuum, ranging from very low levels of engagement (e.g., “liking” a page) to very high levels of engagement (e.g., co-creation).

Types of SMMSs

With these three classificatory criteria, we can identify four distinct SMMSs, representing increasing levels of strategic maturity: social commerce strategy, social content strategy, social monitoring strategy, and social CRM strategy. Footnote 2 Fig.  2 illustrates this taxonomy for SMMSs, Table 3 shows the differences between these four strategies, while Appendix Table 6 provides real company examples using these strategies. In the following, we analyze each of these SMMSs by explaining their nature and characteristics, the particular role played by social media, and the specific organizational capabilities required for their adoption.

Taxonomy of social media marketing strategies

Social commerce strategy

Social commerce strategy refers to the “exchange-related activities that occur in, or are influenced by, an individual’s social network in computer-mediated social environments, whereby the activities correspond to the need recognition, pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase stages of a focal exchange” (Yadav et al. 2013 , p. 312). Rydén et al. ( 2015 , p. 6) claim that this way of using social media is not to create conversation and/or engagement; rather, the reasons for “the initial contact and the end purpose are to sell.” Similarly, Malthouse et al. ( 2013 ) argue that social media promotional activities do not actively engage customers because they do not make full use of the interactive role of social media. Thus, social commerce strategy can be considered as the least mature SMMS because it has a mainly transactional nature and is preoccupied with short-term goal-oriented activities (Grönroos 1994 ). It is essentially a one-way communication strategy intended to attract customers in the short run.

In this strategy, social media are claimed to be the new selling tool that has changed the way buyers and sellers interact (Marshall et al. 2012 ). They offer a new opportunity for sellers to obtain customer information and make the initial interaction with the customer more efficient (Rodriguez et al. 2012 ). Meanwhile, firms are also increasingly using social media as promising outlets for promotional/advertising purposes given their global reach (e.g., Dao et al. 2014 ; Zhang and Mao 2016 ), especially to the millennial generation (Confos and Davis 2016 ). However, as firms’ social media activities in this strategy are more transactional-oriented, customers tend to be passive and reactive. Customers contribute transactional value through purchases, but without a higher level of engagement. Therefore, we conclude that, within the context of this strategy, customers exchange their monetary resources (e.g., purchases) with the firm’s promotional offerings.

To better develop this strategy, Guesalaga ( 2016 ) highlights the need to understand the drivers of using social media in the selling process. He further stresses that personal commitment plays a crucial role in using social media as selling tools. Similarly, Järvinen and Taiminen ( 2016 ) urged for an integration of marketing with the sales department in order to gain better insights from social media marketing efforts. The importance of synergistic effects between social media and traditional media (e.g., press mentions, television, in-store promotions) has also been stressed in supporting social commerce activities (e.g., Jayson et al. 2018 ; Kumar et al. 2016 ; Stephen and Galak 2012 ). Thus, selling capabilities are crucial in this strategy, requiring the possession of adequate selling skills and the use of multiple selling channels to synergize social media effects.

Social content strategy

Social content strategy refers to “the creation and distribution of educational and/or compelling content in multiple formats to attract and/or retain customers” (Pulizzi and Barrett 2009 , p. 8). Thus, this type of SMMS aims to create and deliver timely and valuable content based on customer needs, rather than promoting products (Järvinen and Taiminen 2016 ). By attracting audiences with valuable content, the increase in customer engagement may ultimately boost product/service sales (Malthouse et al. 2013 ). Holliman and Rowley ( 2014 , p. 269) also claim that content marketing is a customer-centric strategy and describe the value of content as “being useful, relevant, compelling, and timely.” Therefore, this strategy provides a two-way communication in which firms take the initiative to deliver useful content and customers react positively to this content. The basic premises of this strategy are to create brand awareness and popularity through content virality, stimulate customer interactions, and spread positive WOM (De Vries et al. 2012 ; Swani et al. 2017 ).

Social media in this strategy have been widely used as communication tools for branding and WOM purposes (Holliman and Rowley 2014 ; Libai et al. 2013 ). On the one hand, firms generate content by their own efforts on social media (termed as ‘firm-generated’ or ‘marker-generated’ content) to actively engage consumers. On the other hand, firms encourage customers to generate the content (termed as ‘user-generated’ content) through the power of customer-to-customer interactions, as in the case of exchanging comments and sharing the brand-related content. In this way, firms provide valuable content in exchange for customer-owned resources, such as network assets and persuasion capital, to generate positive WOM and achieve a sustainable trusted brand status.

To pursue a social content strategy, firms build on capabilities focusing on how content is designed and presented (expressed in the form of a social message strategy) and how content is disseminated (expressed in the form of a seeding strategy). Thus, understanding customer engagement motivations and social media interactive characteristics is central to designing valuable content and facilitating customer interactions that would help to stimulate content sharing among customers (Malthouse et al. 2013 ). Designing compelling and valuable content in order to transform passive social media observers into active participants and collaborators is also key capability required by firms adopting this strategy (Holliman and Rowley 2014 ). Empowering customers and letting them speak for the brand is another way to engage customers with brands. Therefore, in this strategy, marketing communication capabilities are important for effective marketing content development and dissemination.

Social monitoring strategy

Social monitoring strategy refers to “a listening and response process through which marketers themselves become engaged” (Barger et al. 2016 , p. 278). In contrast with social content strategy, which is more of a “push” communication approach with content delivered, social monitoring strategy requires the firm’s active involvement in the whole communication process (from content delivery to customer response) (Barger et al. 2016 ). More specifically, social monitoring strategy is not only to observe and analyze the behaviors of customers in social media (Lamberton and Stephen 2016 ), but also to actively search for and respond to customer online needs and complaints (Van Noort and Willemsen 2012 ). A social monitoring strategy is thus characterized by a two-way communication process, in which the initiation comes from customers who comment and behave on social media, while the company takes advantage of customer behavior data to listen, learn, and react to its customers. Thus, the key objective of this strategy is to enhance customer satisfaction and cultivate stronger relationships with customers through ongoing social media listening and responding.

With today’s abundance of attitudinal and behavioral data, firms adopting this strategy use social media platforms as “tools” or “windows” to listen to customer voices and gain important market insights to support their marketing decisions (Moe and Schweidel 2017 ). Moreover, Carlson et al. ( 2018 ) argue that firms can take advantage of social media data to identify innovation opportunities and facilitate the innovation process. Hence, social media monitoring enables firms to assess consumers’ reactions, evaluate the prosperity of social media marketing initiatives, and allocate resources to different types of conversations and customer groups (Homburg et al. 2015 ). In other words, customers in this strategy are expected to be active in social media interactions, providing instantaneous and real-time feedback. This has in a way helped product development and experience improvements with resource inputs from customers’ knowledge stores.

Social monitoring strategy emphasizes the importance of carefully listening and responding to social media activities to have a better understanding of customer needs, gain critical market insights, and build stronger customer relationships (e.g., Timoshenko and Hauser 2019 ). It therefore requires firms to be actively involved in the whole communication process with customers, as customer engagement is not dependent on rewards, but is developed through the ongoing reciprocity between the firm and its customers (Barger et al. 2016 ). Thus, organizational capabilities, such as marketing sensing through effective information acquisition, interpretation and responding, are essential for the successful implementation of this strategy. More specifically, monitoring and text analysis techniques are needed to gather and capture social media data rapidly (Schweidel and Moe 2014 ). Noting the damage caused by electronic negative word of mouth (e-NWOM) on social media, firms adopting this strategy also require special capabilities to appropriately respond to customer online complaints and requests (Kim et al. 2016 ).

Social CRM strategy

Among the four SMMSs identified, social CRM strategy is characterized by the highest degree of strategic maturity, because it reflects “a philosophy and a business strategy supported by a technology platform, business rules, processes, and social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment” (Greenberg 2009 , p. 34). The concept of social CRM is designed to combine the benefits derived from both the social media dimension (e.g., customer engagement) and the CRM dimension (e.g., customer retention) (Malthouse et al. 2013 ). In contrast with the traditional CRM approach, which assumes that customers are passive and only contribute to customer life value, social CRM strategy emphasizes the active role of customers who are empowered by social media and can make a contribution to multiple forms of value (Kumar et al. 2010 ). In brief, a social CRM strategy is a form of collaborative interaction, including firm–customer, inter-organizational, and inter-customer interactions, that are intended to engage and empower customers, so as to build mutually beneficial relationships with the firm and lead to superior performance.

Social media have become powerful enablers of CRM (Choudhury and Harrigan 2014 ). For example, Charoensukmongkol and Sasatanun ( 2017 ) argue that the integration of social media and CRM provides a possibility for firms to segment their customers based on similar characteristics, and can customize marketing offerings to the specific preferences of individual customers. With social CRM strategy, firms can enhance the likelihood of customer engagement through one-to-one social media interactions. Customers at this stage are collaborative and interactive in value creation, such as voluntarily providing innovative ideas and collaborating with brands (Jaakkola and Alexander 2014 ). Hence, besides resource like network assets, persuasion capital, and knowledge stores, engaged customers also contribute their creativity resource for value co-creation.

Social CRM capability is “a firm-level capability and refers to a firm’s competency in generating, integrating, and responding to information obtained from customer interactions that are facilitated by social media technologies” (Trainor et al. 2014 , p. 271). Therefore, firms should be extremely creative to combine social media data with its CRM system, as well as to link the massive social media data on customer activities to other data sources (e.g., customer service records) to generate better customer-learning and innovation opportunities (Choudhury and Harrigan 2014 ; Moe and Schweidel 2017 ). Social CRM strategy also emphasizes the significance of reciprocal information sharing and collaborations that are supported by the firm’s culture and commitment, operational resources, and cross-functional cooperation (Malthouse et al. 2013 ; Schultz and Peltier 2013 ). To sum up, social CRM capabilities, organizational learning capabilities connected with relationship management and innovation are essential prerequisites to building an effective social CRM strategy.

Validation of proposed SMMSs

Using the previously developed classification of SMMSs (i.e., social commerce strategy, social content strategy, social monitoring strategy, and social CRM strategy) as a basis, we reviewed the pertinent literature to collate useful knowledge supporting the content of each of these strategies. Table 4 provides a summary of the key empirical insights derived from the extant studies reviewed, together with resulting managerial lessons.

To validate the practical usefulness of our proposed classificatory framework of SMMSs, we first conducted a series of in-depth interviews with 15 social media marketing practitioners, who had their own firm/brand accounts on social media platforms, at least one year of social media marketing experience, and at least three years’ experience in their current organization (see Web Appendix 1 ). Interviewees represented companies located in China (8 companies), Finland (5 companies), and Sweden (2 companies) and involved in a variety of industries (e.g., digital tech, tourism, food, sport). All interviews were based on a specially designed guide (which was sent to participants in advance to prepare them for the interview) and were audiotaped and subsequently transcribed verbatim (see Web Appendix 2 ).

The main findings of this qualitative study are the following: (1) social media are mainly used as a key marketing channel to achieve business objectives, which, however, differentiates in terms of product-market type, organization size, and managerial mindset; (2) distinct differences exist across organizations in terms of their social media initiatives to deliver content, generate reactions, and develop social CRM; (3) there are marked variations in customer engagement levels across participant firms, resulting from the adoption of different SMMSs; (4) the firm’s propensity to use a specific SMMSs is enhanced by infrastructures, systems, and technologies that help to actively search, access, and integrate data from different sources, as well as facilitate the sharing and coordination of activities with customers; and (5) the adoption of a specific SMMS does not follow a sequential pattern in terms of strategic maturity development, but rather, depends on the firm’s strategic objectives, its willingness to commit the required resources, and the deployment of appropriate organizational capabilities.

To further confirm the existence of differences in profile characteristics among the four types of SMMSs, we conducted an electronic survey among a sample of 52 U.S. social media marketing managers who were randomly selected. For this purpose, we designed a structured questionnaire incorporating the key parameters related to SMMSs, namely firms’ strategic objectives, firms’ engagement initiatives, customers’ social media behaviors, social media resources and capabilities required, direction of interactions, and customer engagement levels (see Web Appendix 3 ).

Specifically, we found that: (1) each of the four SMMSs emphasize different types of strategic objectives, ranging from promoting and selling, in the case of social commerce strategy, to empowering and engaging in social CRM strategy; (2) experiential engagement initiatives geared to customer engagement were more evident at the advanced level, as opposed to the lower level strategies; (3) passive customer social media behaviors were more characteristic of the social commerce strategy, while more active customer behaviors were observed in the case of social CRM strategy; (4) the more advanced the maturity of the SMMS employed, the higher the level customer engagement, as well as the higher requirements in terms of organizational resources and specialized capabilities; and (5) one-way interaction was associated more with social commerce strategy, two-way interaction was more evident in the social content strategy and the social monitoring strategy, and collaborative interaction was a dominant feature in the social CRM strategy (see Web Appendix 4 ).

Future research directions

While the extant research offers insightful information and increased knowledge on SMMSs, there is still plenty of room to expand this field of research with other issues, especially given the rapidly changing developments in social media marketing practice. To gain a more accurate picture about the future of research on the subject, we sought the opinions of academic experts in the field through an electronically conducted survey among authors of academic journal articles written on the subject. We specifically asked them: (1) to suggest the three most important areas that research on SMMSs should focus on in the future; (2) within each of the areas suggested, to indicate three specific topics that need to be addressed more; and (3) within each topic, to illustrate analytical issues that warrant particular attention (see Web Appendix 5 ). Altogether, we received input from 43 social media marketing scholars who suggested 6 broad areas, 13 specific topics, and 82 focal issues for future research, which are presented in Table 5 .

Among the research issues proposed, finding appropriate metrics to measure performance in SMMSs seems to be an area to which top priority should be given. This is because performance is the ultimate outcome of these strategies, for which there is still little understanding due to the idiosyncratic nature of social media as a marketing tool (e.g., Beckers et al. 2017 ; Trainor et al. 2014 ). In particular, it is important to shed light on both short-term and long-term performance, as well as its effectiveness, efficiency, and adaptiveness aspects (e.g., Barger et al. 2016 ). Another key priority area stressed by experts in the field involves integrating to a greater extent various strategic issues regarding each of the marketing-mix elements in a social media context. This would help achieve better coordination between traditional and online marketing tools (e.g., Kolsarici and Vakratsas 2018 ; Kumar et al. 2017 ).

Respondents in our academic survey also stressed the evolutionary nature of knowledge with regard to each of the four SMMSs and proposed multiple issues for each of them. Particular attention should be paid to how inputs from customers and firms are interrelated in each of these strategies, taking into consideration the central role played by customer engagement behaviors and firm initiatives (e.g., Sheng 2019 ). Respondents also pinpointed the need for more emphasis on social CRM strategy (which is relatively under-researched), while there should also be a closer assessment of new developments in both marketing (e.g., concepts and tools) and social media (e.g., technologies and platforms) that can lead to the emergence of new types of SMMSs (e.g., Ahani et al. 2017 ; Choudhury and Harrigan 2014 ).

Respondents also noted that up to now the preparatory phase for designing SMMSs has been overlooked, and that therefore there is a need to shed more light on this because of its decisive role in achieving positive results. For example, issues relating to market/competitor analysis, macro-environmental scanning, and target marketing should be carefully studied in conjunction with formulating sound SMMSs, to better exploit opportunities and neutralize threats in a social media context (e.g., De Vries et al. 2017 ). By contrast, our survey among scholars in the field stressed the crucial nature of issues relating to SMMS implementation and control, which are of equal, or even greater, importance than those of strategy formulation (e.g., Järvinen and Taiminen 2016 ). The academics also indicated that, by their very nature, social media transcend national boundaries, thus leaving plenty of room to investigate the international ramifications of SMMSs, using cross-cultural research (e.g., Johnston et al. 2018 ).

Implications and conclusions

Theoretical implications.

Given the limited research on SMMSs, this study has several important theoretical implications. First, we are taking a step in this new theoretical direction by providing a workable definition and conceptualization of SMMS that combines both social media and marketing strategy dimensions. The study complements and extends previous research (e.g., Harmeling et al. 2017 ; Singaraju et al. 2016 ) that emphasized the value of social media as resource integrator in exchanging customer-owned resources, which can provide researchers with new angles to address the issue of integrating social media with marketing strategy. Such integrative efforts can have a meaningful long-term impact on building a new theory (or theories) of social media marketing. They also point to a deeper theoretical understanding of the roles played by resource identification, utilization, and reconfiguration in a SMMS context.

We have also extended the idea of “social interaction” and “social connectedness” in a social media context, which is critical because the power of a customer enabled by social media connections and interactions is of paramount importance in explaining the significance of SMMSs (Hennig-Thurau et al. 2013 ). More importantly, our study suggests that firms should take the initiative to motivate and engage customers, which will lead to wider and more extensive interactions. In particular, we show that a firm can leverage its social media usage through the use of different engagement initiatives to enforce customer interactivity and interconnectedness. Such enquiries can provide useful theoretical insights into the strategic marketing role played by social media in today’s highly digitalized and globalized world.

We are also furthering the customer engagement literature by proposing an SMMS developmental process. As firm–customer relationships evolve in a social media era, it is critical to identify those factors that have an impact on customer engagement. Although prior studies (e.g., Harmeling et al. 2017 ; Pansari and Kumar 2017 ) have demonstrated the engagement value contributed by customers and the need for engagement initiatives taken by firms, we are extending this idea to provide a more holistic view by highlighting the role of insights from both firms and customers to better understand the dynamics of SMMS formulation. We also suggest certain theories to specifically explain the role played by each of the components of the process in developing sound SMMSs. We capture the unique characteristics of social media by suggesting that these networks and interactions are tightly interrelated with the outcome of SMMS, which is customer engagement. Our proposed SMMS developmental process may therefore provide critical input for new studies focusing on customer engagement research.

 Finally, we build on various criteria to distinguish among four SMMSs, each representing a different level of strategic maturity. We show that a SMMS is not homogeneous, but needs to be understood in a wider, more nuanced way, as having different strategies relying on different goals and deriving insights from firms and their customers, ultimately leading to different customer engagement levels. In this regard, the identification of the key SMMSs stemming from our analysis can serve as the basis for developing specific marketing strategy constructs and scales within a social media context. We also indicate that different SMMSs can be implemented and yield superior competitive advantage only when the firm is in a position to devote to it the right amount and type of resources and capabilities (e.g., Gao et al. 2018 ; Kumar and Pansari 2016 ).

Managerial implications

Our study also has serious implications for managers. First, our analysis revealed that the ever-changing digital landscape on a global scale calls for a reassessment of the ways to strategically manage brands and customers in a social media context. This requires companies to understand the different goals for using social media and to develop their strategies accordingly. As a starting point, firms could explore customer motivations for using social media and effectively deploy the necessary resources to accommodate these motivations. They should also think carefully about how to engage customers when implementing their marketing strategies, because social media become resource integrators only when customers interact with and provide information on them (Singaraju et al. 2016 ).

Managers need to set objectives at the outset to guide the effective development, implementation, and control of SMMSs. Our study suggests four key SMMSs achieving different business goals. For example, the goal of social commerce strategy is to attract customers with transactional interests, that of social content strategy and social monitoring strategy is to deliver valuable content and service to customers, and that of social CRM strategy is to build mutually beneficial customer relationships by integrating social media data with current organizational processes. Unfortunately, many companies, especially smaller ones, tend to create their social media presence for a single purpose only: to disseminate massive commercial information on their social media web pages in the hope of attracting customers, even though these customers may find commercially intensive content annoying.

This study also suggests that social media investments should focus on the integration of social media platforms with internal company systems to build special social media capabilities (i.e., creating, combining, and reacting to information obtained from customer interactions on social media). Such capabilities are vital in developing a sustainable competitive advantage, superior market and financial performance. However, to achieve this, firms must have the right organizational structural and cultural transformation, as well as substantial management commitment and continuous investment.

Lastly, social media have become powerful tools for CRM, helping to transform it from traditional one-way interaction to collaborative interaction. This implies that customer engagement means not only encouraging customer engagement on social media, but also proactively learning from and collaborating with customers. As Pansari and Kumar et al. ( 2017 ) indicate, customer engagement can contribute both directly (e.g., purchase) and indirectly (e.g., customer knowledge value) to the firm. Therefore, interacting with customers via social media provides tremendous opportunities for firms to learn more about their customers and opens up new possibilities for product/service co-creation.

Conclusions

The exploding use of social media in the past decade has underscored the need for guidance on how to build SMMSs that foster relationships with customers, advance customer engagement, and increase marketing performance. However, a comprehensive definition, conceptualization, and framework to guide the analysis and development of SMMSs are lacking. This can be attributed to the recent introduction of social media as a strategic marketing tool, while both academics and practitioners still lack the necessary knowledge on how to convert social media data into actionable strategic marketing tools (Moe and Schweidel 2017 ). This insufficiency also stems from the fact that the adoption of more advanced SMMSs requires the possession of specific organizational capabilities that can be used to leverage social media, with the support of a culture that encourages breaking free from obsolete mindsets, emphasizing employee skills with intelligence in data and customer analytical insights, and operational excellence in organizational structure and business processes (Malthouse et al. 2013 ).

Our study takes the first step toward addressing this issue and provides useful guidelines for leveraging social media use in strategic marketing. In particular, we provide a systematic consolidation and extension of the extant pertinent SMMS literature to offer a robust definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, and validation of SMMSs. Specifically, we have amply demonstrated that the mere use of social media alone does not generate customer value, which instead is attained through the generation of connections and interactions between the firm and its customers, as well as among customers themselves. These generated social networks and influences can subsequently be used strategically for resource transformation and exchanges between the interacting parties. Our conceptualization of the SMMS developmental process also suggests that firms first need to recognize customers’ motivations to engage in brand-related social media activities and encourage their voluntary contributions.

Although the four SMMSs identified in our study (i.e., social commerce strategy, social content strategy, social monitoring strategy, and social CRM strategy) denote progressing levels of strategic maturity, their adoption does not follow a sequential pattern. As our validation procedures revealed, this will be determined by the firm’s strategic objectives, resources, and capabilities. Moreover, the success of the various SMMSs will depend on the firm’s ability to identify and leverage customer-owned resources, as in the case of transforming customers from passive receivers of the firm’s social media offerings to active value contributors. It will also depend on the firm’s willingness to allocate resources in order to foster collaborative conversations, develop appropriate responses, and enhance customer relationships. These will all ultimately help to build a sustainable competitive advantage and enhance business performance.

Although in our conceptualization of the process of developing SMMSs we treat customer engagement as the output of this process, we fully acknowledge that firms’ ultimate objective to engage in social media marketing activities is to improve their market (e.g., customer equity) and financial (e.g., revenues) performance. In fact, extant social media marketing research (e.g., Kumar et al. 2010 ; Kumar and Pansari 2016 ; Harmeling et al. 2017 ) repeatedly stresses the conducive role of customer engagement in ensuring high performance results.

SMMSs are difficult to operationalize by focusing solely on the elements of the marketing mix (i.e., product, price, distribution, and promotion), mainly because many other important parameters are involved in their conceptualization, such as relationship management, market development, and business innovation issues. However, each SMMS seems to have a different marketing mix focus, with social commerce strategy emphasizing advertising and sales, social content strategy emphasizing branding and communication, social monitoring strategy emphasizing service and product development, and social CRM strategy emphasizing customer management and innovation.

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Li, F., Larimo, J. & Leonidou, L.C. Social media marketing strategy: definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 49 , 51–70 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-020-00733-3

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Social media marketing: Strategy template and tips for 2025

This complete guide will help you build a successful social media marketing strategy and follow the right best practices from day one.

Table of Contents

A social media marketing strategy is a summary of everything you plan to do and hope to achieve on social media. It guides your actions and lets you know whether you’re succeeding or failing.

The more specific your plan is, the more effective it will be. Keep it concise. Don’t make it so lofty and broad that it’s unattainable or impossible to measure.

In this post, we’ll walk you through a nine-step plan to create a winning strategy for social media marketing. We’ve even got expert insights from Amanda Wood, Hootsuite’s Senior Manager of Social Marketing.

TL;DR? If you’re a social media or marketing manager looking for help with your strategy, you’re in the right place.

Key takeaways

• A social media marketing strategy outlines your goals, the tactics to achieve them, and the metrics you’ll use to track success. It serves as a roadmap for all your social media efforts and aligns them with your broader business objectives.
• Unlike traditional marketing and advertising, social marketing fosters two-way communication between brands and social media users. It’s about engaging with customers on a personal level, building trust, and cultivating a sense of community to nurture long-term loyalty — not just driving immediate sales.
• Social media is always changing! Social media strategies should be dynamic and adapt to new trends and audience behaviors.

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing is the practice of using social media platforms and tools to promote your business and connect with your audience.

Businesses use it to:

• showcase their products or services
• (perhaps more importantly) engage with their customers on a personal level

The intended outcomes can range from the somewhat abstract (like brand building ) to the very specific (like selling products through social commerce ). Driving web traffic, increasing e-commerce sales, and nurturing customer loyalty are all common goals of social media marketing.

Social media marketing ia marketing is about building relationships with your audience in the places they already spend their time online. This might look like promoting your latest product drop, or simply jumping in on a trend that your audience is interested in.

Unlike traditional advertising, like TV spots and billboards, social media marketing allows for two-way communication between individuals and brands. There’s also potential for building a sense of community, which creates brand loyalty .

This, plus the ability to accurately track, analyze, and optimize on your results, is what makes social media marketing a truly unique marketing space.

What is a social media marketing strategy?

A social media strategy is a document outlining your social media goals, the tactics you will use to achieve them and the metrics you will track to measure your progress.

Your social media marketing strategy should also list all of your existing and planned social media accounts along with goals specific to each platform you’re active on. These goals should align with your business’s larger digital marketing strategy.

Finally, a good social media plan should define the roles and responsibilities within your team and outline your reporting cadence.

Creating your own marketing strategy for social media (video guide)

No time to read the whole article? Let Amanda, Hootsuite’s own Senior Manager of Social Media Marketing, guide you through our free strategy template in less than 10 minutes:

How to create a social media marketing strategy: A step-by-step guide

Step 1. align goals with business objectives.

The first step to creating a winning social media strategy is to establish clear objectives and goals. Without goals, you have no way to measure success and return on investment (ROI) .

Each of your social media marketing goals should be SMART : s pecific, m easurable, a ttainable, r elevant and t ime-bound.

Psst: Need help getting started? We’ve got social strategy guides for small businesses , financial services , government , higher education , healthcare , real estate , law firms , and non-profits .

Oh, and if you need examples of smart social media goals , we’ve got you covered there too.

Once you’ve decided on your social goals, track them in a strategy doc — grab our free social media strategy template if you don’t have one already.

Track meaningful metrics

Vanity metrics like number of followers and likes are easy to track, but it’s hard to prove their real value. Instead, focus on things like engagement, click-through, and conversion rates.

Not sure where to start? If you need inspiration, take a look at these essential social media metrics .

You may want to track different goals for different social media networks, or even different uses for each network.

For example, if you use LinkedIn to drive website traffic, you would measure click-throughs. If Instagram is for increasing brand awareness, you might track the number of Instagram Story views. And if you advertise products or services on Facebook, cost-per-click (CPC) is a common success metric.

Social media goals should align with your overall marketing objectives. This makes it easier to show the value of your work and secure buy-in from your boss.

Start developing a successful social media marketing plan by writing down at least three goals for social media.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by deciding what to post and which metrics to track, but you need to focus on what you want to get out of social media to begin with. Don’t just start posting and tracking everything: match your goals to your business, and your metrics to your goals. Amanda Wood Senior Manager, Social Marketing at Hootsuite

Step 2. Understand your audience inside and out

Get to know your fans, followers, and potential customers as real people with real wants and needs, and you will know how to target and engage them on social media.

When it comes to your ideal customer, you should know things like:

• Average income
• Typical job title or industry

Here’s a simple guide and template for creating audience/buyer personas .

Don’t forget to document this information in your strategy doc!

Social media analytics tools can also provide a ton of valuable information about who your followers are, where they live, and how they interact with your brand on social media. These insights allow you to refine your strategy and better target your audience.

Jugnoo, an Uber-like service for auto-rickshaws in India, used Facebook Analytics to learn that 90% of their users who referred other customers were between 18- and 34-years-old, and 65% of that group was using Android. They used that information to target their social media advertising, resulting in a 40% lower cost per referral.

Check out our guide to using social media analytics and the tools you need to track them .

Step 3. Analyze your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses

Odds are your competitors are already using social media, and that means you can learn from what they’re doing.

Conduct a competitive analysis

A competitive analysis allows you to understand who the competition is and what they’re doing well (and not so well). You’ll get a good sense of what’s expected in your industry, which will help you set social media targets of your own.

It will also help you spot opportunities and weaknesses you can document in your social strategy doc.

Maybe one of your competitors is dominant on Facebook, for example, but has put little effort into X (Twitter) or Instagram. You might want to focus on the social media platforms where your audience is underserved, rather than trying to win fans away from a dominant player.

Use social media listening

Social listening is another way to keep an eye on your competitors.

Do searches of the competition’s company name, account handles, and other relevant keywords on social media. Find out what they’re sharing and what other people are saying about them. If they’re using influencer marketing, how much engagement do those campaigns earn them?

Pro tip : Use Hootsuite Listening to monitor relevant keywords, hashtags and accounts in real-time.

As you track, you may notice shifts in how your competitors and industry leaders are using social media. You may come across new, exciting trends. You might even spot specific social content or a campaign that really hits the mark—or totally bombs.

Use this kind of intel to optimize and inform your own social media marketing strategy.

Just don’t go overboard on the spy tactics, Amanda advises. “ Make sure you aren’t ALWAYS comparing yourself to the competition — it can be a distraction. I’d say checking in on a monthly basis is healthy. Otherwise, focus on your own strategy and results.”

Step 4. Conduct a social media audit

If you’re already using social media, take stock of your efforts so far. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What’s working, and what’s not?
• Who is engaging with you?
• What are your most valuable partnerships?
• Which networks does your target audience use?
• How does your social media presence compare to the competition?

Once you collect that information, you’ll be ready to start thinking about ways to improve.

We’ve created an easy-to-follow social media audit guide and template to walk you through each step of this process.

Your audit should give you a clear picture of what purpose each of your social accounts serves. If the purpose of an account isn’t clear, think about whether it’s worth keeping.

To help you decide, ask yourself the following questions:

• Is my audience here?
• If so, how are they using this platform?
• Can I use this account to help achieve my goals?

Asking these tough questions will keep your social media strategy focused.

Look for impostor accounts

During the audit, you may discover fake accounts using your business name or the names of your products.

These imposters can be harmful to your brand—never mind that they’re capturing followers that should be yours.

You may want to get your accounts verified too to ensure your fans know they are dealing with the real you.

Here’s how to get verified on:

• X (Twitter)

Step 5. Set up and optimize your accounts

Decide which networks to use.

As you decide which social networks to use, you will also need to define your strategy for each.

Hootsuite’s own social team designates different purposes for formats within networks. On Instagram, for example, they use the feed to post high-quality educational infographics, tutorials, and product announcements, while Stories and Reels are used to cover live events or quick social media updates.

Pro tip : Write out a mission statement for each network. A one-sentence declaration to keep you focused on a specific goal.

Example: “We will use X for customer support to keep email and call volumes down.”

Or: “We will use LinkedIn for promoting and sharing our company culture to help with recruitment and employee advocacy.”

One more: “We will use Instagram to highlight new products and repost quality content from influencers.”

If you can’t create a solid mission statement for a particular social media channel, you may want to ask yourself if it’s worth it.

Note : While larger businesses can and do tackle every platform, small businesses may not be able to — and that’s ok! Prioritize social platforms that will have the most impact on your business and make sure your marketing team has the resources to handle content for those networks. If you need help focusing your efforts, check out our 18-minute social media plan .

Set up your profiles

Once you’ve decided which networks to focus on, it’s time to create your profiles. Or improve existing ones so they align with your strategy.

• Make sure you fill out all profile fields
• Include keywords people would use to search for your business
• Use consistent branding (logos, images, etc.) across different platforms so your profiles are easily recognizable

Pro tip : Use high-quality images that follow the recommended dimensions for each network. Check out our always-up-to-date social media image size cheat sheet for quick reference.

We’ve also got step-by-step guides for each network to walk you through the process:

• Create a Facebook business page
• Create an Instagram business account
• Create a TikTok account
• Create a X (Twitter) business account
• Create a Snapchat account
• Create a LinkedIn Company Page
• Create a Pinterest business account
• Create a YouTube channel

Don’t let this list overwhelm you. Remember, it’s better to use fewer channels well than to stretch yourself thin trying to maintain a presence on every network.

Optimize your profiles (and content) for search

Never heard of social SEO ? It’s time to learn.

44% of Gen Z consumers use social platforms to research their purchase decisions, which means it’s extra critical that your channels are optimized for social search.

That means making sure your profile names are clear and descriptive, you’re including relevant hashtags and keywords in your bio and on every post, and you’re using features like alt text and captions to include your target keywords as naturally as possible.

Step 6. Find inspiration for content creation

While it’s important that your brand be unique, you can still draw inspiration from other businesses that are great on social.

“ I consider it my job to stay active on social: to know what’s trending, which social media marketing campaigns are winning, what’s new with the platforms, who’s going above and beyond,” says Amanda. “This might be the most fun step for you, or the hardest one, but it’s just as crucial as the rest of them.”

Social media success stories

You can usually find these on the business section of the social network’s website. ( Here’s Facebook’s , for example.)

Case studies can offer valuable insights that you can apply to your own social media plan.

Award-winning accounts and campaigns

You could also check out the winners of The Facebook Awards or The Shorty Awards for examples of brands that are at the top of their social media game.

For learning and a laugh, check out Fridge-Worthy, Hootsuite’s bi-weekly awards show highlighting brands doing smart and clever things on social media.

Your favorite brands on social media

Who do you enjoy following on social media? What do they do that compels people to engage and share their content?

National Geographic, for example, is one of the best on Instagram, combining stunning visuals with compelling captions.

Source: National Geographic on Instagram

Nike is a great example of superior customer service on X. They use their 280 characters to share new product releases and celebrate sports victories, but they’re also available to answer customer questions and solve problems.

Source: Nike on X

Notice that these accounts have a consistent voice, tone, and style. That’s key to letting people know what to expect from your feed. That is, why should they follow you? What’s in it for them?

Consistency also helps keep your content on-brand even if you have multiple people on your social media team .

For more on this, read our guide on establishing a compelling brand voice on social media .

Ask your followers

Consumers can also offer social media inspiration.

What are your target customers talking about online? What can you learn about their wants and needs?

If you have existing social channels, you could also ask your followers what they want from you. Just make sure that you follow through and deliver what they ask for.

Step 7. Create a strategic social media content calendar

Marketing via social media is all about timing. Sharing great content is essential, of course, but it’s equally important to have a plan in place for when you’ll share content to get the maximum impact.

Your social media content calendar also needs to account for the time you spend interacting with the audience (although you should also allow for some spontaneous engagement).

Set your posting schedule

Your content calendar lists the dates and times at which you will publish types of content on each channel.

It’s the perfect place to plan all of your social media activities—from images, link sharing, and re-shares of user-generated content to blog posts and videos. It includes both your day-to-day posting and content for social media campaigns.

Your calendar also ensures your posts are spaced out appropriately and published at the best times to post .

Pro tip: You can plan your whole content calendar and get recommended best times to post on every network based on your past engagement rate, impressions, or link click data in Hootsuite, our all-in-one social media marketing platform.

Determine an engaging content mix

Make sure your content strategy and calendar reflect the mission statement you’ve assigned to each social profile. Strategic social media marketing means everything you post should support your business goals.

(We know, it’s tempting to jump on every meme, but there should always be a strategy behind your social media marketing efforts!)

You might decide that:

• 50% of content will drive traffic back to your website
• 25% of content will be curated from other sources
• 20% of content will support lead-generation goals (newsletter sign-ups, ebook downloads, etc.)
• 5% of content will be about your company culture

Placing these different post types in your content calendar will ensure you maintain the right mix.

If you’re starting from scratch and you’re not sure what types of content to post, try the 80-20 rule :

• 80% of your posts should inform, educate, or entertain your audience
• 20% can directly promote your brand.

You could also try the social media content marketing rule of thirds :

• One-third of your content promotes your business, converts readers, and generates profit (e.g. through increased sales or by growing your mailing list).
• One-third of your content shares ideas and stories from thought leaders in your industry or like-minded businesses.
• One-third of your content is personal interactions with your audience

Whatever you decide on, be sure to document it in your strategy doc.

Don’t post too much or too little

If you’re starting a social media marketing strategy from scratch, you may not have figured out how often to post to each network for maximum engagement yet.

Post too frequently and you risk annoying your audience. But, if you post too little, you risk looking like you’re not worth following.

Start with these posting frequency recommendations:

• Instagram (feed): 3-7 times per week
• TikTok: 3-5 times per week
• Facebook: 1-2 times per day
• X (Twitter): 1-5 times per day
• LinkedIn: 1-5 times per day

Pro tip : Once you have your social media content calendar planned out, use a scheduling tool to prepare messages in advance rather than updating constantly throughout the day.

We might be biased, but we think Hootsuite is the best social media management tool. You can schedule social media posts to every network and the intuitive calendar view gives you a full picture of all your social activity each week.

Step 8. Craft compelling and high-quality content

Remember those mission statements you created for each channel in Step 5? Well, it’s time to go a bit deeper, a.k.a. provide some examples of the type of content you’ll post to fulfill your mission on each network.

If you’re not sure what to post, here’s a long list of social media marketing ideas to get you started. Or (to make it even easier) you can use an AI tool like OwlyWriter to generate on-brand content in a flash.

The idea here is to:

• Keep your content aligned with the purpose of each network;
• Show other stakeholders (if applicable) what kind of content they can expect to see on each network.

This last point especially will help you avoid any tension when your colleagues want to know why you haven’t posted their case study/whitepaper/blog post to TikTok yet. It’s not in the strategy, Linda!

Ideally, you will generate content types that are both suited to the network and the purpose you’ve set out for that network. Your social media promotion strategy will not be the same for every network.

For example, you wouldn’t want to waste time posting brand awareness tweets if you’ve designated X/Twitter for primarily customer support. And you wouldn’t want to post super slick corporate video ads to TikTok, as users (and the platform’s algorithm) expect to see unpolished short-form video content on that platform.

It might take some testing over time to figure out which type of content works best on which type of network, so prepare to update this section frequently.

We won’t lie: content creation isn’t as easy as everyone not on the social team seems to think. But if you’re struggling, Amanda suggests going back to basics.

The first question to ask is: is there cohesion between your content types? Is your content providing value? Do you have a good mix of entertaining, or educational content? What does it offer that makes a person stop and spend time? Creating a few different content pillars or categories that encompass different aspects of storytelling for your brand, and what you can offer your audience is a good start. Amanda Wood Senior Manager, Social Marketing at Hootsuite

This brings us to Step 9.

Step 9. Track performance and make adjustments

Your social media marketing strategy is a hugely important document for your business, and you can’t assume you’ll get it exactly right on the first try.

As you start to implement your plan and track your results, you may find that some strategies don’t work as well as you’d anticipated, while others are working even better than expected.

That’s why it’s important to document your progress along the way.

Look at performance metrics

In addition to the analytics within each social network (see Step 2), you can use UTM parameters to track social visitors as they move through your website, so you can see exactly which social posts drive the most traffic to your website.

Benchmark your results

You’ve got your numbers, but how do they stack up to the competition in your industry? Industry benchmarks are a great way to evaluate your performance against other businesses in your category.

If you’ve got Hootsuite Analytics , you can use our built-in social media benchmarking tool to compare the performance of your social accounts against the average of brands in your industry with just a couple of clicks.

You can set up custom timeframes, switch between networks — Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and TikTok — and look up benchmarks for metrics like followers, audience growth rate, engagement rate, clicks, shares, and much more.

You’ll also find resources to improve your performance  right in the summary section:

Re-evaluate, test, and do it all again

Once this data starts coming in, use it to re-evaluate your social media marketing techniques regularly.

You can also use this information to test different posts, social marketing campaigns, and strategies against one another. Constant testing allows you to understand what works and what doesn’t, so you can refine your social media marketing strategy in real time.

Remember, effective social media marketing isn’t static. Your strategy should change over time.

You should check the performance of all your channels at least once a week. Once you learn the basics of social media reporting , you can track your growth over time.

Pro tip: If you use Hootsuite, you can review the performance of all your posts on every network in one place. Once you get the hang of checking your analytics, you may even want to customize different reports to show specific metrics over a variety of different time periods.

Surveys can also be a great way to find out how well your social media strategy is working. Ask your followers, email list, and website visitors whether you’re meeting their needs and expectations and what they’d like to see more of. Just make sure to deliver on what they tell you.

Finalizing your social media strategy

Spoiler alert: nothing is final.

Social media moves fast. New networks emerge, others go through demographic shifts.

Your business will go through periods of change as well.

All of this means that your social media marketing strategy should be a living document that you review and adjust as needed. Refer to it often to stay on track, but don’t be afraid to make changes so that it better reflects new goals, marketing tools, or plans.

When you update your social strategy, make sure to watch our 5-step video on how to updating your social media strategy for 2024:

Free social media strategy template

Ready to start documenting? Grab your free social marketing strategy template below!

What’s next? When you’re ready to put your plan into action, we’re here to help…

Save time managing your social media marketing strategy with Hootsuite. From a single dashboard, you can easily:

• Plan, create, and schedule posts to every network
• Track relevant keywords, topics, and accounts
• Stay on top of engagement with a universal inbox
• Get easy-to-understand performance reports and improve your strategy as needed

Do it better with Hootsuite , the all-in-one social media tool. Stay on top of things, grow, and beat the competition.

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Christina Newberry is an award-winning writer and editor whose greatest passions include food, travel, urban gardening, and the Oxford comma—not necessarily in that order.

Amanda Wood is a senior social marketing professional who combines analytical and creative thinking to build brands.

As head of social at Hootsuite, Amanda oversees the global social strategy encompassing organic and paid social on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn, a social engagement and listening strategy, and an employee advocacy program.

As the leader of a high-performing social team, she has extensive experience collaborating with creatives to bring campaigns to life on social and drive business results.

Create. Schedule. Publish. Engage. Measure. Win.