Mobile Social Media: the New Hybrid Element of Digital Marketing Communications

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 189 ( 2015 ) 335 – 343
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect
1877-0428 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of XVIII Annual International Conference of the Society of Operations
Management (SOM-14).
doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.03.229
XVIII Annual International Conference of the Society of Operations Management (SOM-14)
Mobile social media: The new hybrid element of digital marketing
communications
Mayank Yadav a, *, Yatish Joshi b , Zillur Rahman c
a,b Research Scholar, Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee-247667, Uttarakhand,India.
c Associate Professor, Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee-247667, Uttarakhand,India.
Abstract
The powerful smartphone and other mobile devices have given birth to lots of social media applications and many more in the
pipeline. This paper aims at throwing some light on the evolution of mobile social media, introducing the mobile marketing and
mobile social media and various concepts and classification of mobile marketing. An extensive literature review of papers on
social media and mobile phone applications is done to develop an understanding of the mobile social media usage. A discussion
on usage of mobile social media for various corporate as well as marketing communications, sales enhancement and developing
cordial relationships with the customer. Finally, recommendations on its usage and future of mobile social media. This article
focuses on the importance of mobile social media applications in the current digital marketing arena. The article also develops
valuable insights on mobile social media, which is of great value for mobile marketing and social media marketing managers in
the near future.
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of XVIII Annual International Conference of the Society of
Operations Management (SOM-14).
Keywords:Digital Marketing;Google Latitude;Mobile Marketing ;Mobile Social Media;Smartphone
1. Mobile Social Media and Mobile Marketing-An Introduction
What will be your reaction if you induce to use Nokia 1100 instead of your Android phone? More than a decade has
gone by since then mobile phone has become a part and parcel of our spirit. The majority of people feels that they
* Corresponding author. Tel.: [phone].
E-mail address: [e-mail]
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of XVIII Annual International Conference of the Society of
Operations Management (SOM-14).

336 Mayank Yadav et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 189 ( 2015 ) 335 – 343
are missing something if they forget their mobile phone at home. People barely remember that when it was the last
time they were without their cell telephone. In the present scenario, it is difficult to imagine our life without a
mobile telephone. According to Nielson Digital Consumer report (2014, p. 5), “Americans on an average own four
digital devices and ownership of many digital, mobile and connected devices has reached critical mass. When
looking at the average American household, HDTVs (83%), Internet-connected computers (80%) and smartphones
(65%) are in a majority of households, with a near majority for digital video recorders (49%) and gaming consoles
(46%)”.
The very first location and mobile marketing equipped mobile device was Palm VII, a Personal Digital Assistant
(PDA) which was developed by Palm Computing in 1999.This device allowed consumers to access weather and
traffic information but was very costly, charging $ 300 for each megabyte of data usage. There are 914.92 million
mobile phone users in India (Highlights on Telecom Subscription Data as on 30th June, 2014, 2014) i.e. 75 % of
Indian population use mobile phones. The first commercial GPS with location finder and restaurant guide was
launched by NTT DoCoMo. But Mobile marketing revolution started in true sense in June 2007 with the iPhone.
Apple has sold more than 5oo million iPhones worldwide (Rogowsky, 2014).This provides users access to 250,000+
applications which enable them reading books (Kindle app), to search information (Wikipedia app), to purchase
utility goods online (amazon app), to book trains and air tickets (IRCTC app), to remain connected with friends
(Facebook & WhatsApp) and many more to name. After the iPhone revolution. With the emergence of iPhone
various companies like Gowalla in 2007, Foursquare in 2009 sprang up in mobile marketing and mobile social
media came into existence. Subsequent to these dedicated applications of giant internet companies, like Google
latitude (2009), Facebook Places (2010) entered the mobile market. Presently Foursquare is considered as the
market leader in mobile social media, with more than 45 million registered users. Foursquare enables users to share
their location with each other by checking-in at various places. Mobile social media is distinct from conventional
social media in many ways. This paper aims at throwing some light on the evolution of mobile social media,
introducing the mobile marketing and mobile social media and various concepts and classification of mobile
marketing. A discussion on usage of mobile social media for various corporate as well as marketing
communications, sales enhancement and developing cordial relationships with the customer. Lastly,
recommendations on its usage and future of mobile social media. The paper consists of four sections as follows:
x Section 1 defines mobile social media and mobile marketing.
x Section 2 of the paper focuses on the use of social media applications in business.
x Section 3 offers three recommendations about the effective use of social media mobile applications.
x Section 4 focuses on up-coming trends and threats of mobile social media
1.1 What is mobile marketing and what it is not
Mobile marketing applications are of many types and mobile social media is one part of it. According to Andreas M.
Kaplan (2012, p. 130) “Mobile marketing as any marketing activity conducted through a ubiquitous network to
which consumers are constantly connected using a personal mobile device”. Three conditions are required to be
considered as mobile marketing. Firstly, there should be an omnipresent network. Mark D. Weiser (1991), Chief
scientist at Xerox PARC in Palo Alto, created this term omnipresent. Divergent to the belief an omnipresent network
is not essentially a single network, but it is an amalgamation of different networks. For example, one can be linked
at home via wireless local area network, which in turn switches to 3G when outdoors and further changes to
WiMAX network in the workplace. The crucial factor is not the network but the inter-convertibility into different
networks occurs easily and undetectably. Secondly, there should be constant user access to the mobile network. As
far as mobile phones are concerned, this condition is a triviality, as the majority of individuals relies so profoundly
on mobile phones that there is a rare chance of leaving mobile phone at home. On the other hand, for devices like
tablet computers, continuous access is dependent more on the user rather on the technology as user has to make a
decision that device has to be switched on continuously. Lastly, there is possession of personal mobile device. The
mobile device can be defined as any instrument that enable access to an omnipresent network beyond one definite
access gate. The classic example of a mobile device is commonly used mobile phone. A netbook can also be
considered as mobile device if it has an access to various networks like WLAN, 3G etc. As far as mobile marketing
is concerned, the mobile device possessed by the user should be personal and not a shared one. This means that
every member of the household should be in possession of a separate personal mobile phone so that mobile devices

337Mayank Yadav et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 189 ( 2015 ) 335 – 343
can be recognized distinctly, generally through a SIM card.
1.2. Taxonomy of mobile marketing applications
To classify mobile marketing applications two variables are been considered firstly the extent of consumer
knowledge and secondly the trigger of communication. When we talk about the extent of consumer knowledge,
personal usage of mobile devices enable companies to tailor their communication for an individual user, which is in
conformation of one-to one marketing concept (Peppers, Rogers, & Dorf, 1999). However it is to be understood that
it is not mandatory to customize entire mobile marketing. A distinction can be made between extent of consumer
knowledge of the Internet service provider and the company initiating a mobile marketing campaign, because
usually they are not similar. Trigger of communication is classified on the basis of two types of communications.
First is push communication (Company initiated) and the second is pull communication (consumer initiated) given
in Table 1.
Table 1. Taxonomy of Mobile Marketing Applications
Extent of Consumer knowledge
Low High
Trigger of Communication
Push Strangers
Toyota teamed up with Fox Broadcasting to insert
10-second commercials into 26 short mobile
movies, so-called ‘mobisodes,’ for the TV show
Prison Break
Victims
AT&T sent SMS text messages to
75 million customers suggesting they
watch American Idol and vote for candidates
using their AT&T phone
Pull Groupies
Calvin Klein used Quick Response codes on
billboards in New York to allow users to pull up an
exclusive 40-second
commercial
Patrons
Pop icon Britney Spears enabled fans to
receive–—for $2.99 per month–—Britney’s
Diary: a weekly text message about her life
during a concert tour
Source: Kaplan (2012)
Companies falling under the low knowledge/push group follow a strategy of broadcasting standardized messages to
large audience/mobile users. Generally, when the firm is unable to know that which customers are being covered by
the message, such group of customers a referred to as strangers. Second group comprises of low knowledge/pull,
customers choose to obtain information, but do not recognize themselves when to do so. Hence the company is
unaware of the definite clients it has dealt with or is dealing with, and this group is hence referred to as cohort
groups. Third group which is high knowledge/push, comprises of companies who are aware about their customers
and messages and information could be sent to them without the prior permission of the customers. This group is
referred to as victims. Fourth and the last group which is high knowledge/pull comprises of circumstances in which
customers willingly give their consent to give their personal information and to be contacted. This enables one-to-
one communication without aggravating the clients and hence such group of customers are referred to as patrons.
1.3. What is Mobile Social Media: Taxonomy and definition
Before defining mobile social media it becomes important to define social media. According to Kaplan & Haenlein
(2010, p. 61), “Social Media is a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological
foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content”. Keeping social
media definition and mobile marketing into consideration, we define mobile social media as all Mobile marketing