1

PROJECT REPORT
ON
THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA
MARKETING ON ONLINE CONSUMERS OF
DELHI/NCR

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for

completion of Degree
Bachelor of Business administration

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY:

Mr. AYUSHMAAN KOUL
STUDENT CODE – 785

JAMIA MILIA ISLAMIA , NEW DELHI

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DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this Project Report entitled “THE IMPACT

OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING ON ONLINE
CONSUMERS OF DELHI/NCR”, submitted by me to the
JAMIA MILIA ISLAMIA , NEW DELHI, is a bonafide work
undertaken by me and it is not submitted to any other University
or Institution for the award of any degree diploma/certificate or
published any time before.

_________________
signature of student

NAME: AYUSHMAAN
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CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the project report entitled “THE IMPACT

OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING ON ONLINE
CONSUMERS OF DELHI/NCR” done by SUMIT is an
authentic work carried out by her at EDITWORKS SCHOOL OF
MASS COMMUNICATION, NOIDA under my guidance. The
matter embodied in this project work has not been submitted
earlier for the award of any degree or diploma to the best of my
knowledge and belief.

_______________________
Signature of the Supervisor

NAME: VIKAS SHISHODIA

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my sincere gratitude towards providing

me this great opportunity to work and learn through the Seminar
program.

I am grateful to my guide for imparting constant attention, useful

suggestions, expert guidance and valuable suggestions during the
course of this project. I would like to thank all the faculty
members of JAMIA MILIA ISLAMIA, NEW DELHI for their
support and encouragement.

I also express my sincere indebtedness and gratitude to my

parents and my friends who have encouraged and inspired me
constantly to complete the Seminar work

AYUSHMAAN KOUL

TABLE OF CONTENTS
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S.No. Particulars PageNo.

1 Introduction
1.1Meaning
1.2Purposeofthe Study
1.3 Context of the Study
1.4Significanceof the Study
1.5 Theoretical Framework
1.6 Summary
2 Literature Review
3 Research Methods and Procedures
3.1 Objectives of the project
3.2Purposeofthe Study
3.3 Research Design
3.4 Data Collection
3.5 Instruments Used
3.6 Questionnaire development and Pre-testing
3.7 Data Analysis
3.8 Limitations of the study
4 Data Analysis and Findings
4.1 Results of Research Questions
4.2 Summary of research
5 Conclusions and Recommendations
5.1 Summary of the findings
5.2 Recommendations
6 References
7 Appendix
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ABSTRACT

Social media marketing refers to the process of gaining website traffic or attention

through social media sites. Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts

to create content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it with

their social networks. A corporate message spreads from user to user and presumably

resonates because it appears to come from a trusted, third-party source, as opposed to

the brand or company itself.Hence, this form of marketing is driven by word-of-

mouth, meaning it results in earned media rather than paid media.

Social media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with internet

access. Increased communication for organizations fosters brand awareness and often,

improved customer service. Additionally, social media serves as a relatively

inexpensive platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns.

This project was undertaken with a view to understand the trends in the behavior of

customer towards social media marketing and their satisfaction level with reference to

changing trends in buying behavior of consumers. The aim was to understand the

overall influence that social media tools are able to put in the consumers mind.

Marketing professionals and scholars are witnessing the emergence of social media as

a completely new communication tool for directing their marketing messages.

Consequently, during the past few years many books and articles have been published

on the subject, although few authors have investigated this phenomenon in the context

of its epoch. Thus, the study explores the effectiveness of social media marketing as a

marketing tool.
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CHAPTER 1:

INTRODUCTION
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1.1 Meaning

Due to the popularization of the Internet and the development of Web 2.0 technologies,

web applications such as MySpace, Twitter or Facebook have become relevant social

phenomena over the past few years. Every day, millions of people use the Internet for

communication, collaboration, sharing information, and entertainment purposes.

Social media can be defined as “the democratization of content and the shift in the role

people play in the process of reading and disseminating information and thus creating

and sharing content.

Social media allows the user to participate in the creation of the content; it is open to

comments and criticism; it offers easy to access information; it facilitates conversation

and community formation; and it links to other websites, posts, and articles. In other

words, it provides connectedness.

Basically, social media is software which helps people to exchange content with others

online. Blogs, forums, social networks are examples of different social media.

For marketers, whose predominant purpose is the influence of customers to their

products, the easy creation of consumer-influencers is a vital benefit that can be reaped

from the integration of social media in their campaigns. Moreover, many marketing

experts agree that word-of-mouth (WOM) is an effective element of promotion. In the

Web 2.0 era, the WOM activity can be easily facilitated through the sharing of viral

videos, email or peer reviews on Facebook.

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Social media classification

Social media as earlier described is an online communication platform that allows its

members to share, collect and disseminate content, ideas, and information about the

topic of their choice. Social media can be classified into the following major categories:

1. Blogs

A blog is a type of content management system (CMS) that makes it easy for anyone

to publish short articles called posts. They are wide open and ready to interact with all

kinds of people. Blogs let customers know what your business is about, and they create

a space for customers to tell you exactly what they are thinking about. Every company

with a website should have a blog that speaks to its current and potential customers as

real people. Blogs are not the right place for corporate-speak press releases; they should

be conversational in tone. Blogs also enable executives to improve the transparency of

their companies. Listening to customers’ blogs is an important part of growing a

business, because it gives your business a window into what the customers think about

the company. Twitter is a micro blog, which is a form of blogging that limits the size

of each post; Twitter updates can contain only 140 characters. Twitter was originally

intended as a way for people to answer the question “What are you doing?” Although

some people post real-time updates about their lives, it can be very useful for marketers

to tweet about new content, offers, and news, as well as respond to questions from other

users. Most companies should be on Twitter; it is easy, cost-effective, requires very

little investment of time, and can quickly prove worthwhile in increased buzz, sales,

and consumer insight.

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2. Content communities

The main objective of content communities is the sharing of media content between

users. Content communities exist for a wide range of different media types, including

text, photos, videos and PowerPoint presentations. The multimedia content that is

created is called User Generated Content (UGC). YouTube is an example of a content

community. It is a video sharing service. The principle of YouTube is really simple;

you upload videos and share with other people. YouTube enables you to upload a video

and then, put the URL as a link on your website to send people to the video. You can

also use the “embedding” code to make the video appear on your own website or blog.

Doing so is free and it will make your site look very professional. If you also allow

people to embed your video you will create viral marketing and people will help you

spread the word. Signing up to YouTube you get your own YouTube channel on which

you can constantly update people interested in your business. Watching a video online

is a large commitment of attention, because of this, shorter is better. In addition your

videos must be very engaging. You must strive to keep your audience engaged the entire

time they are watching your videos. YouTubers are very sensitive to product pitches,

so the contribution also has to be as noncommercial as possible.

3.Social networking sites

Social networking sites are applications that enable users to connect with each other.

Users create personal information profiles, invite friends and colleagues to have access

to those profiles, and send e-mails and instant messages to each other. These personal

profiles can include any type of information, such as photos, video, audio files, and

blogs. Social networking sites are a hot topic for marketers right now, as they present a

number of opportunities for interacting with customers, including via plug-in

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applications, groups and fan pages. The building blocks of a social network are user

pages, known as profiles. The profile page includes different information about the

person. Profiles are for real people, and companies use specific pages or groups for their

company information. Customizing the different pages and profiles is a good way of

reflecting your personality and brand.

Facebook is an example of a social networking site. According to Clapperton (2009, p.

59) Facebook was possibly the site that got social networking moving. It has more or

less coincided with the social media revolution and is today the largest social network

site to date in terms of numbers. It also has the most features useful to the social media

marketers. Facebook began as an academic idea which intended to keep alumni of a

college in touch with each other when they did not have the time to stay in touch

properly. It soon spread beyond academia as people without an email address ending

with “.edu” could in 2006 create their own accounts. Facebook allows businesses to

create public profiles that have many of the same features as a user’s profile. Users can

connect with a page and become fans. Pages can have public messaging walls, events,

photos, and custom applications. Essentially Facebook is one of the more complex

social networking environments, but potentially very rewarding when businesses have

its strengths and weaknesses in mind. It is therefore important for businesses to not

underestimate the time and effort it is going to take to supervise the profile and pull

together an online community.

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4.User appraisal Sites

Yet another category is sites that serve as a platform for appraisals of various products

and services. Though it is possible for consumers to express their view in any of the

medium, user appraisal sites mainly deal with such reviews. Sites like

www.mouthshut.com, www.pagalguy.com are examples of such websites. These

websites serve as a starting point of consumer’s decision making model for gathering

information about products or services they are contemplating of buying. As such these

sites serve as important word of mouth for consumers and a source of expressing post

purchase feedback. A typical example of horizontal marketing or what is known as C2C

marketing.

There are two benefits of social media that are important to businesses, they include:

❖ Cost reduction by decreasing staff time

❖ Increase of probability of revenue generation

Social media enables companies to:

❖ Share their expertise and knowledge

❖ Tap into the wisdom of their consumers

❖ Enables customers helping customers

❖ Engages prospects through customer evangelism

Thus the benefits of social media include: brand reach and awareness, consumer

interactions through transactions, referrals and reputation management.

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Social media marketing

Social media marketing consists of the attempt to use social media to persuade

consumers that one's company, products and/or services are worthwhile. Social media

marketing is marketing using online communities, social networks, blog marketing and

more.Lazer and Kelly’s (1973) define social marketing as "concerned with the

application of marketing knowledge, concepts, and techniques to enhance social as well

as economic ends. It is also concerned with the analysis of the social consequences of

marketing policies, decisions and activities."

Social media marketing is not merely about hitting thefront-page of Twitter or any other

social news website. It is a strategic and methodical process to establish the company’s

influence, reputation and brand within communities of potential customers, readers or

supporters.

Benefits of social media marketing:

Significantly different from conventional marketing strategies, Social Media Marketing

(SMM) offers three distinct advantages. One, it provides a window to marketers to not

only present products / services to customers but also to listen to customers’ grievances

and suggestions. Two, it makes it easy for marketers to identify various peer groups or

influencers among various groups, who in turn can become brand evangelist and help

in organic growth of a brand. And, three, all this is done at nearly zero cost (as compared

to conventional customer outreach programs) as most of the social networking sites are

free.

Social media marketing helps in:

✓ Generating exposure to businesses

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✓ Increasing traffic/subscribers

✓ Building new business partnerships

✓ Rise in search engine rankings

✓ Generating qualified leads due to better lead generation efforts

✓ Selling more products and services

✓ Reduction in overall marketing expenses

Companies are investing increasingly in SMM to get in touch with their customers.

They are indulging in constant interaction with their prospects in order to understand

their needs and hence make products better. It’s the best way to learn from your

customers about their needs and your own shortcomings.

However, SMM is a very personalized way of advertising and promotions can be

targeted only to particular groups which are interested in a particular domain, quite

unlike conventional advertising.

Relevance of Social Media in Marketing

The role of social media in marketing is to use it as a communication tool that makes

the companies accessible to those interested in their product and makes them visible to

those that don't know their product. It should be used as a tool that creates a personality

behind their brand and creates relationships that they otherwise may never gain. This

creates not only repeat-buyers, but customer loyalty. Fact is social media is so

diversified that it can be used in whatever way best suits the interest and the needs of

the business.

According to 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report 2010, a majority of

marketers (56%) are using social media for 6 hours or more each week, and nearly one
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in three invest 11 or more hours weekly. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs were

the top four social media tools used by marketers, in order. A significant 81% of

marketers plan on increasing their use of blogs. A majority of the marketers are

employing social media for marketing purposes and small businesses were slightly

more likely to use social media. 76% of marketers are spending at least 4 hours each

week on their social media marketing efforts.

Role of social media in marketing

Social media is now increasingly becoming an ingrained aspect of political campaigns,

national defense strategies, public policy, public relations, brand management and even

intra company communication.

Since the major task of marketing as tool used to inform consumers about the

company’s products, who they are and what they offer, social marketing plays an

important role in marketing.

• Social media can be used to provide an identity about the companies and the

products or services that they offer.

• Social media helps in creating relationships with people who might not

otherwise know about the products or service or what the companies represent.

• Social media makes companies "real" to consumers. If they want people to

follow them they need not just talk about the latest product news, but share their

personality with them.

• Social media can be used to associate themselves with their peers that may be

serving the same target market.

• Social media can be used to communicate and provide the interaction that

consumers look for.

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1.2 Purpose of study

The rationale behind this study is that social media results in increased communication

for organizations, fosters brand awareness and often, improved customer service.

Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations

to implement marketing campaigns. We conducted this project to study the impact such

social media marketing has on the online consumers of Delhi and NCR and to judge the

influence of these new techniques on social media marketing.

1.3 Context of study

Marketing professionals and scholars are witnessing the emergence of social media as

a completely new communication tool for directing their marketing messages.

Consequently, during the past few years many books and articles have been published

on the subject, although few authors have investigated this phenomenon in the context

of its epoch. Thus, the study explores the impact of social media marketing on online

consumers situated in Delhi and NCR.

1.4 Significance of study

Although social media is a recent arsenal to the field of business marketing, it’s

potential

As a marketing tool cannot be overlooked. However, further development in its practice

And usage is required in order to increase corporate adoption. Also, a study into the

measurement of social media’s effectiveness and its return on investment must also be

undertaken. Only then can the real value of social media to an enterprise be ascertained.

Nonetheless, social media is a powerful tool for any organization moving in the Web

2.0
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space and beyond.

1.5 Theoretical framework

Social media is currently an evolving ‘phenomena’ in business marketing. Enlightened

marketers are beginning to drive the use of social media as a component in their

marketing strategy and campaigns to reach out to customers and fans. Among the sub

disciplines of marketing that may utilize social media include promotions, marketing

intelligence, sentiments research, public relations, marketing communications and

product and customer management.

1.6 Summary

Our study has shown that the use of social media can help companies strengthen

theircorporate identity, build confidence for the company as well as create

relationships.Companies want to be present where consumers are today, to monitor

what is being said about them and their competitors and social media enables them to

do that. Social media can also help companies identify their fans and critics. The use of

social media is a cost effective way to become global and create reach.
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CHAPTER 2:

LITERATURE REVIEW
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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

According to SitaramAsur in his research paper- Predicting the future of social media,

he demonstrates how social media content can be used to predict real-world outcomes.

In particular, he uses the chatter from Twitter.com to forecast box-office revenues for

movies. He shows that a simple model built from the rate at which tweets are created

about particular topics can outperform market-based predictors.

According to QuyHuy and Andrew Shipilov (2012), many organizations have started

using social media tools internally to interact with their employees. A number of

companies, including Best Buy and Dell, have succeeded in using social media

internally to meet important objectives, such as reducing their costs, increasing

revenues or stimulating innovation. However, many companies have either stayed away

from using social media tools internally or failed to see beneficial results from their use

within their organization. In a 2010 survey they conducted of 1,060 global executives,

only about 50% said that their companies had adopted social media initiatives within

their organizations; of those, about 60% reported that social media had positive effects

on their company’s internal communications.

According to W. Glynn Mangoldand David J. Faulds social media is a hybrid element

of the promotion mixes because in a traditional sense it enables companies to talk to

their customers, while in a nontraditional sense it enables customers to talk directly to

one another. The content, timing, and frequency of the social media-based

conversations occurring between consumers are outside managers’ direct control. This

stands in contrast to the traditional integrated marketing communications paradigm

whereby a high degree of control is present. Therefore, managers must learn to shape
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consumer discussions in a manner that is consistent with the organization’s mission and

performance goals.

According to Godin (1999), people are increasingly becoming digitally connected to

each other via social networks and online activities. With current rate of adoption, the

online population will represent a significant, easily-targeted market for businesses. By

investing in getting connected with their online market and customers now, companies

will have the edge and advantage on competitors in the future. Customers’ trust and

rapport built over time are durable business assets that are hard to encroach on by

competitors.

Trusovetal(2009), in a research on the effect of word of mouth (WOM) on social

networks’ sign-up, found that the elasticity of WOM referrals is 20 and 30 times higher

than that of marketing events and media publicity, respectively. Thus, this study is of

the opinion that a major role of social media in marketing practices (if adopted) must

be objectively related to the creation of influencers within communities. For marketers,

whose predominant purpose is the influence of customers to their products, the easy

creation of consumer-influencers is a vital benefit that can be reaped from the

integration of social media in their campaigns. Moreover, many marketing experts

agree that word-of-mouth is an effective element of promotion. In the Web 2.0 era, the

WOM activity can be easily facilitated through the sharing of viral videos, email or peer

reviews on Facebook.

According to Mangold&Fauld, (2009) a unique role of social media is that customers

can use it to communicate to one another. This has resulted in that a person has the tools

to tell 10 million people if they are dissatisfied or satisfied. In a sense, this role of social

media – enabling customers to talk to one another – is an extension of traditional word-

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of-mouth communication. The question for managers becomes; “how can this power

be harnessed for the benefit of the organization?” While companies cannot directly

control consumer-to-consumer messages, the do have the ability to influence the

conversations that consumers have with one another.

According to Kaplan&Haenlein, (2010), social media allow firms to engage in timely

and direct end-consumer contact at fairly low cost and higher levels of efficiency than

can be achieved with more traditional communication tools. This makes social media

not only relevant for large multinational firms, but also for small and medium sized

companies, and even nonprofit and governmental agencies. One may be wondering

what the advantage is of having a presence on a social networking site like Facebook

when the business already has a regular website. The answer is reach. You want your

message and story to reach as many people as possible. Tomaximize your reach, you

need to have a presence where people are hanging out and increasingly they are hanging

out on social networking sites.

Scoble& Israel (2006) predict, in the future, a business that does not blog will be

viewed as suspicious by the public. As a result of its popularity among practitioners,

numerous business books and whitepapers have been published on social media

marketing. Nevertheless, despite the growing popularity of its practice, academic

research on the topic is still limited. Social media has been broadly used for multiple

marketing and communication purposes by private and public organizations.

Companies appear to be expending considerable resources on social media campaigns

and increasing their use of this new medium to attract customers, indicating that they

are finding value in the practice.

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RyanandJones (2009) describe Social Media as “the umbrella term for web-based

software and services that allow users to come together online and exchange, discuss,

communicate and participate in any form of social interaction. This interaction can

encompass text, audio, images, video and other media, individually or in any

combination. It can involve the generation of new content; the recommendation of and

sharing of existing content; reviewing and rating products, services and brands;

discussing the hot topics of the day; pursuing hobbies, interests and passions; sharing

experience and expertise – in fact, almost anything that can be distributed and shared

through digital channels is fair game.”

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CHAPTER 3:

RESEARCH METHODS

AND PROCEDURES
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CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODS AND

PROCEDURES

3.1 Objectives of the project

i. To find out the influence of social media marketing on consumers.

ii. To study various new trends in social media marketing.

iii. To judge the impact of new techniques of social media marketing.

iv. To study the increasing reliance of business in Delhi/NCR on social

media marketing tools.

3.2 Purpose of Study

The rationale behind this study is that social media results in increased communication

for organizations, fosters brand awareness and often, improved customer service.

Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations

to implement marketing campaigns. We conducted this study to study the impact such

social media marketing has on the online consumers of Delhi and NCR.

3.3 Research Design

A Research Design is a frame work or blue print for conducting the marketing research

project. It details the procedures necessary for obtaining the information needed to

structure or solve marketing research problems. This study is a descriptive study. For

the purpose of present study a related sample of population is selected on basis of

random sampling. The respondents are regular users of social media networking sites.

3.4 Data Collection

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In order to accomplish the objective of the study both- primary and secondary data was

collected.

i. Primary Data

It is collected through questionnaire, and analysis is done with the SPSS software and

MSExcel. The data was collected directly from the respondents with the help of a

structured questionnaire.

ii. Secondary Data

These are collected through magazines, journals, websites, company database, and

company reports.

3.5 Instruments used

This study was carried out through a set of self-administered questionnaires. A sample

questionnaire is attached in Appendix.

3.6 Questionnaire Development and Pretesting

The questionnaire was developed with the help of an application called “Google Docs”.

The questions were developed keeping in mind the purpose and objective of the study.

The language of the questions was kept simple and easy so that there would be no

problem in understanding them. The questionnaire was kept short and simple so that

the respondents could fill it in a short span of time.

Before the survey was actually filled it was tested on seven respondents. This was done

to see that if the respondents were facing any difficulty in understanding the questions

and also to know that they understood on how to answer the questions.
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3.7 Data Analysis

Data Analysis is done using Microsoft Excel and SPSS 17.0 for Windows. SPSS is a

computer program used for survey authoring and deployment, data mining, text

analytics, statistical analysis.

3.8 Limitations of the Study

1. The present study is mainly focused in New Delhi and NCR. Since, India is a land of

diversity so the sample results may not be a representative of entire population. Further

the research needs to cover diverse regions.

2. It is not possible to study the entire universe due to lack of time & resources. So, the

study is based only on the information obtained from few respondents.

3. All the respondents might not give the accurate information because there is lot of

difference in what they say and what they actually feel.

4. Some respondents might not give the correct information due to their lack of interest

and shortage of time.

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CHAPTER 4: DATA

ANALYSIS AND

FINDINGS

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

Data Analysis is done using Microsoft Excel and SPSS 17.0 for Windows.
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SPSS is a computer program used for survey authoring and deployment, data mining, text

analytics, statistical analysis.

4.1 Results of research questions

FIGURE 1 Bar graph showing how many people like to shop online.

Sales

YES
NO

Interpretation:

The above shown graph states that 83% of the respondents like to shop online

whereasrest don’t like to shop online. Online shopping has become a new trend.

FIGURE 2 Graph showing the number of hours people spend in a day on social

networking sites.
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Interpretation:

We can infer that most people like to spend a lot of time on the internet. More than 2

hours are spent by almost 60% of the respondents.

FIGURE 3 Pie chart showing the percentage of people who actually get influenced

by the online marketing.

Interpretation:

As we can see about 80% of the respondents get influenced by the advertisements

they see on the internet indicting that social marketing is an upcoming trend.
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FIGURE 4 Graph showing the common social media marketing sites used.

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
Social Networking Blogs Youtube Google+ Forums
Sites
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Interpretation:

The above graph shows social networking sites like Facebook, twitter are mostly used

social media marketing sites which online sellers should tap. YouTube is also used but

Google+ and forums are least visited social media states from all as they are not much

popular and user friendly as stated by respondents.

FIGURE 5 Bar graph of the objective that consumers think social media tools

are able to accomplish best

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Interpretation:

Majority of the users of social media tools feel that a major advantage of social media

marketing is that people become aware of the brand and thus help in brand recall and

recognition eventually helping the corporates to build up market share and generate

revenue. The main objective of marketing via social media is that the product should

not be forgotten by the customers.

FIGURE 6 Graph Showing the the uses of social media marketing.

50

45

40

35

30

25

20

15

10

0
Press Releases Information Advertising Webminars Sponsorships Viral Marketing
disbursement
 33

Interpretation:

The figure above shows that the respondents feel that the main use of social media

marketing sites is advertising then press releases and sponsorships, webinars are least

uses of social media sites.

FIGURE 7 Graph showing the benefits that you receive while spending time on

socialmedia sites.

90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Interpretation:

The above graph shows that the main benefit of the social media sites are

Entertainment, Gain knowledge about new products and increasing social circle as
 34

stated by respondents. All other options are not much of the benefits according to

respondents.
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FIGURE 8 Bar graph describing the usual reaction of people on seeing pop up

advertisements while using social media sites.

Interpretation:

Most people prefer to just overlook these pop up advertisements. However 10% of the

respondents actually make an effort to read all the advertisements. Over 20% of the

people go ahead in reading more about the advertisement in case it is of interest to

them.
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FIGURE 9 Pie chart describing if the respondents actually end up buying the

products whose advertisements they see on social media sites.

Interpretation

Almost half the people never actually order the products that they see on social media

sites as not everything published on advertisements on social media sites is termed as

trustworthy by them. However 25% people often end up buying the products thus

indicating that online marketing is a good platform for promotion of products and

services.
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FIGURE 10 Graph representing which social media sites require more

marketing.

31
28

18

13
10

Facebook Twitter Linked-In Blogs Google+

Interpretation:

According to respondents blogs and Google+ requires more marketing as compared to

other social media sites like Facebook, twitter and linked in. As Google+ is not much

popular around people that’s why more marketing is required for it.
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TABLE 1.

Do you get influenced by online marketing? * Do you trust everything that

is published over the web? Crosstabulation

Count

Do you trust everything that

is published over the web?

Yes No Total

Do you get influenced Yes 20 64 84

by online marketing? No 0 16 16

Total 20 80 100

Interpretation:

Majority of the people do not trust all that is published over the web. A consumer needs

to be vigilant while using social media tools and should not trust everything blindly.

Since there are people who do not trust everything on the web there exist people who

do not get affected by the online marketing.

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TABLE 2 Table describing the cross tabulation of males and females

 40

Do you eventually end up buying products of whose advertisements you see

on social media sites? * Age bracket * Gender Crosstabulation

Count

Age bracket

Betwe

en 20 Betwee

Below and n 30

20year 30year and Above

Gender s s 40years 40years Total

Male Do you Yes 0 6 0 0 6

eventually end No 0 8 12 6 26
up buying
Often 2 0 0 7 9
products of
Seldo 0 13 0 0 13
whose
m
advertisements

you see on social

media sites?

Total 2 27 12 13 54

Femal Do you Yes 0 7 0 0 7

e eventually end No 0 17 6 0 23
up buying Often 8 0 0 7 15
 41

products of Seldo 0 0 1 0 1

whose m

advertisements

you see on social

media sites?

Total 8 24 7 7 46

TABLE 3 Table depicting the difference in thinking of males and females on how

effective social media tools are according them.

Group Statistics

Gender N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

How effective do you Male 54 3.52 .693 .094

think social media tools Female 46 3.96 .631 .093

are for marketing?

Please rate your

preference on a scale of

1-5 (1 being totally Not

effective and 5 being

Very Effective) (Please

tick one)
 42

4.2 Summary of Research

i. 75% of the people do not believe everything that is published over the

internet.

ii. Almost 80% of the people get highly influenced by the online advertising.

iii. Majority of the respondents spend atleast 3 hours on the social media sites.

iv. Females have more chance of eventually ordering a product whose

advertisement they see on the social media sites.

v. Linked-In and Facebook are popular social media marketing sites.

vi. People would want to know more about Google+ as it not so user friendly.

vii. Advertising is the most popular use of social media marketing.

viii. According to the respondents they gain knowledge about new products and

trends in the market while using the social media tools.

ix. 45% of the people never end up buying the products which means that there

is still a lot of potential customers who need to be lured

 43

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS

AND RECOMMENDATIONS
 44

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS

5.1 Summary of the findings

Advertising is the most popular use of social media marketing. On seeing pop ups on

social media sites it is seldom that people check it in case it seems of interest to them.

Most of the respondents are vigilant and do not trust everything that is published over

the web. Even though social media marketing plays an important role in influencing

and targeting consumers still it is not often that people end up buying products whose

advertisements they see published on the social media sites. Females have more

chance of eventually ordering a product whose advertisement they see on the social

media sites. According to the respondents they gain knowledge about new products

and trends in the market while spending time on these social media sites. The target

audience of social media marketing are mostly the youth or the people in the age

bracket of below 30 years as they are the people who are willing to try out new

products and services.

 45

5.2 Recommendations

i. People should be made aware of social media tools such as Google+ and the ease of

advertising on blogs.

ii. Consumers should not blindly trust everything that is published on the internet.

iii. Better schemes should be available to consumers for shopping online.

iv. Buyers should be assured of the safety of transactions while buying the products

over the web.

v. The target audience of social media marketing is mostly the youth thus more variety

and trendy products may be introduced.

 46

CHAPTER 6:REFERENCES

• Trattner, C., Kappe, F.: Social Stream Marketing on Facebook: A Case Study.

International Journal of Social and Humanistic Computing (IJSHC), 2012.

• Kaplan,M.(2010)."Usersoftheworld,unite!ThechallengesandopportunitiesofSoci

alMedia".Business Horizons53(1):59–68.

• Susarla, A., Oh, J., & Tan, Y. (2012). Influentials or Susceptibles? Analyzing

Cascades of Word-of-Mouth Conversations in Online Social Networks. SSRN.

Retrieved from: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1984690

• Cohen Heidi (2012, September 12). 7 categories of social media content

Retrieved from http://heidicohen.com/infographic-social-media-marketing-

choose-the-right-content-for-the-job/

• W. Glynn Mangold., David J. Faulds. (2009, July1). Social media : The new

hybrid element of promotion mix Retrieved from

http://www.journals.elsevier.com/business-horizons/most-downloaded-articles/

Websites cited

• http://heidicohen.com/social-media-marketing

• http://itu.dk/~rkva/2011-Spring-EB22/readings/Mangold-SocialMedia
 47

APPENDIX

Questionnaire

1. Do you like shopping online?

• Yes

• No

2. How many hours do you spend in a day on social networking sites?

• Less than one hour

• 1-2hours

• 2-3hours

• More than 3hours

3. Do you get influenced by online marketing?

• Yes

• No

4. What are the common social media marketing platforms you use? (multiple

choice)

• Social networking sites

• Blogs

• YouTube
 48

• Google+

• Forums

5. Select the objective that you think social media marketing tools are able to

accomplish “best”:

• Improving customer relationships.

• Complaints redressal

• Building market share.

• Building brand awareness.

• Inducing product trial.

• Building awareness of and involvement in charitable or civic

activities.

• Increasing awareness of specific issues (energy conservation,

environmental protection, and the like).

6. Upto what extent are the uses of social media marketing? (Multiple choice)

▪ Press releases

▪ Information disbursement

▪ Advertising

▪ Webinars

▪ Sponsorships

▪ Event marketing

▪ All of the above

7. Do you trust everything that is published over the web?

 49

• Yes

• No

8. Ratethefollowingon the level of satisfactionthatyou receive while spending time

on social media tools: (1 being highlysatisfied)

• Increasing social circle

• Receive feedback about products in the market from existing

customers/users

• Gain knowledge about new products/jobs/upcoming trends in the market

• Entertainment

• Showcasing one’s talent or satisfying ego need

9. On seeing a pop up advertisement what is your usual reaction?

• Close the pop up

• Read the advertisement then close the advertisement

• Click on the advertisement to know further about it

• Read the advertisement and if found interesting then click on it to know further

information.

10.Which are the social media tools where you would want to see more advertisements

on? (Multiple choice)

• Twitter

• Facebook

• Blogs
 50

• YouTube

• Google+

11. Do you eventually end up buying products of whose advertisements you see on

social media sites?

• Yes

• No

• Often

• Seldom

12. Which are the social media marketing tools are you very well aware of? (Multiple

choice)

• Facebook

• Blogs

• Link In

• Twitter

• Forums

• Search engines

Gender:

o Male

o Female

Name:

Age:
 51

o Below 20 yrs

o 20-30 yrs

o 30-40 yrs

o Above 40 yrs

Qualification:

• 10th

• 12th

• Graduate

• Post Graduate

• Diploma

Employment:

• Student

• Private Sector

• Public Sector

• Self Employed

• Unemployed