Table of Contents

ABSTRACT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PREFACE

LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES

1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... ……..11

1.1 Background of the study ................................................................................ 11
1.2 The aims and Objective of the study .............................................................. 14
1.3 Research problem .......................................................................................... 14
1.4 Study Limitations ......................................................................................... 15
2. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................ ……..16
1.5 Social media .................................................................................................. 16
1.5.1 Facebook 17
1.5.2 Twitter 18
1.5.3 YouTube 18
1.5.4 LinkedIn 19
1.5.5 Flickr 19
1.6 The role of social media Networks ................................................................. 20
1.6.1 Marketing through Social Media ............................................................. 22
1.6.2 Social Media Sales Funnel adoption ....................................................... 24
1.7 The power and value of social networks ......................................................... 25
1.7.1 Sarnoff‟s Law ......................................................................................... 26
1.7.2 Metcalfe‟s Law......................................................................................... 27
1.7.3 Reed‟s Law ............................................................................................ 28
1.8 Factors to determine whether Social media impact brand awareness ................. 29
2.7 Online Branding .............................................................................................. 34
2.7.1 Challenges of online branding ............................................................... 37
2.7.2 Brand equity ........................................................................................... 38
2.8 Traditional advertising Channels ..................................................................... 40
3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ........................................................................... 43
3.1 Research Purpose .......................................................................................... 45
3.1.1 Descriptive study ..................................................................................... 45
3.1.2 Explanatory study ................................................................................... 45
3.1.3 Exploratory study..................................................................................... 46
3.2 Quantitative research ..................................................................................... 47
3.3 Qualitative research ........................................................................................ 48
3.4 Research design and analysis ......................................................................... 49
3.4.1 Case study 51
3.4.2 Data collection methods ............................................................................ 53
3.4.3 Sampling 55
4 RESEARCH FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS .......................................................... 59
4.1 Itronic business portfolio and E-commerce strategy......................................... 59
4.2 Social media strategy and branding .................................................................. 61
5 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................... 68
5.1 Research Limitation......................................................................................... 69
5.2 Recommendation............................................................................................. 70
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................. 71
APENDIX 1 ................................................................................................................ 77