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[cecehensley-blog]

Extended Post #1 3070

https://www.facebook.com/AudiZentrumEssen/

In the Automobile section of the newspaper “Welt Am Sonntag” I came across the advertisement for the black Audi A5 from the Audi Zentrum Essen dealership in Essen, Germany. The Facebook of the dealer portrays all of the new and exciting Audis that their customers can buy. The platform is the perfect medium of communication between buyer and seller, as it gives consumers a way to ask questions, see products, and review their experiences for other prospective customers to see and decide if they are going to go to the dealership, or even buy the Audi brand car. Okazki and Taylors article offers three different theoretical perspectives that show how a combination social media platform promotion, and advertisement is the optimal way to promote products.

The first perspective is networking capability. “Network technology is at the heart of any open-innovation strategy, allowing large and small firms to reach the largest possible community for their offerings” Essentially social media is the best platform to engage and develop “weak ties” with a large number of people. Social media is cheap, quick, and efficient. “As suggested by network theory, weak ties are networks connected with less personal interaction among members, and act as “local bridges” to parts of the network which would otherwise be disconnected (Ozaki, 61).”  In accordance with the networking capability the Audi facebook page in particular (because it is social media platform) effectively creates weak bonds with the people who choose to view their page, and even more so if they buy ads that expose their page further. 

Image transferability is the second perspective. The Image transferability perspective is all about brand management and creating an image. “Brand image has been a central tenet for many international marketers and advertisers for some time since the image holds the key to attract similar consumer segments across borders (Ozaki, 62).” Audi keeps its brand constant by showing the same ad in the newspaper and on the facebook page, but with different/more in-depth approach on the Facebook page. It is important to maintain a certain level of consistency, but the social media platform allows for expansion and “exciting new opportunities (Ozaki, 62).”

The final theoretical perspective is personal extensibility. “Fundamentally, it pertains to the scope of sensory access and knowledge acquisition and dispersion, and to people’s horizons as social actors (Ozaki, 65).”  Personal extensibility is the idea that big pushes in communications technology drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to communicate over distances. The perfect use of this is in regard to the facebook page, it doesn’t matter where you are from if you have an internet  connection. The product will reach far and wide at the push of a button, but these innovations have only pretty recently come about. Before that the telegraph, phones, and news papers were the only ways to spread and promote companies and ideas. As technology advances it becomes easier and quicker to reach people with advertisements across regions, and even across the world.