Samenvatting

This research paper is conducted in association with Gamebasics to identify the effects of Social media marketing activities of OSM, and to evaluate the influence of those marketing activities on customer equity and purchase intention. Gamebasics is the game developer behind Online Soccer Manager, one of the biggest mobile application games ever to be produced by a Dutch developer. The company can be defined as innovative, creative and strategically excellent. Because of the young creative team behind OSM, Gamebasics has the ability to innovate, adjust, and improve their game in order to stay relevant in a fast changing industry. One of the marketing instruments used to reach out to customers and stimulated interaction between them is Social media marketing (SMM). Gamebasics believes that social media marketing can be successful in many ways and can be used as a marketing tool for various strategic goals. However, the effects of SMM are hard to measure and marketers still struggle to define the Return on investment (ROI) of SMM activities. Therefore, it has become necessary to analyze the effects of social media marketing and define possibilities to enhance brand performance.
In order to analyze the effects of social media marketing, four main areas have been scrutinized. First, brand awareness and customer engagement have been examined due to the fact that the required data needed to analyze the effects was relatively easy to obtain and the results could give helpful insights for the upcoming areas. In order to examine the effects of brand awareness and customer engagement, 372 social media post from the Facebook page of OSM were analyzed. For the analysis, this study used the already existing Customer Engagement Rate (CER) and new introduced Earned Exposure Rate (EER) based on the actions and values given by Facebook Analytics. In addition to this, the CER and EER were also used in relation to variables such as Language, type of post and use of words in order to measure significance between the various variables. Finally, a Pearson Correlation test has been conducted to analyze the correlation between customer engagement and brand awareness.
Subsequently, the influence of Social media marketing activities (SMMA) on three customer equity drivers has been examined. The theoretical background of this research is based roughly based on the SMMA model of Kim and Ko, which attempts to clarify the influence of SMMA on Relationship Equity, Value Equity and Brand Equity. Those three customer equity drivers form the overall customer equity which, according to Kim and Ko, has a significant influence on purchase intention. Therefore, the correlation between customer equity and purchase intention has also been examined. In order to execute this analysis, an online survey has been conducted among 954 respondents. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) has been conducted in order to guarantee the validity of this study. Moreover, Cronbach's Alpha is used to estimate the reliability of the test. Assuming that the validity and reliability test results were positive, a Pearson Correlation test, also referred to as the Pearson's r was executed to measure the relation and influence of the various factors discussed in this segment.
Research showed a current reach through the use of SMMA of almost four million Facebook users and possibly potential customers. In addition to this, each individual post published on Facebook reaches an average of 150.00 unique Facebook users. This study also measured an average EER rate of 8,3%, meaning 8,3% of the reach of an individual post is earned exposure and exists Facebook users not following the social media of OSM and possibly not even familiar with OSM itself.
Research conducted in order to analyze the effects on customer engagement showed an average of more than 300.000 unique Facebook users engaged with the social media activities of OSM. Moreover, Pearson's r tested a significant relation between CE and EER showing a positive relation of CE on EER meaning customer engagement has a strong positive influence on brand awareness.
Furthermore, as earlier explained in this summary, field research has been executed to analyze the relationship between various factors. The CFA tested the validity of this study and showed positive results meaning that the items used for this research are valid and the analysis will measure what it needs to measure. Moreover, Cronbach's Alpha proved the reliability of this study. After testing the validity and reliability, Pearson's r showed various significant results. The results show a strong positive relationship between SMMA and Value Equity, a moderate positive relationship between SMMA and Relationship Equity and a moderate positive relationship between SMMA and Brand Equity. However, research only showed a weak positive relationship between Customer Equity and Purchase Intention.
Therefore, in conclusion, the SMMA of OSM do enhance all three of the customer equity drivers. In addition to this, effects of SMMA on brand awareness and customer engagement are considered strong and do enhance each other significantly.
In order to optimize and improve the SMMA, this study recommends creating content from a strategic point of view. It is recommended to determine what should be the overall goal of the content, then define what needs to be done to reach this goal and finally choose which kind of content matches with the needs to reach this goal. Furthermore, since there is a significant influence of SMMA on the customer equity drivers, OSM's content should be created with the overall goal to influences those customer equity drivers. This will eventually result in better retention, brand value, customer relationship, brand awareness and customer engagement.
All findings of this research can be shared with the employees of Gamebasics and can be used as a base for future research. Lastly, empirical findings on this study are based on western consumers and active OSM users. Therefore, findings of this study will possibly not be equal to other consumer markets or continents.