On the Identification of the Key Factors for a Successful Use of Twitter as a Medium from a Social Marketing Perspective

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The purpose of the reviewed article is the presentation of communication strategies possible to use in social marketing, mainly with the use of Twitter. Social media are nowadays a crucial tool for communication and dialogue building. Therefore, all the more reason it is worth  considering that this is a current topic worthy of analysis. The results of the analysis conducted for this work allowed to identify success factors in the communication strategies of public organizations. The work is coherent and contains valuable conclusions. The article uses a sufficient number of scientific materials based on which the literature review was made. The layout of the text is logically constructed. The presented analyses allow to consider it as interesting work, while the conclusions can be used in deepening the research and making further hypotheses. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer:
Thank you for your time, in the attached document are the answers to your comments.
Kind regards 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The submitted paper entitled “Defining Communication Strategies for Social Media Marketing (social welfare and sustainability) on Twitter” touches a very interesting issue regarding the use of Social Media by public organizations.

However, there are some major issues concerning the theoretical development and the methodology presented by the authors which inhibit the paper to make a sufficient contribution to research so as to warrant publication in the journal of sustainability. Please take in consideration the following observations:

The title of the paper does not match its content, due to the fact that there is no definition of communication strategies, and the paper deals with public administrations in Spain, in specific the paper analyzes the way four law enforcement agencies at local, regional, national, and international levels used Twitter as a communication tool for social marketing and furthermore the authors initiate a model to evaluate their performance.L20:” the results of this work allowed the identification of success factors in the communication strategies  of public organizations”……

Particularly for the abstract

According to the abstract “The goal of this paper was to define a range of social marketing communication strategies using Twitter, and specifically those intended to enhance social well-being and sustainability “. (L 15-16) This is a very general statement and the specific objectives of the work must be clearly stated.

L.19-24 refer to specific objectives/methods’ steps (???) while there is no reference to results and outcomes of the research.  

The authors use the term profile for the four public organizations, is this clear for the reader or she/ he is confusing, since the profiles of these organizations are not further described, nor similarities or differences between them.

Introduction section:

L.37: in the Brundtland Report as "development that meets the needs…”source is missing (reference?)

L.48 Internet instead of internet (you have to write it the same way all over the paper)

The objective of this study is not clearly defined in the introduction section!

L55-56 “social networks” it is better to use social media since Twitter doesn’t belong to social networking sites, but to microblogs

L.67- 74 Although it is mentioned that “the literature contained proposed model….” A theoretical background for these models is totally missing, thus the reader cannot evaluate your contribution with the proposed model in comparison with the previous research.

L 67”..models…”, which are these models, when and where have been used???

L73: “This last aspect formed a large part of the focus of the research presented in this article.” Can you please explain this, what do you exactly mean?

L90: “Therefore, these organizations used Twitter as their social marketing communication tool seeking to influence the behavior of people to in a way that was beneficial for society.” Can you please give some examples regarding the behavior of people  which is beneficial for society?

L92 “The answer lay in the definition of the variables to be considered and their interrelationships, both between them as well as with the intended objective of the organization” which variables and what is the intended objective?

L95 are these the main objectives of the paper? ( it is still not clear what do you mean with term “variables”, is there a theoretical background for these?

L100 “which variables were the most important for designing a social marketing strategy on Twitter but also to assign the relative importance of these variables for it. Furthermore, the model proposed can be used to integrating different profiles whose assessment allowed characterization of their degrees of success.” Are these the objectives of this paper?????

L98-100: “As a result, this research defined a model capable not only of

establishing which variables were the most important for designing a social marketing strategy on Twitter but also to assign the relative importance of these variables for it. Further-more, the model proposed…” It is the first time the authors refer to a proposed model , but I cannot understand  if it is a new model or an old one extended by the authors or how they will develop the model and for what??????

In the remain part of the Introduction section it is really confusing mixing theory and methodology and mentioning models and methods without clear distinction.

This part normally belons to section 2.

In the section of Introduction , but also in the following section  2( Materials and Methods) the theoretical background  has not been contextualized with respect to previous and present literature review and empirical research (if applicable) on the topic.

Materials and Methods

The research model , methodology design, used are confusing and not clearly stated.

It starts in L.115, continues in L.124, l.125 “Method”, L.128 “model:……, L137 “methods”

It is really confusing, which model do the authos use or propose, which methods, which criteria??????

L141 distort instead of distorts

L.144 “ Thus, the expert must answer the question "which element has the greatest influence on the model?" ….

Who is the expert, do you propose the comparison scale ???

Please give the reader an organized methodology which you will use for you research and refer to the specific research questions you put.

Is this a quantitative or qualitative approach? What are you exactly doing? Which are the criteria the authors use and why???

L155: “the model, the first step is to present the problem as a network” WHICH MODEL?

L174: “This study involved a team of researchers who were responsible for the literature

review, the problem modeling, and the application of the ANP method”, probably the collaboration between the teams was not so good , thus it is a confusion regarding the research hypothesis, the theoretical background used and the proposed model.

L185: The analysis period for the study   lasted from October 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018. The issue regarding social media use is fast changing during the time , so I am afraid that the results are no longer of significant interest due to the time of the collection of the data and the changes that are taking place at a very fast pace (3 years ago).  

Results

I cannot follow the modeling of the  problem regarding the police profiles studied, which data have been collected , which criteria have been used, why ? and  and who evaluated these? (L. 209, L. 221)

L.221 Who initiated the four clusters of the criteria?

L.231 “Several questionnaires were prepared for each cluster in order to determine the rela-231 tionships between the large numbers of elements of our complex network” please explain about the questionnaires.

Thera are no data to follow the methodology the authors use and to evaluate the outcoming results.

L.293 “Figure 2 shows the importance of each cluster in the problem according to judgments made by the communication expert.” I cannot follow the judgments of the communication experts, please give relevant information.

Discussion

L 372-373 “This paper serves to fill the analytical and information gap highlighted in the literature review and to offer a series of guidelines that could be used by public organizations  for their social marketing communication strategies on Twitter” It has not been highlighted in the literature review, what is ne new outcome based on your research and which are the limitations?

L385

“These results could serve as a guide for the development of strategies that influence the behavior of citizens with one objective: social welfare”, can you please explain!

L413 “Many studies existed on the use of social networks for commercial purposes but, in the field of social marketing,studies were practically non-existent.” This is very general statement  can you please explain  what do you mean?

L.441-445

Are these the limitations of the study?

Author Response

Dear reviewer:
Thank you for your time, in the attached document are the answers to your comments.
Kind regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript presents a study of the different dimensions that contribute to shaping a social media marketing strategy aimed at public communication on social welfare and sustainability. The study has many interesting elements because it examines a range of factors and dimensions that contribute to the definition of an effective social media marketing strategy. However, the manuscript has a number of weaknesses and criticalities that prevent it from being published. I indicate below the main concerns and some suggestions for revision. 

First of all, it is not clear what the correlation is between sustainability and the four institutions investigated, which all relate to the issue of security. The authors should clarify why it is relevant to talk about sustainability in these contexts and how social media and Twitter can help to achieve this.

Secondly, the study should better clarify the focus of the research. For example, the authors mention a team of experts but never say how many there were nor do they describe in detail the procedure by which they were approached. The authors should provide more detail on the different stages of the validation of their model, reporting the data in a rigorous manner.

Thirdly, it would be appropriate to add research questions to guide the presentation of the study and the results, as well as their discussion and interpretation. The current state of the manuscript does not allow for an assessment of the added value of the study or the extent to which the research contributes to knowledge in the field.

Fourthly, the literature on social media marketing strategies should be expanded with recent and analytical studies. 

Fifthly, some methodological information should be moved to the section of the same name, e.g. lines 110-122 on page 3; lines 209-220 on page 5.

Finally, I suggest using the expression social media and not social network to refer to the set of web 2.0 tools.

Author Response

Dear reviewer:
Thank you for your time, in the attached document are the answers to your comments.
Kind regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors, the revised version of your manuscriptlooks pretty interesting and all the points of my criticism have been addressed.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors, thank you for addressing the reviewers' concerns and for the thorough accurate revisions.