Social media marketing , functional branding strategy and intentional branding

It has been suggested that social media marketing may be inclined more towards functional branding than intentional branding. The present study empirically examined the relationship between social media marketing strategies, intentional branding and functional branding with a view to determining where social media marketing strategies are more strongly inclined towards intentional than functional branding. Quantitative data were collected from 133 participants from Jordan marketing departments using questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS. The results of the study confirmed the relationship between social media marketing strategies. However, results showed that social media marketing strategies are more strongly inclined towards intentional branding than functional branding suggesting that social media marketing strategies are oriented towards intentional branding. The study recommends examining the idea of intentional branding and its role in controlling the image of the brand among customers. Mohammad Fahmi Al-Zyoud (Jordan) BUSINESS PERSPECTIVES LLC “СPС “Business Perspectives” Hryhorii Skovoroda lane, 10, Sumy, 40022, Ukraine www.businessperspectives.org Social media marketing,


INTRODUCTION
Utilizing the web, online networking, portable applications, and other advanced correspondence innovations has moved toward becoming part of billions of individuals' everyday lives.For example, the present rate of web use among American grown-ups is around 87% and is more like 100% for statistic gatherings, for example, school taught and higher-wage grown-ups.More youthful individuals -the up and coming era of mass customers -also have a very high usage (Kervyn, Fiske, & Malone, 2012).Individuals likewise invest expanding energy on the web.For instance, in the UK, during the most recent decade, the number of hours spent online by grown-ups has dramatically increased, and now midpoints 20.5 hours per every week.Online networking has powered part of this development: worldwide, there are currently more than 2 billion individuals utilizing web-based social networking, and Facebook alone now has around 1 billion dynamic clients per each day (Bernritter, Verlegh, & Smit, 2016).

PROBLEM STATEMENT
According to Kaplan and Haenlein (2010), social media can be defined as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content" (p.61).O'Reilly (2005) defined social media as a broad concept that explains and presents the equipment and tools, which can evolve a content, which is generated by the users and able to be shared.According to Paquette (2013), social media provide many aspects that enable the organizations to share their brand and attain the needed attention to it.For example, social media websites can generate consumers' sentiment, motives, contents, attitudes and prospects through the virtual community that they build for the brand (Andrei & Zait, 2014;Hashem, 2016).

Technology and marketing
The globalization of the world has been accompanied by technological advancements.These advances have brought changes in the marketplace and, in particular, in marketing communication industry and enabled companies to use digital marketing strategies to market and create value for their products.To this extent, several researchers agree that companies that make use of technology succeed in marketing their products and services (Ghorbani, Fakhimi, & Ghorbani, 2013).
According to Chang (1996), for a company to create value for its product and succeed in marketing its products, it must ensure its marketing strategies are supported/backup with technology.Agreeing with Gingington and Zorob (1997), Foroudi et al. (2017) revealed that there is an interaction between marketing and technology, especially during product development.Similarly, Schneider (2003) argued that a stronger link must be created between marketing and research and development.Schneider (2003) believes that innovation may take vision and creativity.However, it is not sufficient for commercial success, as the vision and creativity of technologists cannot be clear enough to yield products/service that appeal to millions without investing in marketing.
Exploring the role and impact of technology in the marketing industry, Sooknanan and Crichlow (2014) also acknowledged that technology has a profound impact on e-marketing for North American businesses.According to Soonknanan and Crichlow (2014), regardless of the category, service or product, marketing is an important factor when it comes to the success of a business.Soonknanan and Crichlow (2014) further indicated that the proliferation of the Internet had revolutionized the marketing industry.It has altered the environmental dynamics and business environment in which marketers and businesses operate and changed the manner in which companies relate internally and externally with consumers as well as each other.Again, the proliferation of the Internet has also increased the available media from which marketers can use to market their products.Indeed, marketers can now choose from an assortment of Internet-based marketing alternatives (e-marketing); traditional media (radio and television), as well as non-mass media alternatively, including event marketing and direct mail.The availability of these marketing channels means consumers can be focused and creative when dealing with the increasingly demanding and sophisticated consumers.
Elsewhere, Applegate, Austin, and McFarlan (2002) acknowledged that new communication technologies, and, in particular, the Internet, have revolutionized the marketing communication landscape.They described the transformative effect of the Internet as seismic.Similarly, Zeng, Huang, and Dou (2009) acknowledged that interactive technology including smart cards, m-commerce, enhanced computational speed, enhanced search services, GPS tracking and biometrics can be used to customize market strategy.Again, technological developments, including the search engines, peer-to-peer communication vehicles, advanced mobile interfaces and devices and social networks created online, have extended the ability of marketers to reach out to consumers through various touch points such as shopper marketing (Shankar et al., 2011).Through shopper marketing, consumers and business can interact and conduct business.During shopper marketing, marketers plan and execute marketing activities that influence shoppers when making purchases (Shankar et al., 2011).Shankar believes that shoppers can work together with shopper marketing to create clear messages, improve products, identify promoter and act as links to in-store activities.This way, they can demonstrate the value and importance of social media to retailers and marketers.

Social media websites as marketing tools
Social media websites have evolved from simply offering a platform for people to link up with their friends and families in addition to the ability to reach and review their favorite products and services.Retailers and marketers alike utilize social media sites to provide consumers with the opportunity to shop and use it as a way to reach their consumers.Social networking sites are considered by shoppers as easy to use and useful.This makes them shop items through social media sites (Cha, 2009).According to Cha, it is easy for companies to reach their target customers through social media because of the availability of diverse consumers accessed via these sites.He indicates that this creates a platform for companies to market their products/brands/services to possible customers.

Branding and service design
Branding is the way a company or business enterprise is personalized in the consumers' minds.
Building and managing a brand, its name, its reputation and its identity is critical to the success of any company.How, where and when a company connects with its customers is determined by its branding and by how much consumers of its products/services relate to its brand.In today's competitive market, the branding is the company's strongest differentiator.

Functional branding
In service design, functional branding involves creating or improving services with the aim of enhancing user experience.It involves creating services by applying service design with a view to deliver a branded experience to the user.Functional branding enables a company to differentiate itself by positively reinforcing the value of its brand through design.Every time the user interacts with the company's brand, the company seizes that opportunity to influence their perceptions.Functional branding is aimed at turning every interaction into a branded experience by ensuring that users receive a positive experience and the interaction conveys the company's brand values.These user experiences appeal to consumers emotionally and have excellent usability and function-ality.Functional branding depends on the comprehensive and overall branded experience.As such, it can increase brand equity and brand loyalty (Töllinen & Karjaluoto, 2011).
Customers typically buy functional brands to satisfy their functional need.In the consumers' mind, functional brands are often tied to specific product categories.These brands typically share the association of the user with other brands belonging to the same category.These brands should differentiate from brands of the competitor by stressing either better economy or better performance.For example, BMW's produces products that compete on performance.It maintains category leadership in automobile by spending heavily on research and design (R&D) to produce automobiles that have a greater cutting edge design, are faster and more luxurious than competitors (Lawford, 2009).For this reason, cars produced by BMW are known for their elegant and sophisticated styling, as well as for high performance.Accordingly, new car models launched by BMW are positioned based on its marketing and elegant and sophisticated qualities.
In contrast, Kia automobile company is known for producing car models that compete based on their perceived economic value rather than on performance.Although Kia spends part of its money on research and development, the focus is on identifying ways to minimize costs through simpler design, increased manufacturing efficiency and more modest features.The ability of Kia to produce relatively cheaper, but attractive and high-quality products, makes it to compete others.This shows that a company that establishes and manages a functional brand focuses on a marketing mix: either on the price and place (for superior economy) or product/service itself (for superior performance).Messaging and advertising should not only support the link between the category and the brand, but also emphasize what should make a brand/product superior, either in price and value or functionality and features.Examples of functional brands include dish soap, cell phones and automobiles.

Intentional branding
According to Rick (2008), all businesses need a brand.Regardless of the purpose, industry or size, an engaging and attractive brand is abso-lutely essential.However, it is not just any brand but an intentional brand.This is a type of brand, which is built willfully, with purpose and planning.According to Pietro and Pantano (2012), a brand is created out of perception and this perception is, to a prospective consumer, a reality.Pietro and Pantano (2012) further indicated that a brand built without intention is subject to open interpretation by customers.According to Shu-Chuan (2011), this explains why it is important for a company to be in the driver's seat while building a brand.This means conveying the right image, as well as delivering the right message that serves its target customers and, consequently, its business and itself.An intentional brand is authentic, sincere, confident, valuable, credible, accountable, and result-driven.Intentional branding includes the branding decisions that are made when developing the look and feel of a company in order to make it create the best identity that reflects its target market.According to Chi (2011), a brand is a like a company logo; its font choice, paper weight, lighting, color selection, photo style, the feeling brand evoke emotions in the customer.International branding means the company being in control of message it sends to its audience.A clear and not confusing message means the company is doing its job correctly.Intentional branding reflects image branding.It is aimed at creating specific perceptions in the minds of the user.Companies that embrace intentional branding tend to differentiate themselves, because customers perceive them as proving unique image or association.These companies either establish image based on luxury and high style or on product features.They make use of advertising to create associations that do not depend on features.Managing intentional branding is a function of establishing an emotional link with the consumer, as intentional branding largely depends on the ability of the company to tap into the desires of the consumer to be admired or belong to a certain group.For this reason, advertising plays an important role in marketing of these brands, as well as publicity and sponsorships.
Cox (2010) identified nine keys to building an intentional brand: authenticity, confidence, sincerity, accountability, credibility, experience, value, results, referrals.Cox (2010) further suggested that intentional branding efforts should work to differ-entiate a company in its market; where if it tends towards the disruptive side, the intentional branding efforts should follow the lead of the product.

Brand -positioning
Brand positioning is an important concept in marketing that was first conceptualized by Ries and Trout as part of value proposition and brand identity that describes how a company can compete effectively within the target market.It can also refer to the message that a company imprints in the customers' mind and the prospects regarding its service or product and how it differs from what competitors are offering.Companies often develop a brand position with a view to define the specific place/position to be occupied by the brand in the consumers' mind.
Four elements define brand positioning: target market; frame, category, competitive set or reference; differentiation; supporting points or proof.
According to Maarit Jalkala and Keränen (2014), it is impossible to complete a positioning statement without defining a target market.Companies can only develop a strong positioning of their brands by understanding the target market.A brand may appeal to many target markets.However, it each market may require a different position.
For a company to determine the category, competitive set or frame of reference it will use in defining its brand positioning, it must understand the relevant options that consumers (target market) see as available.The frame of reference defines the company's marketplace that positions its brand and facilitates its differentiation and definition.Customers who follow or like brand pages often expose themselves to other consumers' comments, fan posts and reactions and to regular communications of a brand.Brand pages are associated with interactivity tools, including comment, like, private, share, public messages, and leaving private messages on the pages.These tools empower users to express their feelings, voice their opinions and share personal experiences about a brand.To real-time user, this interactivity creates an environment for co-creating a rich brand experience (Zaglia, 2013;Tafesse, 2016).
Brand posts represent a frequent, unpaid and concise updates sent out to fans and customers on a daily basis and which are authored by brands.Brands directly send updates to fans and customers in their newsfeed or whenever they visit brand pages they are subscribed to (

METHODOLOGY
This section described the methodology followed to conduct the present study.It details the study approach, the tool used to collect data, the study population, sample size and sampling technique used.

Study approach
This study assumed the quantitative approach to the research, which involved collecting quantitative data that could be numerically represented and manipulated to help to describe and explain the possible relationship between social media marketing and functional branding than intentional branding, as suggested by Sukamolson (2007, p. 2).In line with the view by Zalaghi and Khazaei (2016), and Borrego, Doulas, and Amelink (2009), this study was deductive in that it was narrow in its approach and aimed at confirming or testing the hypotheses.

Data collection tool
Data were collected using the structural questionnaire.The questionnaire contained two sections: section A and section B. Section A contained questions on demographics of participants.Section B contained questions on study variables.The questionnaire contained closed-ended questions with answers that required respondents to rate based on the Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5 with 1 denoting strongly disagree, 2 -disagree, 3 -neutral, 4 -agree and 5 -strongly agree.The questions focused on three constructs under investigation: functional branding, intentional branding and social media marketing.Functional branding was operationalized into usability and customer interactions and questions were designed to measure these two variables.Questions were tailored towards determining whether, from the respondents' perspective, social media marketing tends more towards functional branding than intentional branding, as suggested in the literature.The questionnaires were distributed through drop and pick to study participants.

Population and sample
The study population consisted of managers, leaders and heads of departments of organizations within the Jordanian iron and metal industry.A convenient sampling was used in this study.The sample consisted of 150 participants including leaders, managers, heads of departments and employees from the Jordanian marketing department.However, out of the 150 questionnaires send to the participants, 133 responded to and sent back the questionnaire.This converted into response rate of 88.6%, which is reasonably good.This sample size was also large enough to justify the conclusion reached and the generalization of the study findings to the general marketing field.

Data analysis
The quantitative data collected using questionnaires were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17. Accordingly, correlation analysis and descriptive analysis were undertaken.Reliability test was also done using SPSS to ascertain the reliability of the questionnaire to measure the study variables.Data were presented in the tables.

Questions and hypotheses
The current study seeks to examine whether social media marketing strategies are inclined towards intentional or functional branding.From that point, it seeks to answer the following questions:

Questions of the study
1. What is functional branding and how it appears in social media marketing?
2. What is intentional branding and how it appears in social media marketing?
3. What is the orientation of social media marketing between the functional strategy and the intentional strategy?
4. Which strategy may attract a customer to convert from a browser into a paying customer?

Main hypotheses
H1: Functional branding positively and significantly influences social media-based marketing strategies.
H2: Intentional branding positively and significantly influences social media-based marketing strategies.
H3: Social media marketing strategies are more strongly inclined towards intentional branding than functional branding.

Sub-hypotheses
H1 a : Usability positively and significantly influences social media-based marketing strategies.
H1 b : Customer interaction positively and significantly influences social media-based marketing strategies.
H2 c : Intention positively and significantly influences on social media-based marketing strategies.
H2 d : Ability positively and significantly influences on social media-based marketing strategies.
H3 e : Social media marketing strategies are more strongly inclined towards ability and intention than usability and customer interaction.

Age
Based on the respondents' age (one of the demographic variables), 60.9% of respondents were aged 33-40 (Table 1).This appeared to be logical given that this age range is more apparent within organizations for individuals to hold such a position in marketing and advertising that are based on technology and Internet.Individuals at that age are exposed to technology and able to use in their daily work activities.

Education
As shown in Table 2, majority (46.6%) of the respondents in the marketing department are holders of MA degree or equivalent qualifications with the frequency 62.There are also more PhD holders in the marketing department than Bachelor's holders, as there were more respondents with PhD degrees (38.3%) than those with Bachelor's degrees (15.0%) (Table 2).Again as can be inferred from Table 2, most of respondents who held higher positions marketing and advertising in an organization held a post graduate degree, which indicates high competence and high knowledge of the field and deep interest.As shown in Table 3, 65.4% of the respondents had experience ranging 11-16 years with a frequency of 87 individuals.It can also be seen that 15% of the respondents had experience ranging 5-10 years.This indicated that organizations from which the sample of the study was drawn used technology in its marketing and advertising activities and increased its interest during the last decade on using social media in marketing.

Descriptive analysis
As shown in Table 4, respondents were largely in agreement with most of the suggested responses to the questions.As the table showed, the mean of paragraphs scoring higher than 3.00 was a good indicator, as it suggests that participants either agree or strongly agree to the statements that were detailed in the questionnaire with regard to social media marketing and functional branding.As can be seen from the table, the mean of the responses from respondents in relation to social media was above 3 (i.e., 3.744 for the first question, 3.7770 for question 2, 3.59.40 for question 3 and 3.7.068for question 5.This confirms that participants agree or strongly agree that marketing through social media can create and exchange user generated content; consumers' sentiment toward marketing can appear through using social media; social media has the ability to highlight the consumer's acceptance of new technology; and social media marketing can create a virtual community for the brand.Similarly, with the mean value of responses scoring above 3 for the functional branding and intentional branding variables (usability and customer orientation, ability and intentional variables) (Table 4), respondents agree that functional branding and intentional branding play an important role in social media marketing.These results indicate that individuals are positive about the involvement of social media within the marketing field and how it can help in developing the marketing process leading to more customers and better branding.

Reliability test
Depending on the reliability using Cronbachs' alpha, the test indicated a total value of 0.971, also, Cronbachs' alpha for every variable was greater than 0.60, this can be regarded as a logical value referring to the questionnaire consistency.

Hypotheses testing
The following section presents the testing of the hypotheses based on the variables of the model in accordance to their influence.
H1: Functional branding positively and significantly influences social media-based marketing strategies.
As can be inferred from Table 5, functional branding and social media marketing are strongly and positively correlated (R = 0.476).It can also be confirmed from Table 6 (F = 19.074)that the relationship between social media marketing and functional branding is significant suggesting that functional branding positively and significantly influences social media-based marketing strategies.Linear regression was used to test this hypothesis; it was noticeable that R (0.451) was the correlation of the usability and social media-based marketing strategies.In addition to that, F value of 33.417 was significant at 0.05 level.Based on that, there is a statistically significant influence of usability on social media marketing (Tables 7 and 8).Linear regression was used to test this hypothesis; it was found that R (0.472) was the correlation of customer interaction and the social media-based marketing strategies and F value of 37.489 is significant at 0.05 level.So, there is a statistically significant influence Customer Interaction and social media marketing (Tables 9 and 10).
H1 e : Customer interaction positively and significantly influences social media-based marketing strategies.As can be seen from Tables 11 and 12, the analysis shows that the intentional branding and social media-based marketing strategies are strongly correlated (R = 0.918) and that the relationship is statistically significant (F = 346.096)at p = 0.05 significance level, which means that intentional branding has a significant influence on social media-based marketing strategies.H2 a : Ability has a positive and significant influence on social media-based marketing strategies.
As can be inferred from Tables 13 and 14, ability and social media marketing strategies are strongly and positively correlated (R = 0.488) and that the relationship is significant at p = 0.05 significance level at F = 40.942.Thus, there is a statistically significant influence of ability on social media marketing.As can be observed from Tables 15 and 16, intention and social media-based marketing strategies are correlated (R = 0.908) and the relationship is statistically significant at p = 0.05 significance level at F = 613.369.Thus, there is a statistically significant influence of intention on social media marketing.H3 c : Social media marketing strategies are more strongly inclined towards ability and intention than usability and customer interaction.
As can be seen from Table 17, among participants, there is a strong inclination towards intention and ability (which are variables of intentional branding) than usability and interaction (variable of functional branding) with means of intention and ability being higher than those of interaction and usability suggesting that participants believe that social media marketing strategies may be more inclined towards intentional branding than functional branding.

DISCUSSION
This study sought to determine empirically whether social media marketing is more oriented towards intentional branding rather than functional branding, as suggested in the literature.Results suggested that though both functional and intentional branding influence on social media marketing strategies, social media marketing strategies tend to be more inclined towards intentional branding than functional branding.This is contrary to what has been suggested in the extant literature that social media marketing may be more oriented towards functional branding rather than intentional branding.
This finding suggests that through social media, the organization would be able to build a community for its brand as a sort of what is called consumer-brand relationship (CBR).The idea of this type of community is the fact that it is built on social media so it is more of an online community and there is no way to be offline.This is called "Online Consumer Community (OCC)" (Andrei & Zait, 2014; Fournier & Alvarez, 2011).
The OCC is seen as a somewhat new concept, but the way it is used and operated still differs across studies, (Bhat & Reddy, 1998).This is evidenced by many jargons that appeared through the previous studies which highlighted the role of social media in marketing like online product communities, online brand communities, virtual communities, virtual consumer communities, virtual P3 communities, and virtual consumption communities.However, all of these terms refer to what Hsu and others (2007) defined as "A cyber space supported by information technology … centered upon the communications and interactions of participants to generate specific domain knowledge that enables the participants to perform common functions and to learn from, contribute to, and collectively build upon that knowledge" (p. 6) or what Porter and Donthu (2008) defined "An aggregation of individuals or business partners who interact based on a shared interest, where the interaction is at least partially supported and/or mediated by technology and guided by certain protocols and norms" (p.115).
Along with many other researchers, Stephen (2015) drew the connection between the fact that marketing can be applied through social media and the fact that social media can alter the human behavior, or, in the marketing scheme, 'customer behavior'.Through applying the concepts of sentiment, motives, contents, attitudes and prospects, which can also be generated through social media marketing, it can be seen that the influence of social media can be more intentional for the organization than functional, because, through the feelings that social media can generate in the consumers, the organization can take full control of the messages that are being delivered to the audience about a certain product, brand or service (Agariya, Johari, Sharma, Chandraul, & Singh, 2012; Keller, 2009).
According to the analysis of the study and the hypotheses testing, it can be seen that social media tools as an approach to marketing appeared to enjoy a better influence in intentional branding compared to the functional branding.The reason behind such results is attributed to the fact that intentional branding is concerned with how the customers see the brand.This, in turn, is controlled through the organization and how it presents its brand through the tools that social media presents for them, like the design, the shape and the delivery (Paquette, 2013).

CONCLUSION
The current research study aimed at locating social media marketing tools within the frame of functional and intentional branding; through the quantitative approach and the questionnaire as a tool, the research distributed the questionnaire to 150 individuals from which 133 were retrieved proper for statistical processing.The questionnaire was built by the researcher, and it has taken into perspective dimensions of both functional branding (usability-customer interaction) and intentional branding (ability-intention).The results of the study indicated that social media tools within the marketing frame appeared to be more of intentional branding tool than functional, as it presented for the marketers all the needed tools to control the messages that reach their customers about the brand of the product/service.
Based on the previous discussion and the results of the study gathered data, the researcher presented the following set of recommendations: • It is important for the organization to choose the suitable social media marketing tools for their brand; if these tools can perform magic for the brand, it is not necessary that it suits all brands and all services.
• Even though social media tools in marketing are mostly intentional, which revolves around controlling the image of the brand within the heads of the customers, customer interaction is really important as part of the marketing idea.It is nevertheless highly recommended to use and benefit from all the tools that are presented to the marketers from social media.
Being authentic and direct to the point is something which is really important in marketing, having the control over how customers see the brand is something worthy, but authenticity and genuine must be a big part of it.Based on that, organizations shouldn't manipulate the trust and truth.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Conceptual framework relating functional branding and intentional branding variables with social media marketing strategies

H1 a :
Usability positively and significantly influences social media-based marketing strategies.
Ashley & Tuten, 2015;Lipsman et al., 2012).Brand posts are sent out to customers as recurrent updates.They ensure brands maintain their presence on the social media platforms.They serve to strengthen the relationship between the brands with customers by offering the ongoing conversations' theme.

Table 1 .
Characteristics of respondents based on their age

Table 2 .
Frequency and percentage of sample characteristics according to education

Table 3 .
Frequency and percentage of sample characteristics according to experience

Table 5 .
Correlation analysis between social media marketing strategies and functional branding

Table 6 .
Regression analysis between social media marketing strategies and functional branding

Table 11 .
Model summary

Table 12 .
ANOVA a

Table 13 .
Model summary

Table 14 .
ANOVA a b : Intention has a positive and significant influence on social media-based marketing strategies.

Table 15 .
Model summary

Table 16 .
ANOVA a