TWITTER AS A TOOL TO ACHIEVE A COMPETITIVE EDGE: A MULTICASE STUDY WITH GROUP PURCHASE COMPANIES

Abstract

Group purchasing web-sites and social networks sites have grown exponentially in the competitive Brazilian market, which demands new strategies for customer relationship. Thus, this study intends to describe elements of the strategy implemented by group purchasing web-sites to achieve competitive advantage on the Internet via Twitter, based on the model proposed by Hart and Milstein. Initial results consider the messages sent over the network by the three largest group purchasing web-sites in Brazil during the first quarter of 2011, showing that Twitter, as social media, may generate competitive advantages for companies that use it, in spite of the main focus usually happening in the internal dimension of its use.