The three sites that we are analyzing are:
Groupon.ca
Groupon.ca
Livingsocial.com
Teambuy.ca
Positive effects of social media
All three sites utilize Facebook and Twitter as their social media network. All three sites have short-cut icon/links to their respective Facebook page and Twitter accounts on the homepage.
Teambuys.ca’s Facebook page is:
The Facebook page of Teambuy.ca consolidates all three major social media networks into one side panel. It has links to Twitter and Youtube. It also has a wall section for users to comment. The ‘wall’ is used by TeamBuy.ca to monitor conversations, engage user’s participation, also sparking interest. They also have a ‘like’ function where users can click and add to their personal profile page; therefore Teambuy.ca can become the conversation when friends get notified. The Facebook page is effective because it is updated frequently, and has users engaging in conversation about specific deals/offers on the commenting section.
Twitter is shown to be effective with users utilizing hashtags of the company. For example, #Teambuy in their tweets. Hashtag can represent a topic of conversation and is track-able by Teambuy. This Track-ability can allow teambuy to view and respond to individual comments and posts.
Livingsocial.com’s Facebook page also offers a review section for consumers. This section is used for reviewing the user experience of the parent site LivingSocial.
Negative effects of social media
When you compare the size community of the three mentioned sites, Teambuy’s twitter followers are substantially lower than the larger organizations. This may be a false representation of Teambuys’ reputation; this may cause consumers/users to interpret the site as being less valuable. Users may not take account that Teambuy is a more geographically segmented in comparison to the large firms such as Groupon and LivingSocial.
