Research Project on impact of social media marketing

LO 1

P1 Research proposal that clearly defines research questions, hypothesis supported by literature review.

Background of study

Digital technologies indeed transforms organisational culture. By implementing advance and latest technologies within organisational framework, management is now able to obtain competitive environment. Researchers in their previous studies have examined the implications of social media marketing in enhancing growth and development of organisation. In this study, researcher will more focus on how social media marketing transforms the perception of consumers. How much impact social media marketing laid on customer through which they attract towards the organisation. Researchers in their past studies also examined the process of social media marketing and digital marketing and in this research researcher will examine the challenges faced by the organisation during the process of social media marketing.

Rationale of study

Through this research, researcher will be able to enhance his or her level of knowledge effectively and efficiently regarding the influence of social media marketing on consumers perception. From this research, researcher will be able to gain access to Morrisons which is one of the biggest supermarket and retail organisation in United Kingdom. This research will help researcher in enhancing his or her level of knowledge regarding social media.

Aim and objectives

The aim of research study is “To understand the impact of social media marketing in transforming perception of consumers; a study on Morrisons.”

Objectives

To summarised objectives to underpin the aim are listed below:

• To understand social media marketing strategies and methods.
• To analyse the impact of social media marketing in transforming perception of consumers.
• To identify the challenges faced by Morrisons in social media marketing.
• To recommends ways which can improve social media marketing strategies of Morrisons.

Research Questions

Research questions are rudimentary part of research study. In order to enhance the effectiveness of research, researcher needs to made certain sets of question that reflects on research aim and objectives. In this context, in the following research researcher will answer following questions which are described below:

• What is social media marketing strategies and methods?
• What are the impact of social media marketing in transforming perception of consumers?
• What are the challenges faced by Morrisons in social media marketing?

Significance of study

This research study will help in enhancing the level of knowledge of end readers. Social media marketing is new trend which floats around the marketers of the organisation. Marketers used different tactics to provide quality and creative advertisement on social media platform. In this context, this research will further aid in enhancing the level of knowledge of marketers working at Morrisons. From this research study, academicians preparing for or have competed course in digital marketing will also be benefited as they will be able to know more about social media marketing. Researcher will provide set of recommendations at the end of research project which will help the management of Morrisons from which they can improve their social media marketing practices.

LITERATURE REVIEW

In literature review, researcher contradicts and creates an argument by analysing the views of authors and researchers in order to enhance his or her understanding about the subject matter. The purpose of conducting literature review is to compare and contrast on what senior researchers and academicians have proposed.

Social media marketing strategies

According to Fan and Gordon, (2014) social media marketing strategies refers to the methods which are used by marketers where they promote goods and services of organisation on social media platforms. These strategies are dynamic and changes according to the change in trends and situations. In order to gain attraction from customers it is essential for the organisations to utilise effective and efficient marketing strategies. Perera and Perera, (2018) argued that social media marketing has been defined as the process of marketing on social media websites. Marketers implement diverse strategies and methods in order to create marketing on social media websites. In order to sustain in competitive environment it is essential and important for the management of organisation to focus on devising plans and strategies that enhances marketing and promotional activities.

Rodriguez Peterson and Ajjan, (2015) said that social media marketing becomes latest trend among marketers. Through effective social media marketing strategies, marketing management of organisations able to promulgates organisational productivity and profitability. Social media marketing refers to the marketing tactics utilised by the business organisation where they promote and advertise about their products and services using social media websites. With the rise in internet technologies and evolution of social media perception of individuals and societies have been drastically transformed. Rowley and Keegan, (2017) said that marketers of today's organisation have been greatly influenced from social media as they get a platform where they can promote organisational goods and services effectively and efficiently. In order to sustain in competitive environment it is very essential and crucial for marketers to utilise new and advance technologies for their marketing practices. Social media websites such as Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, etc. Social media marketing indeed transforms the perception of consumers as well as marketers. With the evolution of internet and advance technologies, social media marketing becomes the latest trends. It is time saving, cost effective and management needs to put limited efforts to promote organisational products and services. Agnihotri, Hu and Krush, (2016) argued that social media marketing indeed helps in enhancing the promotional activities of the organisation but it also have some negative effects on organisation.

First, it is an open source as any individual can create account of particular social media and can comment negative on organisational products and services. The comment can be viewed by other viewers which might affects their psychology and hamper organisational reputation. Second, any advertisement which target specific community or group on social media might affects the psychology of particular community and management of that organisation has to face legal consequence. Thus, it is essential for the marketers to construct quality advertisement on social media website so that growth in customers can be seen. Digital technologies indeed transforms organisational culture. By implementing advance and latest technologies within organisational framework, management is now able to obtain competitive environment. One such method of digital marketing is social media marketing. Tsimonis and Dimitriadis, (2014) elucidated that social media marketing transforms the perception of marketers of today's organisation. In order to sustain in competitive environment it becomes essential and equally important for marketing management of the organisation to fully utilise social media platform and create advertisement adequately in order to enhance the productivity and profitability of the organisation.

Impact of social media marketing on consumer perception

O'Reilly and Lancendorfer, (2015) social media marketing are used many people because it is user-friendly and anyone can use them. They are used for the advertising and promotion of product on the website. The technology has become a major component that are useful for the marketing purpose. The marketing strategic used with the help of new technology. At that time, social media marketing can play an important role in business process. Most of the companies focus on their social factor. The presence of global expansion and using new technologies are essential part of marketing such as promotion, prize, product, place etc.

Many companies are using different type of technologies that could be helpful for expanding brand, improving the marketing strategies, many technologies as a foundation of customer interaction. Constantinides, Schepers and Vries, (2015) agreed that social media and information technologies are trend in the market and with the help of advertising the company directly interacted with the customer. Basically, Social media marketing are used widely for the product marketing and new branding promotion through twitter, Facebook etc. Social media website is the origin of information technology including the new product details, distribution detail of product. It will provide the unique techniques to spread the detail of product on the web.

It will generate the wide range of online information through the internet. It will provide the marketing tool to search the detail related product through web based and mobile phones with share the detail of product (Fan and Gordon, 2014). Some times it very challenging part when the company determine how the customer related information and what are the branding impact on the customer in which positive comments shows the good impact on the internet and negative comment impact wrong thing on the internet. These comment are known as brand dialogue and can not be controlled by the company.

Social media is a very effective platform that are commonly used by company to support the online marketing and branding. Facebook is platform that would be consider as a marketing approach because Many new product are launched through the Facebook and they also provide the information related brands and product details. This is the new way to introducing the product and exchange the information to the customer. At that time, 93% business are done by this social networking site because the product detail and their brand detail already given by this platform. In 2013, 200 million people are using the online sites in the united states that will spend 29 hours on the online product searching and networking site (Perera and Perera, 2018). Facebook is the biggest platform because most of the people are using this technology. Internet is essential part of every business for promoting their product and understanding the requirement of customer. Brand knowledge is very important for every customer because they identify the actual product detail and determine the quality of product. Brand is important when how the customer response towards the product. It is the best approach to directly interact with the consumer and taking their feedback.

Challenges faced by marketers in social media marketing

Charlesworth, (2014) elaborated that there are various challenges faced by the management of business organisation in the process of social media marketing. These challenges become obstructions in delivering information to the customers using social media marketing. O'Reilly and Lancendorfer, (2015) said that creating quality content is one of the biggest challenge and obstruction faced by the organisation and marketers. Customers who does not find the content or promotion creative or innovative tends to avoid that advertisement. This negatively affects the marketing tactics of the organisation. To enhance the attraction of customers it is essential for the marketers to create quality and innovative content. This will enhance the profitability and customer attraction towards the organisation. Constantinides, Schepers and Vries, (2015) said that another challenge of social media marketing faced by the marketers is measurement of return on investment (ROI). It becomes difficult for business organisation to measure return on investment on social media without using proper analytical tools.

As per Buckley and Mossaz, (2018) it was said that intensity of use of technology within companies is gradually decreasing the organic reach towards the customer by organisations. On very fast bases there is increase in number of social media users that on monthly bases. So this is amounting in larger number of social media traffic on these channels when people are positing this post could be suppressing others in larger number. So this increased and higher social media traffic which is then increased at the time when network would be working on very slow bases and thus ultimately hindering the content of viewers.

Cantrell and Vallone, (2018) also included that there are number of cross channel strategies which are been used and created which is optimising the content of social media channels. It was seen that this multichannel strategies are sometime proven to be very much challenging as number of channels are having their own format that could be dedicated to their content and how it should be fitting as well. All the targeted audience of these pages or social media channel would be having their own preference and habits which are not always necessary that are meeting strategies of company. This is kind of impossible task that all these are working

P2 Appropriate methods of research and conduct primary and secondary research.

Research methodology is the structure of research study. In this circumstances, this part considering explanation of research philosophy, research approach, research design, and research strategy this all selected to research. Moreover, this report is providing information regarding the way of data collection, sampling and data analysis. He or she must follow to study and research limitations while facing the conducting and research the history.

Research philosophy: this report is dealing with source, nature and development of knowledge. The first area which is covered by the is Saunders research onion. The research philosophy classified into four parts that is interpretive, positivism, realism, and pragmatism. Inductive and deductive two approaches are classified in research philosophy. The deductive research approach is defined as used by researcher in their study where they have developed possibility in the study. In the inductive research, where the question is research in their study.

Research Design: the researchers is defined in a different ways of research design. Some researcher are followed between qualitative and quantitative. Some believes in researcher gather precise data and analyse it. The term research design refers to the plan through which researcher able to attempt research questions. To study there are so many different types of research design are their for the researcher. Taking the help of qualitative research strategy assist to analyse the numerical data in effective and efficient manner, therefore, aim and research study are helping in qualitative research strategy.

Research strategy: Research strategy is an effective plan of action which is formulated by the researcher in context of assisting him or her in attaining the set of objectives and aims of this research projection. The researcher has utilised both qualitative and quantitative researcher strategy in terms of accomplishment of the research's aim and objectives effectively.

Data Collection: In order to formulate, that whatever the data is generated by the researcher is applicable and precise data. Essentially part of data collection is described by the research history by the researcher. Primary and secondary sources are those two types of sources which can be collect the data. Conducting surveys and interviews by the researcher is the part of the primary sources. The study will be carried out at Morrisons where the contestant of research would be marketing decision maker and employees working at marketing sector. Morrisons have capabilities to gain the knowledge of about marketing to methodologies.

Tsogether in collaboration in making cohesive brand impression so that they would be able to respond to their audience.

Carah and Brown, (2018) said that no matter how hard work companies are doing on their social media channels it could never be able to organise their work in weekly bases. So it could be included that management of time and that of work is very much essential which is not been able to be conducted on very easy and smooth note. Other than this management companies are also suffering form their mismanagement in data like that of listening and learning about their audience with the help of measuring brand reputation which is required.

The main challenges are facing in the social media marketing is connecting with the consumer on their personal and individual level. They are using the marketing tool to connect with the customer such as buffer Reply and Tweet Deck are using free and low cost.

There are some challenges of social media marketing are as following:

Create Social media marketing: Social media marketing strategy is very important because without any specific plan there is no used for the marketing because the social media plan to determine the actual need of customer.

Consistently coming with good content: Social media managing is the time-consuming and it becomes full-time job for the employee. The media manager create the detail of product that would be manage the response, update and controlled many profiles.

Content Quantity over the quality: In the social networking site, there are many posts uploaded on the Facebook and high amount of data are to be store on the internet. Most of the companies are post less content on the internet so that they will suffer so many problems. Consumer are followed the brand and daily check the detail of item so that it is helpful to manage their post on the internet (Kasemsap, 2018). Marketer will manage the whole digital posts and uploaded graphics and generating the blogs.

Content to large social audience: Its very challenging part to promoting the product, influence with the item, record the audience feedback this all are very challenging part of social media marketing. The most important part to encouraging the news so that people are enjoyed the blogs and there are many chances that people interact with the website and then will enjoy the social media as well.

Finding new way to encouraging social media: This is also very challenging part because the media manager will find the important information that work on internet few times. Hence, the other platform like Facebook, Instagram are posting many links and Article on the internet. Twitter is the best example for the content because it can store information related new launching product, new branding information and most of the people are using the twitter (Misirlis and Vlachopoulou, 2018).

Create graphics and visuals: These are the most important factor of social media because create a graphics, visual are very challenging part. These are the skill related challenges faced on the social media marketing. Growth is the different factor that will figure out the activities and focus on the social media marketing.

LO 2

P3 Primary and secondary research using appropriate methods for business research that consider ethical issues.

METHODOLOGY

Research methodology consider structure of the research in which researcher able to analysis whole study. In this aspect, different elements includedsuch as research philosophy, research approach, research design, etc. Along with this, report also provides information about the different methods used for information collection, sampling and data analysis (Venkatesh, Rathi and Patwa, 2015). Following elements are included in it:

• Research philosophy: Present report considers the description of social media marketing towards consumer perception. It helps to depict the ways through which investigator gathers data and information related to research topic in a systematic manner. It also increases knowledge with conduct data analysis (Hutchinson, Donnell and Reid, 2015). There are two types of research philosophies i.e. interpretivism and positivism. From the both, researcher has selected interpretivism research philosophy that helps to find relevant work performances.
• Research design: Other element of research methodology is design. In this aspect, researcher considers abstract which defines in the whole study. It helps to collect relevant collect data (Paul, Sankaranarayanan and Mekoth, 2016). There are different types of research designs like descriptive, exploratory, experimental, etc. From all, researcher has selected descriptive research design which helps to find in-depth information.
• Research approach: Research approach determines formulation of plan on the basis of which researcher successfully carries out study (Yu, Ramanathan and Nath, 2014). Basically, there are two types of research approaches such as inductive and deductive. In the present research, researcher used deductive approach that assists to find relevant information for the present study.
• Research strategy: In this regard, researcher has two options such as qualitative and quantitative. From the both, researcher selects qualitative technique in which as per different respondents views, opinion, etc. results will be gather (Kajalo and Lindblom, 2015). As per this strategy, researcher able to conduct proper analysis at workplace.
• Data collection: There are different ways to collect data and find relevant information for research. In this consideration, results can easily be acquired which is related to the topic. Primary and secondary are the two types of sources through which data has been gathered that help to develop significant advantages (Mohr, Fastoso and Shirodkar, 2014). Primary data is gathered through questionnaire which is designed to conduct survey. Furthermore, secondary data is gathered from previous research, books, articles, online tools, etc. Both tools important to carry study in successful way.
• Data analysis: Data analysis is also an important part in research which require special consideration that aid to find more effective results at workplace. In this regard, researcher use thematic analysis that assists to develop more significant advantages in complete investigation process (Pairotti, Cerutti and Beltramo, 2015).
• Sampling: With respect to consider sampling method, there are two ways such as probabilistic and non-probabilistic. In the present research, probabilistic research selected in which several aspects of sampling included such as stratified, simple random sampling, etc. From this all, researcher has selected simple random sampling method to conduct research in systematic manner (Gupta and Arora, 2017). Along with this, 20 sample size has been taken from Morrison Employees working within an organisation has been selected as respondents.

P4 Analytical tool to conduct research finding and data

DISCUSSION

Theme 1 Social media marketing create positive impact on Morrison success

Interpretation: From the above graph, it can be interpreted that there are 18 respondents said that social media marketing create impact on Morrison. Furthermore, it can be stated that 1 person said that social media marketing create negative impact on the business success. In this regard, remaining 1 person said that on Morrison social media marketing create both kind of impact. As results, it is important to focus on creative perspective of social media activities that required in chosen business. On the basis of different people views, the chosen business will able to communicate their program with several numbers of customers easily.

Theme 2 Facebook is important element of social media marketing that help to attain desired results

Interpretation: In the present graph, it can be interpreted that there are 16 respondents exist those said that Facebook is most important element to attract several numbers of customers. It helps to produce creative results with using videos, blogs, photos, etc. On the basis of these elements, it can be said that maximum numbers of customers attracted in the business easily. There is one person said that Instagram is one of the important element that assists to focus on develop more desired results. On the basis of one person view, it can be interpreted that Twitter is also important consideration that make innovative functions.

Theme 3 Social media marketing helps to make success in the chosen company

Interpretation: As per 17 respondents, it can be depicted that social media marketing is most important element to focus and maintain more creative work at research. It helps to make successful results in systematic manner at business environment. It will focus on chosen company operations to develop significant advantages. As per 2 candidates views, it can be stated that social media marketing is not useful to innovate creative work performances. However, remaining people said that it cannot be interpreted that social media marketing is useful or not for the chosen business environment.

Theme 4 Social media marketing assists to Morrison to develop desired results

Interpretation: In respect to carry the above graph, 15 respondents said that social media marketing assists to Morrison to develop their creative work performances. It makes more profitable results and ascertained desired work performances at present research. As per 3 candidates views, it can be stated that social media marketing not develop significant advantages to the chosen enterprise to promote more desired results. It reduces creativeness for business development. Remaining 2 people said that it cannot be said that social media marketing make success or not for the chosen business unit. From this all description, it can be interpreted that Morrison need to concentrate on different activities of social media marketing that create significant advantages at workplace.

Theme 5 All the above social media marketing influence to chosen enterprise

Interpretation: In the present graph, it can be said that 14 respondents have views social media marketing consider several advantages. It assists to focus and maintain more creative work performances in business. It is highly influence to the chosen company to produce more systematic work performances. As per their views, it is very good process to engage several numbers of clients in the enterprise. It is also beneficial to conduct advertisement in the business to cope up with several activities. It builds strong relationship with several other people that make innovative results in the Morrison. Promotion of business is also depends on the systematic work performances that make creativity in the company. Effective cost assist to create more marketing activities in the business.

Theme 6 All the above are disadvantages of Morrison with using social media marketing

Interpretation: In the present graph, it can be stated that there are 15 respondents said that all the above elements are main disadvantage to the Morrison with implementation of social media marketing such as time consumption, post negative content, competitive, etc. As per 2 respondents main disadvantage is that time consumption with using social media marketing. As per the one person, it can be stated that negative content exist with using social media marketing. As per one person view, Morrison easily boost company profile with consider it in the organisation. Hence, it can be interpreted that social media marketing consider innovation and creativeness.

Theme 7 Internet marketing is most effective marketing strategies for the chosen enterprise

Interpretation: In the above graph, it has been described that 16 respondents said that internet marketing is most important marketing strategy which implemented in Morrison. It will develop significant results in the organisation. With the help of networking events, it can be said that 1 person support it to attain more desired results at workplace. It will assist to make creative work performances. As per other 1 person view, it could be said that advertisement campaigns helps to promote social media marketing that make systematic work performances. However, one employee said that social media marketing help to directly reach towards clients. It is most effective perspective to deal with chosen company. Remaining 1 person said that talking with potential clients in Morrison.

Theme 8 Employees are highly satisfied with using social media marketing in the chosen organisation

Interpretation: With the help of above graph, it can be stated that 15 respondents said that they are highly satisfied with social media marketing. It helps to develop significant advantages at workplace of research. There are 2 respondents said that they are highly satisfied with using social media marketing at workplace. It will assist to develop more significant results at global environment. As per 1 person view, it can be stated that they are neutral with using social media marketing in the business. Remaining 1 respondent also said that he is dissatisfied with consideration of social media marketing.

Theme 9 Social media marketing is good for the business

Interpretation: In the present graph, it can be stated that there are 16 respondents said that social media marketing is good element for business success. It is most successful way to create desired results in the business unit. As per views of 2 respondents, it can be interpreted that social media marketing is not so good for the chosen business. Remaining 2 respondents said that it cannot be said that social media marketing is good for the enterprise or not. Therefore, it will helpful perspective to develop more significant advantages at workplace.

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