Back in 2011, a group of professors from Canada; Jan Kietzmann, Kristopher Hermkens and Ian McCarthy created the Honeycomb Model to review social media effectiveness, looking at reasons why users engage with social media.
The idea behind the honeycomb model is that of the 7 key building blocks delineated by the model, companies can select the ones most relevant to their business, and focus their attention on the key functionalities.
We created this simple table to help you evaluate each of the seven blocks, so you can decide which ones, and how many, your organization should focus on.
Identity: Data privacy controls and tools for user self-promotion
Presence: Creating and managing the reality, intimacy and immediacy of the context
Relationships: Managing the structural and flow properties in a network of relationships
Reputation: Monitoring the strength, passion, sentiment, and reach of users and brands
Groups: Membership rules and protocols
Conversations: Conversation velocity, and the risks of staring and joining
Sharing: Content management system and social graph
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In summary, the Honeycomb model is a great framework for considering social media networks but it is not a decision tree and therefore the final decision as to ‘which network should we select?’, still, needs to be taken within the organization.
For more information on digital models, see our free digital marketing models guide.
Free essential marketing models Our free guide details 15 classic planning tools to help you use data and analysis to develop your marketing strategy.
By Annmarie Hanlon
Dr Annmarie Hanlon is a Chartered Marketer and an Associate Professor in Digital and AI Marketing at UCL within the Global Business School for Health. Previously she was the Course Director of MSc Marketing and Leadership at Cranfield University. She is an experienced academic with a strong teaching portfolio in digital marketing. Before joining academia, she worked in consultancy for 25 years. As an early adopter of technology and ‘online marketing’ she has led digital strategy and planning projects across Europe, in sectors including healthcare and IT, legal and financial, software and manufacturing. Annmarie has written several SAGE textbooks including Digital Marketing, Digital Business and The Digital Marketing Planner. She is co-editor of The SAGE Handbook of Digital Marketing, and The SAGE Handbook of Social Media Marketing. Her textbooks are adopted in nearly 30 countries by over 100 universities and are the leading textbooks in SAGE’s digital topic collections.
Turbocharge your results with this toolkit containing 11 resources
The Social Media Marketing toolkit contains:
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