Hello to all!

I hope everyone is pressing on towards the end of the semester. (:

The organization I chose for my individual project is UBER, and I’m sure many of us are familiar with it and its wonderful services. Through my analysis of Uber and its performance on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, I have come up with certain recommendations with the campaign hashtag of #UberMovesMe. Please do take some time to read my project summary, and all the best for finals!

Background or Organization

Uber is a mobile app-based company offering services pertaining to mobility on demand. Currently, it is most widely known for its online vehicle-for-hire service, where Uber riders are matched with Uber drivers on a real-time basis to bring them to their destination.

While Uber has grown at an exceptional rate to be active in over 300 cities worldwide, it has had its fair share of controversies. The legality of Uber is widely disputed, given its nature of being a disruptive type of technology. Another issue Uber is heavily involved in is safety, as the company has faced several incidents, ranging from sexual assault to vehicle accidents. Hence, social media is a necessary tool to mitigate potential negative externalities from such incidents, which may greatly impact the uptake of Uber’s services.

Research objective

Upon analysis, my paper seeks to provide a set of recommendations for Uber to:

• Better engage with their fans on the social media platforms, and
• Better integrate the brand into the lifestyle of Singaporeans.

Uber’s Current Strategies on its Social Media Platforms

Uber has three main strategies, as I observed on its Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages.

• Uber provides accessible updates about the happenings within the company

Example of an Instagram post announcing Uber’s new logo

• Uber leverages on the jovial mood of festivities to engage its fans

Example of a Facebook post for the Lunar New Year

• Uber focuses on delivering a consistent message of safety:

Example of a tweet on safety

Data collection

To deeply analyze the current performance of Uber’s strategy, data on Uber’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages were collected. The period of data collection was from 01 February – 14 February 2016, and the types of data collected were a) number of likes/ followers, b) number and type of content of postings on the social media platform, c) volume and direction of response from the online community.

While the data collection was done on Uber’s global pages, the recommendations are tailored to the local Singaporean market. Hence, to get a better understanding of the issues Uber can address with regard to Singapore through social media, I also conducted a separate survey with 41 respondents from the target demographics of Uber to figure out the existing perceptions of the brand.

Conclusion

Uber is poised to become a significant force in the mobility-on-demand market given its first-mover advantage. However, there are impediments to sustaining Uber’s position, such as the ever-increasing number of innovative competitors, legal and safety issues, and lack of brand loyalty. Hence, it is in Uber’s interest to utilize the social media recommendations so as to achieve consistent and sustainable integration into the lifestyle of Singaporeans.

To end off, I hope all of us will remember that Uber is great because Uber makes us mobile, #UberMovesMe

G5, Sang Hee