FY028 Inquiry Project: Impact of Social Media on Business Performance

This inquiry project investigates the impact of social media on business performance, focusing on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The research begins with an abstract summarizing the study's purpose, methodology (quantitative), and key findings regarding the benefits of social media. The introduction provides background information on social media's role in business, particularly Next plc's use of various platforms. The project aims to determine the impact of social media, outlining objectives and research questions. The literature review explores the benefits of social media to businesses, its impact on performance (both positive and negative), and the specific platforms utilized by Next plc. The methodology section justifies the use of quantitative research and primary data collection methods, including questionnaires, discussing the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. The discussion section summarizes the findings from the literature review, focusing on the benefits of social media, its impact on business performance, and the platforms used by Next plc. The project acknowledges limitations, such as challenges in data collection, and concludes by emphasizing the role of social media in connecting with customers and enhancing brand image, while also mentioning the importance of understanding the negative impacts. The project includes references and an appendix with relevant materials.

Inquiry project

ABSTRACT
Present research is related to impact of social media on business performance.
Through using social media, organizations are able to communicate with consumers
regarding its offerings. There has been quantitative research used and examined their
advantages and disadvantages. For collected of data, there has been primary method
used. The main findings are included in research are related to benefits company can
get from using different types of social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and
Instagram.

Table of Contents
ABSTRACT................................................................................................................................................2
TITLE: Impact of social media in business............................................................................................4
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................................4
Background of Research.....................................................................................................................4
Aim..........................................................................................................................................................4
Objectives..............................................................................................................................................4
Questions...............................................................................................................................................4
Significance...........................................................................................................................................5
Concepts and Terminology..................................................................................................................5
LITERATURE REVIEW...........................................................................................................................6
Benefits of social media to business..................................................................................................6
Impact of social media on business performance............................................................................6
Different social media platforms are used by Next plc for increasing performance.....................7
METHODOLOGY.....................................................................................................................................8
Research methods................................................................................................................................8
Different types of Research.................................................................................................................8
Advantages and Disadvantages of Quantitative research..............................................................8
Using primary or secondary data........................................................................................................9
DISCUSSION..........................................................................................................................................10
LIMITATIONS..........................................................................................................................................11
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................12
APPENDIX...............................................................................................................................................14

TITLE: Impact of social media in business.
INTRODUCTION
Background of Research
Social media is explained as application and websites that enable the users to
develop as well as share the content to in social networking. This is form of the
electronic communication by which users develop the online communities to share
ideas, information and some other content. The social media is mainly used through
organizations and impact on their performance level. Next plc is British Multinational
clothing, footwear and home products organization (Agostino and Sidorova, 2016). In
order to attract customers and increase performance level, Next plc use different social
media platforms with regular updated such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and
YouTube.
Aim
“To determine impact of social media on business performance.” A study on Next
plc.
Objectives
 To examine the benefits of social media to business.
 To identify the impact of social media on business performance.
 To determine the different social media platforms used by Next plc for increasing
performance.
Questions
 What benefits get by an organization by using social media?
 What is the impact of social media on business performance?
 What are the various social media platforms used by Starbucks for increasing
performance?
Significance

The main importance of conducting this investigation is that it provides the
information about the social media and its impact of business performance. This is
helpful in enhancing the knowledge as well as research skills of a learner for conducting
similar kind of investigation in future (Alalwan, 2018).
Concepts and Terminology
The terminologies included in research are:
Social media- It is related to develop interaction between people under which
they develop, share and exchange information in virtual communities.
Business performance- This is set of the performance management that
enables management of performance of business to attain pre- developed objectives
(Momany and Alshboul, 2016).
Social media tools- The different social media tools that organizations can be
used in communicate with the customers are Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and others.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Benefits of social media to business
According to opinion of Rilee Viggers (2019) Social media is a better platform
that connects the company to customers and also provides opportunities to enhance
business performance. There are some benefits of social media to business given
below:
Faster communication- The social media gives opportunity to business to
communicate with customers directly. Consumers can quickly reach out to a customer
service because of social media. Businesses can now obtain, evaluate and respond to
customers’ complaints quicker and more easily than before. Customers may instantly
write review or make post about product or service. Social networking is significantly
changing the way that company regard their consumers and it's all for better (Moro, Rita
and Vala, 2016).
Enhanced awareness- Social media may bring the business or service to new
ways. With one click customer message is displayed to multitude of people. Social
media will help company to find consumers already thinking about company-
information that can help firm to use to attract even more people.
Impact of social media on business performance
According to Uma Bhat (2020) Social media develops the positive and negative
impact on business performance. The social media has many impacts on the business
in context to brand recognition, revenue, customer engagement and the customer
service. It is one of the effective tools to evaluate competitors and enhancing
performance level of business. Through using the social media, company can able to
enhancing with audiences and enhancing website trafficking. The social media
enhanced user engagement across the channels to engage consumers’ ad provide
effective Omni cannel customer experience.

On the basis of Jen Gordon (2018) Negative impact of social media is related to
hacking the personal data and financial information of respondents over internet.
Hacker may misuse private property of customers. The negative comments impact the
mind set of people and this develop negative impact on performance as well as brand
reputation of company.
Different social media platforms are used by Next plc for increasing performance.
On the basis of Alfred Lua (2020) There are different social media tools which
used through organization to enhance their performance level. Various social media
tools that Next plc used given below:
Facebook- It is biggest social media platform that organizations used to connect
with customers. With the help of this, company can share the content such as videos,
stories, images and text on its Facebook page for attracting the customers.
Instagram- It is a video and photo sharing social media platform. This permits an
organization to share wide range of content like videos, stories, live videos and photos.
Through use this platform, Next plc can able to attract the customers towards its
products and services (Niedermeier, Wang and Zhang, 2016).
Twitter- In era of viral marketing, Twitter is most popular social media platforms
in support of reaching a wide audience rapidly. It makes this extremely tough for brands
as well as organizations to cut by noise and seen through target audience.

METHODOLOGY
Research methods
The research methods are strategies, techniques and processes used in
collection of evidence or information to in cover the new information or develop better
understanding of topic. It is helpful in make improvement in theories for improving
understanding of natural phenomenon (Pourkhani and et. al., 2019).
Different types of Research
There are quantitative and qualitative two different kinds of research. The
quantitative research collects data regarding emotions, behaviors and meaning people
attach to them. This is helpful in enabling investigators to gain better understanding of
the complex concepts, cultural phenomenon and social interactions. This kind of
research is useful in exploration of how the things have occurred, interpreting the events
and explaining actions. On the other hand, Qualitative research is variety of types of
research that usually depends on unstructured data and non-numerical forms of data
analysis. The standard of attributes are abstract; either they are not measured or cannot
be calculated as they can be approximated to the fact they represent (Siddiqui and
Singh, 2016).
Advantages and Disadvantages of Quantitative research
The chosen type of research is quantitative as this provides the in- depth
information regarding specific subject area. The advantages and disadvantages of
quantitative investigation mention below:
Advantages Disadvantages
 Quantitative research depends on
careful experimental design the
ability to replicate the test and
results for anyone.
 Quantitative analysis uses a
randomized data collection process,
 When seeking precise, statistical
relationships, quantitative analysis
can be constrained, resulting when
researchers who neglect wider
subjects and connections.
 False conclusions are easy to make

which removes biases.
 Quantitative research reinforces
itself through providing reliable
results when randomized conditions
examine the same data points.
since the data tend to be from
random sources.
 Efforts are often made in
environments which are not natural
for the group when conducting the
quantitative research.
Using primary or secondary data
In this present investigation, primary data will be used because it provides the
reliable as well as authentic information related to impact of social media on business
performance (Srinivasan, Bajaj and Bhanot, 2016). To collect information from primary
method, questionnaire will be used. The advantages and disadvantages of primary
information given below:
Advantages Disadvantages
 It enables an investigator to obtain
current as well as highly specific
original data on specific subject
area.
 It is possible to examine as well as
interpret the collected data by
researcher based on their needs
instead of relying on interpretation.
 Data collection through primary
research is costly project, as
companies have to participate and
design all in the process.
 In case if an investigation needs to
involve the taking of feedback from
target audience then feedback is
highly likely not to be correct.
As there will be primary method of data collection used. For analyze the data,
there will be content analytical tool used. In this, themes will be developed of every
questions and make their interpretation (Wang and Kim, 2017).

DISCUSSION
The discussion part is related to the summary included in literature review
section. It provides the findings about literature review.
Benefits of social media to business
It has been studied from the present report social media provides benefits to
business. It is an effective platform for the business to connect with the customers and
also provide the information regarding their product and services. There has been
discussed about the different benefits of social media to business such as it helps in
make the communication faster, increase the awareness about the product and services
to customers.
Impact of social media on business performance
There has been discussion about the positive and negative impact of social
media on the performance level of business. The positive impacts of social media is
related to brand recognition, increasing the customers, providing the better Customer
services and also in the revenue of company. These all are the positive impact that
company gain by providing the effective services through using social media. On the
other hand, there has been also studied about the negative impact of social media on
business performance. Negative impacts are hacking of personal information of
respondents and also misuse their private property.
Different social media platforms are used by Next plc for increasing performance
There has been discussed about the various social media platforms used to
organization for enhancing their performance level. The different social media platforms
which have been studied are Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Through using these all
are platforms, company can able to share their photos and videos and also information
about its products and services.

LIMITATIONS
Limitations are the disadvantage which arises during conducting an investigation.
The main limitation included in this research is conduct in -depth analysis and also but
not get the enough participants about collection of information. In order to conduct the
primary investigation the major limitation is not to find out the participants so that
researcher can able to fill the questionnaire from them regarding the specific subject
area. This error is an issue in completion of Investigation within a given period of time.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the above mentioned report that company uses the
social media for connect with the customers and also enhance its brand image. Through
using the different social media platforms companies can able to provide information
about its product and services to them in an effective manner. From using the Social
Media, company can get the many benefits such as faster communication with the
customers and also enhance the brand awareness. In order to use the social media for
enhancing business performance, there has been discussed about the negative and
positive impact of social media. In order to communicate with the customers, there have
been different platforms companies are used such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Agostino, D. and Sidorova, Y., 2016. A performance measurement system to quantify
the contribution of social media: new requirements for metrics and methods.
Measuring Business Excellence.
Alalwan, A. A., 2018. Investigating the impact of social media advertising features on
customer purchase intention. International Journal of Information Management.
42. pp.65-77.
Momany, M. and Alshboul, A., 2016. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING: UTILIZING
SOCIAL MEDIA TO ADVANCE BRAND AWARENESS AND INCREASE
ONLINE SALES. International Journal of Business, Marketing, & Decision
Science. 9(1).
Moro, S., Rita, P. and Vala, B., 2016. Predicting social media performance metrics and
evaluation of the impact on brand building: A data mining approach. Journal of
Business Research, 69(9), pp.3341-3351.
Niedermeier, K. E., Wang, E. and Zhang, X., 2016. The use of social media among
business-to-business sales professionals in china. Journal of research in
interactive marketing. 10(1). pp.33-49.
Pourkhani, A. and et. al., 2019. The impact of social media in business growth and
performance: A scientometrics analysis. International Journal of Data and
Network Science. 3(3). pp.223-244.
Siddiqui, S. and Singh, T., 2016. Social media its impact with positive and negative
aspects. International Journal of Computer Applications Technology and
Research. 5(2). pp.71-75.
Srinivasan, R., Bajaj, R. and Bhanot, S., 2016. Impact of social media marketing
strategies used by micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) on Customer
acquisition and retention. IOSR Journal of Business and Management. 18(1).
pp.91-101.
Wang, Z. and Kim, H. G., 2017. Can social media marketing improve customer
relationship capabilities and firm performance? Dynamic capability perspective.
Journal of Interactive Marketing. 39. pp.15-26.
Online

Bhat, U., 2020. 6 Positive Effects of Social Media Marketing on Your Business. [Online].
Available through: <https://www.cloohawk.com/blog/6-positive-effects-social-
media-marketing-your-business>.
Gordon, J., 2018. Negative Impacts Of Social Media On Business & Employees.
[Online]. Available through: < https://medium.com/@jengordon/negative-impacts-
of-social-media-on-business-employees-4e5ae2eda2ce>.
Lua, A., 2020. 21 Top Social Media Sites to Consider for Your Brand. [Online]. Available
through: < https://buffer.com/library/social-media-sites>.
Viggers, R., 2019. The Benefits of Using Social Media For Business. [Online]. Available
through: https://www.business2community.com/social-media/the-benefits-of-
using-social-media-for-business-02271447.

APPENDIX
QUESTIONNAIRE
Q1) Do you have understanding about the social media?
a) Yes
b) No
Q2) What are the benefits of social media to an organization?
a) Enhance brand reputation
b) Communicate customers easily
c) Increase brand awareness
Q3) How business use the social media for marketing purpose?
a) Engaging customers
b) Take feedback
c) Determine customers preferences
Q4) What is the positive impact of social media on business performance?
a) Customer engagement
b) Customer service.
c) Enhance revenue
Q5) What is the negative impact of social media on organization?
a) Not trustworthy
b) Fear of hacking
c) Negative comments
Q5) According to your opinion, does social media provides opportunities to Next
plc to enhance its performance level?
a) Yes
b) No
Q6) What are the different social media platforms used by Next plc to increase its
performance?
a) Facebook
b) Twitter

c) Instagram
Q7) What complexities are faced by organization related to use of social media?
a) Expensive
b) Relationship Issues
c) Spending Too Much Time on Social Media
Q8) What are the effective ways used through organization to overcome from the
arisen social media issues?
a) Turning Employees Into Brand Advocates
b) Measuring Social Media ROI
c) Developing a Social Media Strategy
Q9) Recommend ways through which company can secure information of
customers on social media platforms.