Answer:
Social Media
Explanation:
Social media communication now has an enormous influence on our day-to-day lives. This particularly concerns professional and private decision-making processes made possible by new forms of public communication with decisions to buy or choose something, for example. Phenomena such as fake news, social bots or putative filter bubbles raise the issue of how we can ensure that all people have the chance to access the same information. So it has become imperative to examine such phenomena with the aid of complex analytical systems.
Professor Stefan Stieglitz from the university of Duisburg-Essen and Karsten Kraume, CRm Expert at Bertelsmann, talk about the significance, application options and future prospects for Social Media Analytics (SMA) here.
Mr Kraume, fake news, rumours and harmful bots that are spreading about on social media platforms jeopardise the integrity of companies and individuals – at least in the way they are perceived by the public. How serious are such phenomena?
Karsten Kraume: These phenomena are real and, consequently, should be taken seriously – both in the public and the private sector. As opinion makers in the social media can have a long-term influence on companies’ brand reputations, for example. At the same time these developments also have an effect at an operative level, as social media ensures that consumers have gained considerably more power. It gives them the opportunity to share their opinions about a product or service online with a very large number of people. This can have both a positive or a negative effect on a brand. Customers can express themselves positively, for example, so the company can profit from this if the online posting reaches a large audience. Or they can express themselves negatively and the company is then obliged to take measures to ensure that any negative effects of such posts are kept to a minimum. There is a wide range of examples for both cases. The “United Breaks Guitars” song, for example, by the Canadian musician, Dave Carroll, has so far reached a total of 18.5 million clicks on Youtube (as of December 2019). In the song, Carroll explained how his guitar was damaged in the baggage handling process during a United Airlines flight and criticised the customer service of this US-American airline. However the customers express themselves online, companies should show an interest in managing these discussions in the social media.
