engleski

The impact of relationship orientation in social media on business performance

Today, companies operate in a dynamic environment, characterized by fast technological development, large-scale competition and globalization as well as constant changes in the market which has led to the growing awareness of the importance of relationships and customer retention (Grönroos, 1994). The decreasing efficiency of the mass, impersonal or one-to-many communication has lead to the increasing interest in the concepts of relationship marketing and social media, often used to communicate with customers directly. Even more so, since relationship marketing as a concept relies on the idea of value co-creation by means of cooperation and interaction between companies/brands and consumers (Payne et al. 2007 ; Prahalad 2004 ; Grönroos, 2007). Furthermore, the benefits of communicating and co-creating value with consumers online via social media were not only in the focus of practitioners seeking alternative communication and business approaches ; researchers began exploring the many ways in which the emergence of social media affects both the consumer and the company (see Cova 1997). This resulted in several streams of literature focused predominantly on the effect of social media on a company’s competitive advantage (e.g. Lynn, Maltz, Jurkat, Hammer, 1999), the effect of social media communication on different target audiences (Andersen, et al, 2007) and various research focused on specific social media platforms and their use (e.g. Eastment, 2010 ; Adams, 2010). Hence, the growing body of literature in relationship marketing in the 1990s and 2000s, as well as a growing interest in researching the benefits of social media reflects the growing importance of these two areas, that are so often considered critical for a company's success. Still, there is limited literature available that reflects the activities and behaviors of organizations that characterize themselves as being “relationship-oriented”. More specifically, a “relationship-oriented” organization is one whose actions are consistent with the relationship marketing concept based on „identifying and establishing, maintaining, enhancing and, when necessary, terminating relationships with customers and other stakeholders, at a profit so that the objectives of all parties involved are met ; and this is done by mutual exchange and fulfillment of promises“ (Grönroos 1994). The main contribution of this research is the examination of the components and application of the relationship orientation (RO) to social media from the company perspective.

social media; relationship orientation; company performance

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