Abstract
The objective of this chapter is to analyze how Southern Spanish companies in the dentistry sector employ Web 2.0 tools available to them and to analyze the availability of multilingual information in their corporate websites. To this purpose, the results of several studies have been gathered in this chapter. These studies considered criteria such as having or not a corporate website and social networks, the translation or not of the website content, and number of languages available, among others. Results show that a significant amount of the analyzed SMEs do not have a website or social networks. In addition, those having a website do not, generally, translate its content, which limits international customer acquisition and the opening to international markets. Concerning social networks, SMEs, which do have social media, generally have small communities, and they do not post frequently, which limit the implementation of digital marketing strategies.
TopIntroduction
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have meant great change at all levels of society, including the business sphere. Among the opportunities provided to companies by the modern information society, it is worth mentioning the possibility of the global transmission of a message −including corporate information− at a considerably reduced cost, thus allowing entry into new markets and the exploration of different business models.
ICTs have therefore transformed traditional marketing and are a good indicator of the capacity of businesses to modernize and compete in globalized environments (Peris-Ortiz et al., 2014). Nevertheless, the economic sphere is in continuous flux and uncertainty is a constant for many companies. This situation demands that companies, especially small and medium sized ones (SMEs), have a great capacity for adaptation in order to face the new challenges of an ever more globalized and difficult market. To this end, it is essential for them to take advantage of the elements provided by ICTs when taking their brands to their target audience via the creation of a solid internet presence thanks to the opportunities offered by Web 2.0 tools, including social networks. In addition, it is important for companies to attract potential international customers and, to this end, the multilingual dissemination of corporate information plays a crucial role.
In this sense, the use of ICTs can be a good indicator of the ability of companies to compete in globalized environments as Internet presence allows them to disseminate corporate and commercial information, bringing the brands to their target audience and improving their competitiveness (Alcaide et al., 2013; Chaffey & Smith, 2013; Peris-Ortiz et al., 2014). Nevertheless, despite the advantages offered by the Internet and Web 2.0 tools such as websites and social networks a number of studies have shown that there is still room for improvement when it comes to corporate websites and social networks (Gutiérrez-Artacho & Olvera-Lobo, 2017a, 2017b; Marín Dueñas & Lasso de la Vega González, 2017; Sixto García et al., 2017; Zumba-Zuniga et al., 2016).
In the light of this scenario this chapter aims to examine how Andalusian companies in the dentistry sector use the tools related to the Internet and the Web 2.0 that are available to them. In this sense, the availability of corporate websites and social networks as well as the multilingual dissemination of corporate information has been analyzed and the results of several studies have been gathered in this publication to offer an exhaustive portrait of the situation of Andalusian dentistry SMEs.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Digitalization: It involves the use of digital technologies by business. In some cases, the digitalization can imply moving to a complete digital business model.
Digital Marketing: It involves the use of the Internet and ICTs technologies on the part on the companies to reach customers.
Localization: It is the process to adapt one text, which can include multimedia content such as images or videos to a local audience, called locale . It is commonly used for websites and translation is one of the steps of the localization process.
Web 2.0: It is the term used to make reference to the second stage of the Internet development. Web 2.0 is characterized by user-generated content, ease of use and the development of social media.
SME: Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is the term used to refer companies whose personnel and turnover numbers are below certain limits.
Social Network: It is a platform (website or other kind of application) that allow users to communicate and interact with each other and post information, images, etc.
Transcreation: It is a term widely used in marketing and advertising to refer to the process of re-adaptation of a given message from one language to another with the aim to generate the same emotions in the source and target language by maintaining the intention, style, tone and context.
Internationalization: It refers to the process of involving companies in international markets. In this process it is essential to bridge the gap between different languages, cultures, and countries.