Unit 8 Research Project Assignment on Social Media

Program	Diploma in Business
Unit Number and Title	Unit 8 Research Project on Social Media
QFC Level	Level 5

Introduction

The chosen topic of this research is Impact of social media on the traditional marketing activities and the report contains the study and the detail about the research methods which are being used in conducting the research. The methods which are discussed are used for the collection of data, techniques of sampling, and techniques of data analysis and ethical issues which are taken into consideration. Also, at the last the recommendations are given for the future area of research. You check this social media essay for more information. Social media is an emerging trend in the world of business marketing and it is growing at a faster speed and it is also used in making the marketing strategy for the businesses. So, in the following report the impact of social media will be discussed on the Traditional marketing.

Task 1

1.1 Outline of Research project

Under this head of the research, the main outline of the research will be discussed that what are the main aims and objectives of this research and the analysis of the topic will be done.

1.1.1 Aims and Objectives

The main aim of the research report is to discuss the impact of Social media on the traditional methods which are used for marketing. Also the analysis will be done that how the social media has gained significance in this new world of marketing and it has also established itself as a very important tool for building Public Relations. Also the advantages and disadvantages of the social media have been considered for the discussion.

Objectives:

The main objectives of the research are given below:

• To get a clear view of Social media marketing.
• To identify how social media marketing is affecting traditional marketing.
• To gain understanding of both the marketing strategies.
• To find out the results that can be used by marketers to measure the effectiveness of the marketing strategy used by them.

Research Question:

The research will be conducted in order to find the answer of the following questions:

• Understand the meaning of Social Media Marketing.
• Determine the dissimilarities and similarities of the social media marketing and traditional marketing.
• What is the critical analysis of the key references on social media marketing and Traditional media marketing;
• Measure the impact of social media marketing on the traditional marketing.

1.2 Selection of Research Project

Social media has become a special and significant part of today’s business world and this contributed to the selection of the research topic. In the present world of globalisation, most of the companies are now adopting the social media marketing techniques and discontinuing the traditional marketing techniques. It has become essential for the businesses to go with the flow and to adopt marketing activities which are modern and updated and covers wider no of people. But social media marketing techniques have pros and cons and also have some effects on the traditional marketing techniques. This project research will contribute to the knowledge of readers and it will provide practical knowledge about the subject and the topic.

1.4 Specification of Research

The research paper will include the following:

• Introduction
• Objectives of research
• Literature Review
• Rationalization of the topic
• Methodology and techniques of sampling
• Techniques of Data analysis
• Data Analysis
• Recommendations and conclusions

The research will be conducted in order to have the understanding of social media marketing and to identify the interrelation between the social media marketing and traditional marketing. We can analyse from the study that nowadays social media plays more important role than traditional marketing. With the growth in technology, social media marketing is gaining more importance than Traditional marketing. The main motive of the research was to identify that how social media marketing is affecting traditional marketing and to gain understanding of both the marketing strategies and the interrelation between them. The research was conducted in September 2015- October 2015.

1.4.1 Research methodology

The hypothesis which will be looked into through this research work is that the social media marketing is highly influential and it affects the traditional mediums of marketing significantly. To justify the same a research will be done with the help of the research methodology which will be decided for this study. Primary as well as secondary research will be used for this research. In this project the secondary research is included in the literature review part of the research project. This study for the research is more of a kind of investigative and because of that the data will be collected from the primary sources and also from the secondary sources and the data collected is qualitative. Primary research has been done by carrying out the interviews from the people who are related to the social media and he related filed. The primary research will contain the discussion regarding the topic of the research and the answers will be extracted from the relevant sources.

1.4.2 Sampling Strategy of the Research

In this research the primary research will be carried out with few social media marketers through interviews. For the sampling of them a non-random sampling will be used in which the respondents will be identified through referral of the other marketers by a snowball sampling method. For this research a sample of 14 marketers were used.

1.5 Provide an appropriate plan and procedures for the agreed research specification

The research was conducted in September 2015- October 2015.The below table shows the project planning of this research.

The research will be conducted on the basis of given plan:

PARTICULARS	START DATE (Year 2015)	END DATE (Year 2015)	TIME DURATION (Days)
Problem Identification	5 September	7 September	3 days
Preparing the literature review	6  September	8 September	3 days
Analysis of gathered data	9 September	11 September	3 days
Research Gap	12 September	13 September	2 days
Aims and Objectives of Research	13 September	14 September	2 days
Primary data collection	15 September	19 September	5 days
Scrutiny of data	19 September	25 September	7 days
Explanation and Interpretation	25 September	30 September	7 days
Finding valid	30 September	4 October	5 days
Conclusion	4 October	5 October	2 days
Submission	6 October	6 October	1 day

Task 2

2.1 Match resources efficiently to the research question or hypothesis

Under this head the resources will be developed which are helpful in processing the research ahead. The research will be conducted through questionnaire which will give the results for the primary research. The data for the primary research will be gathered with the help of questionnaires. The questionnaires will be developed which will be semi structured and it will include open ended questions. The open needed questions will be used in gathering the qualitative data .There are some advantages of qualitative data, which are:

• The study is of investigative nature and the questions included are opening ended which collects the qualitative data.
• The questions and the data collected will be analysed to get into details often study and it also records the feelings and behaviours of the people.
• With the help of qualitative questionnaires, people can open up more and can give more elaborative answers and responses in which they can describe what they feel.

The questions included in the questionnaire are:

• What is your opinion on the significance of the social media in the present day marketing?
• What differences prevail between the social media marketing and the traditional media marketing?
• What are the similarities and dissimilarities between   social media marketing and traditional media marketing?
• What are the impacts of social media marketing on the traditional approach of marketing?

Please rate the influence of the social media marketing on modern day marketing strategies in a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being least influential and 5 being most  influential

2.2 Undertake the proposed research investigation in accordance with the agreed specification and procedures

Data collection process has been divided into two parts such as qualitative research and quantitative research. For the purpose of the quantitative research process a survey can be performed with the help of the questionnaire online as well as offline. After the survey get completed and submitted then with the help of the statistical analysis software we can handle and analyse the data in an effective manner. On the other hand for the qualitative research can be done with the help of the data mining from existing case studies.

For the purpose of the research we can use the quantitative research in order to collect the data in which a survey can be conducted in order to ask questions with the help of the questionnaire in respect to the research topic (Gambeson, 2011). For the purpose of this we can use a primary source for data collection with the help of the survey. Questionnaire can be prepared such as:

S. No.	Particulars	Strongly Agree	Agree	Neutral	Disagree	Strongly disagree
1.	What is your opinion on the significance of the social media in the present day marketing?
2.	What differences prevail between the social media marketing and the traditional media marketing?
3.	What are the similarities and dissimilarities between   social media marketing and traditional media marketing?
4.	What are the impacts of social media marketing on the traditional approach of marketing?
5.	Social media largely used for the purpose of purchasing the products

Table 1: Social media become more effective for the marketing activities.

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid 1	7.8	7.7	7.7	7.7
2	1.2	1.2	1.2	8.9
3	1.1	1.1	1.1	10.0
Total	10.1	10.0	10.0

Table 2: Social media is more effective than traditional methods of marketing

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid 1	2.3	2.3	2.3	2.3
2	3.9	3.9	3.9	6.1
3	0.9	0.9	0.9	7.0
4	0.9	0.9	0.9	7.9
9	2.1	2.0	2.0	10.0
Total	10.1	10.0	10.0

Table 3: Social media is preferred over traditional marketing activities

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid 1	2.5	2.5	2.5	2.5
2	4.1	4.1	4.1	6.5
3	0.9	0.9	0.9	7.4
9	2.6	2.5	2.5	10.0
Total	10.1	10.0	10.0

Table 4: Social media helps in saving time consumed in marketing activities

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid 1	3.7	3.6	3.6	3.6
2	1.8	1.8	1.8	5.4
3	0.6	0.6	0.6	6.0
4	0.5	0.5	0.5	6.5
9	3.5	3.5	3.5	10.0
Total	10.1	10.0	10.0

Table 5: Social media largely used for the purpose of purchasing the products

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid 1	1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
2	0.6	0.6	0.6	1.6
3	1.4	1.3	1.3	3.0
4	0.8	0.8	0.8	3.8
5	5.2	5.3	5.3	9.0
9	1.0	1.0	1.0	10.0
Total	10.1	10.0	10.0

2.3 Record and collate relevant data where appropriate

We can use secondary source in order to collect the data as it can provide reliable information such as:

Table 1.1 Rise in the use of social media.

As per the above diagram we can easily get to know that there is a subsequent increase in the use of the social media. From the past few years we can see an effective increasing rate in the internet usage. With the increase in the use of internet it can be realised that it can lead to increase in the social media marketing as it become an effective tool for the purpose of promoting the goods.

Table 1.2 Comparison between social media and others

As per the above diagram we can conclude that social media is an effective tool which can be preferred by the marketers over the traditional advertising. The traditional marketing gets affected with the social media as it can effectively use by the marketers. The use of internet also plays an important role in promoting the social media marketing as it can provide a large platform for the purpose of the marketing and it can get an effective response from the users. With the help of the above diagram it is clearly observed that social media become more effective than traditional advertising due to which traditional marketing get affected badly.

Table 1.3 Traditional modes of marketing Vs Social media marketing

As per the above diagram we can conclude that the traditional mode of marketing get highly affected by the use of social media marketing. The generation is highly engaged in using the internet and other mechanism in comparison to the newspapers and all traditional equipment’s. With the increase in the use of internet the social media marketing also become more and more effective in comparison to the traditional marketing activities.

Task 3

3.1 Use appropriate research evaluation techniques

Only qualitative data has been gathered for the purpose of completing this research project and the analysis of the qualitative data will be of qualitative nature the unstructured. The questionnaire is unstructured and of qualitative nature the content which has been collected from the respondents has been analysed. As discussed above we can collect the qualitative data for the purpose of the research to get the qualitative results. As per the above three tables we can get to know that with the increase in the internet usage the use of social media also get increased which lead to impact the traditional marketing activities.

3.2 Interpret and analyse the results in terms of the original research specification

As per the table no. 2 it can be observed that social media is the effective source of doing marketing activities. And with the help of the table no. 1 it can be observed that there is a significant increase in the usage of the internet over these years. With the increase in the internet usage the social media usage also get increased.

Companies effectively make use of the social media marketing as their communication gets enhanced with the use of it. As the time passes it become more effective as the communication get improved and make use of the traditional mode of marketing for the purpose of communication which get send through the social media. With the increase in the social media usage the traditional marketing activities get badly affected with it. There are effective benefits rendered by the social media marketing such as it effectively increase the brand attraction and recognition, along with this it enhances the experiences of the customers by providing higher level of the services and it effectively decrease the total marketing cost and shift and there is noted down that customer shift their base in order to get the information and knowledge about the new products and services they make use of the social media in an effective manner. There is effective increase in the social media among the customers which also become an effective measure or benefit of the social media marketing over the traditional mode of marketing. With this effect social media effectively replace the traditional mode of marketing and took advantage of the change in the demographic nature of their targeted customer’s base.

3.3 Recommendations and justification areas in order to further consideration

As per the findings it can observed that social media influence the traditional marketing activities in an effective manner. As per the discussion it is recommended that there is effective influence of social media over the traditional modes of marketing and with the effect of this it can easily replace it with the change in the demographic nature of the targeted customer’s base. The table no. 2 becomes best example for the companies which have not adopted this new age method of marketing, it is necessary to implement the same without delay With the use of social media organisations effectively perform their marketing activities in order to build strong network of supporters and helps in mouth publicity with the help of the existing customers and efficiently helps in getting growth at a rapid pace. It helps in building effective base of loyal customers in an effective manner.

Task 4

Introduction

In this report we make research over the chosen topic and this can be made in order to demonstrate the capability of conducting independent research and make effective analysis with the help of gathered information. The research gets made over the topic of impact of social media over the traditional method of marketing. In the research project effective methods get used for the purpose of data collection, sampling techniques, techniques of data analysis, ethical issues in context to the research and recommendations related to research project.

Research Objectives

Objectives in context to the research project are as follows such as:

• Need to analyse and understand the concept of social media marketing.
• Need to identify the differences and similarities among the traditional methods of marketing and social media marketing
• Identify and make critical analysis over the key references of the social media marketing and the traditional method of marketing.
• Evaluate the impact of social media marketing over the traditional media of marketing.

Methodology

The method of doing research is the effective mixture of primary as well as secondary research. In the form of the literature review secondary research gets executed where and the key references get reviewed critically create and develop effective understanding in context to the research title. The data which effectively gathered from the primary and secondary sources having qualitative nature as this research project must be in the form of investigation rather than deductive. As secondary research get performed as the literature review and in order to conduct primary research there should be interview conducted over some people who attain experience in the field of social media marketing in context to the research title and get some relevant responses from them in order to get information related to the research topic.

Literature Review

With the introduction of the social media marketing the companies effectively implement the approach as they effectively knows that social media plays a vital role in the marketing process of an organisation and it is more effective as compare to the traditional methods of marketing such as print media marketing, advertisements, etc. With the use of the social media marketing they effectively make strong base of their customers. As customers effectively seeks for the information in context to the brand, etc. The main benefit of this mode of marketing that it gets reached by the wide range of potential customers as compare to the traditional marketing. In the end it is concluded that social media effectively replace the traditional methods of marketing with the change in the demographic nature of targeted customers.

Primary Research

As per the discussion and the responses gathered it is observed that marketing with the help of the social media is the best and effective way of marketing in front of industry and get effective and strong support from the traditional modes of marketing. Below we shown some of the benefits rendered by the social media marketing such as:

• Better Search Engine Rankings
• Decreased Marketing Costs
• Higher Brand Authority
• Higher conversion rates
• Improved brand loyalty
• Improved Customer Insights
• Increased Brand Recognition
• Increased Inbound Traffic
• More Opportunities to Convert
• Effective Customer Experiences

Following is the ranking which has been given by the researchers for these factors:

Conclusion

With the help of the above discussion it is observed that there is effective influence of social media over the traditional modes of marketing. With the change in the nature of customer base, social media effectively replace the traditional media in order to perform their marketing activities in a significant manner. The companies who don’t adopt the advanced technology in order to perform their marketing activities they have to adopt new technology as soon as possible. With the use of social media organisations effectively perform their marketing activities in order to build strong network of supporters and helps in mouth publicity with the help of the existing customers and efficiently helps in getting growth at a rapid pace. It helps in building effective base of loyal customers in an effective manner.

References

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