Social Media in Business: Advantages & Disadvantages

This reflective journal analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of using social media in business. The author explores how organizations leverage social networks to build brand value, engage consumers, and enhance their operations. The research focuses on two Australian telecommunications companies (Optus and Telstra), utilizing quantitative methods, questionnaires, and statistical analysis to examine the relationship between social networking, brand image, awareness, and value.

Running head: BUSINESS RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Reflective Journal on Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media in Business
Student Name
University name
Author Note

BUSINESS RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
The world of today is a world driven by the social network and we experience its
presence in our lives every day. This realization actually helped me to decide my research topic
which is ‘The Advantages and Disadvantages of using Social Networking in Business’. The role
of social network sites in business operations cannot be ignored. I primarily focused on the
business organizations’ use of social networking sites as an effective strategic tool and how it is
helping them to enhance and expand their business. Focusing the specific area I framed my
research objective. My mentor helped ad guided me throughout the journey and helped me
rectify the problems. I wanted to investigate how social network sites are used to develop the
brand value. I was also concerned about how the consumers are engaged through the SNS to
create the brand awareness.
Value of the Experience
Like any other useful research project, it was not just my personal interest of gathering
knowledge I considered other research scopes as well. I explored the disadvantages of
organizational use of social network sites that are affecting the business performances. I also
provided empirical data to support the conceptual framework I suggested. The presents scopes
are making the project valuable but the future scopes will increase its value in a significant
manner.

BUSINESS RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The Gradual Learning Process
Though social networking has not been existed more than two decades but it has
successfully gained a lot of attention. We see every day how organizations are using social
networks in their marketing and advertising in all forms of audio visual medium. As through
social networking platform we connect to our friends and families the organizations use social
network sites to connect to their consumers. While exploring the various literatures on social
network sites role in brand building I realized that organizations effectively use these platforms
for create the brand awareness. Through successful use of SNS, the consumers relate to their
services, product and company. Few researchers stressed on the fact that the companies have to
plan, nurture and support the brand image. Researchers have developed various dimensions of
brand knowledge like public relations and customer service. I found that human resource
department uses the social networking in the recruiting process. The companies connect to their
consumers, communicate them and try to find out what exactly they are expecting and modify
the operations accordingly.
Evaluating the Learning Experience
I developed my research based on 5 hypotheses that deal with relationship between the
social networking and consumers, public relationship and customer service. Before deciding
upon a specific research method I had to explore various research methods. After analyzing the
existing research methods I was able to identify the most suitable one for the development of my
research. I explored the main three research paradigms which are interpretivism, positivism and
pragmatism. I considered positivism as it is an objective method that relies upon the statistical
analysis of data. I also explored various philosophical assumptions like ontology, methodology,
epistemology, axiology and methods. I decided the population to support the research with an

BUSINESS RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
aggregate of all subjects of the research under some specifications. I chose target clients for this
research to be Optus and Telstra which are two large telecom organizations of Victoria,
Australia. I selected those two companies based on their customers, ranking, profit and
permission to work on them. I applied Taro Yamani formula for the population size and by
calculating I finalized on 799 sample size. As I knew that smaller sample will produce less
accurate data I chose the largest sample size. I followed government policies to separate the
subject groups and only one cluster was selected randomly. I divided the selected cluster into
groups of professionals, students, house wives and laborers. I applied quantitative approach for
the data collection. For all the variables like CKM, BV and BK I set questionnaire. The
questionnaire is segmented into two parts; I set 6 enquiries for the first part and 36 inquiries for
the second part. In the first part I only focused on gathering information related to the age,
gender, education, network, area and gender and for the second part I focused on the variables
that I have already discussed. I applied the “5 point Likert Scale” for the respondents to answer
the questions. I initiated a pilot testing for the data collection to check the feasibility. I
considered SEM and CFA methods for analyzing the results and hypothesis.
Usefulness in the Future
This research will help the telecommunication based organizations to understand the
social networking and how they can develop the brand value. As a business student I will get
significant knowledge out of the research which will help to grow as a skilled business
professional. My research might be helpful for the organizations to develop customer oriented
services and which areas should the company focus more. The final project indicates how the
relationship between the brand knowledge and brand value can be enhanced. The research will
also help to get consumer feedback which can be applied by the future researchers and

BUSINESS RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
managements to improve their brand value. This study has resulted in certain outcomes that
involves contemporary organizations and can be used by the future researchers to further the
research. I chose two large telecom companies of our country and in order to analyze my
research topic and the main variables I decided upon are social networking, brand image, brand
awareness and brand value.
Conclusion
I conducted this research that explored how contemporary business operations are
successfully incorporating social networking systems and how they are benefiting. The research
area was vast so I had to limit my direction and this was difficult. However exploring various
other options may have taken up a significant amount f time but it was not wastage of time. The
investigation helped to me to gather adequate knowledge to concentrate of specific areas with
more depth. The research will highlight that how the social network is gradually transforming
into a “plethora of opportunities” from where the new businesses can improve a lot.