CHAPTER-1 Introduction

Background of the Study

Social Media Marketing (SMM) refers to the process of disseminating messages, gaining internet traffic or attention through social media websites in order to promote a personality, cause or business. It involves all methods, strategies, channels and platforms aimed at using social media platforms to communicate and engage a defined target audience in order to meet a defined marketing objective.

The convergence of technology and Social Media has changed the way people interact with one another and businesses can no more ignore these digital communities. The Internet has simplified business communication thereby improving the way companies sell, promote products and services. Product distribution has been made global and communication instantaneous; news travel within seconds making todays newspapers good only for yesterdays information. The effect on brands can be either extremely positive or negative depending on the perception of consumers. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of Social Media Marketing messages and how they have influenced consumer's perception of brands.

Social Media Marketing Communications typically centers on efforts by an individual or organization to create media content (music, article, video) that communicates marketing messages that attract attention and encourage its target audience to experience, interact and share information with their social networks (either online or offline) to meet a business objective. A corporate message on social media spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it appears to come from a trusted, third-party source, as opposed to the brand or company itself. This form of paid marketing is therefore an earned media rather than paid media because of the degree of trust earned by those who share it.

Social Media Advertising is gaining the attention of businesses and brands because of basic advantages which include; it's relatively lower costs, targeted advertising, measurement, personalized messages, and a great opportunity to drive traffic from leading social networking sites to business and brand's personalized platforms (or business websites).

Statement of Problem: As with other countries around the world; social networks and blogs continue to dominate times spent online by users. In the United States, social networking accounts for nearly a quarter of total time spent on the Internet with nearly 4 in 5 active Internet users visiting social networks than they do on any other U.S. website . India has a less internet penetration according to Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State, HRD (Internet penetration in India is barely 12%. Of course, we are looking at technological breakthroughs in the next couple of years which might raise this figure to 60%, which is when it will truly be a game changer. Omar Abdullah and I, in fact, admitted to each other that we cant even organise a rally on facebook and twitter, leave alone a campaign, regardless of what the Obama campaign team says). . The country also represents one of the fastest growing countries on Facebook, the world's largest Social Networking website with about 62.6 million members.

While most businesses and top-level executives agree to the rise and rapid adoption of social media as a platform for communication and digital conversations in india, there's the usual reluctance of testing new ideas and understanding the impact of these platforms on brands. Some have adopted the basic online strategies of setting up adverts through mobile phones and major websites.

But beyond the ideas of push advertising, the online environment includes several distinct factors that engender brand loyalty. As consumers become more savvy about the Internet, the impact of their behaviour, perception and interactions will influence brand loyalty. Social Media Marketing communication is beyond advertising on Facebook and Yahoo, it involves a lot more. People can instantaneously respond to businesses' offline tactics, online adverts, marketing policies and even rumors. The implications is not about when brands will adopt online platforms, it is about how.

The development, nurturing and maintenance of consumer brand trust on the internet needs to be integrated into companies marketing plans and promotion mix, Fournier, S. and Yao, J. (1997) proposes it will become very important especially in the face of highly competitive markets with increasing unpredictability and decreasing product differentiation.

Research Objectives: Because of the wide acceptance of Social Media platforms and its ability to enhance communication and interaction both between brands and consumers on one hand, and among consumers, it has become imperative that todays brands especially in india take advantage of the

opportunities that exist for constant communication, targeted advertising, low cost per lead, customer engagement and interaction across these platforms. Constant and consistent two-way communication will help brands not only create superior products or services but build long-term relationships with consumers. This increases brand equity and loyalty, which ultimately positively impacts the bottom line and the competitive edge and sustainability of the brand.

In the light of the foregoing, the objectives of this Project include the following; i. To ascertain the online social media habits of prospective media content consumers ii. To measure how their online activities influence brand perception iii. To measure the impact of their response to SMM messages iv. To measure the effectiveness of SMM and engagement campaigns on consumer perception v. To explore how agencies are engaging their target audience vi. To examine their attitude towards messages received through SMM messages vii. To measure the degree of reliability of SMM messages

Research Questions/ Hypothesis:

The research is designed to test the following hypothesis which tends to propose the following concepts; H1 People find social media advertising as a very useful channel in getting information about products and services.

Social Media and online advertising is supported by strong analytic and targeted metrics such that adverts are seen by people who see the adverts as relevant to them. While it may be intrusive, it is expected that people who see online adverts should see them as relevant.

H2 It is opined that social media is a veritable tool to nurture Brand Loyalty

With Social Media being unique through User-generated content (UGC) and two-way communication, it is a veritable tool for building Brand Loyalty. The 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study found that of the 60 percent of Americans who use social media, 93 percent believe companies should have a presence in social media. 85 percent of this population also believe a company should not only be present but also interact with its consumers via social media and 56 percent of users feel both a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they can interact with them in a social media environment . Steve Outing in his own book, Enabling Social Company opines that when companies listen to what the audience is sayingand build online venues that encourage consumers to express themselves, they can innovate faster and more intelligently.

H3 - Conversations going on in social media platforms have a great influence on consumer perception and buying behavior

With technology is now aiding Word-of-Mouth Marketing, digital conversations, peer comments, tweets, blog posts, and product reviews will have a huge impact on consumer behaviour. According to Heinze and Hu and the theory of impression management, individuals can form impressions of organizations based on interactions with organizations websites. While examining customers attitudes toward company Web sites, Heinze and Hu evaluated the importance of competition and said that a company must maintain pace with its industry. It should incorporate features and technology that consumers deem important. Managers should focus on using the features that have the greatest effects on customer perceptions .

Significance of the study

The significance of the study has various implications for different fields, analytics and marketing communication strategy employed by organisations. The study aims to determine the effectiveness for organisations and businesses using social media tools in reaching their target audience and to increase their bottom-line. It will also examine the importance of online reputation and the need for organisations to develop innovative approaches in reaching their target audience. This study will also ultimately conclude if social media helps organisations differentiate themselves in the market place.

The significance of the study will have implications in the following areas;

1. Spread

The survey will assess the involvement of social media in the lives of different categories of the population. It will also affirm the rapid involvement of brands within the marketplace. The study will also highlight the disposition of people to social media marketing messages and the response of the sample population to advertising messages.

2. Traffic

This is one of the more obvious ways of measuring social media benefits for brands. While social media evokes a community for conversations, it has tremendous potential for driving traffic for businesses with online portals, pages and website. Once businesses have official pages online, marketing helps drive traffic to their official website for further communication, marketing, they can also serve as platforms to promote sales and promotional campaigns.

3. Interaction

The differentiating factor for social media platforms is the instantaneousness and the opportunity for brands to participate in social media two-way conversations. So many challenges can be solved through these means. It is also a valuable indicator of public perception and the impact of the product and marketing policies on the target market. Negative and de-marketing information can be corrected and influenced through these means. An engaged customer is a highly valuable one since interaction will reveal a lot more similitude of a market research. Interaction can be anything from leaving comments, to participating in support forums, to leaving customer reviews and ratings.

4. Sales

As India gradually shifts toward e-commerce solutions, online payment and non- contact transactions, the study will reveal the perception of the population to online transactions, how the new cashless policy being proposed is affecting them and the prospects of whether the target audience can respond to marketing messages of products and services presented on social media platforms.

5. Lead Generation

While most companies in India are not fully engaging in online transactions, marketing communication can be used to drive Leads/footprints for sales or events promotion. If peer-topeer interaction on these platforms have a high degree of reliability or perceived to be respected, social media platforms serve as a potent platform to drive entry of new projects , advert campaigns with a resultant impact on the number of people eventually coming for the products, product sampling and event attendance.

6. Search Marketing

As most search engines favour content from social media, the Search Engine Optimization factor cannot be understated. Social media can be far more powerful in this regard than can be easily realized. With Google introducing new changes to its search algorithm to include social media and personalized history, Blog entries, product reviews and consumer experiences may outrank original company websites. A well written and optimized story / video / image on a site like Digg will generate a lot of traffic.

7. Brand metrics/Analytics

One angle with which the significance of the study will bear on is the measurement of marketing efforts or marketing analytics. Unlike traditional media, social media and other digital media platforms are concise and precise on measurement. The direct measurement of digital marketing efforts is available on so many digital platforms and offer insight into consumers' response to social media marketing communication messages.

8. PR

The nature of public relations and reputation has changed, forever with the advent of social media. With the advent of social networking sites ( Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn e.t.c.) giving people and organizations the power to respond to branding and marketing propositions and the attendant impact of blogs and other user-generated media. Since Search Engines have a powerful control on influencing consumer perception and opinions about products and services, what Search Engines tell them has a lot of impact on the brands.

This study will have important implications for the distinct worlds of PR, Customer Service, and Marketing.

Chapter 2: Review of Related Literature

Social media will include all web-based and mobile technologies used to turn communication into interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user- generated content." Social media is media for social interaction as a super-set beyond social communication. Enabled by ubiquitously accessible and scalable communication techniques, social media has substantially changed the way organizations, communities, and individuals communicate . The strength of these platforms is owing to the fact that it enhances the consumers ability to communicate with one another and subsequently limits the amount of control companies have over the content and dissemination of information about their brands .

Social Media Platforms Social Media platforms are online portals driven by technology and enhance the use, streaming and sharing of multimedia content (data, voice, and video). These platforms have become the fast growing 'virtual communities' in the emerging global village. The easy accessibility to anyone anywhere across the world with internet access makes it a potential marketplace where brands also come to promote their products and engage the target audience. Increased communication on social media platforms for organizations fosters brand awareness and often, improved customer service. Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns.

Social Media platforms include Blogs, Social Networks, Newsgroups, Photo-sharing, Blog Aggregators, Micro-communities and Wikis. Some examples of these include;

Blogs Perhaps the best known form of social media, blogs are web applications built as shared online journals where people can post daily entries of information: personal experiences, business, hobbies or pleasure. i. WordPress iii. Typepad ii. Blogger/BlogSpot iv. Movable Type

Social Networks These sites allow people to build personal web pages and then connect with friends to share content and communication.

i. Facebook ii. Google Plus iii. MySpace iv. Hi5 v. LinkedIn

Content communities (multimedia) These are online communities which organize and share particular kinds of content. Most of them allow for people to upload, download and share different kind of content; music, video and photos.

a. Video Sharing i. YouTube ii. Daily motion

b. Music Sharing i. iTunes ii. Napster

c. Photo Sharing i. Flickr

d. Instant Messengers i. Black Berry Messenger ii. Whatsapp iii. Yahoo Messenger iv. Skype v. Google Chat

The top three social media platforms include the following;

Facebook: Facebook, an online social networking service is the world's largest and most used online community and website (January 2009, Compete.com) was launched in February 2004. The company is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. and was founded by Mark Zuckerberg alongside his college roommates and fellow students; Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The Web site's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening the platform up to high school students, and eventually anyone aged 13 and above

The Facebook online platform allows users to create personal profiles, own their own virtual spaces, invite and add others as friends, exchange messages, receive automatic 21 notification of friends' activities. These boutiques of technical functionalities were expansive enough to attract a wide variety of early adopters which later extended into friends, acquaintances and associates regardless of race, colour and gender. This online community has resulted in creating the largest online community with more than 800 million active users making it; if it were a country, the third largest in the world .

Social Media Marketing Communications is a major channel through which Facebook makes its money . This source of revenue for Facebook evolved when businesses and brands found a place within this online communities; creating pages, pushing messages, pictures and videos to predefined target audience. It also allowed individuals to offer their products and services to the online community through social media advertising campaigns to sell their offerings through display, word and banner advertising.

Microsoft which owns 1.3 % of Facebook ownership structure is responsible for serving banner advertising. It is reported that Facebook makes over $9 million per day from advertising .

YouTube: YouTube is a video-sharing website, founded by three former employees of PayPal (Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim) in February 2005. It is built on a technology that allows users (individuals and organisations) to view, display and share a wide variety of usergenerated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos which users can upload, view and share videos .

As a result of this explosive growth, media corporations now use the platform in sharing content through a partnership programme; CBS, the BBC. The site grew rapidly, and in July 2006 the company announced that more 22 than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day, and that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day . Google Inc. bought YouTube for US$1.65 billion the same year and started operations as a subsidiary of Google in November 2006.

Social Media marketing through YouTube can either make use of the user-generated videos or through YouTube's Advertising platform. This advertising platform is managed by Google through its AdSense. An example of user generated videos was used for building awareness for D'Banj's 'Oliver Twist' album.

LinkedIn: This is a business-related social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003. It is mainly used for professional networking and extending into a recruitment platform. With LinkedIn reporting more than 135 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, Russian, Turkish and Japanese and has over .4 million monthly unique U.S. visitors and 47.6 million globally . Users use it to connect with friends and professional colleagues, to find jobs, business opportunities, employers now use it to find prospective employers and prospective employees can establish their profiles, Curriculum Vitae, experience and competence on the website. Web applications are increasingly being used to develop platforms that use LinkedIn for recruitment and selection for employment by organizations and are gaining wide adoption .

The impacts of communication on these platforms have huge impact on brands and consumer perception. In Gillin's Book, The New Influencers, he opined that Conventional marketing wisdom has long held that a dis-satisfied customer tells ten people. But that is out of date. In the new age of social media, he or she has the tools to tell 10 millionconsumers virtually overnight. Social media is increasingly playing an important role in how consumers search, research, and share information about brands and products. In fact 60 percent of consumers researching products through multiple online sources learned about a specific brand or retailer through social networking sites. Active social media users are more likely to read product reviews online, and 3 out of 5 create their own reviews of products and services. Women are more likely than men to tell others about products that they like (81% of females vs. 72% of males). Overall, consumergenerated reviews and product ratings are the most preferred sources of product information among social media users . According to a research conducted by Nielsen, a global research firm, it gave empirical evidence that social media is increasingly a platform consumers use to express their loyalty to their favourite brands and products, and many seek to reap benefits from brands for helping promote their products. Among those who share their brand experiences through social media, at least 41 percent say they do so to receive discounts .

It is not whether businesses and organizations will evolve to meet these challenges, it is how. This is because the primary customers of their businesses, the customers are already evolving in their habits and attitudes and it will affect businesses. In the United States, most people rely on various types of social media websites as much as company websites for product and brand information. Seven out of ten (70%) consumers have visited social media websites such as message boards, social networking sites, and blogs to get information. Further, nearly half (49%) of these consumers made a purchase decision based on what they gathered .

Chapter 3: Research Methodology A quantitative and qualitative research is designed to determine consumer's perception towards organizations that use social media. Through this study a safe conclusion can be arrived at on the involvement of brands on social media. This research will also help organizations determine the potency of their social media campaigns and to anticipate the response of their target audience.

Sample Selection The research will be conducted using an online survey. The survey will be designed using an online survey platform. Promotion and Publicity for the survey will be through online influencers and other social media platforms. Everyone receiving the information will be asked to fill the survey and also broadcast the message. i.e. take the survey, pass it along and ask others to complete it. This will result in a non-random, convenient, self-selected sample population.

Data Collection Method The survey instrument itself will include 20 close-ended questions. The instrument will probe consumers awareness, behaviour, opinions and perception toward social media platforms and how they want organizations to interact with them.

Data Analysis Method The filled online form, which is automatically collated in a tabular form. This is then analysed using www.docs.google.com. The analysis will help us determine frequencies and percentages of the responses. The analysis will reveal and help evaluate the consumer attitudes and behaviours towards brands that use or participate in digital conversation. This research will also determine if consumers want organizations to use social media to communicate with them and how they perceive organisations already using the platforms.

The results from this four-part research, alongside conclusions and recommendations are found in the next chapter.

Questionnaire:

A: Personal Data:

1. Please specify your gender a. Male b. Female

2. Please specify your age bracket a. Under 18 years e. 40 49 b. 18 - 25 f. 50 + above c. 26 29 d. 30 - 39

3. Please specify your marital status a. Single b. Married c. Divorced

4. Please specify your income bracket a. Less than Rs.250,000 annually b. RS. 250,001 to Rs.500, 000 annually c. RS. 500,001 to Rs. 1,000,000 annually d. RS. 1,000,001 to Rs. 2,000,000 annually e. RS. 2,000,001 to Rs. 5,000,000 annually f. More than Rs. 5,000,000 annually

B: Awareness

5. Please select all social networks for which you have created a personal profile (Select all that apply) a. Facebook b. Twitter c. LinkedIn d. Google plus e. My space f. Other

6. How many hours do you spend online each day? a. 0-3 hours b. 4 - 9 hours c. 10 - 15 hours d. 16 - 24 hours

7. How many hours do you spend on social networks per day? a. 0-3 hours b. 4 - 9 hours c. 10 - 15 hours d. 16 - 24 hours

8. Why do you use an online social network? Select all answers that apply. Please select all that apply. a. To keep in touch with friends and family. b. To meet new people and share experiences about life c. To make professional and business contacts (gaining leads, members, customers) d. To share photos, videos, music and play games. e. To find information and share feedback about brands and products. f. To promote a business or cause g. To search for jobs and other available opportunities

9. How many friends do you have on your primary social network a. 1 - 500 b. 501 - 1000 c. 1001 - 2500 d. 2501 - 5000

10. How do you access Social Media Platforms?

a. Desktop Computer d. Mobile Phones

b. Laptop Computer e. I use a cafe

c. Tablets (iPad, Galaxy Tab and others) f. Other

Perception 11. Have you ever responded to an online advertisement? a. Yes b. No

12. How do you feel about advertising on social networks? a. Very annoying 48 e. Very useful b. Somewhat annoying f. Interesting c. Somewhat annoying d. Somewhat useful

13. Have you ever purchased a product or service based on an advertisement on a social network? c. Yes d. No

14. Do you use social media in an official business or professional capacity? a. Yes b. No

15. Are you a member of a fan page for a brand or product on Facebook? a. Yes b. No

16. Why do 'like' brands on Facebook? a. To show solidarity b. To try and see it they can solve a challenge you have (Customer service) 49 c. To be updates on latest news

d. Discounts/freebies e. I don't know f. To open communication lines

17. Where do you go to as a preferred source for information about products/services you want to buy? a. Company's website b. Newspapers c. Send a mail to the Company d. Blogs and Forums e. Other Social Networks ( Facebook, Twitter) f. I consult Google first

18. Which has more influence on your perception of people, products and places online? a. Online Adverts b. Company/Brand Social Pages c. Company Websites e. They all don't matter

d. Recommendation of others (forums, status updates, tweets)

19. Do you share your experiences and perception of people/brands/products/services online? a. No b. Yes

20. Why do you share your brand experiences on Social Media a. To feel empowered b. To protect others c. To commend a good job d. To bond with others with the same experiences

e. Expect the company to react/response