Traditionally, consumers used the Internet to simply expend content: they read it, they watched it, and they used it to buy products and services. Increasingly, however, consumers are utilizing platforms – such as content sharing sites, blogs, social networking, and wikis – to create, modify, share, and discuss Internet content. This represents the social media phenomenon, which can now significantly impact a firm’s reputation, sales, and even survival. Yet, many executives eschew or ignore this form of media because they don’t understand what it is, the various forms it can take, and how to engage with it and learn. In response, we present a framework that defines social media by using seven functional building blocks: identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation, and groups. As different social media activities are defined by the extent to which they focus on some or all of these blocks, we explain the implications that each block can have for how firms should engage with social media. To conclude, we present a number of recommendations regarding how firms should develop strategies for monitoring, understanding, and responding to different social media activities.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2514472_code404914.pdf?abstractid=2514472&mirid=1

Social Media? Get Serious! Understanding the Functional Building Blocks of Social Media

https://summit.sfu.ca/system/files/iritems1/18103/2011_social_media_bh.pdf

Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media

This article provides a synthesizing overview of the past 20 yr. of consumer research addressing the sociocultural, experiential, symbolic, and ideological aspects of consumption. Our aim is to provide a viable disciplinary brand for this research tradition that we call consumer culture theory (CCT). We propose that CCT has fulfilled recurrent calls for developing a distinctive body of theoretical knowledge about consumption and marketplace behaviors. In developing this argument, we redress three enduring misconceptions about the nature and analytic orientation of CCT. We then assess how CCT has contributed to consumer research by illuminating the cultural dimensions of the consumption cycle and by developing novel theorizations concerning four thematic domains of research interest.

/pdf/consumer-culture-theory-cct-twenty-years-of-research-3gcdikziju.pdf

Consumer Culture Theory (Cct): Twenty Years of Research

From Marketing Mix to Relationship Marketing: Towards a Paradigm Shift in Marketing

Service-dominant logic continues its evolution, facilitated by an active community of scholars throughout the world. Along its evolutionary path, there has been increased recognition of the need for a crisper and more precise delineation of the foundational premises and specification of the axioms of S-D logic. It also has become apparent that a limitation of the current foundational premises/axioms is the absence of a clearly articulated specification of the mechanisms of (often massive-scale) coordination and cooperation involved in the cocreation of value through markets and, more broadly, in society. This is especially important because markets are even more about cooperation than about the competition that is more frequently discussed. To alleviate this limitation and facilitate a better understanding of cooperation (and coordination), an eleventh foundational premise (fifth axiom) is introduced, focusing on the role of institutions and institutional arrangements in systems of value cocreation: service ecosystems. Literature on institutions across multiple social disciplines, including marketing, is briefly reviewed and offered as further support for this fifth axiom.

Institutions and axioms: an extension and update of service-dominant logic

Previous work on subcultural consumption presents structure, ethos, and subcultural boundaries as key theoretical aspects. These concepts are critically reconsidered through examining and interpreting ethnographic fieldwork and the consumer accounts of 44 gay men interviewed during a study of a gay urban community. Original insights are developed in relation to consuming in a subcultural context. The findings include consideration of the following key aspects of subcultural consumption: (1) contested meanings of gay subcultural consumption, (2) consuming and constructing subcultural boundaries, and (3) negotiating individual distinction with consumption practices. Overall, findings indicate that the oppositional character of subcultural consumption is captured well by the proposed theoretical framework that takes into account contested meaning clusters; fluid subcultural boundaries; flexible subcultural, interpretive frameworks for consuming; and negotiation of individual tastes through subcultural consumption.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/344427

The Protean Quality of Subcultural Consumption: An Ethnographic Account of Gay Consumers

Certain brands attain legitimacy (i.e., social fitness) through existing frames and dynamic framing processes described in this article. Drawing on qualitative data collected from gay consumers, this article explores ways brands are cocreated in a non‐brand‐focused community. Collective action frames—shared ways of interpreting meanings within social interaction—provide the connection between a community and its legitimate brands. Informants routinely inscribe some brands with the frames of the gay community and, when applying dynamic framing processes, assess whether other brands share a social fit with the meanings of the gay community. Implications for authenticity and brand legitimacy are discussed.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/422122

The dynamics of Brand legitimacy: An interpretive study in the gay men's community

When customers get clever: Managerial approaches to dealing with creative consumers

Lesbian and Gay Pride Day (LGPD) is investigated as a collective ritual of consumer resistance. Over the period of four years, five LGPD festivals were attended and participant observed. Furthermore, to provide a more in-depth perspective on the meanings of this celebration for consumers, forty-four gay men were interviewed about the festival. Emergent findings reveal the festival as a carnivalesque celebration of excess, a construction of authenticity, and a contested commercialized experience. Overall, we interpret LGPD as a complex, multilayered form of consumption-related cultural resistance that raises awareness of social injustice and discursively informs social meanings in everyday life outside the festival.

The meanings of Lesbian and Gay Pride Day: Resistance through consumption and resistance to consumption

﻿ Creative consumers (defined as customers who adapt, modify, or transform a proprietary offering) represent an intriguing paradox for business. On one hand, they can signify a black hole for future revenue, with breach of copyright and intellectual property. On the other hand, they represent a gold mine of ideas and business opportunities. Central to business is the need to create and capture value, and creative consumers demand a shift in the mindsets and business models of how firms accomplish both. Based upon their attitude and action toward customer innovation, we develop a typology of firms' stances toward creative consumers. We then consider the implications of the stances model for corporate strategy and examine a three-step approach to dealing with creative consumers: awareness, analysis, and response.

Steven M. Kates

Papers

The Protean Quality of Subcultural Consumption: An Ethnographic Account of Gay Consumers

The dynamics of Brand legitimacy: An interpretive study in the gay men's community

When customers get clever: Managerial approaches to dealing with creative consumers

The meanings of Lesbian and Gay Pride Day: Resistance through consumption and resistance to consumption

When Customers Get Clever: Managerial Approaches to Dealing With Creative Consumers