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Annotated Bibliography

How Does Social Media Affect Businesses?

Michael Prendergast

Professor Malcolm Campbell

English 1104

3 March 2017
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Annotated Bibliography

Adame, Vivian. Consumers Obsession Becoming Retailers Possession: The Way That

Retailers Are Benefiting from Consumers Presence on Social Media San Diego Law

Review, vol. 53, no. 3, Summer2016, pp. 653-700

http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=131978db-2e39-43b2-a867-

2a0062a53153%40sessionmgr101&vid=45&hid=124 Accessed 10 March 2017.

This academic article written by Vivian Adame, a graduate from University of San Diego

School of Law, focuses on the impact of social media users on retailers in the United

States. Several specific topics include new ways for retailers to profit from information of

online users, the immense potential markets on social media sites, and the legal responses

to the issue of online privacy for protecting online consumers. Adame begins by talking

about social media sites tracking what one posts, searches, browses, etc. then proceeds to

sell that information to retailers for billions annually. Although retailers have profited

from consumer information ever since the beginning of Internet commerce, the

development of social media has expanded the problem to unprecedented measures.

Adame goes on to mention the vast potential market on social media and how most

retailers have established some sort of presence online to exploit this market. Some of

these retailers not only share their new merchandise, products, and updates with social

media followers, but also create an online personality for their company, allowing them

to personally engage with them. The next topic Adame touches on is how retailers are

prospering from the lack of privacy laws protecting consumers online information. The

article stated the legal regulations that businesses and social media sites must follow,
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hindering the access of personal information of the users. Though, this topic doesnt

directly pertain to my research, Adame presented quality information which I can apply

to my research. Vivian Adame is a credible author who graduated from University of San

Diego School of Law in 2014, and later had his academic article published by San Diego

Law Review in 2016. Throughout the article, Adame avoided bias and remained objective

and informative. He also cited an abundance of different references, proving the articles

integrity and reliability. I plan to use this article as one of, if not the primary source of

information during my research. Adame does a good job providing a great deal of

information that is well explained and easily understood. He brought up many excellent

facts that provoked my thinking and helped generate new ideas.

DeMers, Jayson. The Top 10 Benefits Of Social Media Marketing. Forbes, Forbes Magazine

20 Sept. 2015, www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/11/the-top-10-benefits-of-

social-media-marketing/#175103e1f80d. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017.

In this article from Forbes, a world-renowned magazine, author Jayson DeMers, Founder

and CEO of AudienceBloom, a marketing agency based in Seattle, gives his personal top

ten benefits of using social media as a marketing tool. The article focuses on the various

benefits social media has when used as a marketing tool, mainly pertaining to small

business, startup companies, entrepreneurships, etc. Some specific topics DeMers

mentions are increased brand recognition, improved brand loyalty, increased website

traffic, decreased marketing costs, better customer experiences, and improved customer

awareness. He gives a brief opinion of why he chose each topic, then provides facts,
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statistics, and studies to support his claims. Though he does give opinion, he does a great

job avoiding bias by predominantly sticking to facts and statistics. Forbes is globally

accepted as a reliable source and DeMars has the credentials to be deemed credible. His

audience primarily consists of small business owners, entrepreneurs, and those

considering starting a business. He brings up several great points and caused me to

consider researching new areas regarding my topic. I will more than likely use this source

on my project at some point, but as a primary source of information, I will refrain from

using this specific article, solely because it is opinion based.

Hoffman, Donna L., and Marek Fodor. "Can You Measure the ROI of Your Social Media

Marketing?" MIT Sloan Management Review, vol. 52, no. 1, 2010, pp. 41-49,

https://librarylink.uncc.edu/login?

url=http://search.proquest.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/docview/757349606?

accountid=14605. Accessed 27 February 2017

This academic article written by Donna L. Hoffman, the Louis Rosenfeld Distinguished

Scholar and Professor of Marketing at the School of Business at George Washington

University, and Marek Fodor, the Chairman of KANTOX, focuses on measuring return

on investments(ROI) with using social media. Their main point of the article is to explain

and inform an efficient way to measure ROI of social media. They believe managers

should start by considering the motivation consumers have to use social media and then

measure the purchasing behavior of consumers when they engage with various markets

and brands. They also talk about how using social media to measure ROI and purchasing
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behavior is a global phenomenon in the business world. Similar to DeMars Forbes

article, Hoffman and Fodor explain that the three key objectives of social media

marketing are brand awareness, brand engagement, and word of mouth. Hoffman and

Fodor are both credible and reliable, remaining objective throughout the entire article and

are have a very informative purpose. This academic article has been extremely helpful

during my research by providing me with unprecedented facts and new knowledge about

businesses use of social media. I will consistently refer to this article as a primary source

of information, along with Adames Consumers Obsession Becoming Retailers

Possession: The Way That Retailers Are Benefiting from Consumers Presence on Social

Media.

Holt, Douglas. Branding in the Age of Social Media. Harvard Business Review, Harvard

Business Publishing, 9 June 2016, hbr.org/2016/03/branding-in-the-age-of-social-media.

Accessed 12 Mar. 2017.

In this article from Harvard Business Review, author Douglas Holt, founder and president

of the Cultural Strategy Group and was formerly a professor at Harvard Business School

and the University of Oxford, focuses on brand building in the age of social media. The

central theme of the article is about how brand building has become a challenge in a

world run by social media. Holt starts off by discussing branded content, which is a

form of advertising that uses the generating of content to promote the

particular brand which funds the content's production. A few years ago, companies

believed branded content was the focus of a marketing strategy and social media would
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facilitate the process and allow them to deal directly with customers on a personal basis.

But ironically, social media has made brand content less significant. Holt goes on to

mention the rise of new technologies has caused a thing called crowd cultures. Crowd

cultures are communities that were once geographically isolated, now with the expansion

of social media, are densely networked and their cultural influence has become direct and

substantial. Crowd cultures posed a major problem for businesses, because these groups

created new markets and companies must find a way to appeal and target these new

markets. This started the rapid expansion of sponsorships. Businesses believed if they

could find a celebrity who would endorse a product and fit in with a certain crowd

culture, they would be able to tap into these new markets. The remainder of the article

talks about the different kinds of crowd cultures and the branding issues they caused for

businesses. Not only was he a professor at two of the most prestigious universities in the

world, Douglas Holt is also the author of How Brands Become Icons: The Principles of

Cultural Branding, proving his reliability and credibility. Holt wrote this article as an

informative piece, and remained unbiased all the way through. I planned to explore all the

topics he mentioned so as of now, this article has been the most helpful piece in my

research. This source will absolutely appear on my final project.