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2012 2r,J lr ucrnational Conference en Economic. Education and Munagcmem (ICED,I 2012)

WEB 2.0 Usage in B2C Market

Selma Kadic-Maqlajhc' ", Almir Pestek' " and Mladen Vicev ic'"School of Economics and Business in Sarajevo, Trg oslobodjenja 1, Bosnia and Herzegovina

. ' selma,kadic@efsa,unsa,ba (Corresponding author); balmir.pestek@efsa.unsa.ba;cmladenvicevic.ba@gmail.com

Keywords: E·marketing, Web 2.0.. Producti vity, B2C, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract. Web 2.0 is 0 be considered as distinguished from everything before by the presence ofincreased lnrcrncrivity of its on collaborative platform. In the last decade many articles wereanalyzing its structure. clements and opportunities for its usage in different segments of life andbusiness. Howe ver. it is not known how companies are capitalizing these opportunities. whatbenefits they sec from it and what risks they have from (not) using it. There arc even less studiesthat consider other environment except the USA and Asia. This paper will usc quantitative researchapproach. based on convenience sample of 80 companies. to test hypothesis developed throughtheoretical literature review. Research findings should be used as indicative in the area of impact ofthe Web 2.0 usage on B2C company performance. This paper will offer new knowledge about Web2.0. construct and its usage in B2C companies in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Therefore. it willincrease awareness of the importance of the regional studies in order to enhance regional usage ofWeb 2.0 tools.

I. Introduction

Over the past few years. Web 2.0 has become a buzzword. It is one of the reasons why O'Reilly andBattelle [ I] say thnt Web 2.0 is no longer a platfor m bUI a new world. The growing buzz around theability of the so-called Web 2.0 to dcmocmtlzc various aspects of society and culture. includingpolitics. information. publishing. and business 12). suggests more in depth conceptual and empiricalanalyses of this issue arc needed to further understanding and offer guidance for small businessowners and managers [3].

The paper will not deal with an in-depth analysis of the concept, but rather focus on Web 2.0tools and their usage, and on their effects 011 the efficiency and effectiveness of BII companies'marketing activities. The aim of the paper is to establish whether and 10 what extent Hl I companiesuse Web 2.0 technologies. in what ways, and how Web 2.0 tools affect the effectiveness of theentire marketing communication. as well as which tools arc mostly used for these purposes. Suchresearch would provide enough information tha t could serve as a basis for further studies intovariables that increase Web 2.0 tools" efficiency.

This paper should be seen as an extension of the research that has been conducted by Pcstck cral., 14Jabout usage of the Web 2.0. The purpose of this paper is to promote scholarly inquiry aboutthe need for a new type of promotion tools that arc Web 2.0 based and the adoption of theworldwide best practices in business activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

2. W EB 2.0

The very concept Web 2.0 emerged during a 2004 conference organized by O' Reilly Media. Web2.0 has been defined as a "new breed of application. which runs primarily on Internet serve rs andcompany intranets. is generally understood to be dynamic [that is. content updates automatically)978-988· 19750·) ·-1 ' IlliS25.110

2012 110ng Kling Education Socicty. Llong Kong 537

and collaborat ive (drawing infor mat ion from multiple sources and from use r co ntribution).embracing a new pa radigm. the Internet itse lf becomes the computing platform"{5]. Web 2.0 refers10 the evolution of Internet from a simp le information retrieval to inte ractivity , intcropcrability andcollaboration [6]. Simply. Web 2.0 is the evaluation to a more interactive medium wherecom municat ion and interact ion arc in focus [7]. The participation-coll aborat ion element o f Web 2.0is perhaps its central theme (8].

Web 2.0 allows users interactive sharing and usc o f information. contro l over the content, user­or iented and user-co ntrolled des ign , as well as mutual co mmunication and cooperation on the globalnetwork. Web 2.0 through user-generated content has become a mass phenomenon: Facebook.My'Space. YouTubc, Wikipcdia and Twiner arc all being listed among To p 15 wcbsitcs. acco untingfrom more than 11% of global internet traffi c, as of A. pri120 10 [9 in 10].

Companies worldw ide arc now using Web 2.0 in many different ways to con nect with customers.employees and other stakeho lders [ II ). On the other hand. consumers ge t tired of T V commerc ials.they rarely watc h them and change channels as soon as co mmercials start. Web 2.0 attractscons umers' a ttention in another way. by means of various games. research . etc. Consumers getinvolved in and exposed to advertising. and even li nd it fun.

Marketing on Web 2.0 is flexib le [i 21. If a campaign launched using a Web 2.0 tool docs noty ield resu lts. it is easy to give up and launch another one. From the "o f fline marketing" view point.it o ften happened that a campaign is bound b)' contract and cannot be stopped. although there wasno return on investment.

Web 2.0 technologies allow marketers to reach thei r target audience or. better to say. an idealco nsumer [ 13]. Ow ing to Web 2.0 techno logies. it is possible to rent adve rtis ing space on. e.g.Pacebook and post an ad that can be seen only by the users we selected as target aud ience. It is anadvant age that television. magazines. billboards. e tc. never had.

Web 2.0 marketi ng is very affordable and ente rta ining for users. and allows marketers to lookinto the "black box" and ge t ful ly famil iar with their co nsumers ( 14J.

Blog is a type of content management system (CMS ). which makes it s imple to use forpub lishing short art icles popularly called posts ( 15J. On the other hand microh logs are forms ofblogs that limit sizes o f each po st (I 6 ]. The bes t-known microhlog is Twitter. which limits a user' spost to 140 characte rs. However. s ince many users post tweet s 0 11 themselves and their lives daily,eve n a few times a day . it turned out that it is VCI)' useful to markete rs [ 17).

Soc ial networks are maybe the lead ing web 2.0 tool. that allow users to create and build inadd itional app licatio ns on their site (Campbell c t al.. 20 10). Soc ial networking sites. such asFacebook. l\tySpace. Friendster . Livc.lournal. and Bcbo. are des igned to foster social inte raction ina virtual environment r18].

J . Resea rch

3. 1 Rcscu rch methodology, glla ls an d hypo th eses

The goat o f the research is to find out what conditions in 111 1 are in terms of Web 2.0 tools usage.Which compan ies use Web 2.0. do they do it in the right way, as part of stra tegy or through ad-hoctho ughts? The pap er will also try to answe r the question as to how and in what way companiesmeasure and recogn ize effects of using Web 2.0 on their busine ss. T he paper aut hors do not havethe amb ition to ge nera lize results to other markets. The aim is to obta in init ial results of Web 2.0too ls usage in BII . Suc h resul ts would then serve as a bas is for further research and developing amodel for improving Web 2.0 too ls e fficiency .

Based on the goals set above and theoretical framework . the following hypotheses were se t:• 111: The most frequent ly used Web 2.0 too l in the B2C market is Faccbook• 112: The primary motive for using Web 2.0 for B2C companies is prod uct/service promotion.• 11 3: The sec ondary motive for us ing Web 2.0 for B:!C co mpanies is CRM.

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For a company to use Web 2.0 technologies. the basic prerequisite is thnt it uses the Internet.Since the survey was delivered via e-mail, it is reasonab le to assume that everybody whoparticipated in the survey actually uses the Internet. r-,'IOSI respondents claimed that they usc theInternet for internal and external e-mail communication and doc ument exchange with busine sspartners, Still, it is somewhat disturbing that only 35% respondent s usc the Internet for onlineservice and new staff search. as shown in Graph I.

Quantitative research was conducted using highly structured questionnaire deve loped for thisresearch. The online questionnaire was created using Google spreadsheet. An on line questionnairewas sent to a sample o r 293 companies that arc operatin g in Bosnia and llcrzcgoviu a. ill B2Cmarket. We used non-probability con venience sampling method that has been ident ified satiablecompared 10 goals and object ives o r the research . Potential respondents received URL add ress inthe form or the Hypertext link included in an e-mail message sent from researchers. E-mail invitedthem to visit website and to part icipa te in the research. In total 80 respondents completedquestionnaire thai corre spond s to 27% response rate.

3.2 Analysis or research findin gs and di scussion

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Most companies thai part icipated in the research have I-50 employees (74% ), and the companydirector in perso n typicall y filled in the que st ionnaire. The surveyed compani es do bus iness in awide range o r industries, mostly in trade ( 19%) and banking ( 15%) ,

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Graph 2. Ove rview of respunden ts' familiarity with various Web 2.0 tuols!

Some of the listed services arc used by 70% respondents when doing business. while 30%docs not use any. The 1110st frequently used Web 2.0 too l is Faccb ook. This prove d the first researchhypothes is. Respondents who answe red that they do not lise any service claimed that the mainreason is the fact that they arc not familiar with ad vantages offered by the serv ices . Besides. 23%respondents bel ieve that the lise o f listed services is a waste o f time, while 27% cited "somethingelse" . among other things that their use is not adj usted to the enterprise' s marketing strategy. strict

company rules. etc.The second part of qucs tlonnnirc consisted of statements that respond ents had to rank on the

Likert 5-poinl scale, where I meant st rongly disagree and 5 - strongly agree with the offeredstatement. Descriptive stat istics is given in table 2.

'lablc 2. Descrip tive stat istics~ li n Mux Moun Std. Deviation

Gra ph I. Overview of purposes for which the Internet is used'

On-lme Services

I This que stion alll1\\'eu more than one response . so the SUIlI greater than I OU%, is possible.z 'l his question allowed mo re than one respo nse. so the MlIll greate r than 100% is possihlc .

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In the next question. respondents were shown a list of Web 2.0 services and asked to mat\;.those they are fam iliar with, i.c. those they had heard of before. Faccbook was marked by all the 80respondents. YouTube by 79. Tweeter by 72. etc.. as show n on Graph 2.

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Social oct\\ orls orrcr nil possibilit ics for , 2.07 1.2t}() -.406 .532mar ketcrs.Yousubc. Flkl.r and similar services for \ id..:oand photo coracnt exchange serve only lo r s 2.3 0 1.3 16 -.695 .53 2cnrcnammcm.Social net works ca n hi." us...ful in anal~'1ing our s 3.M 1.235 -.36K .532customcrs/, Ii..: nls·!Il1 lhc futurc. I \<,: "ill pay more alh:nlioll 10possibi lili.:s offercJ n)' social networks. scrviccs s 3.59 1.33X -.7-1 7 .532fur \ id ....o and photo l;tml"'l1 l cxchangc. andcolluborario n.

According to the respondents. YouTube. Flickr and similar services for video and photocontent exchange proved to be a use ful and low-priced alternative for classic advert ising via TV.posters and print advertisements. In this respect. the respondents agree that the described servicesare not only for entertainment. The average rating of 3,6-t for statement "Social networks may beuseful in analyz ing our customers/clients' show that respondent s pay attention to possibilitiesprovided by social networks in customer/clie nt analysis. According to t icked responses and theaverage rating of 3.59. respondents will pay more attention to possibilities o ffered by Web 2.0services and technol og ies in the future. Since the trend in marketing is such that company marketingcannot be imag ined without these tec hnolog ies (and many companies build their marketingstrategies on this very trend ). such a view is completely expected and logical. and sugges ts that ourcompanies have also become aware of the Web 2.0 significance in marketing.

As revealed by Tab le 3. respondents who believe that social networks are useful forcustomer analysis and development of customer relations will pay more attention 10 soc ial network s 'possibilities in the future.

TaMc 3. Thc fuiur... of U"'II?cIn the fulllrc. \ \I! \ \iII ra~' morc allcmion to possihili ticlioffe r....J by social

ncl\\orl..!i. $Cn i....... s for \ iJ..:o and pho to cont... nt e, chanu c. and collabora tion .Social netw orks arc u...... fu! in I'earson Correlat ion S7~ "relations \\ ith our customcrs Sig. 12-taibl) .Olltl

• • Corrc tano n is signilk'lllt at thc 0.0 I k \c1 (2 ·tailcJ ).

-to e lusions a nd limi tations

Research findings show that B11 companies are aware of the significance o f Web 2.0 tools and thatmost of them usc them in their business. Still. 30% respondents do not usc these services at all. andhave ex tremely negativ e views on their usage. Although the research has proved the hypotheses. thegeneral impression is that B1 1 companies use Web 2.0 tools as ad-hoc part o f their marketingactivities. rather that the foca l point of their marketing strategy. Having in mind the methodologyused in developing the survey questionnaire and sample. the resea rch findings can serve as a pilot.which ca n serve as a basis for a model for improving Web 2.0 tools efficiency. A full analysiscertainly requi res a greater number o f respondents and a compre hensive regional study, in order toobtain a complete picture o f Web 2.0 tools effec t. In this respect. the paper will serve as a qua litybase for future au thors. since there is an obvious lack of literature and data pertaining 10 this topic.particu larly in this territory.

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