Marketing mix and social media communication: An evaluation over Turkish ports’ twitter accounts

Öz

Competition can be used to gauge the importance of marketing. Given the fact that port competition is not just regional, but also national and international, it is apparent that port operators' demand for comprehensive marketing operations has grown even more than previously. In today's digital environment, social media platforms play a significant role in marketing. As a result, the study's main goal is to look into how marketing mix strategies in the port industry are reflected on social media (Twitter). The unique aims of this study are the analysis of the social media content of the ports that use social media and the network analysis for social media communications, both of which are in line with the general purpose. The study looked into the social media profiles of nine ports using text mining with “tm” library of R programming. "Do ports in Turkey represent marketing mix components through social media?" according to the findings. According to the findings, the answer to the question is “tentative”. According to the results of the study, the efforts of marketing studies over social media will make positive contribution on Turkish ports is evaluated.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• marketing mix
• twitter
• Turkish ports
• text mining

Pazarlama karması ve sosyal medya iletişimi: Türk limanlarının twitter hesapları üzerinden bir inceleme

Öz

Pazarlamanın gerekliliği rekabet ile ölçülebilmektedir. Limanların rekabetinin sadece bölgesel değil, aynı zamanda ulusal ve uluslararası olduğu göz önüne alınırsa, liman işletmelerinin oldukça geniş kapsamlı pazarlama faaliyetlerine duyduğu ihtiyacın eskiye oranla daha fazla arttığı açıkça görülebilir. Sosyal medya araçlarının günümüz dijital dünyasında pazarlama açısından oldukça önemli bir yeri bulunmaktadır. Bu nedenle, çalışmanın genel amacı liman sektöründe pazarlama karması stratejilerinin sosyal medyadaki (Twitter) yansımalarının incelenmesidir. Bu genel amaca uygun olarak sosyal medya kullanan limanların sosyal medya içeriklerinin analiz edilmesi ve sosyal medya iletişimlerine yönelik ağ analizi bu çalışmanın özel amacını oluşturmaktadır. Yapılan araştırmada R programlamada kullanılan “tm” kütüphanesinden faydalanılarak metin madenciliği ile dokuz limanın sosyal medya hesabı incelenmiştir. Elde edilen sonuçlara göre “Türkiye’de limanlar sosyal medya aracılığı ile pazarlama karması bileşenlerini yansıtıyor mu?” sorusunun bulgular nezdinde karşılığının “zayıf” olduğu görülmektedir. Araştırma sonucuna göre Türk Limanlarının sosyal medya üzerinden pazarlama çalışmalarının geliştirilmesi yönünde çalışmalar yapılmasının olumlu olacağı değerlendirilmiştir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• pazarlama karması
• twitter
• Türk limanları
• metin madenciliği

Kaynakça

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