Is Social Media the Future of Marketing for the Automobile Industry in Australia?

Running head: RESEARCH REPORT
‘Is Social Media is Future of Marketing for Automobile Industry in Australia?’
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1RESEARCH REPORT
1. Introduction
Social media is a big revolution for modern world. In the era of technological
advancement and revolution, the easy availability of internet and devices with smart technology,
such as, smartphones, tablets, laptops etc. has made not only life easy, but has also made the
world a smaller place. After globalization, as the industrial world is growing, it is expanding the
market also. Hence, to address the larger audience, locally as well as globally, the companies are
taking the help of internet. Social media has become a very powerful medium in the last decade
and the corporate world and the industries are taking advantages of social media for reaching out
to a much larger market in a time and cost efficient way (Paliwal, 2015). As per the report by
Statista (2019), there are 2.77 billion users worldwide in the year 2018, which increased from
2.46 billion in 2017. Thus, it is a large and powerful number for social media users, which, if
tapped effectively, can lead to a massive impact on the business performance of the companies.
Majority companies now-a-days use social media for marketing activities. There are
various advantages of social media as a part of digital marketing strategy. It improves brand
awareness, it is time and cost efficient, it enables more direct connection with the customers and
thereby leads to improved brand loyalty (Paliwal, 2015). Thus, social media is now being used
widely in digital marketing. The automobile industry of industry of Australia mostly depends on
imported cars as the car manufacturing by the pioneer companies, such as, Ford, Toyota and
Holden, has been closed down due to high cost of production (Maxcy & Silberston, 2017).
Although, the existing companies are still using the traditional marketing techniques, they are
also adopting the social media marketing to capture a larger market share as well as retain them.
This research report will document the importance of social media marketing and its impact on
the automobile industry of Australia.

2RESEARCH REPORT
1.1 Research aim and objectives
The aim of the research report is to explore the advantages and disadvantages of social
media marketing and its impact on the automobile industry of Australia. The report will also
evaluate whether adoption of social media marketing can enhance the profitability of the
automobile companies in comparison to the conventional marketing techniques.
The research objectives are:
 To explore the advantages and disadvantages of social media as part of digital marketing
 To evaluate the impact of social media marketing on the Australian automobile industry
 To assess if social media marketing is beneficial for increasing the profitability of the
Australian automobile industry in the future
1.2 Research hypothesis
H0: Social media marketing do not have any impact on the profitability of the Australian
automobile industry
H1: Social media marketing has significant impact on the profitability of the Australian
automobile industry
2. Literature review
2.1 Social media and its different aspects
Social media is a huge revolution in the era of advanced technology. Within a decade,
social media has been successful in bringing revolutions not only in the lives of millions of
people but also in the course of business performances (Ngai, Tao & Moon, 2015). The social
media platforms have penetrated quite deeply in the systems of daily life, and affected formal

3RESEARCH REPORT
and informal interactions of people. These platforms have also changed the organizational
structures and the professional routines. The rules of social interactions have changed drastically
after the innovation of social media. Van Dijck & Poell (2013) have explored the complicated
dynamics between the social media platforms, the users, mass media and the social institutions
by addressing the norms, mechanisms, economies and strategies of the social media. The authors
have addressed the mass media logic, which helped the social media to expand beyond its
institutional boundaries and by reviewing the theories, the authors found four grounding
principals, namely, programmability, popularity, connectivity, and datafication, and they argued
that these were entangled with the mass media logic. It was also highlighted that these grounding
strategies and principals have been invading all the areas of public life as well as organizational
work systems. Other than the traditional news channels consisting of print news and digital
broadcasting, social media is also affecting the law and order, social stability, social activism,
political scenario of the country and many more. Thus, it can be inferred that social media has a
very powerful and widespread effect on every aspect of personal and professional lives of people
and the work systems in a major way. The mass media logic of social media should be mapped
with the driving technologies for getting a better outcome in terms of social media performance.
Fuchs (2017) defined social media as a complex term with multi-layered meanings. It
contains several aspects, such as, communication, information, collaboration and communities.
For example, Facebook is a social media which contains a huge amount of information, and
along with that it is also a tool for communication and creating and maintaining communities.
Hence, according to the author, understanding of social media involves the engagement with
different types or forms of sociality on the virtual world that is on the internet.