Analysis of Social Media Utilization in Business

The provided assignment is a compilation of various research papers and studies related to social media usage in businesses. It includes articles from journals such as Computers in Human Behavior, Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness, and Tourism Management Perspectives, among others. The research focuses on the utilization of social media in business-to-business relationships, its impact on marketing communication models, and its role in destination marketing and tourism development. The studies explore how social media is used by businesses to manage and market their organizations, and the importance of context in entrepreneurial innovation. The assignment provides a comprehensive overview of the current research on social media usage in businesses, making it a valuable resource for students and researchers in the field.

Research Project

Table of Contents
Title: ................................................................................................................................................3
CHAPTER 1: INTRRODUCTION.................................................................................................3
1.1 Research aims:......................................................................................................................3
1.2 Research Objectives..............................................................................................................4
1.3 Research Questions...............................................................................................................4
1.4 Significance of the research..................................................................................................4
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.........................................................................................4
2.1 Introduction to the literature review......................................................................................4
2.2 Main Body.............................................................................................................................5
2.3 Conclusion of the literature review:......................................................................................7
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY...................................................................................................7
3.1 Research Philosophy: ...........................................................................................................7
3.2 Research Approach:..............................................................................................................8
3.3 Research Strategy/Methods:..................................................................................................8
3.4 Research Methodology:........................................................................................................8
3.5 Research Instrument/Tools:..................................................................................................8
3.6 Research sampling:...............................................................................................................9
3.7 Ethical Implications:.............................................................................................................9
CHAPTER 4: Findings (Data Analysis & Presentation).................................................................9
Questionnaires.............................................................................................................................9
CHAPTER 5: Discussion (data interpretation)..............................................................................16
CHAPTER 6: ................................................................................................................................17
Conclusion:...............................................................................................................................17
Recommendation:.....................................................................................................................17
Implication for further research:...............................................................................................18
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................19

Title:
“To determine the importance of Social media tools for growth and development of
firms”. A case study on Sainsbury's
CHAPTER 1: INTRRODUCTION
In a today's era, social media is currently under process of becoming renowned platform
which has efficiency to make people to interact with each-other and share own idea, views and
opinions to have common and long worth relationship (Dimitriadis, 2014). This comes under
elements of digital tech with support of accuracy to different individual person to bring
effectiveness in their process of working. In personal context, social media is only a mean to
transform and share information from one person to another, but in context of business entity this
is a way to build long term relationship with other people or customer to sell them or deal with
them ethically. Research project will be cover on “Sainsbury's” is a third largest chain of
supermarket in an entire UK. It shares almost 16.9 percent share of the supermarket sector. They
deals in supermarket, hyper market and store to sell different products or valuable goods. Apart
from this, report will cover importance of social media for growth and development of the
Sainsbury's, which is necessary for their business operation and increased profitability This will
be possible with help of small scale in which various activities such as research aim, objectives
or questions have major role and interpretation of data and its analysis will also be done with the
help of developed questions.
1.1 Research aims:
For this research project, aim is “To identify importance of Social Media tools for growth
and development of the firm”. A
Case Study on Sainsbury's .
Rationale of this project:
Role of social media has been increased in an society as a greater context and has led role
of revolutionary change for an individual and business entity for some specific purpose. Business
entity are now eligible to invest money in empowerment of digital technology along with process
for supportive structure to overcome any kind of legal issues (Tsimonis, 2018). This research
project has have conducted to evaluate an importance of social media in concept of growth and
development of Sainsbury's. For example: In order to know how sales and profitability can be

acquired, after strategic planning & decision making, This will be taken into process just after
this project.
1.2 Research Objectives
 To determine the concept of Social Media.
 To evaluate advantage of Social Media tools for enhancing business growth of
the firm.
 To identify the major challenges of implementing Social media for Sainsbury's.
1.3 Research Questions
 What is the concept of Social Media.
 What are the advantage that can be gained from Social Media tools for enhancing
business growth of Sainsbury's.
 What are the major challenges of implementing Social media for Sainsbury's.
1.4 Significance of the research
Social media is this current era has almost 1.8 Billion users, who are active 24*7 hours.
This has its own separate advantages to be undertaken, but there are certain weakness of it such
as increasing case of fraud, defamation, wrongly intention or way to any other people (Krishnan,
2012). Also, it was noticed that social media has become wrong choice for business firm, but has
not proved right towards the business process of Sainsbury's. Through this research project,
major focus will be given for how these issues can be removed and overcome to led suitable and
valid outcomes from this research project. In order to overcome these issues, it is necessary to
have complete analysis of the market scenario, wants currently running into a market structure.
Also, how growth and development can be acquired with support of the social media.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction to the literature review
In an essence, literature review identifies, evaluates and synthesises the relevant literature
within a particular field of research project. This illuminates how knowledge has been evolved
within a field, highlighting what has already been done, what is generally accepted, what is
emerging and what is a current state of thinking on this project (Peterson, 2017). The main
purpose of the literature review is to identify gaps in previous topics or research which has been
done previously. This is actually actually about what has been done in past by other entities and
also what about its relevancy to pursue same knowledge or context. In context with this research
project, it will be valuable to know what has been done in past on same topic or any similar
issues interlinked to it. In different context, this has been usually written as part of the post-
graduate thesis of proposal or at a beginning of a dissertation or any kind of behavioural thesis.
2.2 Main Body
Concept of Social Media:
According to the Rudolph (2017), social media has been termed as the platform, in which
lots of interactive stages are such as: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc., are there who is leading
an initiative to develop and make people at the one common place or location (Rodriguez, 2018).
In this platform, people have rights and power to share knowledge & information with others by
any individual or business entities. Social media is evolved in the year 2010, in an initial stage, it
was only popular within youth and people (Gerritsen, 2014). But, in this current scenario
business entities are using it for enhancing reach of products to the customer or purpose of
growing sales and profitability on a higher basis.
Concept of social media ha been evolved into the society on larger basis and its right use
taken by business firm to accumulate right results in given point of time. For Sainsbury's, social
media will be right opportunity for growing market share and acquiring higher customer's to led
their name as leader into the retail sector. It has been read on various journals and books that
social media in next coming three to four will completely transferred to business entity to grow
their business operation at a bigger context (Zeng, 2016).
In Layman language, social media is a collective of an online communication channels
which are dedicated to community based actual inputs, sharing of the content and collaborations.

This involves websites and application which are highly for forums, micro-blogging, social
networking, social curation and wikis are some major source of different media.
Advantage of Social Media tools for enhancing
business growth of Sainsbury's
According to Rudolph (2017), social media is one of a fast growing sector, which has its
major role in enhancing business reach of both tangible or intangible products to the customer's
in given point of time (Buhalis, 2013). It was noticed, social media is under process of enhancing
people reach to sell them products or services with measures to generate results in form of
increased profits or revenue. This has made people to pin point their mind to take decision
making on spot basis and also generate choice of an customer's on random basis to attract them
to buy products in future. In context with Sainsbury's, social media is requires to be considers as
scope to develop it to enhance growth of a business operation along with rising profitability for
Sainsbury's into future period. There are various advantage of social media for Sainsbury's are
as follows:
Increasing brand & product Awareness: Social media is an emerging and cost saving
marketing tools, which are used to enhance value of the given content and also led increase into
the business' reliability and visibility. Implementation of the social media strategical role would
increase brand recognition of the Sainsbury's, since they are in engaging with a broad audience
of consumers (Hays, 2018).
More Inbound Traffic: Without process of the marketing business on social platform,
Sainsbury's inbound traffic will be limited to daily based customer and their support. Customer's
who are majorly familiar with Sainsbury's are likely to be search for the similar keywords that
already rank for.
Better Customer Satisfaction: Social media is one of setup networking system as well
as platform. This is the major advantage along with voice for Sainsbury's through platforms such
as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram which is necessary in humanizing this retail business
company. Customers are knows for their appreciate which they knows, that when they actually
post comments on Sainsbury's pages or area, business entity will receive a personalized response
rather than an automated message.

Major challenges of implementing Social media for Sainsbury's:
Social media is an interactive platform, through which different people used to interact
with others in order to have common knowledge & information shared by business entities to an
individual. Implementing social media is necessary to take step towards reaching to customer's
with saving time & higher cost (Kietzmann, 2012). Also, there are various challenges, which has
been faced by Sainsbury's for implementation of social media in their platform to enhance brand
equity for period of time. Social media doesn't requires any specific cost, but in return, it incurs
high time and efforts of the management to create channels of the communication structures. In
previous time, this leading retail has tried to built social media in their own business functioning,
but results were negative to be undertaken. It was noticed that, there are several reason or
challenges of implementing social media such as:
Development of a social media strategy: This is one of the most critical, as it requires
efforts and overseeing this platform on daily basis to different sources of market. Major reason is
change in people behaviour level, attitude & scope, which is challenging task to be accomplish to
bring business suitability & increased social operations to enhance product propensity at a
greater and higher level or stage (Rapp, 2013).
Measuring social media ROI: Social media is what to get about right on time, out of the
money and resources into the process of customer attraction through era of social media to gain
business competency along with increased profit to continue business operations. Social media
ROI is something different from traditional online marketing to generate business revenues. This
is challenging because, its importance to generate income, which must equal to expenses incurs
(Kiráľová and Pavlíčeka, 2015).
Hence, it has been proved necessary to overcome these challenges to arrive at the valid
conclusion, that how social media can be used as major way to solve problems to enhance most
suitable growth and development opportunities for the Sainsbury's.
2.3 Conclusion of the literature review:
From above discussed literature review. It has to be concluded that social media is the
future of the market along with enabling product reach to the customer's in given point of time.
Given research questions are very well defined in this literature with expectancy that, objectives
would be achieved in discussed period of time. Given questions are very well discussed above,
so as to reach its desired results or outcome over definite time duration to pro-found valid

conclusion of this research project. Lastly, literature review needs to have proper and relevant
discussion of past cases or issues occurred in same field of the social platform.
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Philosophy:
It is a belief about the way, on which data about a phenomenon that should be gathered,
analysed and also used. This is helpful for researcher in gathering an right and suitable info in an
efficient manner (Soule, 2012). There are majorly two types of interpretivisim and positivism.
For this research interpretivisim will be used to get valid conclusion out of a given topic of
importance of social media.
3.2 Research Approach:
These are some plan and procedures for research that spans a steps from broad level of
assumptions to detailed methods of data collection, analysis and level of interpretation. Approach
of research is comprised of two types such as: Inductive and deductive approach. For this
research, inductive research approach will have to be given major importance, it deals with
qualitative analysis. The major reason behind taking this approach is its focus on data analysis
along with attaining valid conclusion from the same.
3.3 Research Strategy/Methods:
Research methods are those composite strategies which says about how data will have to
be assess and also how it can be ascertained to collect data & information on higher basis. There
are majorly two types of research methods such as: qualitative and quantitative research. In this
research project, majorly qualitative research will be assess to generate information, after clear
cut preparation and spreading of questionnaire to respondent in order to record their response of
the general public, people and business entity to arrive at a valid conclusion (Veríssimo, 2014).
So, here method of qualitative method needs to be given major priority to get valid conclusion
out of this research.

3.4 Research Methodology:
It is a specific procedures or kind of techniques which are mainly used to select, identify,
process and analyse an information about any research topic. In a research paper, methodology
section allows a reader to critically evaluate a study's overall validity and reliability. In given
research project majorly qualitative technique's will be used to gather quality information & data
to arrive at a valid conclusion of this research project. Data collection will be considered here to
make work more analysis based to right answer of importance of the social media.
3.5 Research Instrument/Tools:
In this, major focus will be given to data collection through primary sources, in which
importance is used to given to information gathering using questionnaire tools. This is a part of
data collection which is of two major types such as: primary and secondary data collection. On
one hand, primary data collection means gathering data & information from general audience to
know their matter of choices on matter of any relevant topics (Huang, 2012).
3.6 Research sampling:
In this research project, sample size of 30 respondents will be taken in this research work
to gathers valid conclusion over defined topic of importance of the social media over growth and
development of business firms. In order to complete this project, researcher needs to put its focus
on probabilistic sampling to ascertain relevant information from the respondents to get valid and
relevant conclusion from given topics.
3.6.1 Identifying Population and Research Site:
In this research project, identified population, from whom response will be taken will be
general public, employee's, suppliers, investor or other connected person who are highly eligible
to do so. Research site will be location near to the premises of Sainsbury's and specific location
into an entire London city. Connected person of an employee's will also be undertaken to gather
relevant information from given data collection.
3.6.2 Sampling Strategy:
In this research project, sampling technique will be well-structured questionnaire of total
8 questions, which are majorly based on topic of this research topic to generate valid conclusion
out of this research project to arrive at a valuable outcomes of this projects. Questionnaire will be

prepared after best knowledge of the research objective & questions to gather outcomes just after
given point of time (Castronovo, 2017).
3.7 Ethical Implications:
There are certain norms that are to be followed so that research can be done in an ethical
manner. This can be based on two factors such as time and cost. In this research project, major
implication will be lack of adequate budget and time as resources to accomplish outcomes in
given period of time.
CHAPTER 4: Findings (Data Analysis & Presentation)
Questionnaires
Name:
Age:
Contact no:
Q.1) Are you aware about concept of social media ?
a. Yes
b. No
Q.2) Which social media platform do you use on daily basis ?
a. Facebook
b. Twitter
c. Instagram
Q.3) Out of 24 hours, how long you use social media such as Facebook etc., in a day?
a. Only one hour
b. Two hour
c. More than two hours
Q.4) Advantage of social media on role of enhancing business growth and profitability of the
Sainsbury's ?
a. Increase customer base
b. Rise in brand value & loyalty
c. Increase in business profitability
Q.5) Is it suitable for Sainsbury's to continue use of social media platform in enhancement of
business growth ?

a. Yes
b. No
Q.6 What are major challenges of implementation of social media on Sainsbury's business ?
a. Rise in cost & expenses
b. Impact on brand values
c. Customer turnover
Q.7 What are major measures by which challenges related to social media implementation
can be solved ?
a. Information gathering
b. Budget making
c. Optimum utilisation of resources
Q.8 Any recommendation
…....................................................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................................................
Q.1) Are you aware about concept of social media ? Frequency
A) Yes 24
B) No 6
A) Yes B) No
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
24
6
Frequency

Q.2) Which social media platform do you use on daily basis ? Frequency
a. Facebook 15
b. Twitter 8
c. Instagram 7
Q.3) Out of 24 hours, how long you use social media such as Facebook
etc., in a day?
Frequency
a. Only one hour 8
b. Two hour 16
c. More than two hours 6
a. Facebook b. Twitter c. Instagram
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16 15
8
7 Frequency

Q.4) Advantage of social media on role of enhancing business growth
and profitability of the Sainsbury's ?
Frequency
a. Increase customer base 12
b. Rise in brand value & loyalty 8
c. Increase in business profitability 10
8
16
6
a. Only one hour
b. Two hour
c. More than two
hours
a. Increase customer base
b. Rise in brand value & loyalty
c. Increase in business profitability
0
4
8
12 12
8 10
Frequency

Q.5) Is it suitable for Sainsbury's to continue use of social media
platform in enhancement of business growth ?
Frequency
a. Yes 20
b. No 10
Q.6 What are major challenges of implementation of social media on
Sainsbury's business ?
Frequency
a. Rise in cost & expenses 14
b. Impact on brand values 10
c. Customer turnover 6
a. Yes b. No
0
5
10
15
20
25
20
10 Frequency

Q.7 What are major measures by which challenges related to social
media implementation can be solved ?
Frequency
a. Information gathering 13
b. Budget making 11
c. Optimum utilisation of resources 6
0
4
8
12
13 11
6
Frequency
14
10
6
a. Rise in cost &
expenses
b. Impact on brand
values
c. Customer turnover

CHAPTER 5: Discussion (data interpretation)
Theme 1: Awareness about concept of social media
Interpretation: Given diagram reveals that, 24 respondents are aware about the concept
of social media and rest 6 are completely unaware about this platform. This is because of their
non usage or incomplete information about this sector. Awareness is high, because of increase in
people point of views.
Theme 2: Usage of type of social media platform
Interpretation: Given bar diagram reveals that, 15 respondents uses Facebook on daily
basis, 8 out of the 30 respondents uses twitter and rest 7 respondent uses Instagram. The major
reason behind Facebook is that, it has enables people to share their personal liking or what they
actually likes.
Theme 3: Usage of social media such as Facebook etc., in a day
Interpretation: From given pie chart, its reveals that 16 respondents uses social media on
an average tow hours, 8 respondents uses social media for only one hour or even less and rest 6
respondents uses social media for more than two hours. This will be good opportunity for this
leading retailer to utilise tow hour based social media user to build business growth.
Theme 4: Advantage of social media on role of enhancing business growth and profitability
Interpretation: From above bar diagram, its reveals that 12 respondents has told about
increase in customer base as the major advantage of implementation of social media, 8 people
has revealed that rise into the brand value & loyalty and rest 10 respondents has revealed about
increase into business profitability as major advantage of social media to raise & building of a
business growth for Sainsbury's.
Theme 5: Is it suitable for Sainsbury's to continue use of social media platform
Interpretation: From given bar chart, its reveals that 20 respondents has told yes in
context of suitability for Sainsbury's to use social media platform to enhance business growth at
higher level and rest 10 respondents says No, it would not be suitable to use social media. This
might be because of its negative uses or reverse impact on individual person.
Theme 6: Major challenges of implementation of social media
Interpretation: From given pie chart, its revealed that 14 respondents says about rise in
cost & expenses as major challenges during the process of social media implementation, 10
respondents has been told about impact of brand value & loyalty of the Sainsbury's customer's

and also rest 6 respondents has revealed that loss of customer is the major challenges out of the
social media implementation.
Theme 7: Major measures by which challenges related to social media implementation
Interpretation: From given bar chart, its reveals that 13 respondents says information
gatherings as right major to overcome challenges which which can be faced during process of
social media implementation, 11 respondents says that making of budget making is effective
solution of social media implementation and rest 6 respondents reveals that optimum utilisation
of resources are one of the major solution to challenges of social media implementation. In this,
strategic planning & effective regulation is necessary to generate optimum solution of given
issues.
CHAPTER 6:
For an above research project, there are three different components which are suitable to
generate relevant outcomes from this project. The relevancy of these components are as follows:
Conclusion:
From an above informative report, it is concluded that questionnaire is important tools &
techniques to gather relevant information from any person for use of research project and its also
major purpose. This brief conclusion will be cover several aspects such as aware of people with
social media, in which it was revealed that all over 24 people are aware about social media and
also usage is valuable for business firm to get suitable advantage out of it. Measures such as
information gathering is one of a major solution to overcome issues and challenges related to
social media implementation. This solution has been proved beneficial for other business firm to
growth performance suitability for longer stage of time. Usage of social media has been resulted
into development of profit generation and operational efficiency for this leading retail business.
Recommendation:
After doing this major research project, there are several recommendation such as:
 Social media needs to have its right utilisation by business entities such as sharing them
value information over any new coming of a products. Also, strategic planning is very
well required in that context to generate suitable outcomes from this entire project work.

 To overcome issues related to implementation of social media, it is necessary to make
budget making in order to grow scope for accomplishing higher goals to accomplish clear
and cut business competencies.
 Also, it has been realised that resources allocation is necessary to generate relevant info
before implementation of social media.
 Also, Sainsbury's should focus on user information over the social media and also led
correct implementation of it to attain defined targets & objectives.
Implication for further research:
This research will prove most suitable for Sainsbury's to generate business operation at a
higher level to generate relevant outcomes from this research project. As, it was noticed that in
this project report, there were several issues, which has been found such as lack of budget
making, rise of cost or expenses because of building of an infrastructure, structures such as team
roles & people, who are highly assigned to handle process of digital marketing. To overcome
this, various solution has been suggested such as resource allocation, pre-decision on information
gathering to overcome ineffective working along with regulation to have regulation over profit
making, through this social media marketing. Its impact would be major on future coming data
analysis or research which is a bigger issue. On this, instant solution is required to have pre-
plannig to reduce impact on coming future researches.

REFERENCES
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Kietzmann, J. H., 2012. Unpacking the social media phenomenon: towards a research agenda.
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