Effectiveness Of Social Media As A Marketing Tool In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Problem statement

The past five decades have seen a radical change in the way business is conducted as well as methods used for communication. The incorporation of internet had a tremendous impact on the business operation and business environment. As mentioned by Ashley and Tuten (2015), social media marketing is gaining popularity, awareness and driving traffic in engaging the target customers over the online platform. Communication over the social media is more effective and interactive because it offers continuous service for the users. The business organizations are able to update information anytime and the target customers are able to view the updates within minutes being miles apart. The use of social media as a marketing tool has made marketing communication precise, interesting, interactive and personal (Chaffey 2016).

This study aim towards identifying the outcome of using social media when used as a marketing tool in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Issues have been encountered by business organizations and entrepreneurs in using social media effectively as a marketing tool. The potential risks involved of using social media as a marketing tool are the transparency, misuse of information and narrowing the target customers. In spite of the various advantages, social media cannot be used as an effective marketing tool in Kuala Lumpur because of the restricted expansion of internet in Malaysia that restricts the business organizations and entrepreneurs to communicate and connect with the users smoothly (Cader and Al Tenaiji 2013).  

The aim of the research is to investigate the effectiveness of social media as a marketing tool in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The objectives of the research are:

• To understand the concept of marketing tool
• To investigate the expansion of social media in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• To analyze critically the factors affecting social media and marketing tool in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• To assess the relationship between social media and marketing tool in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• To provide suitable recommendations for improving social media as a marketing tool in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The hypotheses of the research are?

H₀: Social media does not act as an effective tool for marketing Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

H₁: Social media act as an effective for marketing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Investigating the impact of social media as an effective marketing tool in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is important, as this will help in addressing the gap and the issues encountered by the business organization while using the social media as a marketing tool. In addition to, the significance of this study underlies in analyzing the main factors that restricts the use of social media as a marketing tool by analyzing the potential reasons of where the business organizations and entrepreneurs are lacking. After addressing the issues, this research will also help in proposing suitable methods that can be used for mitigating the issues and use social media as an effective marketing tool in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Dahnil et al. 2014).

Introduction, literature review, research methodology, data analysis, discussion, conclusion and recommendation will form the overall layout of the dissertation. The introductory chapter will have the research aim, objectives and hypothesis based on which the entire work will be conducted. This will be followed by literature review chapter that will identify the independent and the dependent variables and will provide concepts, theories and models of the identified variables. The methodology chapter will describe the different research tools and justify strongly the selection of the particular methodological tools. Using the selected tools, data will be collected and analyzed followed by discussing the finding by referring to the information presented in the second chapter. The last chapter will deduce conclusion by mentioning the gap, its impact and methods of mitigating or improving the gap for future benefits.

Research aim

Thus, in this chapter, it can be summarized that social media has gained huge popularity among the business organizations and is used as a marketing tool. Appropriate marketing tools and techniques allows the business organizations to attract customers and retain the existing ones thereby, strengthening their position in the competitive market as well as gain profit and generate revenue. The advancement of technology has facilitated the use of social media platform by the users those use it for various purposes. As social media platforms has huge active users, it is an effective marketing tool, as the business organizations are able to connect and communicate with the target customers regardless of time and location.

The independent and the dependent variables are identified in this chapter followed by providing relevant background information to determine the effectiveness of social media as a marketing tool in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The roots of social media stretch deeper than imagined though the platform seems new for the world, it is the outcome of years of development. Before the 20^th century, letters, telephones, radios and telegraph messages defined social media. However, rapid growth of technology in the 20^th century witnessed the emergence of computers, Internet and emails making virtual communication extremely easy. Origin of blogging is influenced the popularity of the social media platform and sites like MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and Photobucket gave an entirely new dimension for people to communicate regardless of factor such as distance. 2006 saw the availability of Facebook and Twitter that gained huge popularity as people are able to connect, communicate and support throughout the globe without being present physically (Perrin 2015).

Unlike any other countries, social media in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is used widely used and an estimated 75% of the populations are active users. Apart for personal and entertainment use, social media in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is gaining popularity among small business organizations as well as corporations. Increased competition has lead to the development of fierce and intense business environment making it difficult for the small business organizations to attract customers. Thus, the potential reason of increased demand of social media among entrepreneurs, small business organizations and corporations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is to mark their presence in the eye of the customers (Hays, Page and Buhalis 2013).  

Increased demand of social media is noticed among the entrepreneurs and the small ad medium sized business organizations. As mentioned by Bolton et al. (2013), this is due to increased opportunity of interaction social media provides for the business organizations without being present physically. In order to compete with the large and the established business organizations, SME’s use social media platform for communicating with the customers continuously for making the customers feel valued and important for them. This is a method undertaken by the SME’s to create loyal customer base by ensuring customer satisfaction. However, as argued by Nah and Saxton (2013), prevalence of social media among the business organizations is noticed as this allows saving cost. Cost-effectiveness by using social media allows the SME’s corporations and entrepreneurs to use the financial resources differently. In this case, the small business organizations and corporation in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is facing issues in ensuring effective interaction and cost-effectiveness by using social media platform.

Research objectives

Marketing determines the success of the business organizations, as this tool helps in business expansion, attracting customers and retaining the existing ones. As commented by Hartley and Claycomb (2013), marketing is defined as the cumulative business process that helps in building relationships by ensuring customer satisfaction. However, as argued by De Mooij (2018), marketing is defined as the set of activities that is involved in establishing, communicating, delivering and exchanging any type of offerings that are valuable to the partners, society and customers. Other definition of marketing portrays it as a tool for satisfying customer needs and demands through an exchange process (Czinkota and Ronkainen 2013).  

Both internal and external factors affect marketing. The internal factors affecting marketing are are company image, finance and accounting, management and research and development. The external factors affecting marketing are marketing are customers, suppliers, market intermediaries, demographic, economic, political, physical, social and technological factors. All the internal and external factors of marketing are important, as these factors are developed keeping in mind the aim of fulfilling the demands and needs of the customers. In this case, the business organizations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia are unable to use the technology for marketing their products and services thereby, resulting in ineffective use of social media (Zhang and Kim 2013).

Taking into account the advanced technological growth and popularity of the social media, it is considered as one of the most effective tools for reaching out to the customers. As commented by Tiago and Verissimo (2014), social media helps in building channels with the target customers by the business organizations. It is estimated that 97% of the small business organizations use social media for attracting new customers, retaining the existing customers and ensuring effective communication. Establishment of successful channel with the customers ensures customer satisfaction and loyalty that is important for survival. However, as argued by Leung, Bai and Stahura (2015), social media is effective in finding the target audiences firstly and then ensuring effective communication for building positive relationships with them. In this case, the small business organizations are facing issues in using the social media platform appropriately that are hampering the marketing.

One of the major issues of using social media as a marketing tool is turning followers into customers. The social media users follow different business organizations as they have interest on the services and the products but they hardly purchase from all the business organizations they follow (Eagleman 2013). However, as argued by Schultz and Peltier (2013), dramatic drop in the organic reach challenges in using social media as an effective marketing tool. Despite of growing audiences, declination in the organic reach is frustrating for the marketers, as the customers prefer organized feed. The business organizations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia are facing different challenges in suing social media effectively as a marketing tool.

Thus, in this chapter, it can be summarized that effective use social media by the small business organizations, corporations and entrepreneurs in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is not executed appropriately. As a result, the marketing of the products and the service by them is failing to profit the business. It is important for the SME’s in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to use social media as an effective marketing tool in order to mark their presence and strengthen their position in the tough business environment.

Research hypothesis

This chapter highlights the different methodological tools that can be used while proceeding with the research. Followed by the description of each of the tools, selection of the specific research methodologies are justified with strong reasons for selecting. Also, ethical considerations and accessibility issues are also mentioned along with its significance and consequences.

Positivism philosophy, deductive approach, descriptive design and interview research strategy will be used for this study. As a result, non-probability sampling technique will be used by the researcher for selecting 6 managers of different business organizations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for understanding the effectiveness of social media as a marketing tool. Primary data collection process and qualitative data analysis technique will be used as it will favor the other methods selected for the study.

Positivism philosophy will be used for this research because this will enable to use factual knowledge about marketing tool and social media and make quantifiable observations in terms of the effectiveness of the social media as a marketing tool. In addition to, the use of positivism philosophy will facilitate the use of statics while analyzing the data (Neuman 2013).

Deductive approach will be applied for this research because this will facilitate the researcher to refer to already existing theories, concepts and information about marketing tool and social media. As a result, the researcher will be able to analyze how effectively Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is coping up with the recent trend and use social media as a marketing tool (Mackey and Gass 2015).  

Descriptive design will be implemented for this study because this will help the researcher to explore the issues encountered by Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia while using social media as a marketing tool as well as explain the reasons that is leading to the development of such issue while using social media effectively (Taylor, Bogdan and DeVault 2015).

Interview research strategy will be used for this study because this will help the researcher to communicate with the managers of different business organizations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and know their opinions and viewpoints about the new trend of using social media as a marketing tool and how far the country has been able to incorporate and use social media as an effective marketing tool (Lewis 2015).

For this study, non-probability sampling technique will be used because this will facilitate the researcher to select the managers by judging their suitability in terms of their experience, roles and responsibilities in using social media as a marketing tool at workplace in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. For this research, 6 managers of different business organizations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia will be selected (Vaioleti 2016).

Primary data collection method will be applied for this research because this will allow collecting data from the managers those are associated directly with marketing role of the business organizations and is aware of the change in the business environment in terms of using social media (Silverman 2016).

Qualitative data analysis technique will be used as the researcher as interview research strategy will be selected as the data collection process. This data analysis technique will help in interpreting the recorded verbatim of the managers those has been associated in using social media as a marketing tool in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Flick 2015).

Research rationale

Data confidentiality is one of the significant research ethics that needs to be followed due to which the researcher will have to keep the identity and the data provided by the respondents confidential and will not be able to disclose it without their consent. The researcher will have to sign the consent forms by the participants thereby, ensuring willing participation in the data collection process (Smith 2015).

As interview will be selected as the data collection process, the accessibility issue due to it will be time. Interviewing six managers at a single time will be extremely time-consuming and interpreting the recorded verbatim by referring to relevant literatures and justifying the findings will be stressful and confusion (Ledford and Gast 2018).

Thus, in this chapter, it can be summarized that the researcher has successfully justified the selection of the specific methodological tools for this research that helped in understanding the effectiveness of social media as a marketing tool in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

References

Ashley, C. and Tuten, T., 2015. Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology & Marketing, 32(1), pp.15-27.

Bolton, R.N., Parasuraman, A., Hoefnagels, A., Migchels, N., Kabadayi, S., Gruber, T., Komarova Loureiro, Y. and Solnet, D., 2013. Understanding Generation Y and their use of social media: a review and research agenda. Journal of service management, 24(3), pp.245-267.

Cader, Y. and Al Tenaiji, A.A., 2013. Social media marketing. International Journal of Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2(6), pp.546-560.

Chaffey, D., 2016. Global social media research summary 2016. Smart Insights: Social Media Marketing.

Czinkota, M.R. and Ronkainen, I.A., 2013. International marketing. Cengage Learning.

Dahnil, M.I., Marzuki, K.M., Langgat, J. and Fabeil, N.F., 2014. Factors influencing SMEs adoption of social media marketing. Procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 148, pp.119-126.

De Mooij, M., 2018. Global marketing and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes. SAGE Publications Limited.

Eagleman, A.N., 2013. Acceptance, motivations, and usage of social media as a marketing communications tool amongst employees of sport national governing bodies. Sport Management Review, 16(4), pp.488-497.

Flick, U., 2015. Introducing research methodology: A beginner’s guide to doing a research project. Sage.

Hartley, R.F. and Claycomb, C., 2013. Marketing mistakes and successes. Wiley.

Hays, S., Page, S.J. and Buhalis, D., 2013. Social media as a destination marketing tool: its use by national tourism organisations. Current issues in Tourism, 16(3), pp.211-239.

Ledford, J.R. and Gast, D.L., 2018. Single case research methodology: Applications in special education and behavioral sciences. Routledge.

Leung, X.Y., Bai, B. and Stahura, K.A., 2015. The marketing effectiveness of social media in the hotel industry: A comparison of Facebook and Twitter. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 39(2), pp.147-169.

Lewis, S., 2015. Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Health promotion practice, 16(4), pp.473-475.

Mackey, A. and Gass, S.M., 2015. Second language research: Methodology and design. Routledge.

Nah, S. and Saxton, G.D., 2013. Modeling the adoption and use of social media by nonprofit organizations. New media & society, 15(2), pp.294-313.

Neuman, W.L., 2013. Social research methods: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Pearson education.

Perrin, A., 2015. Social media usage. Pew research center, pp.52-68.

Schultz, D.E. and Peltier, J., 2013. Social media’s slippery slope: challenges, opportunities and future research directions. Journal of research in interactive marketing, 7(2), pp.86-99.

Silverman, D. ed., 2016. Qualitative research. Sage.

Smith, J.A. ed., 2015. Qualitative psychology: A practical guide to research methods. Sage.

Taylor, S.J., Bogdan, R. and DeVault, M., 2015. Introduction to qualitative research methods: A guidebook and resource. John Wiley & Sons.

Tiago, M.T.P.M.B. and Veríssimo, J.M.C., 2014. Digital marketing and social media: Why bother?. Business Horizons, 57(6), pp.703-708.

Vaioleti, T.M., 2016. Talanoa research methodology: A developing position on Pacific research. Waikato Journal of Education, 12(1).

Zhang, B. and Kim, J.H., 2013. Luxury fashion consumption in China: Factors affecting attitude and purchase intent. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 20(1), pp.68-79.

Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:

Turnitin Report

Formatting

Title Page

Citation

Outline

Place an Order