The Impact Of Social Media Marketing On Brand Loyalty In Australian Organizations

Introduction: Importance of Social Media in Marketing

In the current scenario, marketing through online sources is having the significant impact on the business, products and brand loyalty of the organizations. The utilization of social media tools is playing the vital role in marketing and advertising of the products and services and helping the organizations to increase the brand effectiveness in the market. The social media tools like FaceBook, Twitter and Instagram are popular among the people and providing the facilities to engage the people to communicate with them and provide the information in a creative and understandable manner (Balakrishnan, Dahnil, and Yi, 2014). There are several strategies are used for building brand loyalty and enhancing the brand value through online mediums.

The term brand loyalty refers to when people have strong affinity towards the specific brand and repeat the purchase with the organization. The major concept that has been followed by the organization for increasing brand value is to offer Life Time Value (LTV) for every customer. The organizations are developing and implementing creative strategies for engaging customers (Hajli, 2014). The brand loyalty is helpful for organizations to increase their resistance to competition and improve the advocacy using the social media tools. Moreover, the social media marketing functions involve sharing of quality content, respond to customer issues in real time, and improve the interaction with existing and potential customers and identification of market opportunities to manage the relationship with the people that help in improvement of brand loyalty (Ahmad, Musa, and Harun, 2016).  

The current study will look to identify the strategies and tactics that used by the organizations of Australia for social media marketing that has the significant impact on the brand loyalty of organization. There are various factors that have the negative impact on social media marketing and influence the brand effectiveness of an organization (Godey and et al., 2016). The modification and utilization of advanced technology in social media and online marketing are the areas of concern for the study. However, the market research and survey that conducted by the organizations help them to increase the knowledge about the online marketing functions for increasing the brand loyalty but the offering of fake information, issues related to payment and competition level affect the approach of the organization.

The purpose of the report is to find out the sustainable approaches and tactics that could be beneficial for organizations to meet the goals and objectives of the organization using the social media marketing tools that contribute in enhancing the brand loyalty. The research will focus on existing approaches of organizations from Australia over social media marketing functions and their impact on the brand loyalty in the market (Felix, Rauschnabel, and Hinsch, 2017). Apart from that, the study will also analyze the factors and issues that have the negative impact on social media marketing functions and affect the brand loyalty of organizations. The organizations are investing huge amount on promotion and marketing of products, services, and business through online sources but lack of monitoring and consideration of market trends in the particular industry is influencing their decisions. Moreover, the study will analyze the reliability and validity of social media for enhancing the brand effectiveness.

Building Brand Loyalty through Social Media Marketing

Aim

The aim of research is to analyze the impact of social media marketing on the brand loyalty of Australian organizations.

Objectives

• To find out the beneficial effects of social media marketing on brand loyalty of Australian organization
• To find out how social media marketing adversely affects the brand loyalty of an organization.
• To provide effective recommendation for eradicating the negative effect of social media marketing on brand equity

The research will find out potential benefits of using social media marketing tools on the Australian organizations. The social media is one of the most powerful tools in the current time for promoting the products, services, and brand in the target areas. The major output of research will involve the positive and negative impact of the social media marketing on the retention of customers and engaging them into repeat purchase (Rodriguez, Peterson, and Ajjan, 2015). Moreover, the study will focus on strategies for encouraging the brand effectiveness of organization using social media tools. Moreover, the research will find out the alternative functions that can be used for overcome the gaps that find out in the literature review related to potential benefits and strategies that applied by the organizations to meet the determined goals and objectives.

The review of literature or conceptual framework is an important section which displays the knowledge and understanding collected by the researcher on specific topic. This section develops a theoretical base with the help of different concepts and theories on similar topic carried out by renowned scholars in their past studies. Currently, the conceptual framework would include the details about the impact of social media marketing on brand loyalty of Australian organization specifically.

In accordance to (Heggde and Shainesh, 2018), social media has become most used technology in the recent trends for every segment of population.  The social media marketing is basically a form of internet marketing activity which makes use of social networking sites as a marketing tool. It mainly includes the usage of social networks and social media websites so that to market the products and services of the companies. The social media marketing assists the organisations with the ways to approach new customer and get engaged with the existing customers as well.  It contributes in developing their brand recognition and promotes desired values and mission among the wide customer segments. In addition to this, it is been identified that social media marketing plays a significant role in approaching customers, interacting with the target segment, communication and branding, conducting effective marketing and developing strong relationship with the customers (Felix, Rauschnabel and Hinsch, 2017). The direct approach to the customer segment also leads the organisation to build a brand loyalty among the target segments effectively.  

Strategies and Tactics Used by Australian Organizations for Social Media Marketing

According to Ismail (2017), the social media marketing activities had vitally changes the ways in which businesses communicate with their target customers and the population at large. The innovative and unique way of approaching the larger customer platform had provided the business organisations with new avenues. There are various benefits of using social media marketing as the promotional base with the intention to enhance the brand loyalty. Developing brand loyalty is a crucial act could which lead the business towards either success or failure.  The social media marketing provides the businesses with a large number of audiences at single platform which also enhances the time and cost efficiencies to the organisations (Alalwan, Rana, Dwivedi and Algharabat, 2017).  It is been found that social media helps in making the brand more competitive and enhances the interest of the customers as well.

The increased promotional activities and online presence makes the brand noticeable among the customers and thus establish a brand loyalty as well. The social media users acts as the best advocates for the brand and works with the word of mouth as the most trusted source. The word of mouth promotion leads towards the addition of loyal customers as well as establishes a brand loyalty among them (Thompson, Martin Gee and Geurin, 2018).  Moreover, it has been also seen that the social media marketing develops a strong reliability and trust among the customers about the brands. It constructs a brand loyalty among the consumers having higher satisfactions and reliabilities over the same.

Social media marketing have become a new sensation for the current generation and had covered a huge segment of the population all over the world. In the opinion of Zahoor and Qureshi, (2017), the innovative techniques initiated to approach the marketplace had emerged as an essential tool for the customer service, marketing activities and public relations.  Having immense benefits and ease to connect with the customers, social media marketing also come up with few drawbacks to the organisations. It has been seen that the Australian consumer segment is much adaptable and active on social media.  

The new techniques initiated by the Australia organisation through social media had made remarkable impacts in building their brand loyalty among customers (Potgieter and Naidoo, 2017). As the brands establish a positive and prominent image of brands in the minds of huge customer segment, they become over powering and irreplaceable and thus win the loyalty of customers. The enhanced brand loyalty contributes in bringing sales revenues, profitability, market share and brand positioning in the marketplace.

Factors and Issues Affecting Social Media Marketing Functions

Kumar, Choi and Greene (2017) had discussed that brand loyalty is basically the commitment of customers towards the brand to repurchase the products and services despite of all the competitive actions.  The customers with higher loyalty commit to become a client of that business in future in regular basis. The social media marketing had impacted the brand loyalty in both the positive and negative manners of Australian organisations. It has been found that the brand loyalty of customer is been positively impacted by the social media marketing. The brands influences the customers by offering advantageous campaigns, appearing on different social media platforms, getting feedbacks and reviews and offering application on social media. These acts had made the Australian organisations develop their brand loyalty among the customers at wider platforms (Crosby, 2017). However, there are some negative impacts also being laid by the social media marketing activities on brand loyalty of the organisations. The negative feedbacks of the customers could influence the other people as well and affect the brand loyalty of the organisation.

According to Ramadan, Abosag and Zabkar (2018) that having a social media marketing strategy for brand loyalty includes wide range of benefits as well as difficulties for the business. It has been seen that a single negative word of mouth over social media could lay an adverse impact over the brand loyalty of the customers. Lacking in responding towards the feedbacks could make the brand loyalty suffer and affect the organisation specifically. Therefore, So, Wu, Xiong and King, (2018) had stated that making a smart use of effective strategies to eradicate the negative impacts of social media marketing over the brand loyalty is important.  It is essential for the organisation to ensure the quick responses to the feedbacks of the customer so that to keep them satisfied out of the issues. Customer and trust in brand are the most important keys to sustain brand loyalty and gain higher profitability out of social media marketing. It has been seen that the customer often desires to develop relationships with the brands.

Thus, it is recommended that the Australian organisation must develop strong public relation by establishing two way conversations with the customer and the business effectively. Responding to the customer queries and feedbacks would highly contribute in developing a positive relationship with the customer (Colicev, Malshe, Pauwels and O’Connor, 2018). It would even lead in eradicating the negative aspects over social media and would also reduce its impact over brand loyalty of the Australian organisations.

Reliability and Validity of Social Media for Enhancing Brand Effectiveness

Research methodology 

Research methodology is the section which defines the tools and methods to be used while initiating and throughout the research. It specifies the methodologies used by the researcher to reach towards the end results (Fletcher, 2017). It includes specific elements such as research philosophy, research approach, design, data collection, data analysis, ethical consideration and research limitation which contribute in conducting the study effectively.

In the opinion of Creswell and Creswell (2017), research philosophy includes the aspects related to the knowledge and understanding acquired by the researcher on the subject matter. It is mainly measured on the basis of source, nature and levels of information acquired by the researcher. The realism, positivism and interpretivism philosophy are the three types of research philosophy. In context to the current research the investigator would utilise the positivism research philosophy. This type mainly focuses the objective nature of the study.  The positivism research philosophy would assist the investigator in exploring objective aspects of the study and extract fruitful outcomes.

Research approach 

According to Lægreid and Christensen, (2017) research approach helps in extending the set assumptions of the research to a specific manner of acquiring, analysing and interpreting the facts and information related to the topic.  The research approach is divided into two types such as deductive approach and inductive approach that aids the researcher in developing a strong framework effectively.  In context to the current research, the investigator would utilise the inductive research approach. This type of approach would assist the researcher in developing informative decisions from the collected data. It would even contribute in recognising the most suitable strategy for conducting the research and mitigate with the constraints faced into it.

Research design 

Creswell and Clark, (2017) had stated that the outline of the ways in which study is going to be conducted is termed as the research design.  It is basically a description of diversified aspects and methodologies to be followed by the investigator.  Descriptive, exploratory and casual research design is the three types of research design being used by the researchers to conduct the study.  In present study, descriptive research design would be applied by the researcher based on the nature and objective of the study.  This design would assist the researcher in evaluating the impact of social media marketing on brand loyalty of Australian organisations. It would also help in developing specific hypothesis based on the concepts and extract effective results out of the same.

Data collection is an important element of research methodology as it signifies the ways and methods of collecting the required data and information relevant to the subject matter. The collection of data is been conducted in two types i.e. primary data collection and secondary data collection methods.  The researcher in present study would make use of both the primary and secondary data collection method where both the primary and secondary data would be collected through different sources (McCormick, Lee, Cesare, Shojaie and Spiro, 2017).  The primary data would be collected by using questionnaire and interview where an open ended interview would be conducted to avail the relevant information. In addition to this, nearly about 10 scholarly articles related to the topic would be accessed by the researcher to collect the secondary data.

Sample size

 The researcher would make use of non probability sampling techniques for collecting primary data.  This method does not provide with the equal opportunities to the individual to get selected (Rahi, 2017). However, the sample would mainly include managers of well reputed organisations of Australia for conducting the interview.

Data evaluation 

Data evaluation is another important section and plays an important role in accomplishing the research effectively. There are various tools and techniques used for evaluating the collected data and information. The investigator in present study would make use of the qualitative analysis to evaluate the collected data and reach the end results. The qualitative analysis would enable the investigation in gaining an in depth understanding of underlying reasons, motivations and opinions towards the research topic (Straus, 2017). Additionally, the thematic analysis would be used where themes would be framed for evaluating the hypothesis and construct useful outcome.

Ethical consideration as per Wilson, Kenny and Dickson-Swift, (2018) is the set of ethical standards which describes the authenticity and reliability of the research. It is important for the investigator to ensure that ethical consideration is been followed throughout the study.  The researcher in present research had made sure to keep the ethical aspects in consideration and no biasness or illegitimate acts have been included in the same. It has been ensured that the respondents are been informed about the intention and objectives of the researcher and avail fair consents prior to the interview. It is also guaranteed that no information is been shared to third party without the consent of the respondents and is not used for any other purposes.

Carrying out a research is not an easy task and includes wide range of complexities into it. While conducting the research, the investigator came across various limitations which confined its boundaries to explore the wider area of the platform. The major limitation faced by the researcher was time and budget where many of the most relevant sources could not be accessed as they were being charged. The time frame was limited which made the researcher limited towards the exploration about the subject matter (Lindlof and Taylor, 2017). However, the researcher managed to overcome with the issues by making use of time management strategies to meet the deadlines. The investigator approached various other sources like online journals, libraries and book which were available for free and relevant to the topic as well.

In order to carry out the research, the study has been divided into five chapters. The first chapter of the research will be the Introduction section. This chapter will provide brief information about the background of the study sand problem that going to be analyzed for finding the appropriate solutions. Moreover, this chapter will also provide information about the aim, objectives and research questions of the study. The next chapter will be the literature review. This section of study will have the discussion regarding the topic using the critical analysis of past studies and different views of authors on the selected subject. These studies are considered for developing the strong theoretical background for study. The third chapter will be the research methodology. This section of study will offer detail information regarding tools and techniques that used for maintaining the research flow and justification of the chosen methods for the particular research.

The fourth chapter will be data analysis and findings. This chapter is one of the most important parts of the study that helps in dawning appropriate findings for the study. Additionally, the analysis and finding section will carry out by the researcher with the respect to the data collected from both primary and secondary sources. The final chapter of research will be conclusion and recommendations. In this chapter, the researcher will provide in-depth and summative discussion about the finding related to aim and objectives of the study as well as provide the appropriate recommendations for the study to improve the effectiveness of social media marketing for encouraging the brand loyalty.

For conducting the study, there is need of funds for managing the operations related to data collection for developing strong literature, data for analysis and access of tools for analyzing the data for the final outcome of the research. The approximate budget for the current study of analyzing the impact of social media marketing on brand loyalty of four Australian organizations will be $5000. The budget has been specified for the following aspects of the study:

• Literature review budget is $1500 as access of libraries and reputed journal articles is expensive.
• Data collection is important part of research for collecting primary and secondary data for study the cost would be around $2500
• Data analysis is having significant role in drawing the conclusion and meeting the objectives of research by using SPSS and questionnaire analysis, the cost of this will be around $1000

Table 1:  Budget of study

Table 2: Schedule of project

The schedule of the project will start on Wed 03-10-18 and completed by Wed 28-11-18. The total frame of completing the project is 41 working days. The researcher will focus on the activities according to schedule and try to complete them as per the estimated time. The major activities of scheduled tasks involve the introduction, problem statement, literature review, research methodology, and data collection as well as analysis. Furthermore, the scheduling of task involves the conclusion, recommendation final report generation and submission of study.  

Figure 1: Gantt chart

The Gantt chart is offering information about the interrelation of the activities of the project. The researcher will follow determine relation and schedule according to Gantt chart to complete the research in the proposed manner.    

References

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