BC400 Communication and Media Management Report Sample
Assessment Brief
In a professional report, you are required to demonstrate your understanding of the theory of digital and social media communication and how the theory you studied has been applied in a real business setting.
Report Format
The format required for the case report is set out here.
- Cover Page (not included in word count)
Title of your case study
Student names and student numbers
- Table of contents (not included in word count)
- List of Tables (not included in word count)
- List of Figures (not included in word count)
- Executive Summary (this is the last section to be written)
- The Company
- Digital and Social Media Strategy of the Company
- Challenges
- Recommendations
- References (not included in word count)
Make sure all references are cited correctly according to the APA style
(https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples)
- Appendices (not included in word count)
Academic Integrity checklist
Attach any appendix material such as web pages or any additional material that support your assignment task.
Report Formatting
Use the following for formatting consistently throughout the report.
1. Font size - Arial 11 (Use a larger font size for your cover page)
2. Spacing - 1.5
3. Margins – Normal with 2.54 cm
General guidelines for tables
1. Every table should be linked to the text written above the table. The facts in the table can provide supporting evidence for your arguments.
2. Every table should have a table number and title.
3. The arrangement of data items in a table should emphasise the most significant aspect of the data.
4. The basis or unit of measurement should be clearly stated.
5. If the data contained in the table are taken from elsewhere, the source of data should be cited. Always add the reference where you took data below the table.
General guidelines for figures
1. Every figure should be linked to the text written above the figure. The facts in the figure can provide supporting evidence for your arguments.
2. Every figure should have a number and title.
3. If the data contained in the figure are secondary, the source of data should be cited. Always add the reference where you took data/figure below the figure title.
4. The arrangement of data items in a figure should emphasize the most significant aspect of the data.
5. The basis or unit of measurement should be clearly stated.
Solution
Introduction
Bayer AG can be considered as one of the largest multinational Pharmaceutical and biotechnology German corporations in the global biomedical companies. The company is originally headquartered in LeverKusen and includes a product line in consumer healthcare, agricultural chemical, seeds and products related to biotechnology. The company was originally founded in the year of 1863 in barmen with the acquired partnership of the Freidrich Weskott and Dyer Friedrich which further gained a market valuation of US€65.4 billion in Nov, 2018 with a net revenue earning of EUR€7.3 billion in 2017 fiscal year.
The Company: Bayer
Bayer is a well-recognised company for their work in the fields of healthcare and Agriculture. Currently this company has strong operations in Australia and New Zealand. They established their operations in the field in the year of 1863. This organization has taken a commitment to enhance the life quality of the people by offering innovative pharmaceutical products by looking after the health concerns of the consumers (Bukhari et al., 2020). At this moment around 1110 people are working at the Australia and New Zealand company facilities. According to their financial report, they have generated around 51.73 billion dollars in their pharmaceutical operations. The company is providing offers in cardiovascular disease., medicines for therapeutic issues and enhancing women's health. Their research and development is focusing to develop the medicine according to the needs of the in the Australian and New Zealand. They have OTC medications which provide an advantage to consumers to look after their own health. They have several popular products such as Berroca, Elevit and more. Besides pharmaceuticals they are also providing services to enhance sustainability in the agricultural field (Khou et al., 2020). Their digital grooming, protection innovation for the crops, help the country's farmers to address the issues of climate changes and quality security of the foods for university assignment help.
Digital and Social Media Strategy of the Company
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Figure 1: Strategic Approach of Bayer
(Source: IDNET, 2024)
Consumer Centric content Strategy
One of the major digital strategies that can be found, which is being utilized by the Bayer corporation is the content strategy towards identification of target audience and ensuring content that is consumer centric. With segregation of audience and target market focus, the corporation enables content that will encourage the people and meet the requirements related to health and biotechnology. With that being explained, it can be gathered that the brand established a digital platform presence in Instagram, X Platform (Twitter), Youtube, Meta (Facebook) and LinkedIn (Bayer, 2024). LinkedIn can be considered as one of the highest following social media accounts of Bayer with 4.4 million people, followed by Facebook with 1 million followers (IIDE, 2022). Therefore, the content strategy followed by Bayer remains significant in segregating focused and targeted audiences which ensures creation and distribution of informative content towards raising content engagement within their follower base. Customer service aside, face-to-face interactions are still vitally important to the functioning of any organization (Smith, 2022)
.png)
Figure 2: Social Media Content of Bayer
(Source: IIDE, 2024)
The digital strategy in consumer centric content by analysis of the touch point of the audience, ensuring regular posts on active social medias and niche oriented upgrades of the content that is being posted which will ensure value about the company niche like agriculture, healthcare and scientific advancements among the viewers. With consideration to this, the company utilizes the method of demographic information towards consumer behavior in subsetting the targeted audience from the general population in active social media with the utilization of Quantitative social listening skills which creates distinctive mindsets and attitudes via quantitative social scans in producing distinctive persona sets which can be further analyzed to choose relevant touchpoints and pain points of the audience.
Visuality
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Figure 3: Social Touch Point of target groups of Bayer
(Source: IDNET, 2024)
Another major strategy of digitalization and Social media that can be maintained by the corporation of Bayer can be considered as the high visuality points of the social media which is being subset with distinctive client points. In the above-mentioned Figure 3, it can be derived that the major stakeholders of the companies are being segregated with the visuality and audience focus structure of distinctive social media platforms like the LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Youtube, Whatsapp, Meta (facebook) and Twitter (X platform) which presents the distinctive visuality of content and client distribution in accordance to the content strategy and visuality of content across different social medias (IDNET, 2024). For instance, from the figure 3, it can be gathered that majority of the clients of Bayer are gained with the visuality of youtube, LinkedIn and Facebook, meaning the core values, imagery and principles shared in those platforms are more extensively matches with the persona sets of audiences with researched touch points and pain points, ensuring the audience to change into consumers of the brand. Physical characteristics influence how indvidual perceive and respond to information (University of Minnesota, 2013).
.png)
Figure 4: Social Media Campaign of Smiths launched by Bayer
(Source: IIDE, 2024)
One of the Informative social media campaigns that was launched by Bayer, ensured creation of awareness of heart attacks with a common tagline of “Smiths”, ensured people to carry aspirin remotely to prevent heart attacks. Therefore, the visuality of the brand can be increased by focusing on distinctive brand strategy where in Bayer, the visuality of the content is being increased with inclusion of CI guidelines which further guarantees one voice in distinctive text and images.
Community Management
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Figure 5: Global Corporate Content Wheel
(Source: IDNET, 2024)
Lastly, the digital and social media strategy that is being followed by Bayer can be categorized under Community Management which is being by maintained of four distinctive factors in the social media and digital platforms namely, Monitoring and listening, strategy & Insights, Positioning of Division and Core strategy towards Brand ideas or goals of the company. The conversations that are provided for community management in social media can be considered as the true beliefs and visions of the brand, Bayer, as it proves to provide distinctive values of healthcare and biotechnology in everyday talks regularly. With the strategy of “Everyday Talk” the corporation sets a brand positioning in the market with significant community building strategy in active social medias like Meta, Instagram and LinkedIn (IDNET, 2024). With consideration to this, the monitoring process and social listening helps in creating research towards consumer patterns in accordance to societal mega trends along with insights which provides audience interest in topic selection (Dietrich et al., 2020). Further, the positioning of division being a major factor of community management in digital and social media strategy, the corporation ensures division-driven messages in social messages which ensures attraction of the audience towards the visions and goals of the company. Furthermore, the cre strategy utilized in delivering the brand ideations and company goals directly towards the audiences ensures higher engagement and social conversations towards implementations of the goals and future scopes within the audience in social media and digital platforms of Bayer.
Challenges
Business communication is required to make decision solve problems and create relationships with the stakeholders of the firm (Lawson, Gill, Feekery & Witsel, 2019).The challenges faced by Bayer in social media and Digital marketing of the brand can be categorized under four distinctive challenges which ensures difficulty in implementation of social media and dig9tal strategies, which can further discussed below.
Misinformation and Negative Publicity in Platforms
One of the major challenges that can be recognised for the Bayer corporation in social and digital media strategies that was faced is the misinformation produced and distribution about the brand in the social media platforms (Ng, Tang & Lee, 2021). As social media platforms and digital platforms ensures major advantages to consumer engagement and beneficial gain of information, it can also impact in the brand image and positioning of a company if the media platforms are circulated with misleading information which continued with the corporation of Bayer, which faced misleading ad circulation of false information in social media platforms that negatively affects their product sales, publicity, consequences towards the controversies which has been done historically and also affects the reputation of the current company (IIDE, 2022).
Data Security Concerns
Another major challenge that can be faced by the company of Bayer with the digital and social media strategies can be the increased risk towards privacy of data and security concerns with the rise in social media followers. With higher digital engagement towards the social media and digital platforms of the company, the responsibility towards handling adequate data, specifically in the field of healthcare is crucial (Ibdah, Lachtar, Raparthi & Bacha, 2021). Therefore, maintenance of privacy and confidentiality of data can be extremely difficult with social media and ensure higher complexities towards the concerns of data security of the consumers and clients.
Relevance of Content
It can be found that creating content that is highly user centric and ensures the content strategy of the brand towards regular posts that resonate the touch points and pain points of the targeted consumers can be difficult to maintain. Therefore, consistent relevance of content towards diverse audiences can be measured as a significant challenge towards the large followers of Bayer when it can be gathered that irrelevant content provided in the social media can effectively lower the audience engagement and influence the sales and social communication structure of the brand. Therefore, creating a balance between the professional and resonating content that will also include the factors of engaging and informative statements can be difficult to maintain in social media and digital platforms.
Technological Tools and Advancements
With emerging technology, social media and digital tools are also constantly evolving with new technological algorithms and analytics tools, which can further accurately monitor and research the current consumer trends and consumer purchase patterns in every industry. Therefore, technological upgradations are necessary and also can be ensured as a potential challenge for Bayer as the investment towards new technology integration in active social media platforms and digital platforms can be expensive and handling of social media tools can become difficult without resonating the use of the technology with the audience.
Recommendations
Crisis Management with proactive communication
With the identified challenge regarding the misinformation and misleading negative publicity of the brand can be a potential barrier towards the reputation and online and offline positioning of the brand, Bayer, the brand can ensure reputational damage with false information being circulated with a diverse population in digital and social media platforms. Therefore, it is recommended for the brand to ensure a proactive communication strategy to seek regular updates on the information that are being circulated and transparently addressing the concerns before it escalates into controversial topics in the digital media and social media platforms. Further, establishment of a crisis management plan is also recommended for the brand, in such situations where predefined responsibilities towards communication channels can be distributed and response towards the negative information can be removed.
Data Encryption and Privacy Policies
The second challenge that is being identified is the data security and privacy concerns with the increasing amount of followers in the social media and digital platforms of the brand, Bayer. Therefore, it is recommended for the corporation to implement strong data encryption methodologies in their active social media and digital platforms towards ensuring adequate protection of user data, collection of data by the algorithms and analysis from the distinctive channels (Mitchell & El-Gayar, 2020). Further, the recommendations of establishment of transparent privacy policies can be ensured by the company to provide clear communication towards the permissions of accessing required data from the users.
User-Generated Content
Another potential challenge that has been identified is the difficulty in ensuring relevance and consistent content for the company in their social media and digital platforms which can also ensure results of irrelevant posts that do not resonate with the audience touch points leading to decrease in consumer engagement. Therefore, it can be recommended for the company to utilize user generated content to encourage and leverage the authenticity of the content will be user generated and therefore, relevance of the content can be maintained on regular posts (Shahbaznezhad, Dolan & Rashidirad, 2021). Therefore, user generated content may include distinctive case studies, consumer experiences with products of Bayer and customer testimonials.
Pilot programs
The fourth potential challenge that can be identified for the social media and digital media strategy can be considered as the lack of technological advancements in digital and social media tools by the company to ensure an updated interface of active social and digital media. Therefore, it is recommended for the company to ensure new technologies and platforms via pilot programs which will evaluate the effectiveness of the tools in required social and digital platforms before full scale implementation (Chen et al., 2020).
Conclusion
The report is being designed to provide a social media and digital analysis of the chosen brand, Bayer. With a significant introduction of the brand in healthcare and pharmacy, it can be concluded that the brand also has a strong digital and social media presence. For the analysis, the report consists of identification of digital and social media strategies of the brand along with recognising potential challenges that can be faced by the brand. The report is being concluded with strategic recommendation towards the identified challenges.
References
Bayer (2024) Bayer’ social media channels, Bayer’ Social Media Channels | Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc. https://www.bayer.com/en/media/social-media-channels.
Bukhari, W., Khalilidehkordi, E., Mason, D. F., Barnett, M. H., Taylor, B. V., Fabis-Pedrini, M., ... & Broadley, S. A. (2022). NMOSD and MS prevalence in the
Indigenous populations of Australia and New Zealand. Journal of Neurology, 269(2), 836-845.https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marzena-Fabis-Pedrini/publication/352990074_NMOSD_and_MS_prevalence_in_the_Indigenous_populations_of_Australia_
and_New_Zealand_on_behalf_of_The_Australian_and_New_Zealand_NMO_Collaboration/links/
60e26d4e458515d6fbfd43f2/NMOSD-and-MS-prevalence-in-the-Indigenous-populations-of-Australia-and-New-Zealand-on-behalf-of-The-Australian-and-New-Zealand-NMO-Collaboration.pdf
Chen, J., Ho, E., Jiang, Y., Whittaker, R., Yang, T., & Bullen, C. (2020). Mobile social network–based smoking cessation intervention for chinese male smokers: pilot randomized controlled trial. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 8(10), e17522.
Dietrich, J., Gattepaille, L. M., Grum, B. A., Jiri, L., Lerch, M., Sartori, D., & Wisniewski, A. (2020). Adverse events in twitter-development of a benchmark reference dataset: results from IMI WEB-RADR. Drug safety, 43, 467-478.
Ibdah, D., Lachtar, N., Raparthi, S. M., & Bacha, A. (2021). “Why Should I Read the Privacy Policy, I Just Need the Service”: A Study on Attitudes and Perceptions Toward Privacy Policies. IEEE access, 9, 166465-166487.
IDNET (2024) Global Corporate Social Media Strategy. https://idnet.bayer.com/sites/idnet/files/global-corporate-social-media-strategy.pdf.
IIDE. (2022, October 21). Detailed marketing strategy of Bayer - 2024. https://iide.co/case-studies/marketing-strategy-of-bayer/
Khou, V., Anderson, J. J., Strange, G., Corrigan, C., Collins, N., Celermajer, D. S., ... & Lau, E. M. (2020). Diagnostic delay in pulmonary arterial hypertension: insights from the Australian and New Zealand pulmonary hypertension registry. Respirology, 25(8), 863-871.https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/bitstream/handle/11343/275342/10.1111%20resp.13768.pdf
Lawson, C. Gill, R, Feekery, A. & Witsel, M. (2019). Communication skills for business
professionals. (2nd ed). Australia: Cambridge University Press.
Mitchell, D., & El-Gayar, O. F. (2020). The effect of privacy policies on information sharing behavior on social networks: A Systematic Literature Review.
Ng, K. C., Tang, J., & Lee, D. (2021). The effect of platform intervention policies on fake news dissemination and survival: An empirical examination. Journal of Management Information Systems, 38(4), 898-930.
Shahbaznezhad, H., Dolan, R., & Rashidirad, M. (2021). The role of social media content format and platform in users’ engagement behavior. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 53(1), 47-65.
Smith, J. (2022). Communication at work. Retrieved from https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/communicationsatwork/
University of Minnesota. (2013). Communication in the real world. Retrieved from
https://open.lib.umn.edu/communication/
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