The Social Media Revolution. Strategies and Attitudes towards the Rise of an Enabling Technology

This paper investigates how companies are facing the social media revolution en course. Web 2.0 technology has forced firms to reconsider their business models and strategies. As well as it happened in the first digital revolution led by Web 1.0 technology, the advent of the second digital revolution led by Web 2.0 has created new opportunities and threats that firms need to cope with. Internet has had an impact on both business models and firms’ practices, since it has created a new market space, changed the role of the customers and modified marketing strategies. Based on both theory as well as empirical cases, the study shows that strong similarities exists between the two digital revolutions. Old economic and managerial models are still valid while companies can either take a passive approach or they can try to adapt, but only outliers are leading the transformations and are redefining business models and practices in their industries.