2015 48th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Development of a Social Media Maturity Model – A Grounded Theory
Approach
Sylvia Geyer
University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien
Vienna, Austria
[email protected]
Barbara Krumay
WU Vienna University of Economics and Business
Vienna, Austria
[email protected]
branding, or customer support [4]. Examples for
benefits of using social media are customer-aligned
product development, improved brand loyalty,
increased traffic, reduced costs for product support, [3]
and improved knowledge of the market and the market
situation [4-7].
Threats related to the use of social media for
companies are marketing channel conflicts [3], loss of
communication control [7], security and privacy issues
[8], loss of reputation [9], lack of internal cooperation
and internal know-how resulting in uncoordinated
work, as well as target groups not being addressed
properly [10].
Studies suggest that topics like advertisement,
marketing, public relations, customer support, sales
and distribution, internal communication, market
research, collaboration, social recruiting, and product
development are among the top ten reasons for
companies to use social media [11]. These diverse uses
of organizational social media already show the
complexity of the field. A model allowing for a generic
yet comprehensive view on the topic is missing.
With the application of a maturity model, the whole
set of relevant considerations can be covered,
decreasing the risk of uncoordinated build-it-and-theywill-come social media participation attempts.
Therefore, the question addressed is: What does a
maturity model for the organizational social media
application look like, and what dimensions does it
consist of?
The rest of the paper is structured as follows:
Firstly, we present the state of the field in the area of
social media and maturity models. Secondly, we
describe our methodological approach. Thirdly, we
illustrate our resulting model. Next, we discuss the
results and implications for theory and practice.
Finally, we discuss results and limitations as well as
possible aspects of further research.
Abstract
Social media has become part of everyday lives.
Discussions about whether social media is relevant to
organizations no longer exist; instead, discussions on
how to successfully adopt social media prevail. With
much uncertainty on what it takes to reach excellence
in social media use, companies often start with an
uncoordinated approach, not taking into account all
potential threats. However, little research is done on
the diverse components of an organization that are
influenced by the use of social media. Furthermore, a
common understanding on when a company is “ready”
for social media application is missing. Thus, this work
seeks to describe a generic approach on assessing
social media maturity. Applying grounded theory, a
first version for a maturity model is developed which
will serve as a tool for introducing and assessing
organizational social media activities, including a set
of relevant demographic information, organizational
prerequisites, as well as dimensions of maturity.
1. Introduction
The construct “social media” incorporates two
different “worlds”. Social refers to the participation of
users, communication, and their relationships. Media
focuses on the underlying technical and organizational
preconditions like dynamics, interaction, and
decentralization [1]. Web 2.0, which is the set of
functionalities provided via Internet technology, can be
seen as the platform that enables the existence of social
media. Therefore, one can define social media as
Internet-based applications allowing for creation and
exchange of user-generated content (UGC) [2]. This
interaction with communities has the potential to add
value to the organization, if it is well designed and
aligned with the company’s business [3].
Organizational application cannot solely be found for
primary activities, but also in product development,
marketing, sales, product support [3], employer
1530-1605/15 $31.00 © 2015 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/HICSS.2015.224
2. State of the Field
1859
As stated above, social media combines social
interactivities of participants allowing the exchange of
user-generated content [2]. This includes a huge
variety of technologies, tools and instruments, such as
forums, blogs, discussion boards and chat rooms [12],
social network sites, content communities, and wikis
[13]. These technologies – mainly covered by the term
Web 2.0 – have received great attention by companies
in the last years [13]. Reasons for implementing social
media activities are as diverse, including brand
building, advertising, promotion, customer relationship
building, retrieving information about customers or
competitors and so on [14]. Decisions on social media
usage of companies are influenced by different internal
and external factors. External factors include pressure
from the market, norms and dynamics in the sector,
whereas internal factors are often referring to typical
business factors such as costs or competitive advantage
[14]. The main advantage but also the main challenge
of social media is its dynamics, which is driven by the
participants and not by the company alone. On the one
hand, this makes it a powerful, fast and – on first sight
– low-cost tool for diffusing messages from the
company [2]. But on the other hand, social media
requires a deep understanding of the mechanisms and
the willingness to adopt this fast and uncontrollable
medium [12]. A crisis – e.g. in form of a social media
firestorm, which is an online outrage, evolving quickly
and often radically [15] – has to be handled
specifically.
However, companies need to consider social media
not as an alternative but as an additional
communication channel, therefore needing to deal with
multi-channel management. In contrast to other
conventional channels, social media can be seen as a
bundle of communication possibilities, being
interactive and allowing for several different ways of
communication, involvement, and participation [1]. In
connection with the different organizational reasons for
adopting social media, the necessity of treating it
specially becomes apparent. Social media is a “hybrid
element of the promotion mix” [12] by shifting control
over conversations to its participants. In order to be
successful nonetheless, ways of shaping and guiding
interactions are required [12], imposing new tasks to
the participating organization.
Companies’ competitiveness – especially when
being confronted with new challenges – is highly
influenced by maturity the organization has reached.
Whereas the maturity of naturally growing objects
(plants, animals) can be defined by reaching a state of
full development [16], a company’s maturity requires a
more specific characterization since the state of being
ripe cannot be identified easily. Hence, maturity stages
in an organizational or business context are usually not
addressing the company as a whole, but are connected
to different organizational units or management
systems, including project management [17-19],
business process management [20, 21], software
development [22, 23], supply chain management [24]
and many more. In this context, different definitions
for maturity have become common. Maturity of
organizations has been defined as a “state where the
organization is in a perfect condition to achieve its
objectives” [17], or when talking about processes,
especially software development processes, “maturity
is the extent to which a specific process is explicitly
defined, managed, measured, controlled and effective”
[23]. Hence, maturity means that a specific object has
to have reached a certain stage at which it cannot
develop any further or has to switch to another stage.
The measurement of such maturity depends on
different dimensions or factors, which are
preconditions for or characteristics of the object.
Concerning the measurement of social media
maturity, the rare academic approaches of such models
so far rather focus on specific application areas like the
field of open government [25]. In practice, there are
some more generic approaches with most models
focusing on the maturity phases a company is in, often
based on the idea of the theory of diffusion of
innovation, giving little or no assessment criteria [2630]. The models by Van der Sleen [31] and Summa
[32] differ by considering relevant organizational
dimensions as well, although not giving further
information on evaluation or assessment criteria. In
practice, maturity models assist a company with
assessing the current status of social media adoption as
well as identifying the gap yet to overcome.
The models presented thus far provide evidence
that there is no maturity model considering the
complexity of organizational integration of social
media in a comprehensive way. They fail to consider
the complex set of influenced organizational areas for
successfully going and staying social. Due to their
rather rough structure, they also do not allow for a
differentiated view of all relevant dimensions.
3. Methodological Approach
When developing theories, models or frameworks,
researchers often face different methodological
problems. Grounded theory has become popular, being
a methodology to develop a theory based on data, and
an increasing number of examples for its application
can be found [33, 34]. It has been defined “as a
qualitative research method that uses a systematic set
of procedures to develop an inductively derived
grounded theory about a phenomenon“ [35]. Compared
to other approaches to theory development it does not
1860
separate data collection and analysis. It is rather based
on the idea that while collecting data and
simultaneously analyzing the data, a theory can be
further developed or newly created [35]. Hence,
building a theory can be seen as a creative, dynamic,
and iterative process. It is important to realize that
grounded theory is not about counting numbers, but
assessing concepts, their meaning, and relationship
[36].
As a precondition to develop a strong substantiation
of concepts in a theory, framework or model, data
collection requires systematic and rigorous procedures
which can be applied to different sources (e.g.
interviews, prior research, documents and other
artifacts) [35]. These sources are analyzed by using
appropriate coding procedures [37, 38]. Concepts
about the investigated object are developed. At first
they are provisional, but by being permanently
evidenced (or absent) in the data, the concept “earns its
way into the theory“ [39]. In addition, artifacts serve as
a basis for theoretical sampling [40], which “requires
paying attention to theoretical relevance and purpose”
of the data [34]. It means that the selection of new
sources is based on already analyzed sources and hence
contributing to the concepts’ representativeness.
Coding is based on comparing concepts found,
where codes similar to codes already found contribute
to the density of the concept, and codes newly found
are able to account for a new concept [33]. By each
and every source coded, the scientist gains knowledge
about the investigated object [37, 38]. Therefore,
coding requires theoretical sensitivity and is supported
by creating memos, describing the evolving concepts.
Codes and concepts repeatedly evolving have to be
categorized [41]. However, not all concepts discovered
in the coding procedure will fit into these categories
[39]. A multi-step coding procedure has been proposed
by different authors in different ways [42]. However,
some coding procedures dominate literature, including
open, selective and theoretical coding. As an initial
step, open coding is done for “breaking data apart and
delineating concepts” and identifying the concepts’
“properties and dimensions” [40:195, 43]. Axial
coding, which has been stated to “go hand in hand”
[40:198] with open coding, is used to assess
relationships between concepts evolving from open
coding. In a next step, selective coding identifies
variables associated with the core category and thus
defines the frame of the grounded model [33]. Finally,
theoretical coding has been defined as “conceptualize
how the substantive codes may relate to each other as
hypotheses to be integrated into a theory” [44].
Although the different steps were subject to changes
and vary between authors, all are focused on
developing a sound and grounded theory [43]. Coding
should continue until theoretical saturation has been
reached [33, 35].
4. Model Development
We adopted a grounded theory approach for the
development of the model. In the fresh field of social
media, where academic literature so far has not
addressed maturity of social media application, we
used different data sources (academic literature,
practical sources, e.g. guidelines and case studies) as a
basis for development. Accordingly, we applied
theoretical sampling which has been found to be
“especially important when studying new or
unchartered areas because it allows for discovery”
[39]. After each analysis, we developed a provisional
model (referred to as SM-MM.prov), which was
further iterated. While collecting the data, coding and
analysis took place concurrently supported by software
(Atlas.ti). In the open coding phase, newly found as
well as repeatedly found concepts were added to the
model; relationships between the codes were
developed to add meaning and understanding to the
concepts. In the selective coding phase we excluded
concepts that were not evidenced in any other source or
did not fit the core category.
We started with academic literature addressing
companies’ approach to social media application (3
sources, L1 – L3) [45]. However, we did not gain the
impression of theoretical saturation at this stage, hence
more theoretical sampling was necessary and we
enlarged the sample by data from practice (6 sources,
P1 – P6). This practitioners’ point of view further
contributed to the development of the model’s different
dimensions. It furthermore supported the density of the
concepts concerning their relationships, overlaps and
differences. The existing models from practice (P1 –
P3) especially contributed to existing concepts of
preconditions and adoption, but also generated new
concepts of strategic and operational social media
maturity. The cases (P4) contributed to the concepts of
strategic and operational maturity, but added concepts
of social listening and monitoring, social media
integration as well as human resources. The guideline
and policy added a concept of social responsibility and
organizational culture. An overview on the analyzed
sources and a short characterization can be found
below (Table 1). From these sources we were able to
develop a first provisional model, indicating that three
main concepts can be differentiated: demographics,
preconditions regarding the organizational readiness,
and actual dimensions of social media maturity.
Sources from literature
L1
Paper
Weinberg, De Ruyter, Dellarocas,
Buck and Keeling [46]
1861
x
OQ1: What are the preconditions in a company
in order to be able to introduce social media
successfully?
x OQ2: What does a company need to implement
or operate social media successfully?
When the open part of the interview had reached a
certain exhaustion or saturation, we showed the experts
the current status of the SM-MM.prov and asked them
to explain the dimensions’ contents from their own
point of view. Furthermore, we encouraged them to
describe the dimensions in their own words. Finally,
we asked them to add or exclude dimensions based on
their experience.
One expert (E1) emphasized in the open part of the
interview that the organizational structure of the
company has an enormous influence on successful
social
media
implementation
and
strategy
development. The structure has to be clear, declared
and well-defined. In this context, the expert mentioned
resources (time, money, staff) as being influential.
Furthermore, E1 referred to the existence of processes,
which have to be seen in a more flexible way than in
other business areas, in particular he named
“overcoming inflexible processes” and “the ability to
react to changes in internal and external
circumstances”. This is necessary to deliver
information at the right time. In addition, planning and
“social media implementation in the form of projects”
was
emphasized.
Moreover,
some
internal
preconditions were mentioned, such as awareness for
social media throughout the whole company, existence
of guidelines and guiding principles, as well as the
company website as the core prerequisite for social
media implementation leading to “organizational
readiness”. The expert explained that problems may
arise from not differentiating between different social
media channels. From this point of view, monitoring
and controlling all activities is an additional important
precondition. All preconditions are necessary to
develop a social media strategy, allowing tactical and
operational activities. Concerning the further
development of the model, the expert largely agreed
with the existing model, but not on the labeling of
dimension M.6 (labeled CSR, corporate social
responsibility, in the provisional model). Although it
was recognized by the expert as being very important,
the term CSR was not identified in this context.
Another expert (E2) focused in the open part of the
interview on differences of companies concerning size,
industry and support from high-level management to
be able to differentiate between “social media
affinities”. These differences are also influencing
resources which are available or allocated to social
media activities. According to this expert, successful
social media implementation requires the development
L2
Paper
Spaulding [3]
L3
Paper
Zerfass, Fink and Linke [47]
Sources from practice
P1
Model
Moore [27]
P2
Model
Pw/Smc [28]
P3
Model
Sleen [31]
P4
Cases (8)
Holloman [48], pp. 147-183
P5
Guideline
Intel [49]
P6
Policy
Procter & Gamble [50]
Table 1. Characteristics of Analyzed Sources
Since all the sources mentioned above did still not
lead to theoretical saturation, we invited five experts
from the field and were able to interview three of them
(E1, E2, E3). All three experts have been in touch with
one of the authors before. The experts are wellestablished consultants (E1 – social media strategist &
coach; E2 – media, social media and mobile media
communication) or have experience at the operational
level (E3 – social media manager in organizations). All
three experts have many years of experience in the
field. All interviews were conducted in the native
language of the interviewees. The interviews took
place at different venues, either at the office of the
interviewer, the office of the interviewee or a neutral
location (meeting room). Interviews with E1 and E3
were conducted by one of the authors (A) with another
author (B) present, whereas the interview with E2 was
conducted by one author (B) alone. Interviews took
place in spring 2014. All interviews were recorded and
transcribed. Results presented here were translated
from the interview language. Table 2 further describes
the interviewee’s experience, interview situation, as
well as the interview duration.
Duration (min.)
Duration
Interviewer
Interview situation
Interview
location
Experience in
years
Expert
Experts
E1
7 Interviewer’s office
A
65:25
E2
7 Interviewee’s office
B
64:47
E3
4 Neutral room
A
55:08
Table 2. Interviewee characteristics, interview
situation, interview duration
Starting with an introduction, the interviewer used
pre-defined, open questions to gain information in the
form of narratives and stories of the interviewees. The
interviewer applied techniques to maintain interactivity
(rephrasing questions, asking for more explanation)
until the phase of saturation was reached. The predefined questions were (translated from the native
language of the interviewees):
1862
maturity
model
(SM-MM.prov)
for
further
development, the states were coded as follows: A =
agreement or D = disagreement; R = requiring
redefinition; I = could not interpret nor explain the
dimension, required information from the authors.
of a special mindset within the company and flexibility
as well as the ability to handle criticism coming from
the channels. The company’s higher management
needs to understand the “digital world” and managers
should use social media themselves. According to this
expert’s opinion, a general social media maturity
model has to first address this situation before it can
measure the maturity. In addition, companies have to
develop a clear understanding on what social media is
and what it should be used for. Besides positive
attitudes, the company requires skilled or trained staff
and has to calculate costs. Internal guidelines have to
be developed and responsibilities within the companies
have to be defined. Concerning the existing model, the
expert did not address the demographic dimensions but
heavily advocated for redefining project and process
management and replacing it by “agile” forms thereof.
Concerning M.6, the expert understood the concept,
but questioned if CSR was the right term and
recommended to find a dimension subsuming the
companies’ responsibility for their social media
activities in terms of e.g. guidelines, netiquette (code of
conduct for the company and users using the
company’s medium), and responsibility rules. This
expert suggested to add a dimension on content but
also explained the possibility to include content into
strategy and operational social media management.
The last expert (E3) emphasized in the open part of
the interview on skills of staff, “basic” IT resources
(mobile devices, cameras etc.) and organizational
structure in terms of preconditions. The existence of
ways for mobile communication was quite often
addressed
by the interviewee. Furthermore,
monitoring, measuring and controlling based on
performance indicators were named as being
important. Existing structures in terms of processes as
well as tools were mentioned. In addition, the
willingness to participate and know-how on channels
are required. He also emphasized the importance of an
existing company strategy being the basis for the
development of a social media strategy. When shown
the SM-MM.prov, the expert agreed with all
dimensions but M.6. After explaining the dimension,
the expert confirmed the importance of the dimension
but advised renaming it to better reflect the companies’
social and moral obligation in their social media
activities.
The following table (Table 3) shows if and how the
experts addressed the different dimensions developed
from the previous analysis. In the open part of the
interview (OP), the dimensions have four different
states: N = not mentioned, S = mentioned, but not seen
as important, Y = mentioned; E = emphasized (in terms
of meaning or frequency). In the part of the interview
where the interviewees where shown the provisional
E1
E2
E3
OP
Dev. OP
Dev. OP
Dev.
D.1
N
A
E
Y
Y
D.2
N
A
Y
Y
Y
P.1
Y
A
N
R
Y
Y
P.2
Y
A
N
R
Y
Y
P.3
E
A
Y
A
E
E
M.1
Y
A
Y
A
Y
Y
M.2
Y
A
Y
A
Y
Y
M.3
Y
A
Y
A
Y
Y
M.4
N
A
Y
A
Y
Y
M.5
E
A
E
A
Y
Y
M.6
N
I
N
I/R
N
I/R
Table 3. Dimensions represented in the
interviews per expert
5. The Social Media Maturity Model (SMMM)
The further development based on the source
analysis leads to the following version of the maturity
model:
Figure 1. Social Media Maturity Model (SMMM), current stage
Three different parts of the model were identified:
demographics, organizational readiness and maturity as
such. The relationship among these three parts is as
follows: as the goal of the maturity model is to assess
companies, the area of demographics is relevant for
conducting a company analysis. It helps to identify the
current market position which will serve as an input to
further social media related activities (e.g. strategy
planning). Prerequisites incorporate the organizational
aspects that influence the success of social media
adoption in an organization, and can therefore also be
reviewed previous to social media use. The different
dimensions of the maturity model (M1-M6) are then
1863
can be assessed and studied [52]. As for social media
use, a major success criterion is authenticity; knowing
what your company is about, and being able to deliver
a single face to the customer is therefore crucial.
Moreover, organizational responsibilities and the
underlying organizational structure become clear.
Furthermore, the use of process management saves the
company from being stuck with functional silos [46].
The experience in describing processes will be
necessary because social media activities will require
predefined processes as well. An already existing
continuous improvement process in the organization
does not only ensure improvements of the social
media-related processes, but also gives evidence of an
open culture that embraces improvements, empowers
its employees, and values the ideas of every employee
the same way.
The third type of precondition is the organizational
culture. Already influenced by the cultural aspects
imposed by the use of project and process
management, this type of precondition is concerned
with whether the whole organization is ready for going
social. As a starting point, a company must have a
defined company mission and vision as well as
employees being aware of how to reach the vision.
Employee commitment as well as the awareness of the
use of social media is essential. Furthermore,
management commitment for social media initiatives
must be present [1, 13]. Customer orientation, also
indicated by the use of process management, needs to
be a central value of the company. Both process and
project management, rely on the existence of a learning
organization. Employee empowerment is required due
to the necessity of employees working on their own on
different platforms, just by following existing
guidelines and rules, in turn requiring adequate
leadership styles [53]. From the organizational
structure, mixed teams in combination with a matrix
structure are considered as favorable [54]. Change
management is necessary for social media introduction
and, due to the nature of the field, for the constant
changes required to stay successful.
used for assessing actual social media use in the
organization.
The dimensions M1 to M6 each contain different
aspects of social media maturity. Therefore, a company
will have to work on all maturity dimensions for
achieving social media excellence.
5.1. Demographics
Demographical information describes the company
at its current stage and is further grouped into general
demographical information (D.1) and social media
status (D.2), both assessing the current situation of the
organization. General demographical information aims
at describing the company including size, location,
industry, company statistics, products, services, and
organizational structure. This assessment allows for the
classification of the company, which will be required
for market, customer, and competitor analysis. The
social media status is about assessing the current use of
social media. The following categories of social media
are reviewed [2]: (1) collaborative projects, (2) blogs,
(3) content communities, (4) social networking sites,
(5) virtual game worlds, and (6) virtual social worlds.
5.2. Preconditions
The section of preconditions covers the broad field
of organizational readiness. Recent evidence allows for
the suggestion that there is a set of preconditions
heavily influencing the successful introduction and use
of social media in an organization. These preconditions
are further grouped into three types: project
management (P.1), process management (P.2) and
organizational culture (P.3).
The introduction of a social media strategy will
require solid project management support including the
management of the change [51]. After the actual
introduction of the new strategy, follow-up projects on
guideline creation, development of social (mobile)
applications, or the introduction of social data mining
will require professional project management skills as
well. Therefore, the precondition type project
management refers to the experience, know-how, and
relevant organizational structure for conducting social
media-related projects successfully. Moreover, aspects
of change and knowledge management are touched on.
The field of process management is included for
several reasons: overview and description of the
company’s processes, experience in describing and
defining processes, and an established continuous
improvement. In order to know what the company’s
core competencies are, an enterprise process model is
required. On this basis, the relations between processes
5.3. Dimensions of the Social Media Maturity
Model SM-MM
The maturity model itself consists of six
dimensions: Operational social media management
(M.1), human resource management (M.2), social
listening and monitoring (M.3), social media
integration (M.4), social media strategy (M.5) and
guidelines for responsible behavior (M.6).
1864
5.3.1. Operational social media management.
The dimension of operational social media
management focuses on the actual implementation of
the strategies. Business processes on the operational
management and use of social media activities, as well
as processes for campaign development and
implementation are part of this dimension. A definition
of responsibilities as well as the rough flow of actions
will have a positive impact on the quality of social
media activities alone and allow for better integration
in the existing communication structures. This includes
processes like daily posting, community management,
and crisis management. In order to become successful,
business processes for aligning social media-related
tasks need to be implemented [46]. Example criteria
for measuring this dimension could be: process
descriptions, content plans, communication plans.
basis for discussing the participation in social media
activities. With business processes being a means of
overcoming functional silos and introducing crossfunctional cooperation, this can be seen as one step
towards social media integration across a company’s
different
departments
(product
development,
marketing, sales, etc.). In their work, Weinberg and
Pehlivan [60] cover the aspect of aligning the different
social media channels, reflecting another aspect of
social media integration. Furthermore, the integration
of the social media mix into existing cross-channel
activities is to be considered [12]. Equally important is
the ICT support of the tasks outlined [1]. This includes
workflow management systems, previously mentioned
social media monitoring software, reporting software,
content management software, mobile applications,
and the like. In addition, the use of data warehouses
and data mining can be used for text analysis [61].
Example criteria for this dimension could be: process
descriptions, goal definitions.
5.3.2. Human resource management. The human
resource management dimension reflects staff-related
issues. This starts with the introduction of social
media-related roles [1] and role descriptions containing
social media-related tasks. Commonly used roles are
social media manager/expert [55], social media
consultant, and community manager. Another approach
is setting up a social media expert pool [46].
Additionally, training programs [47], career paths, and
incentive systems for those roles need to be
established. For further employments of social mediarelated personnel, the development of selection criteria
based on the role descriptions is required. Example
criteria for this dimension could be: role descriptions,
career paths, coaching and mentoring programs.
5.3.5. Social media strategy. The social media
strategy dimension encompasses all strategic aspects of
organizational social media use. In contrast to
organizational prerequisites like top-level management
support for the topic, this dimension is about the actual
social media-related strategic decisions. In order to
successfully introduce and run social media in an
organization, a social media strategy is required [47,
48]. Social media strategies are tools for defining the
target audience, the respective goals, and the required
resources for the whole social media endeavor as well
as on a platform-specific level. The existence of
strategic social media business processes like strategy
reviews illustrates the successful anchoring of social
media topics in an organization’s management
processes [46]. Furthermore, and based on the
developed strategy, guidelines and policies for the use
of social media are required. Social media guidelines
contain the information on which, how, and by whom
social media is done in the organization [62] and
clarifying the scope of action for every employee. Due
to the democratization of communication [63] in an
enterprise using social media, the existence and quality
of such guidelines are seen as a critical success factor
and as a leadership tool. Moreover, existing documents
on content planning as well as communication and
crisis management will be required. These documents
ensure the aligned and systematic approach towards
social media channel usage. Example criteria for this
dimension could be: social media strategy paper,
process descriptions.
5.3.3. Social listening and monitoring. Social
listening and monitoring includes the assessment and
understanding of the relevant stakeholders and their
sentiments [56, 57]. It is about knowing what they are
doing, what they are talking about, and what their
tonality is in order to derive or adapt one’s own
activities. Based on social listening, learning,
responding, and measuring can take place [57]. As
understanding is seen to be a key to successful social
media management, this is considered the basis for
further development of metrics and social media
dashboards [58]. In order to instantly use and profit
from the current customers’ opinions, the introduction
of tools is recommended [59]. Example criteria for this
dimension could be: metrics and KPI descriptions,
competitor analyses, customer analyses.
5.3.4. Social media integration. Spaulding [3]
describes in his work the approach of considering the
core and support business processes of a company as a
5.3.6. Guidelines for responsible behavior. The
use of social media will be based on – and in turn will
1865
influence – corporate-society relations [64].
Organizational social media use imposes several
threats to the organization triggered by the increased
transparency on the market [65]. Therefore, companies
should engage in CSR activities covering topics of
self-regulation like: transparency [49], privacy,
security, legal issues, ethics, and general organizational
responsibility. Guidelines, policies, and processes for
these topics can therefore serve as risk mitigation
techniques [65]. Example artifacts of this dimension
could be: privacy and security guidelines, code of
conduct, wording manuals.
The relevance of the model lies in the novelty of a
comprehensive approach on social media use. The
model allows for further development of scales
measuring actual social media maturity levels, in turn
being used as benchmarks. Future use of the model
therefore will include measuring social media maturity,
becoming a relevant benchmark for social media
activities, and serve as an input when planning social
media projects as well as when developing social
media documentation.
Our practical implications lie in the actual use of
the model for assessing and benchmarking a
company’s social media activities on their way to
excellent social media usage. At the current stage, the
model may serve as a template for companies wishing
to implement social media activities. It clearly shows
the important dimensions required for being successful.
The model at hand allows a rough assessment of
existing social media initiatives and provides guidance
on relevant issues for upcoming projects. Due to the
above-mentioned lack of scales, it does not allow for
actually measuring the degree of maturity yet.
Moreover, a discussion on cross-influence between
dimensions is required in further research.
6. Discussion
This paper illustrates the aspects relevant to
successful social media implementation and operation
in organizations. We developed a maturity model
based on a grounded theory approach indicating the
relevance of diverse organizational aspects. The
maturity model at this stage is destined to be generally
applicable, therefore serving different company sizes,
business models or industries. It is independent from
the current state-of-the-art social network service or
tool provider, but rather focuses on the conceptual
questions. The model takes into consideration the
necessity for company-wide coordination and
integration with existing structures, including social
media use with external as well as internal
stakeholders.
Literature screening suggested that there is no
adequate approach in assessing the social media
maturity of organizations. Whereas the necessity for
elaborating on organizational aspects for excellent
social media use is undisputed [6, 46], very little
research is done on the development of a
comprehensive and generic approach. Models
addressing this topic considered at the time of research
either focus on giving a rough outline on the topic,
consider a specific aspect of social media use only (e.g.
posting frequencies), are tailor-made for a very specific
area (e.g. politics) [25-32], and/or lack the academic
approach. As Weinberg et al. discuss, more research
needs to be done regarding organizational social media
use on: how can companies evolve, what common best
practices are there (e.g. successful applications or
contexts), how do organizational structures have to
adapt, as well as what relevant measures for preparing
success are there [46]. By building this unique maturity
model structure, we contribute to the academic world.
Based on this, research regarding the measurement of
dimensions and relevant performance indicators,
optimized maturity dimension design, dependencies
between dimensions, or procedure models on social
media introduction can be done.
7. Conclusion, limitations and further
research
We have developed our maturity model based on
different sources, coming to a stable version, therefore
being able to answer the research question on the
design of a social media maturity model (Figure 1).
Three parts (demographics, organizational readiness
and social media maturity) have been identified. In
these parts, different dimensions have been developed
from the sources, leading to two areas in the
demographic part and three regarding organizational
readiness. Concerning maturity, in dimensions M.1 –
M.5 agreement has been found. The most problematic
dimension was M.6 (formerly named CSR), where no
consensus has been found, but mainly regarding the
naming and not concerning its importance or content.
Although some data suggested the label CSR for
dimension M.6 (based on definitions of CSR), it was
found that the label was not understood by the
interviewees in the way intended. To enhance
comprehensibility and therefore ease its use, a more
intuitive label was chosen (since all sources agreed on
the contents of the dimension). This led to a re-labeling
of the dimension, already being introduced in the
current version of the SM-MM.
The generalizability of these results is subject to
certain limitations. Firstly, the experts all come from
the same country and have a more or less similar
1866
educational background and experience. Introducing
the model in an international context may produce
further insights. Secondly, the current model lacks an
underlying measurement model; hence it is not
applicable for companies yet. Thirdly, since social
media as such is a rather young and still changing field
of study, it might require re-modeling in the next stage
of developing the underlying measurement model.
Notwithstanding these limitations, the results allowed
us to develop a stable and applicable version of the
maturity model.
Further research can include the development of
scales for the different areas of the maturity model as
well as the application of the maturity model in certain
cases. From these cases we expect insights on the
relevance as well as the validity of the scales and the
model itself. This can be conducted on a national as
well as international level, in turn generating findings
on regional differences and the applicability of the
model. Furthermore, procedure models on social media
maturity measurement should be developed.
8. References
[14] Parveen, F., "Impact of Social Media Usage on
Organizations", in (Editor, 'ed.'^'eds.'): Book Impact of
Social Media Usage on Organizations, 2012, pp. 192.
[15] Mavridis, T., "Social Media Relations. Die Neue
Dimension Der Nachhaltigkeitskommunikation", uwf
UmweltWirtschaftsForum, 19(3-4), 2011, pp. 245-248.
[16] Merriam-Webster, "Maturity", in (Editor, 'ed.'^'eds.'):
Book Maturity
[17] Andersen, E.S., and Jessen, S.A., "Project Maturity in
Organisations",
International
journal
of
project
management, 21(6), 2003, pp. 457-461.
[18] Ibbs, C.W., and Kwak, Y.-H., "Assessing Project
Management Maturity", Project Management Journal,
31(1), 2000, pp. 32-43.
[19] Kwak, Y.H., and Ibbs, C.W., "Project Management
Process Maturity (Pm) 2 Model", Journal of Management
in Engineering, 18(3), 2002, pp. 150-155.
[20] De Bruin, T., and Rosemann, M., "Towards a Business
Process Management Maturity Model", 2005,
[21] Fisher, D.M., "The Business Process Maturity Model:
A Practical Approach for Identifying Opportunities for
Optimization", Business Process Trends, 9(4), 2004, pp. 13.
[22] Niazi, M., Wilson, D., and Zowghi, D., "A Maturity
Model for the Implementation of Software Process
Improvement: An Empirical Study", Journal of Systems
and Software, 74(2), 2005, pp. 155-172.
[23] Paulk, M., Capability Maturity Model for Software,
Wiley Online Library, 1993.
[24] Lockamy Iii, A., and Mccormack, K., "The
Development of a Supply Chain Management Process
Maturity Model Using the Concepts of Business Process
Orientation", Supply Chain Management: An International
Journal, 9(4), 2004, pp. 272-278.
[25] Lee, G., and Kwak, Y.H., "An Open Government
Maturity Model for Social Media-Based Public
Engagement", Government Information Quarterly, 29(4),
2012, pp. 492-503.
[26]
http://www.socialmediamodels.net/social-mediaadoption-models-category/social-media-maturity-model/,
accessed 30/05/2014, 2014.
[27]
http://riskpoint.com.au/2012/07/11/social-mediamaturity-2/
[28]
http://www.pwsmc.com/social-media/social-mediamaturity-model, accessed 30/05/2014, 2014.
[29]
http://svprojectmanagement.com/social-mediamaturity-model-where-is-your-company,
accessed
30/05/2014, 2014.
[1] Margraf, S., Strategisches Multi Channel Management
& Social Media Im Crm, Martin Meidenbauer
Verlagsbuchhandlung, München, 2011.
[2] Kaplan, A.M., and Haenlein, M., "Users of the World,
Unite! The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media",
Business Horizons, 53(1), 2010, pp. 59-68.
[3] Spaulding, T.J., "How Can Virtual Communities Create
Value for Business?", Electronic Commerce Research and
Applications, 9(1), 2010, pp. 38-49.
[4] Jussila, J.J., Kärkkäinen, H., and Aramo-Immonen, H.,
"Social Media Utilization in Business-to-Business
Relationships of Technology Industry Firms", Computers
in Human Behavior, 30(0), 2014, pp. 606-613.
[5]
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/11/thetop-10-benefits-of-social-media-marketing/,
accessed
19/08/2014, 2014.
[6]
http://cdn.dupress.com/wpcontent/uploads/2013/07/DUP446_SB_Report_Final.pdf
accessed 30/05/2014, 2014.
[7] Von Haffa, A., and Pauls, S., "Mehr Gewinnen Als
Verlieren", in (Leinemann, R., 'ed.' Social Media, Springer
Berlin Heidelberg, 2013, pp. 11-16.
[8] Schall, H., "Social Security – Gefahren Auf Facebook
Facebook & Co", in (Leinemann, R., 'ed.' Social Media,
Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2013, pp. 47-52.
[9] Aula, P., "Social Media, Reputation Risk and Ambient
Publicity Management", Strategy & Leadership, 38(6),
2010, pp. 43-49.
[10]
http://www.bvdw.org/presseserver/bvdw_social_media_stu
die_2012/bvdw_studienergebnis_social_media_in_unterne
hmen_teil2_teil3.pdf, accessed 19/08/2014, 2014.
[11] Bitkom, B.I., Telekommunikation Und Neue Medien
E.V., "Social Media in Deutschen Unternehmen", in
(Editor, 'ed.'^'eds.'): Book Social Media in Deutschen
Unternehmen, 2012
[12] Mangold, W.G., and Faulds, D.J., "Social Media: The
New Hybrid Element of the Promotion Mix", Business
Horizons, 52(4), 2009, pp. 357-365.
[13] Meske, C., and Stieglitz, S., "Adoption and Use of
Social Media in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises", in
(Harmsen, F., and Proper, H., 'eds.'): Practice-Driven
Research on Enterprise Transformation, Springer Berlin
Heidelberg, 2013, pp. 61-75.
1867
Participation in Enterprise 2.0 Projects", Procedia
Technology, 9(0), 2013, pp. 676-686.
[52] Kasper, H., Koleva, I., and Kett, H., "Social Media
Matrix. Matching Corporate Goals with External Social
Media Activities", 1st International Workshop on Common
Value Management CVM2012 at the Extended Semantic
Web Conference 2012 (ESWC2012), 2012
[53] Rodriguez-Montemayor, E., "Communicating for
Innovation: The “Social” Enterprise and the Translation of
Novel Ideas", in (Pfeffermann, N., Minshall, T., and
Mortara, L., 'eds.'): Strategy and Communication for
Innovation, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2013, pp. 329-345.
[54] Adler, P.S., Heckscher, C., and Prusak, L., "Building a
Collaborative Enterprise", Harvard Business Review, JulyAugust(2011, pp. 9.
[55] Geyer, S., "Development of a Curriculum for Social
Media Management - Strengthening the Role "Social
Media Expert" ", 12th International conference on
Education and Information Systems, Technologies and
Applications (EISTA 2014) in the context of the 8th
International Multi-Conference on Society, Cybernetics and
Informatics (IMSCI 2014), 2014, to appear
[56] Evans, D., Social Media Marketing, the Next
Generation of Business Engagement, Wiley Publishing Inc.
, Indianapolis, Indiana, 2010.
[57] Scott, P.R., and Jacka, J.M., Auditing Social Media, a
Governance and Risk Guide, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
Hoboken, New Jersey, 2011.
[58] Peters, K., Chen, Y., Kaplan, A.M., Ognibeni, B., and
Pauwels, K., "Social Media Metrics — a Framework and
Guidelines for Managing Social Media", Journal of
Interactive Marketing, 27(4), 2013, pp. 281-298.
[59] Stavrakantonakis, I., Gagiu, A.-E., Kasper, H., Toma,
I., and Thalhammer, A., "An Approach for Evaluation of
Social Media Monitoring Tools", 1st International
Workshop on Common Value Management CVM2012 at
the Extended Semantic Web Conference 2012
(ESWC2012), 2012
[60] Weinberg, B.D., and Pehlivan, E., "Social Spending:
Managing the Social Media Mix", Business Horizons,
54(3), 2011, pp. 275-282.
[61] Hu, X., and Liu, H., "Text Analytics in Social Media",
in (Aggarwal, C.C., and Zhai, C., 'eds.'): Mining Text Data,
Springer US, 2012, pp. 385-414.
[62] Thomas, D.B., and Barlow, M., The Executive's Guide
to Enterprise Social Media Strategy. How Social Networks
Are Radically Transforming Your Business., John Wiley &
Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey, 2011.
[63] Kietzmann, J.H., Hermkens, K., Mccarthy, I.P., and
Silvestre, B.S., "Social Media? Get Serious! Understanding
the Functional Building Blocks of Social Media", Business
Horizons, 54(3), 2011, pp. 241-251.
[64] Whelan, G., Moon, J., and Grant, B., "Corporations
and Citizenship Arenas in the Age of Social Media",
Journal of Business Ethics, 118(4), 2013, pp. 777-790.
[65] Isaca, Social Media: Business Benefits and Security,
Governance and Assurance Perspectives, 2010.
[30] http://www.datadansandler.com/2013/02/analyze-andinfluence-sentiment.html
[31]
http://de.slideshare.net/gvdsleen/enterprise-socialmedia-maturity-model-esm3, accessed 30/05/2014, 2014.
[32] http://www.summa.name/blog/2010/12/social-mediamaturity-model-draft/, accessed 30/05/2014, 2014.
[33] Gibson, B., and Hartman, J., Rediscovering Grounded
Theory, SAGE Publications Limited, 2014.
[34] Orlikowski, W.J., "Case Tools as Organizational
Change: Investigating Incremental and Radical Changes in
Systems Development", Mis Quarterly, 1993, pp. 309-340.
[35] Strauss, A., and Corbin, J., "Grounded Theory
Methodology", Handbook of qualitative research, 1994, pp.
273-285.
[36] Suddaby, R., "From the Editors: What Grounded
Theory Is Not", Academy of management journal, 49(4),
2006, pp. 633-642.
[37] Charmaz, K., and Belgrave, L., "Qualitative
Interviewing and Grounded Theory Analysis", The SAGE
handbook of interview research: The complexity of the
craft, 2(2002,
[38] Charmaz, K., Constructing Grounded Theory: A
Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis, Pine Forge
Press, 2006.
[39] Corbin, J.M., and Strauss, A., "Grounded Theory
Research: Procedures, Canons, and Evaluative Criteria",
Qualitative sociology, 13(1), 1990, pp. 3-21.
[40] Strauss, A., and Corbin, J.M., Basics of Qualitative
Research, Sage Publications, Inc, 3 edn, 2008.
[41] Charmaz, K., "Grounded Theory", Strategies of
qualitative inquiry, 2(2003, pp. 249.
[42] Glaser, B.G., and Strauss, A.L., The Discovery of
Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research,
New York, 1967.
[43] Charmaz, K., Constructing Grounded Theory, Sage,
2014.
[44] Glaser, B.G., Theoretical Sensitivity: Advances in the
Methodology of Grounded Theory, Sociology Press Mill
Valley, CA, 1978.
[45] Dunne, C., "The Place of the Literature Review in
Grounded Theory Research", International Journal of
Social Research Methodology, 14(2), 2011, pp. 111-124.
[46] Weinberg, B.D., De Ruyter, K., Dellarocas, C., Buck,
M., and Keeling, D.I., "Destination Social Business:
Exploring an Organization's Journey with Social Media,
Collaborative Community and Expressive Individuality",
Journal of Interactive Marketing, 27(4), 2013, pp. 299-310.
[47] Zerfass, A., Fink, S., and Linke, A., "Social Media
Governance: Regulatory Framework as Drivers of Success
in Online Communications", 14th Annual International
Public Relations Research Conference, 2011
[48] Holloman, C., The Social Media Mba. Your
Competitive Edge in Social Media Strategy Development
& Delivery John Wiley & Sons, Chichester 2012.
[49] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/legal/intelsocial-media-guidelines.html, accessed 2014-04-15, 2014.
[50]
https://www.pg.com/en_US/downloads/sustainability/repor
ts/PGSocialMediaPolicy.pdf, accessed 2014-04-17, 2014.
[51] Nedbal, D., Auinger, A., and Hochmeier, A.,
"Addressing
Transparency,
Communication
and
1868