Project Objective
As per the studies conducted by Aral et al., (2013), it can be said that with the emergence of Web 2.0 and specifically social media content generated by the users has experienced an immense growth. This is because social media provides an opportunity to share opinions through micro blogging, blogging, photo and video sharing sites, social networks, rating sites and others. These social media tools provide an opportunity to the users to share, search and contribute to huge variety of content in a collaborative manner and also influence the other web users. Thus, Edosomwan et al., (2011) has put forward the fact that social media has transformed the ways in which business enterprises used to communicate with the consumers and vice versa. Qualman, (2010) opined that social media is used by the business enterprises more than a company’s website. In this context, the report published by Kietzmann et al., (2011) has made evident the fact that social media has emerged an important tool for the business organizations to understand the consumers, engage them and communicate with them.
Thus, taking into consideration the above aspects in context to the use of social networking sites by business enterprises, the researcher in the present study would strive towards analyzing the merits and demerits of using social by business organizations.
The study would strive towards analyzing and investigating the merits and demerits of using social media by business organizations and thus the entire study would be observed to be revolving around the following research objectives:
- To analyze the advantages of making use of the social media tools by business organizations.
- To analyze the challengesof using social media tools by the business
- Toprovide recommendations for adopting successful social media strategy for the business organizations.
Social media networking sites like Twitter, Facebok, YouTube and LinkedIn has emerged as tool that is used to connect with people and thus it proves to be beneficial for the business organizations to conduct their business operations in a new way through multiple interactions that facilitates them in promoting their products and services in an effective and efficient manner (Qualman, 2010). Thus, the present study would emphasize upon gaining an enhanced understanding the benefits of social media sites by the business organizations and analyzing the merits and demerits of using social media by the business organizations while conducting their business endeavours.
The researcher in the present study would strive towards making an effective use of the secondary data that would be obtained from journals, articles, books, and companies’ websites and research papers available in the library to analyze the merits and demerits of the social media techniques that are used by the business organizations to achieve success in their business.
The studies conducted by Heller Baird & Parasnis, (2011) has revealed that with the passage of time more and more people are making use of the social forums and so this has encouraged the business organizations to adopt social media in order to accommodate the growth trend for gaining business values like driving customer traffic, achieving enhanced customer loyalty, enhanced customer retention and customer satisfaction together with increased sales revenue, brand awareness and brand reputation. Moreover, the studies conducted by Trainor et al., (2014) has put forward the fact that social media has emerged as a tool that is used by the business organizations as an additional customer service and communication tool in order to understand the specific needs, wants, behaviour and concerns of the customers so that the customers can be facilitated with interesting, fun relevant and up to date campaigns. Thus, it can be said that more time is spent by people on Facebook and Twitter and social forums for feeling entertained and relaxed and thus the marketers should utilize the opportunity not to pile products and services on the consumer laps rather make them feel entertained and relaxed and keep them up to date of the organizational happenings.
Project Scope
In addition to the above proposed and discussed merits of social media tools and techniques for the business organisations, Treem & Leonardi, (2013) opined that the business organizations tend to face several challenges while developing and designing social media strategy. The challenges include the involving the customers, facilitating the consumers with a reason to participate, listening to the customers, resisting the temptation of focusing primarily on selling and being courageous towards experimenting (Sashi, 2012). The main challenges of using social media include the deciding upon the how social media platforms are useful and optimized, selecting the tight social media channels, getting the followers and friends on facebook and Twitter and then converting them into customers, how social media is used to make money, driving traffic to the company’s website, developing creative videos and content, achieving subscribers to the blog and creating a buzz about the brand on social media (Smith & Zook, 2011).
Thus, from the above discussions it can be inferred that social media platforms where at one hand proves to be beneficial for the business organizations in engaging the customers, achieving customer loyalty, understanding their specific needs, wants and preferences, on the other hand social media platforms poses several challenges that need to be managed efficiently by the business organisations failing which the business can face a major setback and incur loss in context to time, effort and money.
The studies conducted by Hensel & Deis, (2010) has revealed the fact that in the present day modern society, social media channel is the most commonly used channel for connecting with people throughout the world. The social media channels used include social networks, blogs, forums and media sharing websites and these channels facilitate the people with the opportunity to have conversations online with anyone on any topic thereby facilitating them with the opportunity to share their opinions and experience and valuable information.
From the perspective of the business organizations, Picazo-Vela et al., (2012) has opined that social media marketing has provided a lot of new opportunities to the business organizations in context to promoting their brands, products and services. This has been possible mainly because of the personal autonomy and the freedom that internet offers to the business organizations to interact and communicate with the customers. In the recent times, social networking sites has facilitated people with the opportunity of connecting with each other actively and tend to share their experience and opinions regarding the products and services that have purchased, used, tested or had heard about (Okazaki & Taylor, 2013). So, even though the usefulness and benefits of social networking sites to the people has been very much evident, the usefulness and demerits of using social networking sites to the business together with the techniques that are used by the business organizations for achieving success is still unclear (Ngai et al., 2015).
Thus, the researcher in present study has emphasized upon analyzing the issue of the merits and demerits of social media techniques used by enterprises for achieving success in a highly competitive and customer oriented business environment.
The available literature has revealed that the studies carried out in the field of social networking sites have been conducted mainly from the perspectives like impact of social media on consumer behavior i.e. the studies have mainly focused upon the perspective of the consumers (Solomon, 2014). There exist limited research and studies where the researchers have focused upon analyzing the importance, advantages or demerits, challenges that social media use brings to the business organizations.
Literature Review
Thus, the researcher in this context emphasized upon conducting the study in context to analyzing the merits and demerits of using the social media techniques by the business organizations to achieve success. The present study would make significant contribution towards the limited literature of analyzing social media from the perspective of the business organizations.
What is the influence of social media on enterprises?
- What are the advantagesof using social media tools by business organizations?
- What are the challenges of using social media toolsby the business organizations?
- How business organizations can adopt successful social media strategy for the business organizations?
The researcher in the present study to gain an enhanced knowledge of the how social networking sites are useful for the business organizations to alter their marketing and business strategies would incorporate wide variety of secondary data sources. The secondary data sources would include sources that can be categorised into online source and offline source. The sources categorised as online sources are the closely examined and reviewed journals and articles that are available online, websites of the business organizations, industry specific reports and research studies conducted previously related to the present topic published online (Taylor et al., 2015). On the other hand the offline sources would include the academic articles, academic books and research papers available in the library.
The researcher would use the qualitative data collected from secondary sources for analyzing and evaluating the academic articles that would be encountered on the EBSCO platform (Liamputtong, 2013). The study would make an effective use of case studies for providing a brief illustration regarding how organizations tend to make an effective use of social media to achieve success and what are the merits and demerits of social media for business organizations.
For determining the reliability of the secondary sources of data collection, the researcher would strive towards collecting data from the closely examined and reviewed articles and journals those are available online (Glesne, 2015). Resources like the academic books and articles and research papers from where data would be collected would be reviewed and would be selected as per the suggestions of the mentor.
On the other hand for determining the legitimacy of the data, the researcher would strive towards including the articles and journals those have been published within the time period of 2009 to 2016 and collect data from the websites of the business organizations and then analyze the validity by analyzing the purpose of the chosen data and demand of the present study (Savin-Baden & Major, 2013).
In the present study, the researcher would strive towards adopting non probability sampling since, the researcher is predetermined to take into consideration the case studies of organizations from three different sectors that include the speciality eateries sector, retail sector and information technology sector. One organization from each sector would be chosen to analyze how each organization has made an effective utilization of the social networking sites to achieve success in respective sectors and then analyze the demerits and merits experienced by each organization of using social media for their business and marketing strategies.
The researcher would collect data from secondary sources that would include the peer reviewed journals and articles published online, websites of the business organizations, industry reports and early researches published online, academic articles, academic books and research papers available in the library (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011).
In the present study, the researcher would strive towards analyzing the impact of using social media on business organizations in context to their business and marketing strategies. Thus, the study would be based upon variables like social media, merits and demerits of social media, success and failure of business organizations.
Summary of the Literature Review
Moreover, where use of social media would be independent variable, the organizational success would be the dependent variable for the study.
The researcher would face limitations in context to the process of deciding upon the metrics that can be used for measuring the performance of the business organizations since it is an area that need more studies by the researchers. On the other hand, the researcher would base the study completely on the secondary research; however primary research would have been beneficial in strengthening the conclusions and would have provided a more practical outlook to the study (Marshall & Rossman, G2014).
Conclusion
Thus from the above discussions, it can be inferred that the researcher has undertaken the study to analyze the merits and demerits of social media for business organizations and how these business organizations use the social media tools for achieving success. Researcher would in order to avoid the limitation of lack of availability of sufficient finance, would conduct the study with the help of secondary data.
Reference List
Aral, S., Dellarocas, C., & Godes, D. (2013). Introduction to the special issue—social media and business transformation: a framework for research. Information Systems Research, 24(1), 3-13.
Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (Eds.). (2011). The Sage handbook of qualitative research. Sage.
Edosomwan, S., Prakasan, S. K., Kouame, D., Watson, J., & Seymour, T. (2011). The history of social media and its impact on business. Journal of Applied Management and entrepreneurship, 16(3), 79.
Glesne, C. (2015). Becoming qualitative researchers: An introduction. Pearson.
Heller Baird, C., & Parasnis, G. (2011). From social media to social customer relationship management. Strategy & leadership, 39(5), 30-37.
Hensel, K., & Deis, M. H. (2010). Using social media to increase advertising and improve marketing. The Entrepreneurial Executive, 15, 87.
Kietzmann, J. H., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I. P., & Silvestre, B. S. (2011). Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Business horizons, 54(3), 241-251.
Liamputtong, P. (2013). Qualitative research methods.
Marshall, C., & Rossman, G. B. (2014). Designing qualitative research. Sage publications.
Ngai, E. W., Tao, S. S., & Moon, K. K. (2015). Social media research: Theories, constructs, and conceptual frameworks. International Journal of Information Management, 35(1), 33-44.
Okazaki, S., & Taylor, C. R. (2013). Social media and international advertising: theoretical challenges and future directions. International marketing review, 30(1), 56-71.
Picazo-Vela, S., Gutiérrez-Martínez, I., & Luna-Reyes, L. F. (2012). Understanding risks, benefits, and strategic alternatives of social media applications in the public sector. Government information quarterly, 29(4), 504-511.
Qualman, E. (2010). Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business. John Wiley & Sons.
Sashi, C. M. (2012). Customer engagement, buyer-seller relationships, and social media. Management decision, 50(2), 253-272.
Savin-Baden, M., & Major, C. H. (2013). Qualitative research: The essential guide to theory and practice. Routledge.
Smith, P. R., & Zook, Z. (2011). Marketing communications: integrating offline and online with social media. Kogan Page.
Solomon, M. R. (2014). Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being (Vol. 10). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Taylor, S. J., Bogdan, R., & DeVault, M. (2015). Introduction to qualitative research methods: A guidebook and resource. John Wiley & Sons.
Trainor, K. J., Andzulis, J. M., Rapp, A., & Agnihotri, R. (2014). Social media technology usage and customer relationship performance: A capabilities-based examination of social CRM. Journal of Business Research, 67(6), 1201-1208.
Treem, J. W., & Leonardi, P. M. (2013). Social media use in organizations: Exploring the affordances of visibility, editability, persistence, and association. Annals of the International Communication Association, 36(1), 143-189.
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