Value Chain in Social Media Monitoring According Essay

Value Chain in Social Media Monitoring

According to the value chain construct developed by Michael Porter, value is created by an organization through a fairly straightforward yet many-part array of primary and support activities (VBM, 2011). In this model, firm infrastructure, human resource management, technology development, and procurement all provide support to the primary activities of an organization, which can generally be broken down into the constituent parts of inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and services (VBM, 2011). In the fairly new industry of social media monitoring, the value chain can be somewhat difficult to pin down and may still be solidifying. By examining the value chain in two social media monitoring companies, an idea of how well the industry value chain matches the ideal value chain -- as well as how these two competitors are doing in terms of establishing and solidifying their value chains, and what these value chains look like -- can be achieved.Support activities are relatively self-explanatory in most industries, and are so for Brandwatch and Radian 6, two popular companies in the social media monitoring industry. This industry provides services to other businesses and entities, reporting on what is being said about a brand or product on social media and thus affecting marketing strategy and potentially other operations. Things like human resource management and technology development are just as important in this industry and for these companies as in any other more traditional manufacturing models, and arguably more so in certain areas. From what can be seen, both Radian 6 and Brandwatch have similar levels of support….....