Correlation Between Social Media Marketing Strategies and Developing Brand Awareness

Preliminary Research Proposal (20%)
Guidelines for Completing this form:
- The form should be completed using Calibri font, size 12, 1.5
spacing.
- Students must provide answer for every question.
- Word counts for individual questions must not be exceeded.
- The completed form must be submitted via moodle using the CA2
link ahead of the deadline (check CA2 submission link for
deadline date)
Section A. Applicant Details
Student Name
Student Number
Submission Date
Module Code
Program Code and
Name
Research Methods
Lecturer
Section B. Project Title (15 words)
The Correlation between Social Media Marketing Strategies and
Developing Brand Awareness in their Target Market?
Section C. Aims & Rationale
1. Briefly introduce your research topic, highlighting the key issues
around which your project is based and the potential value of your
project. (500 words)
To stay competitive and attract more customers to the services and
products they offer, organisations have started to revolutionise the tactics
they use to market themselves and set themselves apart from the

competition. At the same time, the world now is getting more digital,
meaning that most of the interaction with potential customers is through
the online space. Therefore, social media marketing is now an essential
aspect of the marketing mix in most, if not all, companies (Godey,et al., 2016,
pp. 5834). Social media marketing is hence described as where organisations
utilise social media platforms to reach their desired customers with the aim
of creating brand awareness, increasing sales for their products and
services and also drive traffic to the company website (Monica and Balaş,
2014, pp. 160). By 2019, 45% of the world’s population are active social
media users, and most of them depend on these platforms to keep in touch
with current trendy topics in their area of interest. About 71% of
consumers admit that when they happy with a brand, they have interacted
with on social media, they will recommend it to their family and friends
(Hutter, Hautz, Dennhardt, and Füller, 2013).
Today’s generation craves flexibility and convenience, which they
associate with their mobile devices, thus the popularity of the social media
platforms. On average, across the world, social media users spend 3 hours
surfing through the various sites, meaning that they will most likely
interact with several marketing advertisements. According to Mohsin
(2020), the most popular platform among the world’s adults is Facebook;
thus, it is the most preferred platform used by companies for marketing
purposes. Further, about73% of marketers across the globe agree that the
efforts they have made to market their companies on social media sites
have been successful and led to more business and brand awareness for
them.
However, for social media marketing to achieve the desired results,
some strategies need to be followed to ensure success. Merely posting
about a business on social media platforms without a clear plan is not
marketing, and this can be detrimental. Only 26% of companies take this
tool seriously and integrate it with their marketing plans with the rest using
it as an afterthought. Lack of strategy leads to the risk of companies not

achieving their marketing goals, not reaching their target market while
losing money spent (Coulter, Bruhn, Schoenmueller, and Schäfer, 2012).
Businesses do not come up with plans for various reasons; they have had
success with traditional marketing hence do not see the need for changing
it to use social media, the fear of the online world because there is no
control. Also, there is no clear way to measure the return on investment
(ROI) using this kind of marketing, and it is sometimes hard to align it with
the business goals (Karamian, Nadoushan, and Nadoushan, 2015, pp. 363).
Generally, a lack of knowledge of social media marketing strategies is the
main reason most companies lack it. There exists a lot of research about
the types of social media marketing strategies that companies can use.
However, little research has been done on the relationship between using
these strategies and creating brand awareness for organisations.
2. Describe clearly the aims and objectives of your research project
(200 words)
The world of Social Media Marketing (SMM) is ever-evolving. If
companies do not keep up with trends happening around the globe, they
will be left using outdated methods and thus suffering losses instead of
creating brand awareness. Since there is little research on the importance
of companies having social media marketing strategies and how it links to
increasing brand awareness; thus, this is the main aim of this research
project. This research aims to inform companies of the importance of
having an effective social media marketing strategy and how this will lead
to increased brand awareness for the business. It also aims to help
persuade companies to invest more towards creating social media
strategies since it is an essential aspect in generating more business, thus
ensuring a return on investment. It will be achieved through research on
why organisations need to come up with strategies to carry out their social
media marketing, thus letting companies know the effect of operating
without one. Also, finding out how to carry out the social media marketing
strategy will then lead to increased brand awareness. Finally, once this is