Analyzing Social Media's Role in Business: A Research Report

This research report presents a comprehensive analysis of the impact of social media on business operations. It begins with an introduction outlining the project's objective, which is to design a research proposal investigating both the positive and negative aspects of social media usage in business. The report includes a literature review, exploring social media's role in digital marketing, and discusses the advantages such as wider audience reach and direct customer interaction, and disadvantages like the spread of misinformation. The research design employs a descriptive approach with primary data collected through online surveys and interviews. Data analysis will involve both quantitative and qualitative methods. The report also addresses ethical considerations and research limitations, concluding with a summary of the findings and potential intervention measures to minimize the negative impacts of social media on business policies. The report references key literature in the field to support its arguments.

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Running head: RESEARCH METHODS
Research Methodology
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Notes

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Project Objective........................................................................................................................3
Project Scope..............................................................................................................................3
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................4
Social media as the mode of digital marketing......................................................................4
Advantages and Disadvantages of the Social Media in Business..........................................4
Research Questions/Hypothesis.................................................................................................5
Research Design and Methodology...........................................................................................6
Research Design.....................................................................................................................6
Data Collection methods........................................................................................................6
Data Analysis Methods...........................................................................................................7
Ethical consideration..............................................................................................................7
Research Limitations..................................................................................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
Reference....................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The aim of the current research project is to analyze the advantage and disadvantages
of use of social media network in business process. The purpose of the current report is to
provide a research proposal for the analyzing the disadvantages and oppurtunies that are
associated in a business with the application of social media platforms. With the rise of
popularity of the social media platforms, in the current days, most of the businesses are
dependent on the applicability of social network. However, it is essential to analyze both its
positive and negative effect in order to ensure that the business process is run smoothly. It is
also essential for the business management to properly understand the impact of social media,
in order to improve upon their marketing plan.
Project Objective
The aim of this current project is to design a research proposal for investigating the
positive and negative impacts of social media in business operational process. The project
will also briefly analyze the existing related to use of social media in business. The aim of the
current project will aim to focus upon the research questions that can resolve the issues
related to the use of the social media usage in the business operational process.
Project Scope
With the growing popularity of digital marketing and social media marketing, there is
a huge trend among all major business organizations to make use of these platforms in order
to raise their popularity and reach out to the target group of customers. The scope of the
current project will include discussing in details about the use of the social media and its

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impact on the business. Effective research method will be used in order to ensure best result
is obtained that can help to analyze the impact of social media on current business operations.
Literature Review
Social media as the mode of digital marketing
With the rising popularity of digital devices and Internet technology, it has become an
integrated part of the life of the common people. Tuten and Solomon, (2014), have mentioned
that with the advancement of digital media, all business companies are currently using digital
marketing as the best way of communicating with the clients.Kaur (2016), has added in the
context that the Use of social media is one of the most popular ways of digital marketing that
uses all social media giants like Facebook and Twitter in order to reach out to the customers.
Social media can be used as one of the effective medium of delivering new information to the
public. The advertisement in the social media is one of the effective ways of reaching out to
the customer. There are also various online virtual groups that are made by Business
companies in order to provide information related to the product and also help the customers
to stay updated accordingly (Kim and Ko 2012).
Advantages and Disadvantages of the Social Media in Business
The research paper often and Solomon (2014), have mentioned about the fact that
currently there are nearly 2 billion users of social media that include all social media giants
including Facebook Whatsapp Instagram and My space. Therefore, it is possible with the use
of social media for the business organization to reach out to a wide range of audience within
the society and thereby able to raise the popularity of the business. With the option of sharing
information using the social media sites, it is easily possible for every company to deliver

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their message to the society within a short period of time. Real life photos and videos can also
be shared that can help the customers better understand the importance of the products.
Scott(2015), believed that this is one of the effective ways to raise the brand popularity and
awareness within the target group of customers. Use of the social media also provides the
customers to directly interact by providing the feedback and suggestions to the customers.
Moreover, it is also possible for them to share their experience with other people in the online
community about the use of certain product or services.
On the other hand, Ashley and Tuten (2015), have mentioned about the negative
aspects of use of social media in business as it can be misused by various people in order to
spread take information. There is also the issue due to lack of proper integration of online
marketing strategy that does not allow the companies to timely deliver the message that is
required in promotional activities.
Hence, it can be said that the current literature related to social media in business has
highlighted upon the both positive and negative aspects of its implication and practice. It is
essential for the future research work to have effective methods in order to deal with the
negative aspects of social media and thereby ensure that all business organizations can make
best use of the social media.
Research Questions/Hypothesis
 What are the advantages of use of social media in business operational process?
 What are the disadvantages of use of social media in business purpose?
 Which policies should be implicated in order to ensure that there is no misuse of
social media in order to harm the reputation of a business?

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 What are the measures companies can take in order to ensure that there is no misuse
of social media?
Research Design and Methodology
It is essential for the investigators to use certain steps, in the research method in order
to ensure effective result is obtained. Respective methods and philosophy will be used in
order to collect the relevant data that is needed in the overall process. The current section will
aim to highlight upon the research methods that will be used for the following purposes for
investing the negative and positive aspects of the use of the social media in business
functions.
Research Design
There are mainly three types of research designs that are used by investigators in
order to explore their respective topics. This includes the exploratory descriptive and
hypothesis Research Design (Silverman 2016). In this current research work, the
investigators will use the descriptive form of Research Design which will aim to elaborate the
methods that are being used in this research and also ensure that all aspects of the impact of
social media in business are carefully examined. It is also possible to analyze all the relevant
information related that can be obtained for the use of social media for business planning
process.
Data Collection methods
Taylor et al.(2015), have mentioned about the two main forms of Data Collection
process that are used in order to gather relevant information related to the research topics. In
primary data collection method, information is mainly collected from primary sources which

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include survey and interview of the sample group. On the other hand in secondary data
collection method, researchers focus on previous investigation relevant to the current research
topics in order to collect information. It is often believed that primary source is the effective
way of gathering information as it can help to provide the latest information related to the
research topic.
For the current research work, however, the investigators will collect primary data
from the society and customers with the help of online survey method. Proper questionnaires
will be developed in order to get the feedback from the participants. The researchers will also
conduct interview of marketing officers, which will help them to get idea about the social
media marketing policies that are being implemented by various companies.
The researchers will also focus on past investigation work in order to collect relevant data
that are necessary to compare the changing scenario of social media marketing techniques.
Data Analysis Methods
Quantitative and qualitative method of data analysis will be applied by the researchers
in order to analyze the collected information from the interview and survey. With the use of
both quantitative and qualitative method, it is possible to deeply investigate the collected
information about the impact of social media in business and thereby make an effective
conclusion. Proper statistical tools will be used in order to make sure that all the collections
are properly analyzed.
Ethical consideration
It is essential for the researchers to maintain confidentiality about the data that are
being collected. The ethical duty of the researchers includes that they should have complete
neutrality while publishing the result of the research work. This will ensure that the result of

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the research work is authentic and can be used in future for references for making business
plans related to the use of social media.
Research Limitations
The main limitation of the research for is due to the fact that it will be not possible for
the investigators to collect sufficient amount of data from survey and interview that could
have helped to improve the accuracy level of the conclusion that is being made. This is
mainly due to the fact that limitation of time will not allow the researchers to collect all
necessary information.
Conclusion
Finally, it can be concluded that with the help of effective research methods that are
mentioned in the above section it is possible to make conclusion about the positive and
negative impact of social media in the current a business policies. The research work will also
help to provide intervention measures that can be adopted to minimise the negative impact of
social media in business policies.

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Reference
Ashley, C. and Tuten, T., 2015. Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory
study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology & Marketing, 32(1),
pp.15-27.
Kaur, G., 2016. Social Media Marketing.Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 4(7).
Kim, A.J. and Ko, E., 2012. Do social media marketing activities enhance customer equity?
An empirical study of luxury fashion brand.Journal of Business Research, 65(10), pp.1480-
1486.
Scott, D.M., 2015. The new rules of marketing and PR: How to use social media, online
video, mobile applications, blogs, news releases, and viral marketing to reach buyers
directly. John Wiley & Sons.
Silverman, D. ed., 2016.Qualitative research.Sage.
Taylor, S.J., Bogdan, R. and DeVault, M., 2015. Introduction to qualitative research
methods: A guidebook and resource. John Wiley & Sons.
Tuten, T.L. and Solomon, M.R., 2014. Social media marketing.Sage.