بازاریابی رسانه های اجتماعی در برند های لوکس: یک بررسی ادبی سیستماتیک و پیامدهای آن برای تحقیقات مدیریتی Social media marketing in luxury brands: A systematic literature review and implications for management research

1. Introduction The advent of social media and digital technologies has changed the competitive landscape for firms that quickly acknowledged the increasing relevance of social media platforms for business purposes (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010, 2011; Safko, 2010; Bruhn et al., 2012; Levy, 2013; Wang and Kim, 2017; Keegan and Rowley, 2017). Social media has been defined as “a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content” (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010, p. 61). Several forms of social media exist such as social networking sites (SNSs), microblogs, content communities, virtual worlds and in all of these different ways, customers and firms share information, insights and experiences. Several benefits arise in participating on social media for businesses. For example, building brand reputation (Ngai et al., 2015), developing collaborative products (Mangold and Faulds, 2009) and marketing strategies for brand management (Laroche et al., 2013). Social media has surely offered companies new business opportunities but also important dilemmas and challenges (Coulter, 2012; Del Giudice et al., 2013) by providing consumers with much more control, information and power over the marketing process. Customers can generate information and share opinions about a firm’s products and services with a bigger scope and wider influence than was the case previously (Sashi, 2012). The new competitive landscape, where customers and brands are increasingly embedded in social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, is fierce and firms are in a situation in which they co-own their brands and co-define their symbolic meanings with customers (Tynan et al., 2010; Nieto and Santamaría, 2007). Social media and, in general, the digital domain pose an enormous challenge for luxury firms by questioning the traditional business model. In fact, even though the diffusion and adoption of social media in most industries has been relatively rapid, luxury firms have long been hesitant (Okonkwo, 2010; Kapferer and Bastien, 2012; Chevalier and Gutsatz, 2012). Only in recent years, the luxury sector has approached social media to meet the increasing pervasiveness of social networks and communities in customers’ lives (Arrigo, 2014b). Luxury brand lifecycles have become shorter and the growing relevance in the luxury market of young customers who use social media has forced traditional luxury firms to develop innovative strategies to stay relevant in this dynamic and volatile market (Ko et al., 2016). Luxury firms need to develop a clear understanding of what social media could do for them, and define a clear strategy to improve customers’ experience and perceptions of their brands on social media (Phan et al., 2011).