Abstract
Florists have been adopting social media as a new marketing instrument to promote their business. However, academic research has rarely looked into the existing state of that adoption. Consequently, several fundamental problems remain unknown regarding the application of social media marketing (SMM) among florists, which may limit the development of the flower retailing business in the current social media era. In seeking to address this deficiency, this study aimed to investigate florists’ motivations, strategies, and perceived performance in relation to the application of SMM, as well as to explore the barriers faced by florists regarding the adoption of SMM. The authors implemented these objectives by interviewing 35 flower shop owners who each had established a brand page on Facebook. The qualitative data obtained from the interviews were analyzed using a grounded hermeneutic editing approach. The study’s results revealed that even though there were different motivations for florists to adopt social media marketing, including increasing brand exposure, improving customer relationship, and reducing the cost of advertising, showing expertise in floral design to attract consumers was the most common motivation stressed by the interviewees. The strategies mostly used by florists in managing their Facebook brand pages included providing high quality posts, cross-industry advertising, and switching consumers from online questions to a physical store visit. The most significant benefit perceived by florists regarding the use of a Facebook brand page was the development of new customers. Although the interviewees recognized the benefits of adopting SMM, some of them faced great incompatibility in labor source for that adoption. In addition, most interviewees focused on achieving general marketing goals rather than more advanced functions, such as business intelligence, in the application of SMM. The study results implied that the interviews mostly saw Facebook brand pages as a social network platform for increasing current sales volume, rather than for reaching a long-term quality customer relationship, which has deviated from the essence of social media marketing, and thus, limiting the synergy of the application of SMM in the flower retail sector.
Highlights
Social media have been changing the lifestyles of modern human beings
This study interviewed flower shop owners with social media marketing (SMM) experience to determine (1) the motivations for adopting SMM, (2) the strategies for administering SMM, (3) the performance perceived for SMM application, and (4) barriers to implementing SMM among florists
We first inquired of the Business Registration System sponsored by the Department of Commerce, Ministry of Economic Affairs of Taiwan with the entry of “flower shop” in conventional Chinese characters, resulting in an outcome of 187 flower shops located in the six special municipalities of Taiwan
Summary
Social media have been changing the lifestyles of modern human beings. They have become one of the main tools for individuals to connect with the outside world, with the result that there were 3.96 billion social media users in 2020, reflecting an annual growth rate of 10.5%, as well as a penetration rate of over 51% for the global population. Social media are a Web 2.0 technology-based communication platform on which the users can generate content and transmit the content to others [2,3] They are defined as including any website that allows users to discuss their materials and views, as well as to link to other users [4]. Since there are various social media available to users, Mangold and Faulds [5] divided social media into 15 types based on the purpose for which the social media were established, including social networking sites, creativity works sharing sites, user-sponsored blogs, etc All these social media websites are characterized by the features of Web.2.0 technology, including user-generated content, information exchange, and social networking, so they create a cyberspace that can involve a high degree of social interaction [6]. How are your interactions with followers on Facebook? How frequently do you respond to followers’ comments?
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