Best Practices in Managing Social Media for Business

The mixed results of social media impacting on businesses have motivated this research to understand the best practices affecting the brand equity of a company utilizing the social media in business. Literature review of relevant theories is conducted. The industry publications of companies doing well in social media are analyzed to distill the best practices implemented in their social media strategies. Multiple case studies are proposed to determine how these best practices explain the desired business outcome in brand equity. The social media strategy concepts, media richness theory and Hagel III and Armstrong’s framework of virtual member development are suggested in guiding our data collection, analysis and interpretation. This research in progress is expected to contribute to the existing knowledge by providing a prescriptive framework of best practices in utilizing Facebook social network, and integrating and extending existing theories to explain the use of social media for developing brand equity.