English abstract
The study aims at detecting, characterizing and analyzing the extent to which
Telecommunications Companies working in Oman employ social media in
practicing marketing communications, and identifying the attitudes of Social
Networks account's managers towards their utilization in marketing
communications.
The study relies on survey methodology using the content analysis tool of
the accounts of Telecommunications Companies in the Sultanate of Oman
during the period from January 1st 2019 to January 31st 2019. The analysis
sample included 304 posts of both companies on Twitter and Instagram.
The study found out that marketing communications posts constituted 70%
of the total publications of telecommunications companies, and that Twitter
is the network that was most used in the practice of marketing
communications. The study also found out that 93.87% of marketing
communications publications targeted customers, and Arabic language
ranked first among the languages used by marketing communications posts.
Finding also showed that the sales promotion aspect came first with a
percentage of 49.06% of the marketing communications mix used in posts
via Social Networks accounts, followed by events-based marketing by
28.77%, and finally advertising ranked third by 16.04% .
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The study also revealed that the Social Networks Marketing Communication
Model in the Sultanate focused mainly on event-based marketing as an input
to the model, And has achieved a high level of viral marketing as a main
output.
The results also showed that "ease of use" index was the leading indicator of
marketing communications, followed by the index of "interactive dialogues"
and the index of "providing useful information to the public" ranked third .
Finally, the results of the interviews showed that the main challenges facing
telecommunications companies in utilizing Social Networks to practice
marketing communications in the Sultanate are the negative perceptions of
the institutions and constant criticism, besides the varying levels of
prevalence of the use of Social Networks, and finally the difficulty of
formulating content for marketing communications posts via Social
Networks
