UNIVERSITY OF MUMBAI

A PROJECT REPORT ON

“A STUDY OF SOCIAL MEDIA

MARKETING”
SUBMITTED BY
SURAJ PARSHURAM SUNGAR
ROLL NO.24
TYBMS-SEMESTER VI

PROJECT GUIDE:
PROF. AMIT PANDEY
YEAR OF SUBMISSION: 2018-2019

MAHATMA PHULE EDUCATION SOCIETY

COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE, COMMERCE AND
MANAGEMENT (B.M.S)
JERBAI WADIA ROAD, BHOIWADA, PAREL, MUMBAI-400012.

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 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that this project entitled A STUDY OF

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING done by MR SURAJ
PARSHURAM SUNGAR is an authentic work carried out by him at
MAHATMA PHULE EDUCATION SOCIETY 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.

____________________
HEAD OF INSTITUTION

____________________
(PROJECT GUIDE)

PROF. AMIT PANDEY

DECLARATION
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I, hereby declare that this project entitled A STUDY OF SOCIAL

MEDIA MARKETING is done by myself in the academic year 2018.

This project is an authentic work carried out by me at MAHATMA

PHULE EDUCATION SOCIETY under my professor’s 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.

Date: _______________

Place: Mumbai

SURAJ PARSHURAM SUNGAR

(STUDENT SIGN)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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Success is an effort bounded activity that involves co –operation of all.

I hereby take the opportunity to express my profound sense of gratitude

and reverence to all those who have helped and encouraged me towards
successful completion of the project report. It has been a great
experience working on the concept of A STUDY SOCIAL MEDIA
MARKETING it gives me complete insight of this concept of
management and its application.

I would like to thank my Project Guide Prof.AMIT PANDEY for his

immense guidance, valuable help and the opportunity provided to me to
complete the project under his guidance.

I would like to thank all faculty members of MAHATMA PHULE

EDUCATION SOCIETY for guiding and supporting me in the
completion of project from time to time.

SURAJ PARSHURAM SUNGAR

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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This information is about what is meant by management? This
information is about what work to be done by most successful manager
in the world along with information about fourteen pearls as principle of
management. It is to tell you about how to plan everything and skill of
management which are needed. It is to focus on stages of planning and
decisions of life some or other time, you would be able to learn about
how to take correct decisions in life. If you want to win the world, you
have to take leadership and so you would get guidance in it about how to
take leadership and so you would get that what is leadership? What are
the dimension of successful leadership and how to adopt it? We get
knowledge about what kind of motivation given by you makes people to
get gathered around you and how they are handled. You will get to know
noble inspiring e.g. through it and you will realize in first look that
information is there to mould your life as successful industrialist,
manager or leader. This information is which provides directions of life.

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Social media has gained importance and acceptance at a

very past pace. It has become an avenue to share one’s personal and
professional life. The usage of social media as a marketing tool is already
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implemented by many businesses. This reports analysed how effectively
social media be used as a marketing tool. The comparison of social media
versus traditional media for marketing was studied and advantages and
disadvantages of both are compiled. This report also analysed how small
business start-ups can benefit from the ever growing social media industry.

Method: This report used journals, magazine articles, newspaper articles,

business reviews, online survey and so on from the library of Amity
University. Further official social media pages of various companies on
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn were analysed to generate statistics.

Result: Social media presence is definitely an advantage for all kinds of

businesses. Social media marketing has wider market appeal and is relatively
cheaper than traditional advertisements. With a huge number of audiences
and high customisability of social media for required content, social media
marketing emerges as an exciting and effective tool for marketing.

TABLE OF CONTENT

SR NO. TOPIC Pg.

NO.
1 INTRODUCTION, DEFINITION & TYPES 8-10
2 OVERALL AIM 11

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 3 ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF SMM 12-13
4 HOW SOCIAL MEDIA SUPPORT SEO 14
5 CONTENT DIVERSITY IN ONLINE MARKETING 15
6 STEPS TO CREATE A SOCIAL MEDIA 16
MARKETING PLAN
7 SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING HOW DOES IT 21
WORKS?
8 IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN TODAY’S 22
WORLD
9 IMPLEMENTATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA 23
MARKETING
10 MEASURING THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA 24-25
MARKETING
11 COMPARISON OF TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING 26--27
WHICH SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING
12 SURVEY ON SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING 28
13 SURVEY REPORT 31-40
14 SURVEY ON SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING 19
15 RESPONDERS 20
16 SURVEY REPORT 22
17 STP AND SWOT ANALYSIS 41-42
18 CONCLUSION 43-44
19 RECOMMENDATION 45-46
20 REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 47-48
21 ANNEXTURE 49-50

INTRODUCTION

Social Networking sites have taken over today’s world. From what was started
merely for entertainment, today these websites provide a host of opportunities to
its users ranging from marketing their products, increasing awareness on social
issues, sharing photos, video calls, joining groups and forums of interests,
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promoting an idea, finding family roots, finding a lost friend, gaming,
entertainment applications and so on. In fact, the usage of social networking sites
has been so diverse that many people use it for more than just entertainment.
Mena et al (2012) studied the readiness of health students to use Facebook as a
platform for training professional habits particularly in the case of influenza
vaccination. This clearly shows social networking sites serve as a creative
solution to many business problems.

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 WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING?

 Social media marketing (SMM) - is the practice of

facilitating a dialogue and sharing content between companies, influencers,
prospects and customers, using various online platforms including blogs,
professional and social networks, video and photo sharing, wikis, forums
and related Web 2.0 technologies.
 Social Media Marketing is marketing using online
communities, social networks, blog marketing and more.

“Users are in control

– as content
consumers,
as publishers and as
influencers”

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 TYPES OF SOCIAL MEDIA & CHANNELS

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 OVERALL AIM

Marketing is of core importance to any kind of business. It can range from

promotions and advertisements on a large scale to one to one word of mouth
marketing. Marketing forms the essence of a business by which the brand
name is reached to the intended audience. The cost associated with traditional
marketing techniques including print and visual media is increasing at a fast
pace. The cost of a full page colour advertisement in ‘Time of India’ is
around₹200,000, if not more. Thus it is important to look out for new and
more creative methods of marketing. Online marketing especially social
media marketing is a sensible alternative.

This report tries to analyse how effective is marketing via social media. The
report also compares and contrasts the advantages and disadvantages of
social media marketing with traditional advertising like print and visual
media. Today’s youngsters are aspirers. They dream big and want to be their
own boss. Most of them aspire to be entrepreneurs and the success stories of
entrepreneurs are a huge encouragement for them. A major problem that
these entrepreneurs face while starting a new business is the cost associated
with the brand building and marketing. In this era, though the young
population is all set to take over the world with extended technological
advancements, many of them fail due to lack of financial resources for brand
building. It is in this scenario that this report analyses how well social media
marketing can help new businesses.

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 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF SMM -
BENEFITS

Reaching Audience
 Content Distribution: A fast way to distribute
content to a wide audience.
 Communications: Converse directly with customers
or potential customers.
 Crisis Control: Monitor and then quickly react to negative customer
experiences.
 Brand Building: Create a message; repeat and strengthen over networks.
 Establish Expertise: Share your expertise and knowledge with a large
audience.

Discovery
 Customer Research. Segment customers and explore industry
focused networks to learn what customers want.
 Industry Research. Learn new trends, tools and other information
to help you expand your business. Competitor Research. Keep an
eye on competitors to see what they are doing.
 Word-of-mouth Monitoring. Keep tabs on your brand and what
people are saying.

Medium

 Low cost. Involvement in most social networks is

free to join and contribute.
 Speed. Services in the cloud are available anywhere and
as soon as you contribute it is distributed.
 Viral. Social media is easily shared and distributed iteratively.

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 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF SMM –
NEGATIVE

Time Consuming: With all these networks, people and

tasks, it truly is difficult to keep up.

Speed: Speed was a benefit, but just as fast as you can

get
info out and positive reviews can speed, scan the speed of
negative

Viral: Another benefit that can also be a negative.

Bad feedback and word-of- mouth can quickly be
passed along.

Change/Loss of network or rise of new:

Myspace is losing ground, what network could be next, or what
next network will grow and add to your list of responsibilities.

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 HOW SOCIAL MEDIA SUPPORTS SEO

 Potential for Links

 Build an Audience

 Branded Searches

 Helps Promotion

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 CONTENT DIVERSITY IN ONLINE MARKETING -
PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE"

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STEPS TO CREATE A SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
PLAN?

STEP 1: -

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STEP 2:-

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STEP 3: -

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STEP 4: -

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STEP 5: -

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 SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING - HOW DOES IT
WORKS?

 THE ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL

MEDIA ADVERTISING/MARKETING:

1. Social Strategy & Planning

2. Matching the Content to Web Demand (Blog
development etc.)
3. Engagement of the Costumer, prospect &
internet user from target audience (Social Media
Campaign Management)
4. Staying Ahead of the Curves 5. Social Media
Analytics & Audits

 THE ADD-ON’S:

5. Graphic Designing
6. PayPerClick Network Development
7. Consulting
8. Customize Campaigns

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 IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN TODAY’S

WORLD

Marie Swift (2006) suggests that placing an advertisement in the print media is
not the best solution for brand promotion. The problem with traditional mass
advertising according to Marie is that, these media appeal to a wide range of
people who may not even be interested to know who we are. On the other hand,
promotions and brand building must be done with people whom we think are
potential customers for our business. This can be achieved by channelizing a
greater part of promotion and advertising budget for activities such as
networking, volunteering, hosting events and so on. Out of these methods,
networking is the best that suits the need of the time (Marie Swift, 2006). With
the technological advancements in today’s world, it is fairly easy to be
connected with the outside world with the help of social networking sites. Peer
networking is an important way of advertising and this is all set to take over the
world of marketing in the near future. The biggest advantage of social media
marketing is that it can be used for any kind of business regardless of whether it
is B2B or B2C. Also the relative cost is much lesser as compared with
traditional advertising.

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 IMPLEMENTATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA
MARKETING

Usage of social media helps to create a feeling for the customers that they have
a direct and immediate access to the company (Rodriguez et al, 2012). It is
more of a pull strategy rather than a push strategy for business development as
proposed by Lager (2009). An important aspect of social media marketing is
that the results of social media marketing will be known only after some time of
implementation. Merely setting up a page on any social networking site such as
Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn is not enough to generate sales. The most
important part of implementation is that it should regularly and frequently be
updated. Twitter in particular which is more of real time status updates, requires
frequent updating and feedback to queries. At the same time, too many posts
should not be posted since it will damage the reputation of the brand and over
populate the customer home page. There are different tactics for implementing
pages on different social media sites as follows:

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 MEASURING THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA
MARKETING

When a CFO of a firm looks at cutting down costs, the ones most likely to get
cut are the ones whose ROI is not known. Hence, investment on social media
marketing is likely to get cut and thereby the firm will suffer bad consequences
(Price 2011). Thus it is very important to calculate the ROI for social media
marketing. Follow the steps for the same.

Track the initial numbers- revenue, average customer spending, website user
traffic, new customers and so on. Make a note of the expenses related to
maintaining and updating the social media page and track the amount of
revenue generated from the social media. Subtracting the expense from the
revenue and dividing it with the initial investment will yield the ROI. The
challenge here is that the expense here will be a measure of time whereas the
revenue generated will be in pounds. This time can be converted to currency by
multiplying the time with the hourly wage and adding the computer and internet
cost to it. After posting regular updates on the page for a month or so, calculate
the increased revenue (Price 2011). Apart from this various tools are available
to track users who visit a page on Facebook just like Google Analytics is used to
track people visiting a website. The tools available in the market are as follows:

i. Facebook Insights: Gives data on customer interaction, ‘likes’ comments

and so on in a visually pleasing way which is easy to understand and
analyse.
ii. Hoot Site: Consists of a web application and a mobile application which
can be used by novice users as well to interpret traffic on a webpage
iii. Nutshell mail: Gives reports on social media usage as an email which has
details like
comments, ‘likes’ and so on for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

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 iv. Tweet Deck: Used to get a peripheral idea on who is using the company’s
twitter page and who is coming back.

Similarly, it is important to measure the impact of using Facebook for bank

marketing. This can be done by monitoring the change in visitors’ number when
a promotion has been updated on its Facebook page and by measuring customer
satisfaction levels from time to time (Price, 2011). Since the implementation of
social media and measuring the impact of social media is done, the next
question is whether social media marketing is viable for small businesses and
new start-ups. The next part of the report focuses on viability on social media
marketing for small businesses start-ups.

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 COMPARISON OF TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING
WITH SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING

Social Media Traditional Media

Two-way conversation One-way conversation

Open system Closed system

Transparent Opaque

One-on-one marketing Mass marketing

About you About ME

Brand and User-generated Content Professional content

Authentic content Polished content

FREE platformREE platform Paid platformAID platform

Metric: Engagement Metric: Reach/ frequency

Actors: Users/ Influencers Actors/ Celebrities

Community decision-making Economic decision-making

Unstructured communication Controlled communication

Real time creation Pre-produced/ scheduled

Bottom-up strategy Top-down strategy

Informal language Formal language

Active involvement Passive involvement

Deep Analytics Poor analytics

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 Paid, Owned, Earned Paid

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 SURVEY ON SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
BACKGROUND
This report presents selected results from the Social Media Management
Survey. The survey collected perception towards the social media marketing
from a representative sample of management students studying in different
departments of Mumbai University. Survey methods included online
questionnaire to collect student’s perception towards the social media
marketing. All data collection activities conformed to standard procedures for
conducting online marketing surveys. The sampling, survey design, and
reporting methodologies are recognized by marketing Proof Amit Pandey

SURVEY OBJECTIVE
Social media marketing survey objective was to provide consumer behaviour
data. In order to achieve the desired results, the social media marketing survey
had the following goals:
• Capture random students from the management courses within the
Mumbai University.
• Collect perception of all persons towards marketing through social media.
• Collect data on which social networking site is more suitable for
marketing.

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 SURVEY REPORT

RESPONDENTS

Age of the responders

AGE GROUP
100.00%

90.00%

80.00%

70.00%

60.00%

50.00%

86.70%
40.00%

30.00%

20.00%

10.00%
11.10%
0.00% 0.00% 2.20%
16-25 26-35 36-45 46-55

AGE GROUP

AGE GROUP NO.OF RESPONSE PERCENTAGE

16-25 43 86.7%
26-35 6 11.1%
36-45 0 0%
46-55 1 2.2%

No. of genders responded

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 GENDERS
80%

70% MALE; 71%

60%

50%

40%

30%
FEMALE; 29%

20%

10%

0%
MALE FEMALE

GENDERS

GENDER NO. OF RESPONSE PERCENTAGE

MALE 36 71.1%
FEMALE 14 28.9%

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 REPORT
1. Do you think social media is the most sought after method adopted by
entrepreneurs’ young and old in the field of marketing, advertising,
brand building, promotions?

NO
12%

YES
88%

YES NO

OPTIONS NO.OF RESPONSE PERCENTAGE

YES 44 88%
NO 6 12%

Social media has taken over the world in every sense. In the field of marketing,
advertising, brand building, promotions social media is the most sought after
method adopted by entrepreneurs’ young and old. 88% people agree with it but
12% of them still believe in the traditional way of marketing.

2. Which is the most effective solution for brand promotion?

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 PRINT MEDIA
2%

SOCIAL MEDIA
98%

SOCIAL MEDIA PRINT MEDIA

OPTIONS NO.OF RESPONSE PERCENTAGE

SOCIAL MEDIA 49 98%
PRINT MEDIA 1 2%

Marie Swift (2006) suggests that placing an advertisement in the print media is not the best
solution for brand promotion. The problem with traditional mass advertising according to
Marie is that, these media appeal to a wide range of people who may not even be interested to
know who we are. 98% of the people agree with it while rest is still thinking print media has
its own significances. Someone said “print media is the only media which has the highest
reach as it is read by the old and young population.”

3. Do you think social media marketing will help the firms to find them

potential customer?

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 MA
YBE
34
%

YES
62
%

NO
4%

OPTIONS NO.OF RESPONSE PERCENTAGE

YES 31 62%
NO 2 4%
MAYBE 17 34%

Promotions and brand building must be done with people whom we think are
potential customers for our business. This can be achieved by channelizing a
greater part of promotion and advertising budget for activities such as
networking, volunteering, hosting events and so on. Out of these methods,
networking is the best that suits the need of the time (Marie Swift, 2006). With
the technological advancements in today’s world, it is fairly easy to be
connected with the outside world with the help of social networking sites. Yes,
most of the people agree

4. Which social networking site are you most familiar with?

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 TWITTER 6%
MY SPACE 2%

MOST OF THE
ABOVE 36%

FACEBOOK 30%

YOUTUBE 26%

TWITTER MY SPACE FACEBOOK

YOUTUBE MOST OF THE ABOVE

OPTIONS NO.OF RESPONSE PERCENTAGE

TWITTER 3 6%
MY SPACE 1 2%
FACEBOOK 15 30%
YOUTUBE 13 26%
MOST OF THE 18 36%
ABOVE

In today’s world there are many social networking sites which are helpful for the mass
marketing. The objective of this question was to find the website which is the most popular
one. Most of the people are familiar with Facebook, LinkedIn then YouTube. Many of them
are familiar with most of the social networking sites.

5. Do you think the relative cost is much lesser as compared with

traditional advertising?

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 DE-
PENDS
40%

YES
52%

NO
8%

YES NO DEPENDS

OPTIONS NO.OF RESPONSE PERCENTAGE

YES 26 52%
NO 4 8%
DEPENDS 20 40%

More than 52% people think relative cost is much lesser as compared with traditional
advertising while more less than 8% think it is not. The studies say that the relative cost is
lesser as compared the social media marketing with traditional advertising.

6. Is social media helpful for B2B firms in generating new sales/clients?

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 YES
45%

IT DEPENDS
HOW RE-
PUTED THE
FIRM IS
53%

NO
2%

YES NO
IT DEPENDS HOW REPUTED THE FIRM IS

OPTIONS NO.OF RESPONSE PERCENTAGE

YES 22 44.9%
NO 1 2%
IT DEPENDS 27 53.1%
HOW REPUTED
THE FIRM IS

Social media helpful for both B2B and B2C firms in generating new sales/clients. 44.9% of the
people agree with it. While others think in B2B everything is taken place in a formal way so
it’s not possible to generate new sales through the social media.

7. “Social media can be effectively used for various B2C clients to increase sales.”
Do
you agree?

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 PAR-
TIALL
Y
26%

NO
2%

YES
72%

YES NO PARTIALLY

OPTIONS NO.OF RESPONSE PERCENTAGE

YES 36 72%
NO 1 2%
PARTIALLY 13 26%

72% of the people agree with this because most of the people are familiar with social
networking sites and they frequently visit these sites.

8. Which one do you think is the most effective social networking site for online
marketing?

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 LINKEDIN
12%

TWIT
TER
14%

FACE
BOOK
74%

FACEBOOK TWITTER LINKEDIN

OPTIONS NO.OF RESPONSE PERCENTAGE

It FACEBOOK 37 74%
TWITTER 7 14%
LINKEDIN 6 12
shows that most of the people are familiar with Facebook in comparison with other sites like
Twitter and LinkedIn. Cab providers like Ola Cabs and Taxi for Sure are more active in
Twitter than Facebook. So it depends on different industries.

9. Do you follow your favourite brands on social networking sites like Facebook,
Twitter and LinkedIn?

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 NO
12%

YES
88%

YES NO

OPTIONS NO.OF RESPONSE PERCENTAGE

YES 40 80%
NO 10 20%

Most of the people do follow their favourite brands in Facebook and twitter to know about
their offerings and all.

10. If yes, why do you follow them?

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 NONE OF THE
ABOVE
15% JUST BECAUE YOU
LIKE THAT BRANDS
24%

TO KNOW HOW
GOOD THEY ARE
IN MARKETING
17%

YOU ARE VERY KNEEN TO

KNOW ABOUT THEIR NEW
OFFERINGS
44%
JUST BECAUE YOU LIKE THAT BRANDS
YOU ARE VERY KNEEN TO KNOW ABOUT THEIR NEW
OFFERINGS
TO KNOW HOW GOOD THEY ARE IN MARKETING
NONE OF THE ABOVE

OPTIONS NO.OF RESPONSE PERCENTAGE

JUST BECAUSE YOU 12 23.9%
LIKE THAT BRANDS

YOU ARE VERY KNEEN 22 43.5%

TO KNOW ABOUT THEIR
NEW OFFERINGS
TO KNOW HOW GOOD 9 17.4%
THEY ARE IN
MARKETING
NONE OF THE ABOVE 7 15.2%

23.9% of people follow their favourite brands just because you like those brands. 43.5% are
very keen to know about their new offerings while 17.4% follow to know how well they are
in marketing.

STP AND SWOT ANALYSIS

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Brand: GREENO

Category: Retail (Online)

Sector: Daily need products

Tagline: Eat Healthy – Stay

Fit

USP: Affordable daily needs.

STP (Segment, Target group, Positioning)

Segment: Price sensitive group

Target Group: Upper and lower middle class

Positioning: Working Women.

SWOT

Strength

• Ozone purified fruits and vegetables with brand GREENO.

• Free home delivery.
• Cash on delivery. (COD)  Affordability for middle class.
• Quality, choice and convenience.

Weakness

• Not known nationally and restricted to limited areas.

• No promotional offers.
• Less promotional activities.
• First impression is website for an online store, so we have to improve the
interface of it.

Opportunity

• To expand nationwide by tie-ups.

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 • Entering into high premium segments.
• Adding more products through diversification.
• To penetrate the market with affordable price and promotional offers.
• Opening offline stores. (OSTs).

Treats

• Nationwide presence of competitors.

• Frequent variations in the price.
• The facilities used to provide by the players like ‘FRESHONE’. (Ex:
Weekly payment method)
• Kent’s Ozone fruits and vegetables purifier, and ‘VegFru wash’.

COMPETITORS

• Buysubzi.com
• Freshsubzi.com
• Freshone.com
• Freshveggy.com
• Shope.naturebasket.co.in (by Godrej)
• Myeazylife.com
• Tolbazaar.com
• Mangoshopper.com and many.

CONCLUSIONS

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Social media is working more as a search engine these days because people trust
people rather trusting companies. Also people think that it would be cheaper to
buy from the people directly rather than going to the company website. Hence,
an area of interest is searched on a social media and concerned people are found
and communicated with. Social media marketing creates a positive effect on
many business markets such as financial institutions, travel and tourism
businesses, retail businesses, knowledge businesses, entertainment industry, and
so on. Since the process of social media marketing saves money, time and is
highly engaging and interesting social media marketing seems to be the next big
thing to hit the world as a whole.

One of the biggest advantages of social media marketing as opposed to

traditional advertising is that potential customers can be precisely targeted. For
example, in Facebook, if a person species that his area of interest is interior
designing; his home page would have

advertisements of interior designers on it. Thus, it doesn’t seem to be a hassle

for the customer because they would definitely want to see those
advertisements. As for the business owner, he/she needs to pay only if a person
clicks on his/her advertisements. Thus it is a win win situation for both the
business owner and the customer.

Similarly, small business start-ups should utilize the endless opportunities

provided by social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The
biggest advantage for small business start-ups is that the amount of money to be
spent on advertisements can be massively cut down and brand building can be
done effectively. As in LinkedIn which is customisable, more than one products

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being sold by the same company can also be marketed. This works perfectly for
B2B clients who cater to more than one product from the same verticals.

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 RECOMMENDATIONS

From this report it can be concluded that social media presence is inevitable in
the coming years. Not only that social media is useful as a marketing tool, it has
become the order of the day to be present in social media. Therefore, this report
recommends all kind of businesses- small scale, large scale, business to business
clients, business to consumer clients, manufacturing industries and so on to be
actively present in the social media. An important fact to be kept in mind in this
context is that most social networking sites have a cyclic growth. It starts from
minimum, attains a maximum and goes down to a minimum again. Thus, this is
the perfect time to invest time and resource in popular social media sites such as
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Owing to the relatively small amount of
investment, it is not a high risk investment as the usage of social media will
come to a minimum only gradually.

In comparison with traditional advertisements, social media marketing caters to

a more focussed group of people and thus can yield better results. This does not
mean that companies should stop using traditional media and start using online
and social media alone for advertisements. This may result in disastrous results.
An important thing to be kept in mind is that when we say one in every seven
people are on Facebook, there can be millions of duplicate accounts and almost
half of the total number of accounts is not being accessed every day. This limits
the chances of meeting new prospects and thereby causes a hindrance for
generating new business leads. Also still the remaining people of the world are
relying on traditional media which means that we can’t ignore them. Therefore,
the best solution is to combine both traditional and social media for marketing
(Wakolbinger, 2009). This will bridge the gap between those people who are
active on social media sites and those who are still relying on traditional media.
Companies must be careful in selecting particular adverts for particular media.
A company which sells clothes may have to rely on social media for advertising
45 | P a g e
their clothes for people of the age group 15-50 whereas they still have to depend
upon traditional advertisements like TV, radio and print media for the rest of the
age group population. Thus effective combination of social media adverts and
traditional adverts will result in better results.

The online presence of firms must be frequently updated and it must be linked
with each other and with the company website. It must be maintained well and
only relevant posts must be updated. Small businesses should embrace this
wonderful technology and reap the benefits of being on the social media for
marketing.

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 REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
REFERENCES

Albro Walt (2012) Getting a Handle on @TwitterABA Bank Marketing. Vol.

44 Issue 5, p12-17. 6p electronic resource], Available at http://0-
ehis.ebscohost.com.brum.beds.ac.uk/ehost/detail?
vid=22&hid=109&sid=ed8906a7-92b1-
4339-a725-
90485fff6023%40sessionmgr113&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY2
9wZT1zaX Rl#db=buh&AN=76301003(Accessed on 1 June 2013)

Albro Walt (2012) Launching a Facebook Site ABA Bank Marketing. Vol. 44
Issue 2, p20-25. 6p [electronic resource], Available at http://0-
ehis.ebscohost.com.brum.beds.ac.uk/ehost/detail?
vid=13&hid=121&sid=c566f3ea-7e02496f-afc7-
769d71e7be8d
%40sessionmgr112&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1za
XRl#db=buh&AN=72316485(Accessed on 3 June 2013)

Ankeny Jason (2011) face lift Entrepreneur, Vol. 39 Issue 6, p56-59. 4p.
[electronic resource], Available at http://0-
ehis.ebscohost.com.brum.beds.ac.uk/ehost/detail?
vid=9&hid=124&sid=32c1a393-4ffc-
4494-a2ba-
6eb12c2d080c
%40sessionmgr112&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1za
XRl#db=buh&AN=60848670(Accessed on 3 June 2013)

As Twitter steps up marketing efforts (2013) Marketing Week, p5-5. 1p.

[electronic resource], Available at
http://0ehis.ebscohost.com.brum.beds.ac.uk/ehost/detail?
vid=37&hid=124&sid=32c1a393-4ffc-
4494-a2ba-
6eb12c2d080c
%40sessionmgr112&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1za
XRl#db=buh&AN=76252164(Accessed on 3 June 2013)
BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Bishop David, Ehrlich Greg (2012) Facebook & Text Lead a New Marketing
Era Convenience Store NewsVol. 48, Issue 5, p70-73, 4p[electronic resource],
Available at http://0-ehis.ebscohost.com.brum.beds.ac.uk/ehost/detail?
vid=11&hid=121&sid=c566f3ea7e02-496f-afc7-
769d71e7be8d
%40sessionmgr112&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl
#db=buh&AN=74615198(Accessed on 10June 2013)

Burton Suzan; Soboleva Alena (2011) Interactive or reactive? Marketing with

Twitter Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 28 Issue 7, p491-499. 9p
[electronic resource],
Available at http://0-
ehis.ebscohost.com.brum.beds.ac.uk/ehost/detail?
vid=44&hid=124&sid=32c1a393-4ffc-
4494-a2ba-
6eb12c2d080c
%40sessionmgr112&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl
#db=buh&AN=70605781(Accessed on 10June 2013)

Churchill Jr., Gilbert A. (1979) A Paradigm for Developing Better Measures

for Marketing Constructs Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) Vol. 16
Issue 1, p64-73. 10p [electronic resource], Available at http://0-
ehis.ebscohost.com.brum.beds.ac.uk/ehost/detail?vid=11&hid=2&sid=862ed6bd -
1328-4e3abd65-
dde016a26143%40sessionmgr15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29w
ZT1zaXRl# db=buh&AN=5005503(Accessed on 10June 2013)

Churchill Jr., Gilbert A.; Peter J. Paul (1984) Research Design Effects on the
Reliability of Rating Scales: A Meta-Analysis Journal of Marketing
Research (JMR) Vol. 21 Issue 4, p360-375. 16p. [electronic resource].

ANNEXURE
RESPONDERS
*How old are you?
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 #16-25
#26-35
#36-45
#46-55
*What’s your gender
#Female
#Male
1. Do you think social media is the most sought after method adopted by
entrepreneurs’ young and old in the field of marketing, advertising, brand
building, promotions?
# Yes
# No
2. Which is the most effective solution for brand promotion?
# Social Media
# Print Media
3. Do you think social media marketing will help the firms to find their potential
customers?
# Yes
# No
# Maybe
4. Which social networking site are you most familiar with?
# LinkedIn
# Twitter
# My space
# Facebook
# YouTube
# Most of the above
5. Do you think the relative cost is much lesser as compared with traditional
advertising?
# Yes
# No
# Depends

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 6. Is social media helpful for B2B firms in generating new sales/clients?
# Yes
# No
# It depends how reputed the firm is.

7. “Social media can be effectively used for various B2C clients to increase sales.”
Do you agree?
# Yes
# No
# Partially

8. Which one do you think is the most effective social networking site for online
marketing?
# Twitter
# Facebook
# LinkedIn
9. Do you follow your favourite brands on social networking sites like Facebook,
twitter and LinkedIn?
# Yes
# No
10. If yes, why do you follow them?
# Just because you like that brands
# You are very keen to know about their new offerings
# To know how good they are in marketing
#None of the above

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