Analysis of Harvey Norman's Social Media Presence and Strategy

This report analyzes Harvey Norman's social media presence in the Australian market, examining its use of platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It discusses the significance of social media in brand communication, the company's strategies, including customer journey mapping, and mobile-first approaches. The report evaluates Harvey Norman's social media performance, highlighting strengths and weaknesses, such as the underutilization of LinkedIn. It identifies challenges, including competition from other major retailers. The report provides recommendations to improve the brand's online presence, suggesting strategies like embracing emojis and integrating in-store and online experiences. The report concludes with a focus on customer engagement, omnichannel communication, and the importance of adapting to changing consumer demands. The report adheres to the guidelines provided in the assignment brief, offering a critical analysis of the company's social media marketing efforts.

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Executive Summary:
Today every big and small industry no matter which industry they belong to, they need to
concentrate on their communication channels and social media is one of the most important
channels of communication. Thus, this report will specifically highlight on the operations of
Harvey Norman, its business in the Australian market and how the brand is using its social media
channels, the challenges that the brand is facing pertaining to its social media communication
and certain recommended strategies for the brand’s performance improvement.

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Introduction
Harvey Norman is considered as one of the largest Australian based multi-national brands
engaged with the business of selling furniture, bedding, computers and varied other consumer
electrical products. The company is engaged in drop shipping activity which means that they are
engaged with shipping the goods directly to the consumers but operates as a franchise as well.
Harvey Norman Holding Limited is a public limited company which is listed on the Australian
Securities Exchange Limited (ASX) (Boswell, 2013). This brand has always been associated
with a great variety and range of products backed by strong cutting-edge technology and a very
strong dominance over the Australian market. As already mentioned, Harvey Norman Holdings
Limited operates as a franchise and under three independent brand names which is: Harvey
Norman, Domayne and Joyce Mayne (Girvan, 2017).
Social media have become an important part of consumers’ daily lives. It has been
estimated that in 2018, 2.62 billion people worldwide used a social media platform at least once
a month, and the average time spent amounted to 135 minutes per day (Swani, et al. 2017).
Therefore in order to capitalize this internet usage rate almost every consumer brand is
increasing and investing on its social media presence. Social media has been identified as one of
the most emerging tool of business communication. Significance of social media is best
understood when a brand strategically incorporates it in its business operations and gain major
benefits out of the same. Social media has been the identified as one of the most significant
forms of business communication channels because of its speed, its reach and its constant
interactive nature (Ashley and Tuten, 2015). Now particularly concentrating on Harvey
Norman’s social media marketing techniques, the best way is to analyze the brands presence

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over varied social media platforms which include: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and
many more.

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Discussion
Brand communication in social media is defined as kind of brand-related communication
“distributed via social media that enables internet users to access, share, engage with, add to, and
co-create” (Alhabash, Mundel, and Hussain 2017). Harvey Norman is recognized as one of the
leading retailers in Australia which specifically deals with a variety of products including
furniture, electrical products, consumer electronics, fun and entertainment product as well as
small portable appliances (Schlagwein and Hu, 2017). Therefore as a leading retailers present in
Australia, Harvey Norman is constantly innovating and experimenting with its marketing
strategies especially when it’s about building the brand’s social media presence. Around the
world, traditional retail is being encroached upon by e-commerce startups. As the online and
offline worlds fight it out for a share of the customer’s wallet, the battleground can be found on
social media. Retail chains are coming up with new strategies and adapting to declining organic
reach in order to engage their audience and find new customers.

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Source: (Evers, 2013)
Harvey Norman has extended greater attention towards strengthening its online presence
and increased interactivity with its target customers through the use of Lyris’ digital marketing
software (Stephen, 2016). In the year 2010, the executive head of Harvey Norman Gary
Wheelhouse stated that the brand will now exclusively focus on embracing social networking
along with online marketing as a key part of the company’s overall marketing strategies.
Harvey Norman has extended its social media presence by significantly capturing the
most popular social media sites like Facebook followed by Twitter and Instagram. The Online
journey of Harvey Norman started initiated in the year 2011 with its e-commerce website being
launched and by 2012 the official Facebook page of Harvey Norman had over 100,000 followers
(Facebook.com, 2019). Since then the Omni-channel brand communication strategy has been on
a rise. The brand executives realized how online presence of the brand was directly impacting the

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popularity of the brand. More and more potential consumers where drawn to the stores after
doing a thorough online research, reading tweets and feedback of other consumers and largely
depending upon the reviews posted.
Therefore, Harvey Norman executive Gary Wheelhouse emphasized on forming interesting
marketing campaigns for the online or social media presence of the brand as it was a visible
factor that affected the popularity and market position of the brand. The social media sites were
exclusively used for positing exciting discount offers on varied different products along with any
grand event which has been organized by the brand to engage its consumers. It has emphasized
on positing certain interesting small video clips demonstrating how specific product can be used
like a new mobile phone or any other consumer electronic goods (Fill and Turnbull, 2016).
Social media marketing strategy of Harvey Norman primarily by employing Twitter, Facebook
and Instagram has largely altered the way of communication with its customers and followers.
Harvey Norman has also adopted e-mail marketing and utilizes this digital communication tool
to connect with its regular buyers by send them greeting, discount offers and remainder mails as
well as seeking their valuable feedback online. Around the world, traditional retail is being
encroached upon by e-commerce startups. As the online and offline worlds fight it out for a share
of the customer’s wallet, the battleground can be found on social media. Retail chains are
coming up with new strategies and adapting to declining organic reach in order to engage their
audience and find new customers.

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Harvey Norman with its 180 stores spread across Australia along with its global
presence in other countries like New Zealand, Ireland, Singapore and Malaysia and responding
to varied new customer demands which are constantly changing. Thus, to ensure a strong and
effective social media marketing strategy Harvey Norman emphasizes on certain following
aspects which includes:
1. Customer journey mapping- as already mentioned the global presence of the brand
along with its wide range of operation considering its subsidiaries Joyce Mayne, Domayne,
Space Furniture and Poliform operating across continents it is no doubt a very challenging aspect
to determine who could be the potential customers of these individual brands and then effectively
communicate with them. Therefore in such a scenario customer journey mapping is very crucial
and social media plays a very significant role in such a scenario. Online feedback and surveys
can help the brand understand a customers’ journey and bring in valuable feedback (Kumar,
Keller and Lemon, 2016). Customer journey mapping using social media tools becomes easier
because a large amount of data is available easily and the wide reach of social media also makes
it easier. Quantitative as well as qualitative data can be accessed easily that can help Harvey
Norman understand certain basic marketing concerns like: how to address the market better?
How the marketing message could be better strategized to suit the niche market needs?, and what
could be the potential market attraction for every subsidiary brand under Harvey Norman that
could pull in more customers for each of those sub brands.
2. Putting Mobile First- The brand has over and over again emphasized on keeping the
mobile platform active and steady. Harvey Norman in the year 2011 launched its online platform
and since then it has just emphasized on growing its online presence by the mid of 2012, the

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brand came up with its mobile platform (Psaros and Seamer, 2015). This mobile experience is
very much consumer responsive. This is exactly how the brand is emphasizing on building up its
Omni channel communication strategy. The mobile platform can help the brand communicate
effectively with its customers, where any new product availability or discount offers can be
directly communicated with the consumers. There is another interesting feature, which is when a
consumer switches on the “my location” option in their mobile; automatically they receive
notifications regarding the products available in their nearest stores. This has really proved to be
a very powerful tool because most of the consumers today are researching and learning about
any new product mostly online rather than visiting the stores physically.
3. Creating a strong integration between in-store and online purchase experience of
the brand: Harvey Norman largely focuses on aligning the in-store experience of the brand with
the online experience it aims to deliver to its clients. The ease and comfort of not standing in
long queues while shopping is what the online service of the brand offers to its customers. This
no doubt makes the shopping experience comfortable and quick one. Another significant feature
of the online purchase is the “live chat” option which enables consumers to talk with people who
have real experience of buying (Badrinarayanan, et al. 2014). Thus, the live chat option will
enable them to talk with other customers to gain an insight regarding their purchase experience
of the brand. Therefore the brand’s aim is to well integrate its online marketing techniques with
its in-store retail outlets to deliver the best quality of service which would in turn give a boost to
its social media marketing. Harvey Norman’s social media performance sample:

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Source: (Kuntaric and Wdowiak, 2016)
While the brand has largely emphasized on building up its presence on Facebook, Twitter
and Instagram it has significantly lacked behind using social media platforms like LinkedIn
which no doubt has great potentials in bringing in more significant amount of business for the
brand. The brand can definitely build up its presence on LinkedIn by regularly positing updates
about its new products, as well as recruit potential staffs by advertising and promoting job
vacancies. LinkedIn and such social media platforms are increasingly becoming significant
platforms for performing business operation and this will also enable the brand in gaining more
popularity and partnering with other brands for various businesses vents altogether bringing
more exposure for the brand. Recent research shows that LinkedIn is 277% more effective at
lead generation than Facebook or Twitter and members are 50% more likely to purchase from a
company they engage with on LinkedIn (Korda and Itani, 2013).Today every big and small
industry no matter which industry they belong to, they need to concentrate on their
communication channels and social media is one of the most important channels of
communication. The brand needs to emphasize on building up its presence on platforms like
LinkedIn and imply lesser stress of twitter as twitter has been recognized as the slowest growing

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social media platform in 2017 and will most likely continue to struggle. The market research also
reveals that the Australian retail brands have successfully boosted their social media
engagements by using emojis. 63% of posts by these brands included one or more emoji. When
an emoji was not present in the content, a post generated an average of 949 interactions. When
emojis were used, this jumped to 1,107 interactions per post. The optimal number of emojis in a
post in terms of interactions was found to be three (Tsimonis. and Dimitriadis, 2014).
Recommendations:
Harvey Norman deals with a variety of products and being considered as the largest
retailer in Australia it faces stiff competition from another major big brands operating in the
Australian retail industry like Action Fleming, David Jones, JB Hi-Fi, IGA and many more.
Harvey Norman operates under a specific model of business which is known as Business to
Consumer model (Shareef, et al.2014). Therefore to strengthen its marketing mix, the company
has immensely focused on growing its online or social media presence. Therefore to help the
brand strengthen its online presence, certain steps need to be ensured which includes:
1. Selecting one game plan and sticking by it to maintain uniformity of actions. This is important
especially for a brand like Harvey Norman which has so many sub brands and therefore to
maintain a uniformity in the quality of social media promotions along with connecting with their
wide variety of consumers. The brand can use social media management platforms like
Hootsuite, Buffer, and TweetDeck, that would enable the brand to schedule its posts ahead of
time over all its social media platforms and also effectively monitor as well as manage its social
feeds and have an access to its performance analytics (Kilgour, et al. 2015).