Social Media and its Application in Business Organization

RESEARCH PROJECT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................1
Title of the study....................................................................................................................1
Research Background.............................................................................................................1
Research Objective.................................................................................................................1
Research Questions................................................................................................................2
Factors that contribute towards the selection of research project..........................................2
Problem statement..................................................................................................................2
Time Plan...............................................................................................................................2
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW...................................................................................4
LITERATURE REVIEW...........................................................................................................4
Introduction............................................................................................................................4
Significance of Internet within Business Organization..........................................................4
Social Media and its Application...........................................................................................5
Pros and Cons of Social Media..............................................................................................6
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.......................................................................8
Interview of managers..........................................................................................................12
Interpretation and Analysis..................................................................................................13
Interpretations of employee’s responses..............................................................................14
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATION.....................................................19
Recommendation..................................................................................................................20
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................21
Books and Journals..............................................................................................................21

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Title of the study
To examine how social media can impact a business growth: A case study on Hospitality
industry: Thomas Cook group Plc.
Research Background
According to Boyd and Ellison (2007) social media is gaining popularity and
increasingly used in several business operations of many companies. Here, most of the
companies are gaining popularity by increasingly using different social media tools.
Nowadays, there are most of the emerging technologies which are gaining popularity as tools
are to enable the cooperation among business in business network. Traditionally, the business
growth and performance is measured by establishing a set of key performance indicator,
balance scorecard etc. These methods have been used by most of the companies to analyse
their business performance and growth. With the changing time and rapid development of
social media companies are using it as a tool to expand their business. Champoux, Durgee
and McGlynn (2012) stated in his article that there are some of the most common factors such
as rapid development of applications, innovation etc. which influence the organizational
capabilities.
In addition to this, companies are able to communicate and coordinate with their
worldwide customers and maintain better relations with them. According to Evans (2010)
different platforms are provided by the social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and
LinkedIn etc. With the help of these tools organizations can easily go through the appropriate
marketing of their products. In this regard, the purpose of this study is to go beyond the role
of social media as well as its impact on the growth of business. For this, hospitality industry
is taken into consideration in which analysis takes place on the basis of Thomas Cook Plc. It
is of the leading British travel and tourism group and listed in the London stock exchange.
They basically own number of tour operators as well as charter airlines based in UK. Further,
this study gives brief description about the impact of social media within the Thomas Cook
group and how it helped them in enhancing their travel activities.
Research Objective
 To examine the rise of internet and its importance for business organizations
 To identify the benefits and drawbacks social media in the performance of company
 To determine the ways through which social media impact the performance and
business growth of hospitality firms
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 To recommend various ways through which social media can attract more number of
people.
Research Questions
 How performance and growth rate of organizations are affected by social media?
 What are the major benefits and drawbacks social media?
Factors that contribute towards the selection of research project
At the time of selecting the present research topic there are various factors which
motivated me to go through this. These factors are as follows:
Topic is current issue: This is the major factor which contributed towards the
selection of research topic. Social media is the vast and increasing area of research.
Nowadays most of the people are highly attracted towards the different social media activities
(Jonker and Pennink, 2010). It is the major factor due to which appropriate data can be
gathered and people can also give better responses about the use of social media.
Researcher’s interest: Another major reason for selecting this research topic is the
interest of researcher. The area which has been selected for the research is quite interesting
due to which researcher highly contributed towards it.
Problem statement
The present study is based on the hospitality industry which tends to be very customer
centric and also feels pride itself by providing quality services to their customers. At the time
of traditional marketing, lifestyle of people were highly saturated by the print media, radio
and television. The major negative effect of this media is high costing and one way
communications. In addition to this, social media encourages customer engagement and also
allows faster response and low cost investment. At the time of using social media one of the
major problems faced by companies is to develop a proper IT infrastructure. It requires high
costing to set up the whole infrastructure. Further, negative information and comments can
also destroy the brand image of company. Moreover, it has been considered as a major area
of problem faced by companies while using social media.
Time Plan
Activity 1th
Week
2nd
Week
3rd
Week
4t
Week
5th
Week
6th
Week
7th
Week
8th
Week
9th
Week
10th
We
ek
Drafting
Research
Proposal
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Literature
Review
Setting
aims and
objectives
Drafting
literature
review
Drafting
of
methodolo
gy
Developin
g
questionn
aire
Collection
of Data
Analysis
of Data
Draft
Findings
Analyse
data
Remainin
g
chapters
completio
n
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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
This section is developed for undertaking the discussion on past literature so that
conceptual base can be developed through it. This aids in conducting the research in an
effectual manner by identifying the key information related to research topics. Also, it helps
reader in gaining basic knowledge about the subject. Present literature review focuses on
social media and its role in boosting the growth of the company.
Significance of Internet within Business Organization
Boyd and Ellison, (2007) stated that internet is one of the key facilities that helps in
sharing information and data to varied individual in real time. It certainly helps organization
in completing its operation task in desired manner such as recording data, developing fact
sheets, offering services to customers, evaluating past performance, taking corrective
decisions and other related. Further, Haydon, Dunay and Krueger, (2012) commented that
businesses need to communicate with their customers on regular basis and internet is act as a
path for doing this things. Company with the help of email and websites can able to share
crucial information to customers through which more of customers are attracted towards it.
Supporting the viewpoint of Haydon, Dunay and Krueger, (2012), it can be state that internet
helps in sharing information over platform like social media and company websites from
which customer gains information regarding offers and schemes.
In addition to it, Parmelee and Bichard, (2012) found that internet helps in developing
a platform where company is able to work in a common manner. In this regard, company is
able to improve their customer’s service and responses to the problems and grievance of the
customers. Additionally, it act as a mode from which customer can buy product or service
which essentially boost the growth of the company. However, it can argued by Saw and et.al.,
(2013) that company needs to develop proper IT infrastructure so that it can gain benefits
through it. It incurs huge initial investment which small and medium scale company doesn’t
afford and hence they are not in state of taking benefits from it. Hence, it can state based on
this discussion that internet plays a significant role in modern day business and also supports
in gaining opportunities that exist in external environment. Information is one of the key
thing that business enterprise needs to communicate to interest group or regular basis, this
becomes possible through internet that also helped in attaining business objectives (Kazmi,
2007).
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