SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment for the Award of the Degree of MBA (GENERAL)
2020-2021

Submitted By: Sakshi Gupta

University PRN: 26611

BHARATI VIDYAPEETH DEEMED TO BE UNIVERSITY, PUNE

SCHOOL OF DISTANCE EDUCATION, PUNE
Academic Study Center - BVIMR, New Delhi
An ISO 9001:2008 Certified Institute
NAAC Accredited Grade “A” University
 Student Undertaking Certificate of Originality

I SAKSHI GUPTA, MBA (GENERAL), 1ST SEMESTER would like to declare that the
project report entitled “SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT” submitted to Bharati
Vidyapeeth University Pune, School of Distance Education Pune, Academic Study Centre
BVIMR New Delhi in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the degree.

It is an original work carried out by me under the guidance of Mr. Yashwant Kumar.

All respected guides, faculty member and other sources have been properly acknowledged
and the report contains no plagiarism.

To the best of my knowledge and belief the matter embodied in this project is a genuine
work done by me and it has been neither submitted for assessment to the University nor to
any other University for the fulfillment of the requirement of the course of study.

Student Name : Sakshi Gupta

Signature :

I
 AKNOWLEDGEMENT

I have taken efforts in this project. However, it would not have been possible without the kind
support and help of many individuals and organizations. I would like to extend my sincere
thanks to all of them.

I am highly indebted to Mr. Yashwant Kumar for their guidance and constant supervision as
well as for providing necessary information regarding the project & also for their support in
completing the project.
.I would like to express my special gratitude and thanks to industry persons for giving me such
attention and time.

My thanks and appreciations also go to my colleague in developing the project and people who
have willingly helped me out with their abilities.

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 ABSTRACT

Introduction: Social media has gained importance and acceptance at a much faster rate. It has
become a way of sharing personal and professional life. The use of social media as a marketing
tool has already been practiced by many businesses. These reports have analyzed how social
media is being used effectively as a marketing tool. Comparisons of social media compared to
traditional marketing media were studied and the pros and cons of both are combined. The
report also analyzed how small business start-ups could benefit the ever-growing
telecommunications industry.

Method: This report has used journals, magazine articles, newspaper articles, business reviews,
online surveys and more from Amity University Library. The official social media pages were
also analyzed for various companies on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to obtain statistics.

Result: The availability of social media is definitely a boon for all types of business. The social
media market has a wider market appeal and is cheaper than traditional ads. With a large
number of viewers and a high level of customization of social media content needed, social
media marketing emerges as an exciting and effective marketing tool.

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 Table of Contents
1. Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 2
1.1 Overall Aim ..................................................................................................................................... 2
1.2 Objective .......................................................................................................................................... 3
1.3 Method ............................................................................................................................................ 3
2. Chapter 2: Literature Review .............................................................................................................. 5
2.1 Importance of Social Media in Today’s World ................................................................................ 5
2.2 Social Media for Business to Business Marketing ........................................................................... 6
2.3 Social Media for Business to Consumer Marketing ......................................................................... 7
3. Chapter 3: Findings and Discussion .................................................................................................. 13
3.1 Implementation of Social Media Marketing .................................................................................. 13
3.2 Measuring the Impact of Social Media Marketing ........................................................................ 16
3.3 Social Media for Small Business Startups ...................................................................................... 17
3.4 Comparison of Traditional Advertising with Social Media Advertising ......................................... 18
4. Chapter 4: Conclusion and Recommendation ................................................................... …………...20
4.1 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 20
4.2 Recommendations ......................................................................................................................... 21
5. Chapter 5: Limitations of Social Media Management ........................................................ …………...23
6. References ........................................................................................................................... …………...24
7. Bibliography ......................................................................................................................... …………...25
8. Annexure.............................................................................................................................. …………...26

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 CHAPTER – 1
INTRODUCTION
 INTRODUCTION

Social networking sites have taken over today's world. From the very beginning of
entertainment, today these websites offer many opportunities for their users from marketing
their products, to increasing awareness of social issues, sharing photos, video calls, joining
groups and forums of interest, improving perspective, finding family roots, finding lost friends,
playing, entertainment programs. And so on in fact, social networking has become so diverse
that most people use it for more than just entertainment. Mena et al (2012) studied the readiness
of health students to use Facebook as a platform for training professional practices especially in
the event of a flu vaccine. This clearly shows social networking sites as solutions to many
business problems.

1.1. OVERALL AIM

Marketing is of core importance to any quite business. It can range from promotions and
advertisements on an outsized scale to at least one to at least one word of mouth marketing.
Marketing forms the essence of a business by which the name is reached to the intended
audience. The value related to traditional marketing techniques including print and visual
media is increasing at a quick pace. The value of a page color advertisement in ‘Time of
India’ is around ₹200,000, if less. Thus it's important to seem out for brand spanking
new and more creative methods of selling. Online marketing especially social media
marketing may be a sensible alternative.
This report tries to analyze how effective is marketing via social media. The report also
compares and contrasts the benefits and drawbacks of social media marketing with traditional
advertising like print and visual media. Today’s youngsters are aspirers. They dream big and
need to be their own boss. Most of them aspire to be entrepreneurs and therefore the success
stories of entrepreneurs are an enormous encouragement for them. A serious problem that these
entrepreneurs face while starting a replacement business is that the cost related to the brand
building and marketing. During this era, though the young population is ready to require over
the planet with extended technological advancements, many of them fail thanks to lack of
monetary resources for brand building. It's during this scenario that this report analyses how
well social media marketing can help new businesses.

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 1.2. OBJECTIVE

The objectives of this project are as follows:

 To study the effectiveness and implementation of social media marketing for different
businesses
 To study how social media can be useful for small businesses and new business start-
ups.
 To compare and contrast social media marketing to traditional marketing.
 To develop brand awareness.
 To increase size of social communities and accurately target audiences.
 Strengthen Engagement Strategies to Increase Customer Loyalty.
 To monitor Customer Feedback.
 Convert Social Followers into Qualified Leads and New Business.

1.3. METHOD

This report uses academic journals, magazine articles, live survey and newspaper articles which
provides a thought about the relevance of social media as a marketing tool. These were
accessed via the library of Amity University. The search keys given were ‘social media’,
‘marketing through Facebook’, ’Start-ups and social media’ ‘Facebook marketing’ ‘Twitter
marketing’, ‘LinkedIn marketing’ ‘social media marketing’ then on. Various social networking
websites were also visited to urge insights on how marketing are often done through them.
Also, so as to urge ideas on how new business start-ups are using social media for marketing
success stories of some entrepreneurs who recently started their business were read.

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 CHAPTER – 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
 LITERATURE REVIEW

Social media has appropriated the planet in every sense. Within the field of selling, advertising,
brand building, promotions social media is that the most wanted method adopted by
entrepreneurs’ young and old. The word social media brings to mind the foremost used
networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linked In though there are other social media
websites like MySpace, Flicker and YouTube. Social media is widely utilized in various
businesses like small business, banking, retail marketing, B2B marketing, travel and tourism
marketing, financial institutions marketing then on. This chapter aims to throw light on the way
during which social marketing are often used effectively for business development. The initial a
part of this chapter will give an summary of how social media as an entire can help promote
businesses and further down the report, specific cases concerning a specific social networking
website used for developing a specific business unit are going to be examined.

2.1. IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN TODAY’S WORLD

Marie Swift (2006) suggests that placing a billboard within the medium isn't the simplest
solution for brand promotion. The matter with traditional mass advertising consistent with
Marie is that, these media appeal to a good range of individuals who might not even have an
interest to understand who we are. On the opposite hand, promotions and brand building must
be through with people whom we expect are potential customers for our business. This will be
achieved by channelizing a greater a part of promotion and advertising allow activities like
networking, volunteering, hosting events then on. Out of those methods, networking is that the
best that suits the necessity of the time (Marie Swift, 2006). With the technological
advancements in today’s world, it's fairly easy to be connected with the surface world with the
assistance of social networking sites. Peer networking is a crucial way of advertising and this is
often ready to require over the planet of selling within the near future. The most important
advantage of social media marketing is that it are often used for any quite business no matter
whether it's B2B or B2C. Also the relative cost is far lesser as compared with traditional
advertising.

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2.2. SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS TO BUSINESS MARKETING

Michael Rodriguez et al (2012) conducted a study on the effectiveness of social media

marketing by analyzing 1699 business to business clients from around 25 industries. The
study proves that social media is indeed helpful for B2B firms in generating new sales.
Social media is that the best tool for locating new clients and deepening the
connection with existing customers. The study assumed five hypotheses as follows: Social
media usage creates opportunity, social media usage helps in understanding customers,
social media usage helps in relationship management, social media usage aids in
relationship sales performance and social media usage helps in outcome based sales
performance. Supported the social capital theory, these hypotheses were tested and data
obtained was analyzed using the quality protocol (Churchill 1979; Churchill and Peter
1984). The results of this analysis supported the hypotheses that social media usage creates
opportunities, social media usage helps in relationship management and social media usage
helps in relationship sales performance. However, the hypotheses that social media usage
helps increase outcome based sales performance and social media usage helps in
understanding customers weren't supported. Thus taking of these into consideration, it are
often concluded that social media usage helps in developing B2B sales. With over 955
million active users, Facebook tops the social media in terms of usage and number of
active users (Mashable website, 2013). Thus it's important to understand how Facebook are
often used for B2B marketing.

2.2.1. FACEBOOK FOR B2B MARKETING

Although the idea of integrating business into personal life doesn’t seem to be a right choice,
Facebook being a larger community than all countries of this world expect India and China can
help develop B2B business (Handley, 2013). For this the company must have a business page as
opposed to the normal individual profile page. The utmost important thing is to get as many
people to ‘like’ the official company page.

Also contents must be added frequently so that users constantly get the news of the company
through the news feed on their home page. This will keep them updated about what is going on
in the company.

(1) Secondly communicate to the customers visually as opposed to text only communication.
Facebook uses an algorithm which gives more priority to videos and photos than text and
increases visibility of news item proportional to the number of people commenting or liking

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on it. In simple terms, if a news item is liked and commented by a few people in the initial
phase, there is more chance that it will be seen by more people.

(3) The number of times updates are added and the time of the day when the posts are added is
equally important. Choose a time which is most likely to hit maximum number of clicks and
limit the number of posts to one or two per day.

Similar to the usage of social media in B2B markets as mentioned above, social media also aids
B2C marketing. The following part of this report analyses how various B2C clients are
benefitted from social media usage.

2.3. SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS TO CONSUMER MARKETING

Social media can be effectively used for various B2C clients to increase sales. This includes
business markets such as travel and tourism, banks, retail outlets and so on.

2.3.1. SOCIAL MEDIA FOR TRAVEL AND TOURISM

Various industries within the travel industry are focusing on social media marketing along with
the traditional marketing techniques. The airline industry is one which heavily relies on social
media for promotions and advertisements. Hvass & Munar (2012) studied the effectiveness of
the airline industry using social media for promoting their travel and tourism packages. Initially
a total of 29 full service carriers and 20 low cost carriers were selected for this study and
afterwards three airlines were chosen from this set. These airlines had an account in Facebook
or Twitter or both. The study proves that most airlines use an official tone/language while
posting their updates thereby reducing the interactive nature of the post (Danescu-Niculescu-
Mizil et al 2011). Followers would like the content of these pages to be more informal but
authentic. In fact many airlines have more than one official page which can cause both
confusion and clarity. It causes confusion because fans or followers may be reluctant to join
more than one page for the same company as it would be difficult to distinguish between
original official page and duplicate page. On the other hand maintaining more than one official
page on the social media can help to clearly distinguish between various functionalities of the
company. For instance, content pertaining to employees need not be made public to the
customers and so two pages can be maintained which caters to employees and customers. In
any case, the result proves that maintaining a social media account helps increase customer base
for the travel and tourism industry and as mentioned above many companies in the tourism
industry are already into it

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2.3.1.1. TWITTER FOR THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY

Saltzman (2009) conducted a real life case study on usage of Twitter by various travel operators.
It is interesting to note that different travel agents use different strategies for marketing through
twitter. While Southwest airlines do not address most of customer service issues through twitter,
it responds to all other queries including latest fares, promotions offers and so on. As for Marriot
International which started with relatively less number of followers, the main agenda was to
implement the feedback provided by the followers. The main success factor of Marriot’s page is
that they don’t limit their tweets to company specific deals and offers. Interesting fun facts are
also given due importance. Though Marriot also doesn’t encourage customer service issues
through Twitter as it may damage the reputation of the company, any issues posted on Twitter
are dealt with. For pleasant holidays, the major reason they use Twitter is to communicate last
minute deals to its customers and other travel agents. Carnival Cruise Lines address customer
queries most effectively so that Twitter is more of a communication medium between the
company and the customers. Thus different strategies are adopted by different travel operators
for marketing through twitter. This strategy has proved successful for all the travel agents
because their growth in terms of number of followers is whooping. All of them have grown to
either three digit or four digit numbers in a short span of five years and this proves that
marketing through twitter is successful. Though the real success factor lies in the amount of
revenue generated through usage of social media, the gain in popularity of these sites can’t be
ignored. Table 2.1 shows the growth of various travel operators in terms of number of followers.

TRAVEL OPERATOR FOLLOWERS FOLLOWERS PERCENTAGE

(AS ON AUG 2007) (AS ON 27 SEP GROWTH
2012)
Southwest Airlines 406,091 1,372,970 338%
Marriot International 13,446 197,089 1465%
Carnival Cruise Lines 8,671 60,556 698%
Fairmount Hotels 4,550 42,033 923%
Pleasant Holidays 2,767 7,727 279%
Holland America Line 1,472 15,617 1060%
Four Seasons Hotels 4,157 49,251 1184%

Table 2.1. Growth of Various Travel Operators in terms of number of followers

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Another area of wide usage of social media for B2C marketing is in financial institutions
especially in the banking segment. The next part of this report concentrates on how financial
institutions utilize social media for their marketing strategies.

2.3.2. SOCIAL MEDIA FOR FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

Many studies have been conducted to analyze the importance of social media marketing in the
financial institution segment. The use of Linked In which is referred to as ‘professional
Facebook’ is a very effective platform to build business. “LinkedIn provides a prime
opportunity to showcase your business and its employees as experts in their field”
(Hershberger, 2013). An important fact about LinkedIn is that it has the highest average income
of all social sites. This means that LinkedIn is more to do with business than entertainment.
These days business validation is done by searching for the company in most popular social
media. If financial institutions do not have a profile, it is most likely that the company will not
be regarded as authentic. The advantages of managing a profile on LinkedIn are as follows:

 The company website, other social media presence like Facebook and Twitter can be
integrated with the LinkedIn page.
 Products and Services tab on the LinkedIn page can be customized to suit the
company’s requirements.
 Icons, Banners, Photos and videos pertaining to brand building of the company can be
included on the LinkedIn page to increase viewership of the page.

Several real life case studies have been written about how banks in particular use other social
media sites such as Facebook and twitter for marketing. The next part focusses on banks using
Facebook as a marketing tool

2.3.2.1. FACEBOOK FOR BANK MARKETING

According to Price (2011), customers who interact with a company through social media are not
discount shoppers. Financial institutions like banks use Facebook as a tool to deepen existing
potential customers. Evidently Facebook is a place where people like to spent time in. When a
company’s presence is felt on a place where you want to be, there are more chances that the
company’s brand building boosts up as a by-product of the liking for the social media website
as a whole. Bank Atlantic is an example which has 2217 likes as on 26 September 2012. The
following is the strategy implemented by Bank Atlantic:
  Use Facebook to create experiences, services and values unique to Facebook users. This
can be surveys, games and so on

 Place interactive contents like videos and photos which will drive the customers towards
the bank’s official pages

 Encourage users who are active on the page by promoting their content like blogs.

Just as different tour operators have different marketing strategies on twitter, different banks
have different marketing strategy on Facebook as well. Albro (2012) reports the strategies used
by various banks in the United States of America to increase their sales through Facebook
marketing. For First National Bank operating mainly in Virginia, Facebook is an important way
of keeping in touch with the customers. The posts on the bank’s page are planned well in
advance so that the bank is prepared to counter any queries from customers regarding the posts.
The bank dedicates a person for responding to customer queries on the page. Similarly Bath
Savings Institution believes in a two way synchronization between the banks official website
and the official Facebook page. While updates are posted on both the website and on the
Facebook page, the bank aims at creating an interaction with the customers through the
Facebook page. An important aspect of Bath Savings Institution is that it does not discuss
products or services of the bank through Facebook. The bank believes that details of products or
services are not what customers want. Just as banks use Facebook for marketing, Twitter is also
widely used by many banks to promote their brand. The next part of the report throws light on
Twitter marketing by banks.

2.3.2.2. TWITTER FOR BANK MARKETING

A difference in using Twitter for marketing as compared to Facebook or LinkedIn is that

Twitter is more demanding. Frequent tweets should be written in order to engage customers and
this may require an additional person in marketing to keep the page live and updated at all times
(Walt Albro, 2012). Also even if multiple tweets are written, the number of potential customers
in Twitter is much less than of Facebook due to fact that it has far lesser active users than
Facebook. However, many banks have already started using twitter as a means to communicate
with their customers. Baylake Bank has two persons from the marketing department to work
full time for the bank’s social media presence. Baylake Bank is active on Twitter, Facebook and
LinkedIn. The advantage that the bank sees in being on Twitter is the nearly real time
conversations it can offer to customers. Thus customers receive feedback on their query in a
very fast manner. The content for social media is reviewed every two weeks

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and approved for posting. Avidia bank has outsourced its marketing operations through Twitter
since the bank has only a small number of marketing staff. Avidia bank aims at creating new
customers and strengthening its brand name through Twitter. Interestingly North Jersey
Community Bank has about a dozen twitter accounts. The bank uses one as its official twitter
page while the others are for communication between employees and the bank’s clients. Thus
various banks are utilizing social media for its marketing.

Apart from financial institutions and travel and tourism industries, retailers are also on the
lookout for utilizing social media presence for marketing. The next part of this report gives an
idea of how retailers use social media for marketing.

2.3.3. SOCIAL MEDIA FOR RETAILERS

The August (2009) issue of Market Watch: Technology suggests that usage of Twitter if
monitored well can help in increasing sales revenue beyond expectations. Many retailers are
already reaping the benefits of being on Twitter. For instance ‘Dell Retail Outlet’ had 704,000
followers on twitter in 2009 and an accumulated turnover of $2 million through twitter since the
inception of its twitter page in 2007. Today it has 1,506,824 followers which record a 214%
growth in terms of number of followers in a short span of 3 years. Fashion retailer ASOS is also
actively tweeting their offers, promotions and discounts through twitter. Similarly fresh and
easy which is the US subsidiary of Tesco launched a new family meal pack as suggested by its
customers through Twitter. A leading furniture retailer in the UK – Habitat – cautions that
twitter usage, particularly the use of hashtags for promotions must be done with extreme care.
The company faced a bad reputation when it used non relevant hashtags to improve viewership.
Thus usage of twitter for retailers is also found useful.

Though the above study proves that social media usage aids in developing both B2C and B2B
businesses, Handley Ann (2012) suggests that using Facebook for business needs may create a
negative impact on the person trying to promote the business. She suggests that Facebook is
something personal and people don’t expect business deals through Facebook. It is supposed to
be a social networking site meant for making friends and keeping in touch with existing friends.

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 CHAPTER – 3
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
It is clear from the literature review that usage of social media for marketing has been
embraced by businesses of all types. It’s proved that business to business marketing and
business to consumer marketing is feasible and highly effective through the usage of social
media especially Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Subsequent a part of the report
concentrates on how social media presence are often increased for business firms and the
way is it better than or worse than traditional advertising techniques. It also focusses on
how social media usage can enhance small businesses. Merely implementation of social
media might not be useful for businesses but there should be how to live the impact of
using social media for marketing. Thus discussion on the way to measure the return on
investment in social media also will be covered. Additionally to the present the
overall thumb rules of using social media sites for marketing are going to be discussed.

3.1 IMPLEMENTATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Usage of social media helps to make a sense for the purchasers that they need an
immediate and immediate access to the corporate (Rodriguez et al, 2012). It’s more of a
pull strategy instead of a push strategy for business development as proposed by Lager
(2009). A crucial aspect of social media marketing is that the results of social media
marketing are going to be known only after a while of implementation. Merely fixing a
page on any social networking site like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn isn't enough to
get sales. The foremost important a part of implementation is that it should regularly and
regularly be updated. Twitter especially which is more of real time status updates, requires
frequent updating and feedback to queries. At an equivalent time, too many
posts shouldn't be posted since it'll damage the reputation of the brand and over populate
the customer home page. There are different tactics for implementing pages on different
social media sites as follows:

3.1.1. IMPLEMENTING FACEBOOK

There are several things to stay in mind before plunging into the planet of Facebook
marketing. Facebook isn't the perfect place for marketing all types of companies. A firm’s
objectives should be laid down and it should completely match with the Facebook
marketing style (Maxwell 2012). This suggests that Facebook marketing should

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Completely fit with the brand being marketed. Keeping in mind the very fact that average
age of individuals using Facebook rose from 33 to 38 in 2011 (Maxwell 2012), a brand
which caters to audience in their late thirties can easily be marketed using Facebook. Once
the brand is recognized to be ok for Facebook marketing, subsequent hurdle is to urge
people to ‘like’ your page. For this interactive and interesting content should be shared
on a daily basis. Subsequent step is to interact the people that have liked your page by
providing them unique deals through Facebook. Having done this, integrating the
corporate official website, other social media pages like Twitter and LinkedIn pages with
the company’s official Facebook page is that the next important thing. These icons must be
placed promptly, during a place which is visible to all or any visitors easily and there
should be easy navigation between these pages (Maxwell 2012).

Status updates, videos, photos, and creative games then on must be updated at steady pace
of intervals in order that viewers never think that the company’s page isn't maintained well.
On the opposite hand, don't overload the purchasers with too many posts. One post
everyday are going to be most rewarding as people won’t get bored seeing the firm’s page.
There should be someone liable for keeping the page live and active throughout the
year, per annum. There are various methods for this. The simplest is to delegate the work
for the marketing department. But another solution to decrease workload and to
extend creativity of the posts is to circulate the responsibility of posting with the
varied departments like HR, Finance and accounts department. This will be done since
Facebook is extremely popular and doesn't require any technical expertise to update posts.
Another method is outsourcing and there are many companies which outsource social
media marketing. Collecting feedback from the purchasers and implementing them within
the business is extremely important since they're invaluable suggestions from people
that want your brand to grow. A legal media policy for data protection should even
be implemented in order that the company’s legal side is additionally taken care of.

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3.1.2. IMPLEMENTING TWITTER

As opposed to Facebook, Twitter requires more real time tweets and hence it is more
demanding. There should be a person in charge of ‘tweeting’ the relevant information at the
right time (Marketing Magazine, 2012). There are several points to be kept in mind while
tweeting:

 Consistently tweet at the peak hour of the day and respond to queries directly and promptly.
Do not tweet too many times in a day.
 Plan in advance regarding what to post and when to post. Keep the posts short and
interesting.
 Sharing unique content on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the company’s website
will urge users to follow the company’s page on all the social media websites.
 Find people who are sharing information related with your business and engage them in
your social media marketing.
 It is important to keep in mind that in order to draw attention from Facebook or Twitter
users who are already busy, engaged and entertained, the company needs to post something
even more interesting which will increase the company’s sales revenue indirectly
 The person who is designated to send tweets must know about the company well and he/she
must be very much aware of the business language of the firm. Either content should be
reviewed before posting or someone experienced should be given the task of social media
marketing.
 A specific amount of time at regular intervals like morning, midday and evening
should be spent for responding to twitter queries if any.
 Do not just promote the business but promote interesting content such as funny videos,
useful information and so on. All the content shared should have some relevance with
regard to the firm itself.
 Use simple language which can be understood by a common man. Take special care not to
include jargons in tweets.
 Maintain a positive attitude in the tweets and do not get too personal (Gunelius , 2011)

Having studied how to implement a twitter page and a Facebook page, the next important thing
is to measure the outcome of these efforts. Hence calculating the return on investment from
social media is equally important.

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3.2. MEASURING THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

When a CFO of a firm looks at lowering costs, those presumably to urge cut
are those whose ROI isn't known. Hence, investment on social media marketing is probably
going to urge cut and thereby the firm will suffer bad consequences (Price 2011).
Thus it's vital to calculate the ROI for social media marketing. Follow the steps.

Track the initial numbers- revenue, average customer spending, website user traffic, new
customers then on. Make a note of the expenses associated with maintaining and updating
the social media page and track the quantity of revenue generated from the social media.
Subtracting the expense from the revenue and dividing it with the initial investment will
yield the ROI. The challenge here is that the expense here are going to be a measure of
your time whereas the revenue generated are going to be in pounds. This point are
often converted to currency by multiplying the time with the hourly wage and adding the
pc and internet cost thereto. After posting regular updates on the page for a
month approximately, calculate the increased revenue (Price 2011). Aside from this
various tools are available to trace users who visit a page on Facebook a bit like Google
Analytics is employed to trace people visiting an internet site. The tools available within
the market are as follows:

i. Facebook Insights: Gives data on customer interaction, ‘likes’ comments and so on in

ii. A visually pleasing way which is easy to understand and analyze.
iii. HootSite: Consists of a web application and a mobile application which can be used by
novice users as well to interpret traffic on a webpage
iv. Nutshellmail: Gives reports on social media usage as an email which has details like
comments, ‘likes’ and so on for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
v. TweetDeck: Used to get a peripheral idea on who is using the company’s twitter page
and who is coming back.

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3.3. SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SMALL BUSINESS START-UPS

Ankeny (2011) finds out how is it possible for little business start-ups to utilize Facebook as
their marketing tool. There are numerous small business start-ups which use Facebook as an
efficient tool for marketing. The most important advantage of small business start-ups in using
Facebook for marketing is that the massive expense cut. Initial phase of a corporation is that the
time when the brand must be built through strong PR events. With a few billion population and
around half them logging in everyday, there's no cheaper medium of promotion as Facebook
especially for little business start-ups. By encouraging people to interact on Facebook by
providing unique promotions, business opportunities then on, people get more familiar with the
brand itself. By providing discounts and other offers to Facebook customers alone, the necessity
for reviewing the page again and again becomes a necessity. Hence, the page gets clicked more
times and thus the brand building takes place without much hassle. When Facebook page of a
replacement start-up company is being designed, it must be designed in such how that it
engages more customers. Thus by increasing the quantity of your time spent on the Facebook
page of the corporate, the name gets more deeply engraved into the purchasers mind (Ankeny
2011).

The success of little business start-up by Anna Strahs proves that Facebook marketing works
rather well for brand spanking new business start-ups (Ankeny, 2011). She started her own
bakery which baked alternative food which was corn free, nut free and diary free. She started a
Facebook page as soon as she started the corporate and frequently updated photos and videos of
her progress. Facebook managed her marketing research, feedback collection and promotions.
While she managed to understand what the purchasers want through Facebook using customer
feedback, she did her promotions by updating posts and photos through Facebook. By
understanding truth potential of Facebook, she invested in Facebook advertisements also and
therefore the response was truly rewarding. From what started as a business to cater to the need
of individuals with dietary restrictions, the corporate has grown far and wide and ships its
products across America. This was possible with a mere $300 spent for advertisements. This is
often truth potential of social media for brand spanking new start-ups. At a time when financial
resources are very limited and brand building is of high priority, social media advertisements
can eliminate the huge amount of money spent on advertisements and at the same time create a
brand image in a relatively shorter span of time.

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Having studied the way in which social media can be exploited for small businesses start-ups,
the next important thing is to compare and contrast between traditional advertisements and
social media promotions and conclude which is better and why.

3.4. COMPARISON OF TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING WITH SOCIAL MEDIA

ADVERTISING

Traditional advertising media includes print media, radio and visual media. In fact, only print
media was considered traditional media but in this content to discuss the impact of advertising
on social media and its comparison with other media ads, all other non-social media is
considered traditional media, at least as a result of this report. Although social media gains
value and acceptance, 45% of ad revenue is still paid for by advertisements in the print media
Hampel (2012). This figure can be argued to be the result of less expensive advertising on
social media as mentioned earlier. Although the investment in advertising on social media is
very small, the biggest appeal is very high and a lot of profit can be expected. Hampel (2012)
points out that “consumers are increasingly resistant to traditional advertising” (Pieters and
Wedel, 2007). Direct consumer orientation is not possible in most media such as print and
television. While using the Internet as a source of advertising, people who are interested in a
particular product can be easily drawn into the company. As mentioned earlier, this is referred
to as a pull scheme as opposed to a pressure scheme. Even in the traditional advertising field,
premium print ads that are more expensive than regular ads are widely used. “A respectable
view of advertising promotion meets the advertised product, thus leading to premium-print ads
being seen with respect” (Hampel, 2012).

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 CHAPTER – 4
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMEDNATION
 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

4.1. CONCLUSIONS

Social media is functioning more as an enquiry engine lately because people trust people
rather trusting companies. Also people think that it might be cheaper to shop for from the
people directly instead of getting to the corporate website. Hence, a neighborhood of
interest is searched on a social media and anxious people are found and communicated
with. Social media marketing creates a positive effect on many business
markets like financial institutions, travel and tourism businesses, retail businesses,
knowledge businesses, show business , and so on. Since the method of social media
marketing saves money, time and is very engaging and interesting social media marketing
seems to be subsequent big thing to hit the planet as an entire .
One of the most important advantages of social media marketing as against traditional
advertising is that potential customers are often precisely targeted. for instance , in
Facebook, if an individual species that his area of interest is interior designing; his home
page would have advertisements of interior designers thereon . Thus, it doesn’t seem to be
a hassle for the customer because they might definitely want to ascertain those
advertisements. As for the business owner, he/she must pay as long as an individual clicks
on his/her advertisements. Thus it's a win-win situation for both the business owner and
therefore the customer Similarly small business start-ups should utilize the endless
opportunities provided by social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. the most
important advantage for little business start-ups is that the quantity of cash to be spent on
advertisements are often massively hamper and brand building are often done effectively.
As in LinkedIn which is customisable, quite one products being sold by an
equivalent company also can be marketed. This works perfectly for B2B clients who cater
to quite one product from an equivalent verticals.

In fact social media sites themselves are changing at a fast pace to keep up with the marketing
trend that is present today. Though LinkedIn was started for professional networking, it has
added much functionality recently which makes it an attractive platform for business
development. Likewise although Facebook is considered as a medium for personal space, it is
changing at a rapid pace to cater to the needs of businesses as well. More companies are trying
to market their products through Facebook. Twitter is least preferred social networking

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 4.2. RECOMMENDATIONS

According to the report it can be concluded that the availability of social media is inevitable in
the coming years. Not only is social media useful as a marketing tool, it has become a daily
habit to be on social media. The report therefore recommends that all types of businesses small,
large, businesses to business customers, businesses to consumer customers, manufacturing
industries and so on actively participate in social media. An important fact to remember in this
context is that most social networking sites are overcrowded. It starts from the youngest,
reaches the highest and descends to the lowest again. So, this is a good time to invest time and
resources on popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Due to the
very small amount of investment, it is not a very risky investment as telecommunications use
will gradually decline.

Compared to traditional advertisements, social media marketing targets a more focused group
of people and thus can bring better results. This does not mean that companies should stop
using traditional media and start using online and social media only for advertising. This can
lead to disastrous results. The important thing to remember is that if we say that one in seven
people are on Facebook, there can be millions of duplicate accounts and about half of the total
number of accounts are not available every day. This reduces the chances of meeting new
prospects and thus creates a barrier to producing new business leads. And still the rest of the
world relies on traditional media which means we can't ignore them. It is therefore the best
solution to integrate traditional and social media marketing (Wakolbinger, 2009). This will
close the gap between those who work on social media and those who still rely on traditional
media. Companies must be careful when choosing certain media ads. A clothing company may
have to rely on social media to advertise their clothes to people aged15-50 and
still have to rely on traditional advertisements such as TV, radio and print media for all other
people of the age group. Therefore a successful combination of social media ads and traditional
ads will lead to better results.

The online presence of firms must be renewed frequently and must be linked to each other and
to the company's website. It needs to be well maintained and only the right spaces should be
updated. Small businesses need to embrace this great technology and reap the benefits of being
in the media to be marketed.

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 CHAPTER – 5
LIMITATIONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA
MANAGEMENT

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 LIMITATIONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT

 Time consuming - Everyone likes to invest time in something that can give them results in 2-3
days. And if we look at social media marketing then this takes a lot of time to give you results.
Yes, guys, social media marketing is a very time-consuming process. Here you have to post
more and interact with people because social media is about online communication with your
target audience. All of this takes a lot of productive time to invest.
 Risk of negative comment - This is the limit most often faced by retailers. When you use
social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter or any of your other
products or services people get direct access to posting their ideas. Therefore, you have an equal
chance of getting both positive and negative comments. Your competitors can also post
negative comments to get you ahead of the market. Negative comments can damage a business's
reputation.
 Low return on investment - The main goal of all marketers is to limit communication
marketing. Yes guys, the ROI you get from social media is one of the cheapest ways to market
online. You need to put in more effort, time and money to make things really work. If you do
not engage with your fans every time the number goes down and you will generate less ROI.
 Hacker’s threat - If you are in digital marketing then you will find hackers everywhere.
Hacking is a very serious problem. Hackers often log into accounts and steal your personal
information, details and other important documents from anyone. If hackers access your social
media account, your data may be lost and your website may be blocked by them.
 Heavily rely on ads - Social media companies know that too. The announcement of Facebook
ads was a change. With its ability to target specific audiences based on various depth
parameters in depth, it is what makes it such a powerful tool to generate online lead. (Evil in
small business). The ad is the main channel for these bulls to make money on their platform.
That is why they are so focused on encouraging and attracting people to use their advertising
platform
 Need to stay engaged and active - Speaking of time consuming, and social media marketing,
you need to stay engaged, vigilant and use your marketing effort. Social media is constantly
changing and if you are not on time, you will be left behind.
 Security and privacy policy issues - One of the worst things about marketing social media is
security and privacy related issues. If you use social media for advertising, you basically need
to provide your personal, public and personal information, in order to get the most out of your
marketing efforts.

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 REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

REFERENCES

(1) Albro Walt (2012) Getting a Handle on @TwitterABA Bank Marketing. Vol. 44 Issue
5,p12-17. 6p [electronic resource]

(2) Albro Walt (2012) Launching a Facebook Site ABA Bank Marketing. Vol. 44 Issue
2,p20-25. 6p [electronic resource]

(3) Ankeny Jason (2011) face lift Entrepreneur, Vol. 39 Issue 6, p56-59. 4p. [electronic
resource]

(4) Carnival Cruise Line Official Twitter Page (2013)

(5) Comer John (2011) Linking In Financial Planning, Vol. 41 Issue 6, p101-103. 3p.
[electronic resource]

(6) Carnival Cruise Line Official Twitter Page (2013) Comer John (2011) Linking In
Financial Planning, Vol. 41 Issue 6, p101-103. 3p. [electronic resource]

(7) Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil C, Gamon M and Dumais S (2011) Mark my words!

(8) Fairmont Hotels Official Twitter Page (2013)

(9) Sundin Brandt Kristin (2012) All that Twitters Is Not GoldABA Bank Marketing. Vol. 44

(10) Swift Marie (2006) When Advertising Pays. Financial Planning, Vol. 36 Issue 2, p65-68,
3p, [electronic resource

(11) Taining Yang (2012) The Decision Behavior Of Facebook Users Journal of Computer
Information Systems. Vol. 52 Issue 3, p50-59. 10p

(12) Twitter Do's and Don'ts (2011) Marketing Magazine, Vol. 116 Issue 14, p30-30. 1/2p

(13) Twitter requires serious marketing strategy to drive retail sales (2009) MarketWatch:
Technology Vol. 8 Issue 8, p11-12. 2p

(14) Four Seasons Hotels Official Twitter Page (2012)

(15) Giamanco Barbara; Gregoire Kent (2012) Tweet Me, Friend Me, Make Me Buy Harvard
Business Review
(16) Gunelius Susan (2011) Twitter Do's and Don'ts BusinessWeek.com. p6-6. 1p

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

(1) Bishop David, Ehrlich Greg (2012) Facebook & Text Lead a New Marketing Era Convenience
Store NewsVol. 48, Issue 5, p70-73, 4p

(2) Burton Suzan; Soboleva Alena (2011) Interactive or reactive? Marketing with Twitter
Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 28 Issue 7, p491-499.

(3) Churchill Jr., Gilbert A. (1979) A Paradigm for Developing Better Measures for Marketing
Constructs Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) Vol. 16 Issue 1, p64-73. 10p

(4) Churchill Jr., Gilbert A.; Peter J. Paul (1984) Research Design Effects on the Reliability of
Rating Scales: A Meta-Analysis Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) Vol.

(5) Hampel Stefan, Heinrich Daniel, Campbel Colin (2012) Is An Advertisement Worth The Paper
It's Printed on?

(6) Hampp Andrew (2009) Forget Ebert: How Twitter makes or breaks movie marketing today
Advertising Age, Vol.

(7) Karpinski, Rich (2009) B-to-b followers flock to Twitter B to B. Vol. 94 Issue 4, p1-29. 2p.

(8) Keefe Lisa M. (2007) Marketing -Free, Linkedin Finds Fans Marketing News. Vol. 41 Issue
19, p4-4. 1/4p

(9) Kumar V., Sundaram Bala (2012) An Evolutionary Road Map to Winning with Social Media
Marketing. Marketing Research

(10) LaPointe Pat (2012) Measuring Facebook’s Impact on Marketing Journal of Advertising
Research. Sep2012, Vol.

(11) McCorkle Denny E.; McCorkle Yuhua Li (2012) Using LinkedIn in the Marketing
Classroom: Exploratory Insights and Recommendations for Teaching Social Media/Networking
Marketing Education Review

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 ANNEXURE

QUESTIONAIRE

1. Do you think social media is the most sought after method adopted by entrepreneurs’
young and old in the field of marketing, advertising, brand building, promotions?
a. Yes
b. No
2. Which is the most effective solution for brand promotion?
a. Social Media
b. Print Media
3. Do you think social media marketing will help the firms to find their potential
customers?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Maybe
4. Which social networking site are you most familiar with?
a. LinkedIn
b. Twitter
c. My space
d. Facebook
e. YouTube
f. Most of the above
5. Do you think the relative cost is much lesser as compared with traditional advertising?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Depends
6. Is social media helpful for B2B firms in generating new sales/clients?
a. Yes
b. No
c. It depends how reputed the firm is.

26
7. “Social media can be effectively used for various B2C clients to increase sales.” Do you
agree?
a. Yes

b. No
c. Partially

8. Which one do you think is the most effective social networking site for online
marketing?
a. Twitter
b. Facebook
c. LinkedIn
9. Do you follow your favourite brands on social networking sites like Facebook, twitter
and LinkedIn?
a. Yes
b. No
10. If yes, why do you follow them?
a. Just because you like that brands
b. You are very keen to know about their new offerings
c. To know how good they are in marketing

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