HI6007 Business Research Report

Business research topic

The topic which has been chosen for the purpose of this study is as following:

The importance and effectiveness of social media marketing for the modern business organizations.

This topic has been chosen for the study in view of the fact that this is very pertinent for the organizations in the modern day business environment since most of the companies have been using this novel method of marketing to significant degree. However due to the newness of this topic, there is very less research and analyses which have been done for identifying the effectiveness of the same. Especially, it is important to understand the effectiveness of this with respect to the traditional channels of marketing management. This research will aim to address this precise topic.

Research questions for the identified problem or opportunity

It is important to develop a set of efficient research questions which can act as the research hypothesis for the research process. Also these research questions help in providing a structure to the research work as well as identifying the research methodology for the study. Following are the research questions which have been developed for this study:

1. What is the social media marketing and the use of the same in the modern day business marketing?
2. What is the effectiveness of social media marketing by the companies in the current environment?
3. What can be the various ways of improving the effectiveness of social media marketing by the companies in the current environment?

Critical Review of Literature for the Research

This section which is also termed as literature review attempts to critically review various previous researches and studies which have carried out on the same or similar topic. This is helpful for the development of an understanding on the topic of the theoretical aspects of the research topic. This also helps in carrying out the primary research for the research as well as answering the research questions efficiently and effectively.

However, it will be important to mention first there is a lack of well researched papers and/or studies related to the research topic here. Also the field of topic being relatively new, the same has very little theoretical back up in classical marketing literature. Hence for this research a mix of secondary and primary sources have to be utilized to complete the process of the study.  In this section a small detailing of the advantages as well as disadvantages of thesocial media marketingwill be looked into:

For the social media marketing there are multiple advantages and disadvantages for which the companies which are implementing this strategy should be cognizant of. Following are the various advantages of this (Katz, 2011):

1. Scope of creatingcustomized marketing experience for the consumers
2. Receiving prompt feedback from the consumerson the subject of the marketing experience for themhelping the companies in fine-tuning the marketing strategy without much resource loss
3. Social media marketing helps the companies going beyond the geographical boundaries through the marketing activities
4. Social media marketing helps the companies in doing this at a lower marketing cost as well as other resources including timeand man power
5. Social media marketing has the scope of developing the marketing activity’s effectiveness through the use of User Generated Content (Gorry, 2009)

Some of the disadvantages those can be cited for the social mediamarketing activity are as following (Gillin, 2009):

1. An instant rush of criticismwhich is highly possible in social network can weaken the brand identity
2. There is also a lack of case studies or successful examples for the template of social media marketing
3. Social media marketing also requires a high level of knowledge of the platform and the significant level of expertise, a lack of which may backfire the campaign for the company

Appropriate research methodologies and techniques to use for the research project

As has been mentioned already, this research will follow a mixed method research process which will be done through a mix of primary as well as secondary research. The objective of this research will be to answer the research questions or the hypotheses which have been set out for the study with the intention of making the study a template which can be followed by the companies to understand the pros and cons of the social media marketing (Gummesson, 2006).

The research philosophy for this research will be a pragmatism research philosophy in which qualitative in addition to quantitative data will be collected as well as analysed for addressing the research questions(Gummesson, 2006).

Research process and data collection and analysis methods

The research process will start with carrying out a literature review that will attempts to critically review various previous researches and studies which have carried out on the same or similar topic. This will help in the process of developing of an understanding on the topic of the theoretical aspects of the research topic.

On the basis of this a primary research will be carried out for this study.The primary research will be done in the form a face to face interview with the various marketing managers of few medium sized organizations to which the researcher will have access. This process of interview will be done through an unstructured and open ended questionnaire that will be developed for this study.

The understanding gathered from the secondary research and the data collected from the primary research is expected to answer the research questions efficiently and effectively.

Expected research outcomes

The research outcomes which are expected from this research are following:

1. To develop an understanding of true nature of social media marketing as well as the use of the same
2. To identify the effectiveness of social media marketing by the companies in the current environment
3. To analyze and measure the various ways of improving the effectiveness of social media marketing

References

• Gillin, P., 2009. Secrets of social media marketing: how to use online conversations and customer communities to turbo-charge your business. Fresno, CA: Quill Driver Books.
• Gorry, G. A., & Westbrook, R. A. (2009). Winning the internet confidence game. Corporate Reputation Review, 12(3), 195–203
• Gummesson, E. (2006) Qualitative research in management: addressing complexity, Context and persona.Management Decision 44 (2) pp 167-179
• Katz, E. and Lazarsfeld, Paul F., 2011. Personal influence: The part played by people in the flow of mass communications. Glencoe, Ill: Free Press
• Solis, B., 2009. Exploring and Defining Influence: A New Study. Tuten, L.T., 2008. Advertising 2.0: social media marketing in a web 2.0 world. Westport: Praeger Publishers.
• Tuten, L.T., 2008. Advertising 2.0: social media marketing in a web 2.0 world. Westport: Praeger Publishers.