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ADVERTISING ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND BENEFITS TO BRANDS

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 Vol. 10, No. 2 (2015) 335-351 ISSN: 1823-884x

ADVERTISING ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND BENEFITS TO BRANDS

Uchechi Cynthia Ohajionu,and Dr. Soney Mathews

ABSTRACT

Social media has expedited unparalleled growth in human interaction in modern times. This new
media has caught the attention of organisations, communities and individuals through their
ability to facilitate the collaboration of virtual communities and to provide a productive
environment for mutual sharing and interaction. The adoption of social media for advertising by
corporations worldwide is on the rise. Many corporations today have official Facebook pages,
Twitter accounts as well as corporate blogs. All these are signs that social media has become a
vital part of consumers‟ daily lives as well as the day-to-day operations of corporate
organisations. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to examine the various tools that
companies may use in their advertising aspect to increase their service and quality for their
customers and increase profit. This study also seeks to provide insights on the social media use
of Generation Y consumers in Malaysia.

Keywords: Social media advertising, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Blogs.

INTRODUCTION
Social media has expedited unparalleled development in human association in contemporary
times. In particular, it has changed consumers‟ way of thinking (Mir and Zaheer, 2012). This
new media serves as a general stage for individuals worldwide to relate with one another and
offer information and experiences identified with products, activities and issues (Heinrichs et al.,
2011). Attracted by the rapid penetration of social media into society, companies are
dynamically using them as part of their advertising and brand building activities (Gallaugher and
Ransbotham, 2010; Georgios and Sergios, 2014). Without a doubt, social media allows
companies to interact with customers using richer media with greater reach (Thackeray et al.,
2008). The interactive method of social media not only allows advertisers to share and exchange
information with their customers, but it allows customers to share and exchange information with
one another as well. Companies have the opportunity to move relationship with customers from
dialog to trialogue, in which customers partake in noteworthy relationship with one another and
with the companies (Lipsman et al., 2012; Mangold and Faulds, 2009). Using social media,
companies have had the ability to build relationships with existing as well as new customers and
form communities that interactively collaborate to identify problems and develop solutions for
them.
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These connections have changed the traditional roles of both business and customer in
exchange relationships. Undoubtedly, consumers add value to the interaction, creating content,
as well as influence purchase decisions of others in shared exchanges (Sashi, 2012). Social media
has been acknowledged as possibly the greatest medium for relationship building (Bartlett, 2010;
Hackworth and Kunz, 2010; Selina and Milz, 2009). While companies aim at attracting loyal
customers, by affecting their perceptions about the brand, disseminating information, and
learning from and about customers (Algesheimer et al., 2005), customers get quality through the
many practices that they perform online and offline (Shau et al., 2009). In such gatherings,
people may partake in a couple of practices, for instance, helping other customers or discussing
experiences with them (Nambisan and Baron, 2009).

Furthermore, many consumers engage in non-interactive behaviours such as reading

others‟ comments. According to Park and Cho (2012), this is one of the reasons for which
consumers will go to social networking sites, that is, to learn about previous product or service
experiences, which will be posted on these sites. Recently, companies have added social media to
their advertising and brand building activities (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Attracted by the
large number of users, companies have created brand communities in social media, such as
Facebook, which boasts more than a billion monthly active users (Facebook, 2014). Twitter has
approximately 650 million users and LinkedIn has approximately 200 million members
worldwide. These statistics demonstrate the popularity of social media, which in turn provides an
indication of the enormous influence such applications carry. Social media has not been a
heavily researched topic in international advertising. Indeed, it is only in the last five years that a
substantial number of studies on social media as an advertising/promotional vehicle began to
appear even in the context of single country studies. Hence, not much is known about the
influence of consumers‟ attitude towards social media advertising and how consumers‟
perceptions of and behaviours towards these media vary across countries (Okazaki & Taylor,
2013). This study seeks to understand the attitude towards various beliefs of social media
advertising as well as Generation Y‟s responses in Malaysia.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Due to the advantages of social media in connecting businesses to end-consumers directly, in a
timely manner and at a low cost (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010), social media has become the
centre of attention in many industries by facilitating various areas of marketing, such as
promotions, marketing intelligence, sentiment research, public relations, marketing
communications, as well as product and customer management (Akar and Topcu, 2011). The
quick growth in the usage of social media throughout the world shows that businesses can utilise
it to increase their product or service interest in consumers. Farzana et al. (2014), found that
social networks will play a key role in the future of marketing; externally they can replace
customer annoyance with engagement, and, internally, they help to transform the traditional

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focus on control with an open and collaborative approach that is more conducive to success in
the modern business environment. Hence, advertisers have promptly adopted social media as a
means to build lasting relationships with young consumers. They target social network users
based on profile data and engage them with advertisements relevant to their interests.

Advertising rates in online social networks are comparatively low and range from
corporate logos, banners, pop-up message and text-based hyperlink to official websites.
Advertisers, as a result, have turned to social networks to grab their share of advertising space.
These networking sites are gradually moving from a push medium to a pull medium when it
comes to advertising. Advertisements are pushed to customers once they visit social networking
sites instead of the user pulling information from websites (Ducoffe, 1996; Schlosser et al.,
1999). Consumers get advertisements on these sites as a content they need to participate in to
keep the service free. They agree to be exposed to advertisements in a free service more easily
than they would agree on paying for the service of social networking.

Social media advertising is the practice involving the use of paid adverts on social
networking sites (SNS) like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and other content (The Social
Media Advertising Industry Report, 2013). Social networking sites are web-based applications
and interactive platforms that facilitate the creation, discussion, modification and exchange of
user-generated content (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010). Social media is therefore not limited to social
networks like Facebook, but also include blogs, business networks, collaborative projects,
enterprise social networks, forums, microblogs, photo sharing, product/services reviews, social
bookmarking, social gaming, as well as video sharing and virtual worlds. These platforms have
shifted the emphasis of Internet services from being consumption-based towards becoming more
interactive and collaborative, thereby creating new opportunities for interaction between
organisations and the public (Henderson and Bowley, 2010).

SOCIAL MEDIA IN MALAYSIA

Over the past years, social media has transformed the manner in which Malaysians
communicate. Unlike other media channels, the internet is unrestricted in Malaysia and this has
led to an increase in the number of social media users (Market and Trade Profile Malaysia,
2010). Available data show ninety per cent of Malaysian internet users visit social media sites
and these sites account for around one-third of all Malaysian Internet Traffic. According to
comScore's report in 2011, Malaysia ranks number fourteen in the world and number three in
South-East Asia with the highest Facebook penetration. In Malaysia, there are 14.48 million
Facebook users, close to 50% of the population. Interestingly, Malaysians have the highest
average number of friends on social networks of any nation on Earth. Indeed, at 233 friends (the

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highest in the world), the average Malaysian‟s Facebook network is almost eighty per cent
higher than the global benchmark (Kemp, 2012). Results from IDC Malaysia on online shopping
statistics among Malaysians showed that internet users in the year 2010 were 17.5 million and
internet buyers were 8.9 million (Ong, 2010). The popularity of social media in Malaysia is ever
growing. The number of Malaysians with access to the Internet has multiplied due to growing
broadband penetration as well as information communications and technology. Users have
embraced social media and Facebook with pleasure. Popular social media platforms among
Malaysians are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs (Market and Trade Profile Malaysia,
2010).

TYPES OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media is not limited to social networks like Facebook, but also include blogs, business
networks, collaborative projects, enterprise social networks, forums, microblogs, photo sharing,
product/services reviews, social bookmarking, social gaming, and also video sharing and virtual
worlds. Some of these sites are explained below.

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking site with membership of about 1 billion users worldwide. In
2013, Facebook made $2.02 billion – making it the company‟s first $2 billion quarter – with
earnings of $0.25 a share. The company has a number of ways of making money, such as gifts
and payments but the greatest part of Facebook revenue generator is advertising (Facebook,
2014). Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook is a social networking site which gives
users the opportunity to create their own profile with the option of displaying their friends‟
identities as well as sharing pictures and activity feeds (Palmer and Koenig-Lewis, 2009). By
publishing their personal information, sharing it with others and receiving information about
other peoples‟ lives, it results in a form of collaboration which generates new content (Coulter
and Roggeveen, 2012). Since Facebook is not necessarily for making new friends but to share
and keep in touch with friends and family, users can look at pictures of friends, communicate
with others, play games with others and send gifts. According to Park and Cho (2012), the
average Facebook user is online for thirty-two minutes a day and a lot of users sign in at least
once every day. An earlier study by Palmer and Koenig-Lewis (2009) reveals that over half of
Facebook users have clicked on a company‟s Facebook page while about sixteen percent had
sent a message to a company. A lot of users see Facebook as a free-service network but they are
still affected by advertising from companies (Lilley et al., 2012). For instance, advertisements
and banners on Facebook motivate customers to click on them and subsequently spend cash to
buy the companies‟ products. Even though most people have a Facebook account mainly to be in
contact with their family and friends, they are very much conscious of the fact that Facebook is

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likewise used as an advertising channel for companies (Lutze 2010). Businesses are therefore
capable of spreading their messages, create contact with customers, and build connections on
Facebook.
Seung-A (2012) found that businesses use Facebook to build discussion and relationships with
their dedicated customers, motivate their customers to shop online and rely on their customers to
help in promoting the brand via their commitment to Facebook and the brand's page.
Furthermore, by reading comments and conversations from customers‟ profiles, companies can
gather valuable information, which can then be used to target customers and obtain feedback
from them. Since Facebook page creates a two-way avenue where corporations and customers
can have rich conversations, companies can make use of this to offer information about
forthcoming product introductions, changes, and updates (Palmer and Koenig-Lewis, 2009).
Interestingly, companies want to know their customers‟ thoughts about their general profile,
updates, and product information. They can also use social media to display their popularity,
conveyed by the number of fans they have and how many people are following them (Seung-A,
2012). These companies use social media as an instrument to discover how popular they are, and
then compare that with the popularity of their competitors (Palmer and Koenig-Lewis, 2009).
Customers associate bigger networks with providing additional valued information and having
more trustworthiness than smaller networks (Coulter and Roggeveen, 2012). In order for a
customer to get a gripping experience when he or she visits a company's Facebook page, there
should be commitment, excitement and a positive association between the visit and the
customers' entertaining use of the internet (Palmer and Koenig-Lewis, 2009). There are some
Facebook ad types that advertisers can use to maximise profit.

 First is the Facebook power editor. This plug-in for Google Chrome browser gives more
flexibility for ad creation. Advertisers can use this to generate adverts as it has over
twenty different ad-types like sponsored offer, sponsored stories, general newsfeed
promoted page, sponsored posts.

 Secondly, Facebook has partner categories which targets based on lifestyle information
collected by third parties, e.g. forms consumers filled out when making purchases. These
companies sell the information to Facebook who makes it readily available to advertisers.
The information collected is fairly detailed and if advertisers in Malaysia can make use of
this medium, they will be able to target consumers based on their job role, spending
habits, exact hobbies based on purchases and what sort of stores they purchase from.

 Advertisers can attract Generation Y in Malaysia to purchase through audience targeting.

One of the biggest value social media offers traditional media channels is the ability to
perform highly specific audience targeting. Facebook can provide exactly the kind of
audience advertisers want to reach, if they are willing to pay for it. For a token,
businesses, especially small and medium-size companies that cannot afford to spend

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much on advertising can use Facebook to target highly specific groups of people.
Through this medium, advertisers can tailor specific messages to Facebook users based
on their location, demographics, interests and browsing activity. Advertisers can, as a
result, send different messages to different groups of people as it only makes sense to sell
things to people based on the stuff they have already bought or are interested in buying.
The ad types on Facebook, in addition to targeting users, also tracks result and define
exactly where the ads need to be placed.

Twitter

Launched in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Twitter is a Microblogging and Social Network Site where
messages (known as tweets), typically not more than 140 characters, are posted instantly. Since
its launch, Twitter has grown to more than 645,750,000 active registered users (Twitter.com,
2014). Twitter has been described as an online listening tool as well as a way of crowd-sourcing
(Crawford, 2009). Jansen et al. (2009b) described it as an instrument to create electronic word of
mouth and as a form of online word of mouth branding. Twitter can be classified into one-to-one
(e.g. private e-mail), one-to-many (e.g. mass media) and many-to-many (e.g. the web and online
groups) (Hoffman and Novak, 1996). Jansen et al. (2009a) examined Twitter‟s influence as a
form of electronic word-of-mouth for sharing customer views regarding brands and discovered
that nineteen percent of tweets contained brand information. He therefore concluded that
microblogging is an online tool for consumer word-of-mouth communication.
Lariscy et al. (2009) found out that people use Twitter for many social reasons like keeping in
contact with family, friends and colleagues, being visible in one's social networks, collecting
valuable individual and professional information, looking for assistance and/or view and
releasing emotional tension. Since Twitter encourages companies to create a sense of belonging
to an online community via sustaining an information flow with the audience, the lines between
the consumers and the brand are blurred (Yan, 2011). The impact of social media was pointed
out by public relations and marketing practitioners who gave emphasis to the importance of
directly communicating with the customers (Solis and Breakenridge, 2009). Solis (2011)
summed it up nicely by advising companies to “engage or die”. The engagement with customers
on social media platforms is said to be essential for the continued existence of businesses and
companies. On Twitter, companies engage with their customers via retweets, using hashtags, and
following other users (Burton and Soboleva, 2011). Through this engagement and
communication, businesses are in a better position of altering a brand's perception in the minds
of the customers (Jansen et al., 2009a) as well as affecting customers‟ thinking and behaviours
(Fischer and Reuber, 2011). There are some advantages when advertising with Twitter. These
include:

 Twitter targets users based on gender, broad interest categories like sports, camping,
climbing and travel. They also target users who follow other accounts. Twitter offers

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promoted accounts, promoted trends and promoted tweet which comes up in the twitter
feed. Some ad types that advertisers can utilise include hyper-targeting, domain tracking
as well as Twitter follower insights. In hyper-targeting, Twitter targets users through
keywords found in their tweet, that is, they find users by things they are talking about.
Hyper-targeting appears to deliver personalised content. For example, if a user tweets that
he/she is thinking about getting Lasik eye surgery but is scared, advertisers can promote a
post on myths about Lasik eye surgery for that user to discard his/her fears.

 Additionally, Twitter can track based on users accounts and analyse their tweet
performance. One way to achieve this is through domain tracking. When advertisers
register their website on Twitter and verify with a code, they can see all of the tweets
containing links to their websites posted all over Twitter. Advertisers may not see the
people talking about them but those users are posting links to the advertisers‟ websites,
thereby driving traffic to their sites. Thus, they need to identify who those people are and
start building relationships with them. With this advantage, advertisers in Malaysia can
identify problems and work towards turning negative customer experience into a positive
one with the brand.

 If advertisers targeting Generation Y in Malaysia can utilise the Twitter follower insights,
Twitter will tell exactly what the audience size for a keyword is, and narrow it down to
countries or even cities. Besides, advertisers see what their audience look like based on
gender, the type of device they use, location, and interests. They can also click on any
interest category and find the breakdown; see how many people are interested in a
particular product. Then, they can build their strategies based on the trends.

Pinterest

Pinterest is the newest arrival on the social media scene, but its visual focus and craftiness,
sometimes quirky “do it yourself” content have quickly earned it a place in social media (Zara,
2013). Pinterest is a “virtual pinboard” photosharing site that lets users collect and share images
and websites they like. Founded in March 2010, Pinterest at first was by invitation only, which
meant that potential users could only obtain invitations from friends who already had Pinterest
accounts. Even so, invitations and accounts were not terribly difficult to secure, and the site was
so successful that registration was opened to the general public in August 2012 (Russell, 2012).
Now anyone can create a free Pinterest account. For maximum convenience, users can register
using their Facebook or Twitter account or with a stand-alone email address if they prefer to
keep their social media accounts separate (Zara, 2013).

Pinterest has proven to be extremely popular. In August 2011, Pinterest was included in
Time Magazine‟s list of “50 web sites that make the web great” (McCracken, 2011). In February

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2012, Pinterest boasted 11.7 million unique visitors every month (Constine, 2012). In July 2012,
that number rose to 23 million (Shontell, 2012). By September 2012, Pinterest had reached
comScore‟s list of Top 50 US web properties. The site came in at number 50, with over 25
million unique monthly visitors (comScore, 2012). Pinterest is particularly interesting as a social
media platform because of its popularity with female users. The majority of Pinterest users are
women, with some sources reporting that women represent as many as 80 percent of its users
(Zara, 2013). Despite being a largely female populated space, Pinterest has emerged at the
forefront of the social media landscape. According to Experian Hitwise, it is currently the third
most popular social media platform in the USA and in 2012, it was outperformed only by
Facebook and Twitter (Zara, 2013). Due to its rising popularity, businesses and retailers are
expanding their social media preferences to include Pinterest. The results of Steelhouse‟s Social
Shopping (2012) survey indicates that this trend is likely to continue. Steelhouse found that 59
percent of Pinterest users purchased an item found through Pinterest. Some of the advantages of
advertising on Pinterest include the following:

 The credibility of Pinterest accounts as search engine algorithms let them show up on the
first page of Google search results. This is another way for companies to take over a spot
on Google‟s search results.

 Pinterest recently launched Promoted Pins, a paid advertising option for businesses. So
far available only in the United States, this option allows companies to pay to promote
their best pins. In doing so, they can target specific audiences, choose to pay for either
pin engagement or visits to their website, and track how their ads are performing.

 Another advantage of Pinterest for advertising is the Rich pins option. Rich pins
influence the user experience, in a way that a click on a pin leads the user to the website.
If the business is into product selling then the pins can show the product prices. If,
however, there is a drop in the price of product that is pinned, people who have viewed
that will get to see a notification.

LinkedIn

Established in 2003, LinkedIn is a networking site for professionals. In recent years, it has
become extremely popular with about 200 million subscribers worldwide (Bela, 2015). Similar
to Facebook, LinkedIn allows users to create an online profile, build a network of connections
and directly communicate with their contacts (Ryan and Jones, 2009). To cater exclusively to
professionals, it enables users to search for employment opportunities, research companies and
industries, include résumé information in their profiles as well as give or receive
recommendations (Bradley, 2011). LinkedIn targets the professional niche, and it has become the
largest professional networking site (PNS) worldwide (van Dijck, 2013) with a median user age

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of 39 years old (Sago, 2010; Bradley, 2011). Being a networking site, LinkedIn allows users to
establish professional profiles and interact with other business professionals (Boyd and Ellison,
2008; Bradley, 2011), offering several unique features that set it apart from other social
networks. One distinction is that LinkedIn profiles display professional information mainly for
self-promotion that looks like “formatted CVs containing only the most relevant facts on
education, current and past positions, as well as former experience” (van Dijck, 2013). Facebook
profiles, on the other hand, are more self-expressive and provide more relational information,
interests and hobbies (Boyd and Ellison, 2008).

Another significant difference is that members use LinkedIn resources to find

employment opportunities, recruit candidates and encourage inter-company communication
(Bradley, 2011; van Dijck, 2013). In contrast, Facebook users mostly search for and socialise
with friends (old and new) and family members (Boyd and Ellison, 2008). Finally, though both
LinkedIn and Facebook implement similar principles of connectivity, the type of connections
differ across the two platforms (van Dijck, 2013); LinkedIn members attempt to establish
professional connections with past and present co-workers or classmates (Bradley, 2011),
whereas Facebook members want to enlarge their social circles (Boyd and Ellison, 2008).

 LinkedIn offers traditional advertising where companies can promote their pages. They
can create adverts and drive traffic to websites, much like traditional display advertising.
However, LinkedIn also offer Lead Generation Advertising. When activated, users can in
one click opt in to advertisers‟ mailing list, and advertisers are able to market to them
immediately without having to fill out a form. Hence, advertisers have a very good
opportunity to target consumers and then build their mailing list.

YouTube

YouTube is one of the most visited sites on the internet, and attracts 800 million unique visitors
per month (Madden et al., 2013). It allows users to upload and share video clips on a diverse
array of topics, and also incorporates a growing number of additional features that allow users to
interact with the content and other users. Users can review or rate what they have watched, and
associate comments with videos to express their opinions or respond to the video content.
YouTube was founded in 2005 and developed rapidly to become the largest video-sharing
website on the internet (Madden et al., 2013). Following its acquisition by Google, the site has
continued to grow in popularity and now attracts almost half a billion unique users per month.
The site allows users to upload an unlimited number of video clips, which can be viewed and
linked to by anyone.

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YouTube provides a variety of facilities to allow registered users to interact with each
other and share their responses to content. One option is for users to post direct video responses
to what they have viewed. Other options are afforded by the user profiles, or “channels”. There is
a private messaging service and a more visible commenting option on the profile, and users can
choose to store and display lists of their favourite videos. They can also befriend other users on
the site, or become “fans” by subscribing to receive alerts when they post new material. The site
also provides sharing, rating and commenting options on individual videos (Madden et al.,
2013). Researchers are increasingly studying YouTube, in order to investigate user behaviour,
measure video popularity and harness content for marketing purposes. Kousha et al. (2012)
provided a particularly good review of the use of YouTube videos in a multitude of domains
including marketing, medicine and management. Studies of user interaction behaviour are of
particular use for marketing purposes, as companies can identify core or hub users and use this
information to target their messages and products. This can allow them to disseminate their
messages and product advertisements more quickly and effectively.

Currently, YouTube is becoming an influential medium for social interaction among

people. YouTube is one of the leading video-on-demand platforms for user-generated content
(UGC). UGC on YouTube permits users to creatively produce and share content on the platform
to empower new ideas and business opportunities (Cha et al., 2007) including branding and
marketing strategy (Mills, 2012). The content production through social media (e.g. YouTube)
allows users to fulfil their information, entertainment, and mood management needs, while its
generation (or sharing) allows for self-expression and self-actualisation (Shao, 2009). On the
other hand, the viral video concept plays a crucial role in business marketing for reaching
tremendous target audiences within short periods of time. YouTube platform has several
embedded features to boost social interaction (Benevenuto et al., 2008), such as, the users‟
ability to comment on a video, liking/disliking a video, or sharing a video to other social
networking platforms such as Facebook or Twitter. These factors may contribute positively to
the virality of a video (Benevenuto et al., 2008; Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010).

In particular, YouTube‟s video response feature plays a crucial role in social network
relationship and user interaction (Benevenuto et al., 2008). On YouTube, social network features
permit users to share different categories of videos with different groups of people (Lange,
2007). Consequently, it is believed that different types or categories of video (e.g. music,
comedy, drama, and animation) may affect the viral phenomenon differently. Interestingly,
Gohar and Sokha (2014) found that popularity of the videos was not only the function of
YouTube system per se, but that network dynamics (e.g. in-links and hits counts) and offline
social capital (e.g. fan base and fame) also play crucial roles in the viral phenomenon,
particularly view count. It is therefore up to advertisers to understand the influential factors in an

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advertising campaign (West, 2011) as well as to enhance brand advocacy and brand awareness
(Kirby and Marsden, 2006). Some of the advantages of YouTube advertising are as follows:
 YouTube for a great way to create brand awareness. Advertisers can also use YouTube
for product advertising. This requires a more direct approach, although it is still important
to make the video informative, educational, or entertaining.

 YouTube for Retail Promotion. YouTube is a terrific channel for generating direct sales
for products and services. All businesses have to do is show the product in action or
provide a clip of the service in question, and then ask for the sale by directing the viewer
to the company‟s website.

 YouTube is also great for product support as well as internal training. For example, the
issue of sales or product training. Here, a company has a new product to introduce and a
sales force to train. They can create a series of short training videos, upload the videos to
YouTube and provide access to all the company‟s salespeople. The sales force personnel
can watch the videos at their leisure, without losing valuable sales time trekking back to
the office for training. By so doing, the company can save money, save the salespeople‟s
time, and create an archive of product information that anyone can access at any time.

Blogs

Blog is another form of social media that is being progressively used by businesses (Baxter and
Connolly, 2013). A blog provides a two-way communication channel between a company and its
stakeholders because it allows a company to interact directly with their staffs, customers, and
other stakeholders (Du and Wagner, 2006). According to Kwai and Wagner (2008), blogging is a
second-generation internet-based activity which has turned out to be popular in the contemporary
age. Blogs are like diary-style web sites which offer observations and news listed
chronologically on the site, as well as commentaries and recommended links (Johnson and Kaye,
2004). During the past years, the rapid development of blogs over the internet has transformed
the way people access information, nurture customer relationship, use media, attain self-
realisation, create an emotional outlet, develop public reputation, and form various communities
via the socialisation process (Keng and Ting, 2009; Hu et al., 2011). This development has
caught the attention of companies that wish to manage detailed customer relationships and
improve the way they carry out business.

Internet portals have provided free blogging services to attract blog users for quite some
time (Shen and Chiou, 2009). The phenomenal growth of blogs (Hsu and Lin, 2008) has made
this activity a major feature of the internet (Kumar et al., 2004). The blogger-browser
relationship has changed recently, as evidenced in a study in which the interactivity of blogs
positively influences the experiential value of blog readers (Keng and Ting, 2009). Hsu and Lin

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(2008) argued that the subject-focused nature of blogs has made it possible for online purchasers
with related interests to form groups, which has made it easy for companies to target consumers.
Advertisements can be paired with the content of an individual blog and the blog host can make
money every time people click on those ads. Ethier et al. (2006) postulated that the quality of the
blog can act as a stimulus affecting cognitive and emotional states. In effect, this means that
providing an eye-catching and well-designed blog could increase the perception of its usefulness
and playfulness, thereby bringing about a positive cognitive appraisal. Simply put, the greater the
quality of the blog, the more positive the customers‟ effect should be.

CONCLUSION
The Malaysian advertising industry is fast developing into a very competitive market with both
foreign and local players competing for customer patronage. Whilst social media has not yet
reached the position of a strong, robust advertising tool in Malaysia, this study proposes that
there is significant scope for advertisers to embrace the concept in this way, developing strategy
which can potentially have powerful impact within this rapidly changing consumer environment.
This research presented a conceptual underpinning of the different tools that businesses may use
in their advertising aspect to boost their service and quality for their customers. Furthermore, this
review reveals advantages and issues related to each type of social media. This research can
conclude that there are tools that corporations can use to distribute their advertising massages
and create awareness for their customers.

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Uchechi Cynthia Ohajionu,

Research Scholar, Faculty of Business, Communication and Law (FOBCAL), INTI-International
University.
uchechi.cynthia@yahoo.com

Dr. Soney Mathews,

Associate Professor, Faculty of Business, Communication and Law (FOBCAL), INTI-
International University.
soney.mathews@newinti.edu.my

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