A Summer Internship Project

On

“Role of digital marketing for Start-up

Business during covid -19
Pandemic in India”

Submitted by:

Riddhi Joshi (120093)

Under the Guidance of

Dr. Jay Desai

In the partial fulfilment of the Requirement of the award of the degree of

Master of Business Administration (MBA)

Offered By:

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 DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this Project Report titled “Role of digital marketing for
Start-up Business during covid -19 Pandemic in India” is submitted to B.
K. School of Professional and Management Studies, Gujarat University,
is a record of original work done by me under the guidance of my industry
mentor Mr. Arihant Bakshi and my faculty mentor Dr. Jay Desai. The
information and data given in the report is authentic to the best of my
knowledge. This project report is not submitted to any other university or
institution for the award of any degree, diploma or fellowship or published
any time before.

Date: Riddhi Joshi (120093)

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

“Summer Internship Project (SIP)” is one of the Project of M.B.A.

Programme. I am much obliged to express my deep gratitude to all the
personalities who gave their cooperation and guidance for this project. This report
is impossible without the cooperation of certain people.

I would like to thank Dr. Jay Desai for his support as my on-campus
mentor of the summer internship project and Mr. Arihant Bakshi
(Founder and CEO, Insellers) for his constant support during my internship at
Insellers.

I would also like to thank my colleagues (Malay S., Aakruti Patodia,

Harveen Kaur) for being with me and supporting me during the internship.

Thank You.

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 CERTIFICATE

This is certifying that Riddhi Joshi, student of Full Time MBA (2020-22 Batch)
at B. K. School of Professional and Management Studies, Gujarat University,
Ahmedabad has prepared a Summer Internship Report on “Role of digital
marketing for Start-up Business during covid -19 Pandemic in India” in
partial fulfilment of two-year full-time MBA program of Gujarat University. This
project work has been undertaken the guidance of Dr. Jay Desai, Professor at B.
K. School of Professional and Management Studies, Gujarat University,
Ahmedabad and found satisfactory.

Date: 23th August 2021 Dr. Jay Desai

Place: Ahmedabad Assistant Professor
BKSPMS, Gujarat University

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 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Report has been prepared with the objective to study “Role of digital
marketing for Business Start-up during covid -19 Pandemic in India”

It Includes What are the perceptions and preferences towards digital marketing.
It also includes benefits and drawbacks of digital marketing. It has detailed
analysis of how brands focused on digital marketing in this pandemic.

The Reports also contains Products and services offered by Insellers. And my
role as a social media marketing intern at Insellers Counsaltancy Services.

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 CONTENT

Sr. no. Particulars Page No

1 DECLARATION 2

2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 3

3 INTERNSHIP CERTIFICATE BY COMPANY 4

4 CERTIFICATE BY MENTOR 5

5 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 6

6 CONTENT 7

7 ABOUT THE COMPANY 8

8 SERVICES PROVIDED BY THE 8

COMPANY

9 MY ROLE AS AN INTERN 14

INTRODUCTION ABOUT DIGITAL

10 MARKETING AND IT’S USAGE 11

11 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 22

12 DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION 24

13 DISCUSSION 31

14 CONCLUSIONS 39

15 REFERENCES 40

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 ABOUT INSELLERS CONSULTANCY SERVICES

Insellers Consultancy Services was

established by Mr. Arihant Bakshi
on April 2021. They share your
business story with the world and
help their clients optimize their
sales and grow their revenues.
They are team of MBAs, Engineers,
CAs, LLBs, they are dreamers much
like us that are trying to leave a
mark in this world.

Services provides by Insellers

Consultancy Services:
• Founder Insights: What is
someone’s inspiration behind
leaving a decent job or a settled
life and start their own
business? What value do they
see which others don’t? Only
the founders of the companies
can tell. We speak with them
and try to see things from their
perspective.

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• Consulting and Reasearching:
A lot of work goes into building
a business from the ground up.
Sometimes some things are
either out of your expertise or
are way too time-consuming to
be focused upon. That’s the part
where we focus and help you
with insights
• Growth Stories: Stories, what
do stories have to do with
business? Well, every company
has a beginning and then twists
in the tale that leads them to a
place where they can finally
make a large impact as they
always dreamed. We try to
uncover the factors and ways by
which these stories came into
fruition.
• Business Workshop: Great
teams have great leaders and
even greater players but once in
a while even greatness needs a
little guidance. We with our
connections help companies
reach out to the correct guidance
sources.

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 MY ROLE AS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING INTERN

As a social media marketing intern my primary and responsibilities were:

• Do a market research of various industries and competitors.

• Brainstorming ideas for the post on different social media platforms like
Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
• Market the services to the different groups on various social media
platform.

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 INTRODUCTION ABOUT DIGITAL MARKETING

Digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that use an electronic device
or the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social
media, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective
customers.

Digital marketing targets a specific segment of the customer base and is

interactive. Digital marketing is on the rise and includes search result ads, email
ads, and promoted tweets – anything that incorporates marketing with customer
feedback or a two-way interaction between the company and customer.

Internet marketing differs from digital marketing. Internet marketing is

advertising that is solely on the Internet, whereas digital marketing can take place
through mobile devices, on a subway platform, in a video game, or via a
smartphone app.

In the parlance of digital marketing, advertisers are commonly referred to as

sources, while members of the targeted ads are commonly called receivers.
Sources frequently target highly specific, well-defined receivers. For example,
after extending the late-night hours of many of its locations, McDonald's needed
to get the word out. It targeted shift workers and travellers with digital ads
because the company knew that these people made up a large segment of its late-
night business. McDonald's encouraged them to download a new Restaurant
Finder app, targeting them with ads placed at ATMs and gas stations, as well as
on websites that it knew its customers frequented at night.

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 DIGITAL MARKETING CHANNELS

Website Marketing
A website is the centrepiece of all digital marketing activities. Alone, it is a very
powerful channel, but it’s also the medium needed to execute a variety of online
marketing campaigns. A website should represent a brand, product, and service
in a clear and memorable way. It should be fast, mobile-friendly, and easy to use.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

PPC advertising enables marketers to reach Internet users on a number of digital
platforms through paid ads. Marketers can set up PPC campaigns on Google,
Bing, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, or Facebook and show their ads to people
searching for terms related to the products or services. PPC campaigns can
segment users based on their demographic characteristics (such as by age or
gender), or even target their particular interests or location. The most popular PPC
platforms are Google Ads and Facebook Ads.

Content Marketing
The goal of content marketing is to reach potential customers through the use of
content. Content is usually published on a website and then promoted through
social media, email marketing, SEO, or even PPC campaigns. The tools of
content marketing include blogs, eBooks, online courses, infographics, podcasts,
and webinars.

Email Marketing
Email marketing is still one of the most effective digital marketing channels.
Many people confuse email marketing with spam email messages, but that’s not
what email marketing is all about. Email marketing is the medium to get in touch
with your potential customers or the people interested in your brand. Many digital
marketers use all other digital marketing channels to add leads to their email lists
and then, through email marketing, they create customer acquisition funnels to
turn those leads into customers.

Social Media Marketing

The primary goal of a social media marketing campaign is brand awareness and
establishing social trust. As you go deeper into social media marketing, you can
use it to get leads or even as a direct sales channel.

Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the oldest forms of marketing, and the Internet has
brought new life to this old standby. With affiliate marketing, influencers promote
other people’s products and get a commission every time a sale is made or a lead

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is introduced. Many well-known companies like Amazon have affiliate programs
that pay out millions of dollars per month to websites that sell their products.

Video Marketing
YouTube has become the second most popular search engine and a lot of users
are turning to YouTube before they make a buying decision, to learn something,
read a review, or just to relax. There are several video marketing platforms,
including Facebook Videos, Instagram, or even TikTok to use to run a video
marketing campaign. Companies find the most success with video by integrating
it with SEO, content marketing, and broader social media marketing campaigns.

SMS Messaging
Companies and non-profit organizations also use SMS or text messages to send
information about their latest promotions or giving opportunities to willing
customers. Political candidates running for office also use SMS message
campaigns to spread positive information about their own platforms. As
technology has advanced, many text-to-give campaigns also allow customers to
directly pay or give via a simple text message.

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 CHALLENGES FOR DIGITAL MARKETERS
1. Learning About Your Customers

Targeting your audience will be more important than ever in 2021 and beyond.
As SEO and paid advertising get more competitive, you can’t afford to waste time
or money on content or keywords that are too broad or poorly targeted. One of
the best tools for targeting the right audience is a buyer persona, which lets you
visualize and better understand your typical customer. HubSpot has a useful tool
called Make My Persona that simplifies the process of creating buyer personas.
Also, you can learn more about your customers by polling and asking them
questions on your blog and social media pages.

2. Generating Qualified Leads

Every business thrives on leads. In 2021, you can expect a competitive market as
many service-based businesses attempt to gain more targeted leads. Paid ads such
as Facebook Ads and Google Ads are likely to rise in cost. Savvy marketers will
learn to leverage less costly lead generation strategies like networking on
LinkedIn, using video marketing, and developing interactive channels such as
webinars and virtual conferences. As lead generation gets more competitive, it
becomes necessary to deliver solid value to prospects before you can expect to
close a sale. Check out this guide to lead generation strategies to get a great
overview.

3. Managing Cash Flow

During economically challenging times, businesses may suffer cash flow

problems. For example, if the 2020 holiday season becomes profitable, a long dry
spell might follow as consumers pull back on spending. Business owners and
marketers will have to be extra careful about managing their cash flow. Getting
lean and cutting back on unnecessary expenses can help. Fortunately, moving part
or all of your business online often saves you money on expenses such as renting
office or retail space. Businesses with regular, steady customers may want to
consider creative financing options like invoice factoring.

4. Creating Engaging Content

Content marketing will continue to evolve and will remain as crucial as ever for
digital marketers. Customers and prospects are always hungry for fresh content
that educates them and points them in the direction of a solution. Content that will
be especially popular in 2021 includes short-form videos, live-streaming content,

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podcasts, and Instagram and Facebook stories. Audiences are embracing content
that’s interactive as it gives people a chance to express their opinions.

5. Complying with Privacy and Data-Sharing Regulations

Rules such as GDPR aren’t going away. If anything, we can expect more such
legislation around the world. Because a website can potentially attract visitors
from any country, you need to be compliant with any laws covering a population
in your target audience. Make sure your website is transparent about its policies
on cookies, data sharing, and privacy. Be mindful about staying compliant in
areas such as storing data. GDPR, for example, limits how long you can hold onto
visitors’ data.

On top of complying to GDPR (and all its future iterations), you should make
sure to improve your email deliverability in order to make sure that people who
are a part of your email list continue getting your emails in their inbox rather than
the spam folder.

6. Making Websites Accessible

Accessibility is another fast-growing issue that all website owners need to

understand. An accessible website can be used by people with visual, hearing, or
other impairments. There are several steps you can take to make a site accessible.
For example, when you post an image, be sure to have alt text so visually impaired
users can understand it. This is also good for SEO. Additionally, it would be best
to make sure users can navigate your site with only a keyboard, as not everyone
can use a mouse. The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) provides
comprehensive information on web accessibility.

7. Strategizing Mobile-First

People are browsing and shopping from smartphones and tablets more than ever.
Several years ago, marketing experts were advocating a mobile-friendly
approach. This is rapidly turning into a mobile-first strategy. If you want to
capture your share of the ever-expanding mobile market, make sure your website
is set up for mobile users. Test all features on multiple devices. Be especially
vigilant that customers can easily place items in their online shopping cart, check
out and pay using mobile devices. Be mindful that large images and videos may
take longer to load for mobile users as well.

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8. Establishing an Omnichannel Marketing Strategy

Customers are increasingly active on multiple devices and platforms. It’s no

longer enough to focus all your efforts on a single strategy such as email or
Facebook. You want to make it easy for your followers, subscribers, and
customers to connect with you wherever they go. This doesn’t mean you need to
maintain a presence everywhere. Focus on the platforms where your audience is
active. The key is to provide a seamless experience so people can easily get from
one channel to another. For example, link to your social pages and website in
your emails.

9. Maintaining Brand Consistency and Authority

You want your customers to see you as an authoritative voice in your industry.
You also want to establish a unique brand presence that helps to create loyal
customers. In a competitive environment, you need to go beyond offering quality
products and services. Follow the lead of brand-building experts like Apple and
Nike, whose customers seek them out and don’t even compare them to other
products. Identify and emphasize your unique selling proposition (USP). Be
consistent in your voice and style across channels and platforms.

10. Staying Current with Google’s Algorithms

One thing that’s unlikely to change in 2021 is Google’s dominance as the largest
search engine. If anything, Google is continuing to expand its digital empire. To
compete, you need to pay close attention to the latest features, rules, and
algorithms released by the search engine giant. Businesses with a local presence
need to make sure their Google My Business listing is accurate and current.
Another crucial area to watch is ranking for Google Snippets, also known as
Position Zero among Google’s search results. The best types of content for this
coveted area are numbered lists and FAQs that answer your customers’ most
pressing questions.

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 ADVANTAGES OF DIGITAL MARKETING

The main advantage of digital marketing is that a targeted audience can be

reached in a cost-effective and measurable way. Other digital marketing
advantages include increasing brand loyalty and driving online sales.

The benefits of digital marketing include:

• Global reach - a website allows you to find new markets and trade globally
for only a small investment.
• Lower cost - a properly planned and well targeted digital marketing
campaign can reach the right customers at a much lower cost than
traditional marketing methods.
• Trackable, measurable results - measuring your online marketing with
web analytics and other online metric tools makes it easier to establish how
effective your campaign has been. You can obtain detailed information
about how customers use your website or respond to your advertising.
• Personalisation - if your customer database is linked to your website, then
whenever someone visits the site, you can greet them with targeted offers.
The more they buy from you, the more you can refine your customer profile
and market effectively to them.
• Openness - by getting involved with social media and managing it
carefully, you can build customer loyalty and create a reputation for being
easy to engage with.
• Social currency - digital marketing lets you create engaging campaigns
using content marketing tactics. This content (images, videos, articles) can
gain social currency - being passed from user to user and becoming viral.
• Improved conversion rates - if you have a website, then your customers
are only ever a few clicks away from making a purchase. Unlike other
media which require people to get up and make a phone call, or go to a
shop, digital marketing can be seamless and immediate.

Together, all of these aspects of digital marketing have the potential to add up to
more sales.

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 DISADVANTAGES OF DIGITAL MARKETING

Some of the downsides and challenges of digital marketing you should be aware
of include:

• Skills and training - You will need to ensure that your staff have the right
knowledge and expertise to carry out digital marketing with success. Tools,
platforms and trends change rapidly and it's vital that you keep up-to-date.
• Time consuming - tasks such as optimising online advertising campaigns
and creating marketing content can take up a lot of time. It's important to
measure your results to ensure a return-on-investment.
• High competition - while you can reach a global audience with digital
marketing, you are also up against global competition. It can be a challenge
to stand out against competitors and to grab attention among the many
messages aimed at consumers online.
• Complaints and feedback - any negative feedback or criticism of your
brand is can be visible to your audience through social media and review
websites. Carrying out effective customer service online can be
challenging. Negative comments or failure to respond effectively can
damage your brand reputation.
• Security and privacy issues - there are a number of legal considerations
around collecting and using customer data for digital marketing purposes.
Take care to comply with the rules regarding privacy and data protection.

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 SEO AND SEM, CUSTOMER SATISFACTION, AND
PURCHASE INTENTION
Web search engines have changed the procedure by which people scan for data.
Web searches have become very popular nowadays wherever consumers think
about purchasing a product or service. Thus, website improvement has risen as
an effective technique for gaining and holding shoppers for organizations, all
things considered. SEO is an essential criterion to increase customer satisfaction.
Companies usually invest around 47% of their promotional spending in SEO.
Google Search, Google Inc’s internet searcher, stands apart as the predominant
web crawler, representing just about 13 billion pursuits each month and a
worldwide ordering portion of about 75% of all inquiries all in 2017. Even though
utilizing a web search engine has become a customary online action, we
conceptualized client steadfastness expectation towards a web search engine
based on ongoing conduct. Since purchaser conduct is objectively coordinated,
we contended that utilizing a specific search engine for surfing the web is a
prudent decision that prompts a particular customer experience. This experience
produces tremendous results as a relative increase or loss in search quality,
influencing future practices like client loyalty. SEM has become one of the most
critical techniques for online destination marketing, and it is influencing
customers to purchase the services. SEM is an important source from where the
consumers can gather the information, and SEO practices will try to seduce
customers into buying a service.

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 USAGE OF DIGITAL MARKETING AND SOCIAL MEDIA
TOOLS DURING COVID-19

Digital marketing plays an essential role in business as it helps in improving

business efficiency, provides competition to all businesses, and it is more
economical in achieving the goals and objectives of the organization (Tien, et al.,
2020). The researchers have argued that in Vietnam, people are spending more
time on the internet and social media networks. Digital marketing helps brands to
come more closer to the customers through effective communication channels.
They also argued about the usage of digital marketing in enhancing the marketing
opportunities of universities during the COVID-19 pandemic and admission of
new students. The study highlighted the fact the digital marketing plays an
essential role in promoting private universities and admitting more students to
those universities. The COVID-19 time taught the universities that they need IT-
enabled staff for effective functioning. The universities are focusing on digital
marketing, but they need more IT experts for effective functioning.
They also argued about the emergence of digital marketing in lowering the burden
of the healthcare industry. The researchers have argued that the COVID-19
pandemic has affected health care and other. The findings of the study suggest
that social media advertising played a decisive role in information sharing,
healthcare advertising, and awareness during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is not
possible to spread awareness with traditional sources. Social media advertising
created awareness among a mass audience. The social media tools like Facebook
and Twitter also helped in sharing the procedures of making PPE kits. These
social media tools helped in reducing the shortage of PPE kits around the world.
Social media tools are even helping Start-up businesses in boosting their business
through several social media apps like Zoom, Telegram, Microsoft Team, and
Google Meet etc.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, SMEs are facing a tough time, and many of
them are out of cash. The owners/managers of SMEs cannot rely on traditional
marketing channels, and they have very few financial resources as well social
media marketing tools like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp played
a decisive role for SMEs. These tools helped the SMEs in increasing sales,
building customer relationships, improving creativity and innovation. Without
social media tools and digital marketing, it would have been very costly and next
to impossible for SMEs to reach customers at a global level during the pandemic
situation. Various researchers have argued about the importance of digitization in
SMEs as it helps them in reaching the goals of sustainability, but this COVID
time proves the worth of social media marketing and another type of internet
marketing for SMEs. SMEs are overcoming various challenges and adopting
social media tools for their marketing. During crisis time, institutes and
organizations are looking for legitimate sources for effective dialogical
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communication with their customers. Through digital media channels,
organizations can remain connected with their customers through websites, blogs,
email, video sharing, and content sharing, etc. (Camilleri, 2020). Digital media
communication improves both efficiency and effectiveness of the organizations
in lesser time. These tools help in branding as well.

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 RESEARCH METHOLOGY

Research Characteristics social media has become a phenomenon in the business

world especially in time of COVID-19 pandemic; however, the research on the
benefits, the extent of which the organisations for both private government
sectors is limited. Thus, journals on how successful social media can bring them
benefits are being used to compare the differences occurred on how these
organisations are using different platform to convey their messages to the public
while aligning with their business strategy to stay ahead of their competitors.
However, this study is based on the social network benefits by incorporating
firm’s social media to achieve their goals towards success. The demographic
areas in which the survey is being conducted will also be described alongside
with the sample population and the research design. With this investigation, the
authors are able to gain wider insights on the benefits of social media to boosting
start-up businesses. The data being gathered in this study in order to grasp a
deeper understanding about this issue utilize both primary and secondary sources.
Both sources are being used in making the report order to increase the accuracy
and the reliability of the data so to make the information collected more reliable
and accurate. Most secondary data are mostly oriented by using the published
scholarly articles in order to support the case with the evidence provided. While
the primary data are collected through the survey that collected from four
different types start-up that consist both private and government sectors, involved
more than 20 organizations. Despite the limitations while gathering the data to be
used in this study, the issues and the benefits of social media in start-up business
will further be elaborated in this report.

Process and Benefits of Survey Questions: A total of 25 questions are prepared

and constructed for the survey both physical and online. Online questionnaires
provide convenience for respondents in answering survey questions with regards
to what the researchers need. Furthermore, online questionnaires are not time
consuming hence it will be efficient to continue the research as the results from
the questionnaires will be automatically saved and calculated. Additionally, it is
also a cost-efficient way as it uses free online programs in move the questions
from paper onto digital platform such as google form. While for the traditional
surveys which includes pen and paper, the benefits would be the ease of
explaining the questions on the spot if respondents do not follow the meaning of
the questions.

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Research Approach and Design:
The survey that was given out consist of both quantitative and qualitative research
method. By using the mixed methods, the authors can better evaluate the findings
and give more accurate view on the impact of social media towards the start-up
organisation. Quantitative research method is based on generalizing the sample
size of which the survey is being distributed. The survey that are being distributed
will be giving the focus population options for each of the questions in which the
authors can calculate the percentage the total poll so that the overall analysis can
be determined by the end of the research. The statistics that can be generated from
the questionnaires can formulate the pattern’s as fixed variables are being used.
Meanwhile, qualitative method is also incorporated within the survey that are
being distributed in the form of open-ended question. This can provide the authors
a proper insight according to the settings of the problems and hence, uncovering
the truth behind the issues while supporting the numerical evidence that is being
gathered by using the quantitative data. Moreover, the authors can also gain the
opinions of the people which is being affected by the social media that are used
by the companies, allowing the authors to develop a hypothesis to support in
ensuring the reliability and the accuracy of the data being collected.

Questionnaire Method:
To ensure that the sample population in which the surveys were being distributed
to understand fully of how social media can benefits a start-up organisation in
their business, a brief introduction of the advantages of social media is listed out.
This context anticipates the respondents to relate their current situation towards
the issue that are being studied. The survey that was given out consist of few sub
sections concentrating on the parts being examined. This consist of the personal
information of the individuals which is defined as the demographical area,
followed by the information awareness in which the degree of which the
respondents’ awareness of the internal system can be measured. Next area that is
being measured also includes the employees’ attitude towards information
security system, social media awareness and the relation of which social media
with business. As we only focus on both private and government sectors, the
sample population is quite limited, although the position of which the respondents
are holding in the company might differ. The duration of which the survey is
being distributed and collected is only within 2 weeks of time.

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 DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

Social Media Awareness:

COVID 19 Pandemic Figure-2 visualized the respondents’ feedback; 55.6% of
the respondents admit to using business social media account for exchanging
information within the network. A total 33.3% have no knowledge to their usage
of business social media account. Lastly, 11.1% primarily use the account to post
information. Based upon respondents from all four organizations, majority of
them use their business social media account for both posting and seeking
information. Consider in the marketing department, using social media has
proven to be beneficial and cost effective. Through social media, an organization
can collect information regarding their overall performance, and build upon this
information to improve and enhance their product or service. This is comprised
of numerous retail shops and one hotel, and can monitor the level of customer
satisfaction by analysing feedback and suggestions their customers have provided
them with regarding their service or product. The effort to establish a proper and
easy-to-use mean of communication using social media tool to handle a
customer’s concern is essentially providing the organization with a cost-effective
upgrade to its customer service.

Figure 2. “If you use social media tools for work, has
their usage benefitted your business?”.

Figure 2 indicate that the utilization of social media platforms are substantially
bene- ficial to organizations. Social media platforms have revolutionized the
manner in which these organizations do their business by making business
processes easier and delivering information to prospective customers
expeditiously. Social media platforms provide a number of communities and
groups such as WhatsApp, one of the most popular instant messaging allow a user
to create a group with more than 200 participants per group. Other example of
social media communities is Facebook where it allows a user to create a page to
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gather large number of people with similar interest. It is clear that most
respondents spend an average of one to 12 hours per day engaging on social media
where there are several popular platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram,
WhatsApp and Facebook which allow instant interaction globally and can get
more audience through these platforms which cause people to fully engage with
it for hours. Most users use social network to find information using social
network because it acts like a platform where people can build social networks
with people who have similar interests and activities. Hence, it is easier to find
desired information from social network. For example, by using Instagram,
people can use hashtags to find the products or services they require. Secondly,
the users used social network platform to stay connected with friends and family.
This is due to social network nowadays provide real-life interactions through
video chats or calls to stay connected with those who are in different parts of the
world with different time zones. Thirdly, users take the advantage of social
network to share videos, pictures and videos. Sharing videos and pictures can be
done easily using social network and can be uploaded instantly as well. For
example, using Facebook, the users can share their photos and videos globally
with large audience. The importance of social network depends on how the
individuals utilized the use of social network. Some users use it mostly for
business purpose and the others use it for personal purposes such as to stay
connected with peers and families. As for employees who works in an
organization, social network is seen as a powerful marketing tool to project their
products or services to larger and potential audience. This can also help to create
brand awareness and show the good image which represents the brands or the
organization. This can also help to increase customer loyalty as well. Social
network is considered as one of the most used channels to communicate with
consumers to gain positive and negative feedback which can be used to improve
the organization. Privacy policies in social networking means gathering personal
data from a user of certain website such as a member or subscriber or as customer.
This personal data being collected by a particular website should be used
according to the law basis and not for personal use or exploiting the data. Privacy
policies are effective is social networking sites especially for social application
platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp. These platforms
contained huge data of personal information of the users as Facebook has millions
of users around the world and same goes to Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Effectiveness of privacy policies is depending on how the users shared their
personal details to their social networking sites. Despite having privacy policies,
there are still cases of identity theft, cyber-bullying and online victim of stalking.
Personal data or information is the users’ responsibilities whether to share or not
share excessive details on social network. For those respondents who used social
accounts for posting and see what others are saying are considered as interactive
users where they interact among their peers with mutual interests. While for those
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who prefer to post information, they are considered as expressing themselves
online. For those respondents who see what others are saying are the non-
participative type of users and prefer to read people’s opinions instead of
interacting.

Figure 3. Do you use social media tools primarily for business or personal purposes?

Figure 3 visualizes the responses with 50% admit into using social media tools
exclusively for social necessity, 40% of the respondents use the aforementioned
tool for business purposes, and 10% use social media tools for both purposes.
Capitalizing the use of social media nowadays has provided users with assortment
of purposes to its usefulness. Social media is no more to be used solely for social
networking, but expanded to accommodate business processes. According to
majority of the respondents have taken advantage of the limitless advantages of
social media. Respondents have either used social media for personal or business
purposes, or both equally. The results complemented definition of social media,
whereby social media provides users with the ability to create profile(s) to cater
either personal or public audience (business purposes), offering users with a
considerable amount of information towards a specific topic, or a product or
service they are providing and possessing the ability to communicate with other
users or customers within the network, usually being categorised through a
specific set of interests, relating to feedbacks and suggestions on how to improve
the product or service. Features that social media tools have provided to business
users are readily available to accommodate the demand of a traditional business
processes. Facebook, one of the famous social media tools, can be used to ease
users from manually searching for the right individual to initiate a business with.
Facebook also encourage business users to maintain a good relationship with its
external stakeholders, more precisely customers, in order to build a good
reputation for the business. Niche marketing through Facebook is more effective
since this social media tool allows its users to create an interest group that
businesses have accessed to, directly affecting the level of exposure towards the
appropriate market segment. Lastly, Facebook also promote business profiles
made within its network, by positioning the business page links efficiently so
potential customers could access the page easily when searching through a search
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engine, for example in Google.com. LinkedIn is synonymous with its capability
to be used as a reference tool for organization in searching for a potential
employee. Employers will benefit greatly when using this website as the
collective number of information regarding applicants are made available online.
LinkedIn is a social media tools that provide users with features similar to the
traditional curriculum vitae or CV when looking for a job, as individuals who
have created their profiles in LinkedIn can use the website to look for a job,
through a notification “wall”, which can be used by employers to advertise their
open position. However, based on the results from the questionnaire and general
view, everyone who is involved in today’s business are active digital apps user.
Moreover, information security from both sectors requires immediate attention.
Information security awareness as an employee’s knowledge of information
security and their consciousness of the organization’s information security
measures or plans. Widespread dependence upon digital apps system has brought
about the shift in interest on working for obvious practical reasons. Information
security has become an issue requiring more attention from the various
professions attending to the needs of computer using organizations, be these
accountants, auditors or business managers. Organizations need to emphasize on
the importance of information security awareness and the implementation of such
security system into their organization. In addition, it is very important for both
organizations to adapt the information security systems in their organizations.
Based on our findings, respondents from both private and public sector indicated
that they are using biometric system in their organization. This shows that there
is the adoption of biometric security devices in organizations to strengthen their
systems. The uses of biometric technology will be increasing in the future, where
people more concerning and priorities about their security. Although the cost of
implementing the system is costly, however, it is highly advisable for security
purposes. Five types of security breaches namely system failure or data
corruption, infected by viruses or malicious software, theft or fraud involving
computers, attack by an unauthorized outsider or the system being hacked and
misused of authorization access.
Standard procedure taken by respective organization for their information
security system. There are five procedures namely, firewall, anti-virus, formal
written document security policy documented, implementation of AAA
(Authentication, Authorization and Accounting) for all users and providing
account and password. Firewall can be implemented using hardware or software.
Firewall means to retain the security of a private network; it blocks unauthorized
access from unauthorized users who is trying to gain access to private network.
Firewall can be done through packet filtering, security gateway and proxy servers.
While anti-virus is a software which helps to protect a computer from viruses,
spyware and other types of malwares. Documented security policy is a formal
policy for employees to obey as to not breach the agreement. AAA means a
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system to control the access to the computer, and able to audit the users of the
computer and also provide certain information to selected individuals who are
eligible to access. Setting up account and password is the most common standard
applied to most organizations where each employee is provided with their own
username and passwords. The used of virtual private network (VPN) as remote
servers in organizations. Virtual private network means a technology that a
network which allows safe and encrypted connection for users to support more
secure network than less secure such as Internet. VPN brings two main benefits
namely cost savings and network scalability. However, ISO (International
Organization Standard) Standard is most acceptable guidelines for adopted by the
organization. This protects the security of information from threats of a company
and this standard provides
the best business practices and guidelines as well as principles for implementing
and managing the information security of an organization. Based on the
illustration above, it is clear that both government and private sectors adopted the
ISO standard rather than the other two standards implemented in the world.

75 Application/sites used by respondents

65
56
48

10

GOOGLE LINKEDINFACEBOOK
INSTAGRAMTWITTER

INSTAGRAM
76
FACEBOOK
86
LINKEDIN
44
0 20 40 60 80 100

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 Purchasing Product or services after seeing
advertisement on social media

Yes
28%
Maybe
44%

Yes

No No
28%
May
be

Benefits of Marketing Online

EASY AVAILABILTY OF RELAVANT…
59
CONVENIENCE
64
IMPROVED CONVERSION RATES
32
EFFECTIVE
29
TRACKABLE
27
GLOBAL REACH
105
LOWER COST
28
TIME SAVING
86
0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Is using social media in

Pandemic increased?

Maybe, 46
Yes, 58 Yes
No
Maybe
No, 30

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 Has Lockdown due to pandemic has helped
the digital marketers to reach to the
customers?
Yes, 26, 19%
Maybe, 49, 37%

Yes
No
No, 59, 44%
Maybe

Have more chances of growth in future

FACEBOOK
24

INSTAGRAM
65

LINKEDIN
87

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Things to look in an Social Media Post/Video

14 17
BRAND NAME 32 43
28
14 18
CREATIVE IDEA 22 33 47
12 20
STYLE OF PRESENTATION 30
31 41
DESIGN 11 14 26 32 51
14 18
FACILITIES OF COMPANIES 3133 38
7 17
ANIMATION 41 45
24
CONTENT 1113 16
19 75
0 10 20 5 4 30
3 2 1 40 50 60 70 80

30 | P a g e
 DISCUSSION
Ability to Gain Accurate Understanding of Customers’ Needs:
Social media enables these organizations to recognize their prospective
customers’ viewpoint and also coordinate with them. On social media platforms,
organizations can easily engage with customers through social media groups,
chats, direct messages and comments section. The organizations are exposed to a
wide range of information on social media which includes information about
customers and current happenings. Further holds that this information is used to
track and analyse what the customers are saying in regards to their business or
items on social media. This includes feedback, complaints and suggestions from
the customers. As mentioned in the literature review, this information is regarded
as recommendations and guidance to the organizations.
Consequently, amendments and improvements can be made to their products and
services which will ultimately result in customer satisfaction. Moreover, the
organizations are able to ask for input from the customers on social media
platforms and respond to questions and complaints. They can utilize this
information to provide their customers with the best service (Figure 3). In
addition, social media platforms enable these organizations to react to their
customers’ inquiries and complaints promptly.

Figure 4. Needs and behaviours based-on

customer profiling.

Opportunity to Reduce Business Costs:

Market research can be an exorbitant and time-consuming process, but these
organi- zations have switched to social media as an economical and extensive
tool for obtaining insights into their market, customers, branding and other crucial
market research factors. These organizations utilize social media platforms such
as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to track trends and carry out market research.
By just looking through the most recent posts and popular terms by their
customers, they can easily get insight into arising trends and discern what the
customers are discussing about their business in real-time. Social media platforms
also enable the organizations to participate in an open discussion with their target
customers. This technique for research provides the organizations with significant

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data and a more profound understanding into their customers’ thoughts and
preferences. In other words, it enables the organizations to recognize the actual
desires of their target customers. In comparison with traditional market research,
the cost of conducting market research on social media platforms is considerably
less and it is also less time consuming.
Carrying out market research on social media platforms can enhance the
effectiveness of the organizations’ marketing strategies as they are more
knowledgeable about their target market. The information that has been
accumulated from the market research are utilized as a guide for their marketing
strategies including product launching and follow- up marketing. In accordance
with an interview conducted, it was mentioned that after conducting market
research on social media platforms, they found that their customers prefer
advertisements through social media as opposed to traditional advertisements.
The utilization of social media for market research is more effective rather than
investing time and money into building a marketing plan where the outcome is
uncertain. This prevents wastage of money and efforts which will overall reduce
business costs.
A More Effective Marketing Platform in Time of COVID-19 Pandemic:
These organizations utilize various advertising features that are offered by social
me- dia platforms to market their products and services. Marketing on social
media does not demand a large number of monetary resources in comparison to
traditional marketing for example television or billboard. The organizations only
need to have computers or phones and an internet connection which can be used
for a long period of time [18,21,29]. This will help reduce their marketing costs
significantly in the long term. The marketing on social media results to an
increase in brand recognition because it allows organizations to constantly
communicate with their customers which boosts their credibility. The
familiarization of customers to their brands results in an increased brand reach as
they are more inclined to recommend the business to other people. The ease of
marketing on social media is one of the reasons why these organizations are
favourable towards it as they are able to advertise their products quickly by
simply posting photos and videos. Furthermore, the social media marketing not
only helps reach local customers but also millions of customers worldwide which
is why these organizations utilize it. Moreover, Social media influencers are
social media users who have a significant amount of following that have the
ability to persuade customers into buying a product or service due to their
credibility in a specific industry. The utilization of social influencers has
significantly boosted their sales and also minimize costs as it is cheaper compared
to other types of marketing. Overall, using social media for marketing is an
effective tool to reduce the organizations’ operational costs.

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However, Competitive advantage refers to an attribute or quality that gives an
organization an edge over its competitors. Competitive advantage helps an
organization to compete in the market more effectively. In accordance with the
survey conducted with the organizations selected, majority of them agree that
using social media tools to interact with their customers and potential customers
are more likely to have a significant competitive advantage over those that do not.
Moreover, social media platforms can help an organization attract high-calibre
individuals in competitive markets. Organizations are able to increase their
exposure and recruit quality staff by creating a positive portrayal of their business
on social media platforms, encouraging their current employees to recommend
their business as well as connecting with professional organizations. High-quality
individuals are regarded as a treasure because they learn quicker and are able to
carry out the work more effectively and efficiently compared to low-quality
individuals. As a result, they contribute to the overall productivity of the
organization. In addition, the utilization of social media platforms can result to
an organization being seen as an expert in their field, believes that blogging is
one of the most effective social media platforms to achieve an “expert
reputation”. By posting information that is not related to marketing on a business
blog regularly, it delivers value to the customers and helps an organization
strengthen their reputation as an expert and ultimately setting them apart from
their competitors. Finally, these organizations observe their customers’ social
media conversations to have a better understanding of their preferences and needs
which result in retaining a high number of customers and obtaining new ones
whose needs are unmet by their competitors.
After analysing all the results from the organizations respondents, we can
conclude that social media is very important to both private and government
organization. This is because of the benefits organizations can obtain by utilizing
social media platforms. One of them is that it can increase the effectiveness of
advertising by designating a few employees to communicate with thousands of
customers with relatively little effort. For example, they use website to advertise
their services and is considered as a powerful tool as it is cost efficient and the
wide range of audience is limitless as long as they have access to the internet. In
addition, the internet is also becoming a trend so people will eventually refer to
social media and see the products and services beforehand. Furthermore, social
media is important with regards to engaging with customers. Social media offers
many platforms and ways to approach customers and encourages customers to
send their feedback in the form of complaints, approval and even helpful
suggestions (Figure 4). In today’s world, digital ecosystem presents to support
the operational processes and procedure of organisations. Hence, their presence
to some extent supports the goals and objective of the firms and an investment in
informational technology need to be consistently anticipated in order to enhance

33 | P a g e
the means of work of system. The commercialization of information systems in
private and public organizations is no longer aim at providing more accessibility
to the intended information but rather conserving scarce human capability,
focusing on the information that is becoming more central and relevant to the
operations and decisions that have to be completed. The workforces to some
extent need to trained and become more proficient as users in order to acquire
new technological skills as well as constantly learning the importance of
utilisation of information system as educational tools.

Figure 5. Digital Applications

Transformation to Digital Ecosystems.

Transition from Social Use to Business: COVID-19 Pandemic Perspectives

Encouraging the use of social media tools for business has been proven to be
difficult, especially businesses that have experienced success without using social
media tools as a business information system. There is an apparent threat of
businesses falling behind when social media tools are not integrated. The
Bruneian market is becoming increasingly demanding for organizations to not
acknowledge the benefits of social media tools for their respective businesses.

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Educate on the Importance of Social Media Tools as Digital Business Driver
It is essential for organization, particularly small-to-medium enterprises (SME),
to realise the importance and benefits toward integrating social media tools into
their business processes. Social media tools can aid a number of processes and
operations in such that it offers more when compared to traditional mean of
conducting those aforementioned pro- cesses. Departments within an
organization, particularly sales and marketing department, has been benefiting
from the application of social media tools. Especially in terms of customers’
coverage and identifying trends, social media tools have provided an abundance
of information for businesses to take advantage of and align their marketing
strategies to this information to increase effectiveness and efficiency, as well as
reducing unnecessary cost being incurred.

Improve Monitoring of Social Media Usage within Organization

Organizations that are using social media tools as part of their mediums to ease
business processes need to also monitor constantly the activities that their
stakeholders are executing to prevent damages to the business’ reputation.
Reputation relates to the organization intangible asset that are of value
financially, and can be used to attract more customers, improve the productivity
of workers, generate investment interest from potential investors and gain
positive reviews or perception from media which can be negatively affected by
three angles within social media namely (1) customer angle, (2) employee angle,
and (3) corporate angle. Due to the ability for businesses to cater customers
through only social media, risks concerning the impact of customers’ reviews and
negative comments
are impending rapidly. Consumers nowadays have the utmost ability to confront
any
organizations especially concerning their social, commercial and ethical
responsibilities. They also relate business confrontation to issues such as product
defects, dissatisfaction of customers and business practice misconducts, and
anonymity of users within the social media networks to post information and
content about the organization without worrying about the consequences. The
employee’s angle of risk in using social media can have enormous impact towards
the organization reputation, especially in terms of the credibility and accuracy of
any comments made about the organization. Here, behaviours of employees when
using social networks have a major impact in the perception of stakeholders
towards the organization, regardless the intention of the employees. Employees
who show or suggest dissatisfaction towards an organization can negatively
impact potential new employees to work under the organization, this may result
in the organization repelling employees of excellent skills and qualification that
35 | P a g e
could have been proven beneficial for the organization as a whole. Lastly,
concerning the corporate behaviours will inevitably have either a positive or
negative consequence for its stakeholders. It is vital for organization to maintain
good behaviour when using social network, partly due to the speed of which
information can be disseminated throughout the network. Integration of social
media tools into the organization needs to be carefully planned and implemented.
There is a habit for organization to integrate social media as it is without properly
complementing the usage with the strategy of the organization. This will be more
likely to affect the reputation of the organization negatively.
However, organizations planning to implement the use of social media tools for
its business operation needs to analyse the different types of social media tools
and identify what version of media(s) each social media platforms displaying.
Organizations can also adopt a corporate response strategy which aim to prevent
of eliminate reputation damages possibly made by the three angles mentioned
previously. The need for organization to properly plan its corporate response
strategies to avoid more complication in handling damages, such as training and
empowerment of employees to prevent damages from customer angle, extensive
education and understanding of employees’ roles for risk affiliating with
employee angle, and partnering up with experts in the field of social media
marketing to prevent damages from corporate angle.
Moreover, this study also recommends both organizations sectors investing in
Business Intelligence. Business Intelligence (BI) refers to technologies,
applications and practices for the collection, integration, analysis and presentation
of business information. The purpose of BI is to support better decision making.
Adoption of Business Intelligence system can push efficiency on the daily
operations as well as to further grow their organization. Government sector may
utilize BI to find out which area in the department that can create employment
and digital start-up business opportunities to Indonesian. As for private
organizations, BI can help them to create structured ways to grow revenue,
improve
efficiency of their business operations and including improve on ways to measure
KPI (key performance indicators) of staffs (Figure 5).

36 | P a g e
 Figure 5. BI for Transforming Business to Digital Ecosystems

Social Media Security Issues in Time Pandemic

The increased use of the information technology in business has brought new
challenges when it comes to the security of information. Organizations must
therefore secure their servers and technologies from external and internal threats.
There are various strategies that companies can safeguard their information and
data. One of the strategies used is the use of password to log in to the company’s
portal where each of the persons authorized to access the portal is provided with
a password that is unique and only known to him or her. In the event that a
person’s password is used to perform illegal activities, it is then easy to locate the
person responsible for the act. Hacking is also another security challenge that
company’s face with regard to the security of their systems. This can be
eliminated if the most updated anti-virus is installed in the system. Cyber security
is a global problem and thus every organization should take measures to ensure
that it safe- guards itself from cyber-attack. The safety of the customers’ data
depends on the security measures adopted by a company. The level of the
customer loyalty depends on the ability of a company to safeguard some of the
most sensitive information. Some of these details may include the customer’s
name and credit card information. It is also important for a company to adhere to
the international standard that regulates the use of information technology and
systems. These standards are meant to protect the owner as well as the customer.
These regulations provide guidance in areas of privacy and security. Based on the
results, everyone who is involved in today’s business (both government and
37 | P a g e
private sectors) are active information system users. However, based on our
findings, information system security from both sectors requires immediate
attention. Here, information security awareness as an employee’s knowledge of
information security and their consciousness of the organization’s information
security measures or plans. Widespread dependence upon computer system has
brought about the shift in interest on working for obvious practical reasons.
Information security has become an issue requiring more attention from the
various professions attending to the needs of computer using organizations, be
these accountants, auditors or business managers. Organizations need to
emphasize on the importance of information security awareness and the
implementation of such security system into their organization. In addition, it is
very important for both organizations to adapt the information security systems
in their organizations.

38 | P a g e
 CONCLUSIONS

In conclusion, there are many uses of social media in time of COVID-19

pandemic for boosting business start-ups, which have been addressed in this
study. Social media connects people across the globe where they are able to keep
in contact and share their experiences. This is made possible by digital ecosystem.
The various social media platforms have different features that are available for
use by the subscribers. Social media has also made it easier for people to do
business. This is mainly due to the fact that it opens up the global market and it
is also cheaper to advertise. The government as well as the private sector has been
in the forefront when it comes to the use of social media. This is evident from the
three government sectors that have been addressed in the study. This enables
these departments to offer the government services more conveniently where they
are able to inform the public on any development or news about the department.
It also provides them with factual information regarding its operations from the
feedback given by the people via the social media. Maintaining a good online
presence is one of the key aspects that determine the success of companies in the
private sector. This is mainly due to the fact that most customers usually rely on
the customers review in determining the ability of the company to meet the needs
of the clients. This is the main reason why most organisations set up a customer
relations department section that is mainly mandated with the responsibility of
responding to the customers’ feedback on the various online platforms. It is thus
important that a company is able to understand some of the underlying
technologies that facilitate the use and operations of social media. The social
media company makes use of the information system to operate. This enables it
to keep and represent people data and also keep a record of the activities that the
members engage in. the digital ecosystem plays a vital role in assisting a business
or organization to manage its employees, stock, records and customers with ease.
It makes use of hardware and software to collect and store data and then process
these data which assists in the decision-making process.
In other hand, during the intensively engagement of social media usability during
COVID-19 pandemic, the highest number of system breaches was as a result of
failure and corruption since most of the organizations have strong firewalls,
antivirus and also makes use of password to access their databases. This means
that the most effective cyber-attacks mainly originate from within the
organization. It is thus important that the organization is able to train its
employees on means of safeguarding the information available on the databases.
This is the only way that the organization can be able to limit the accessibility of
some of the vital information to unauthorized personnel.

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