INF 6024 - Evaluating the Impact of Social Media on Business Promotion

This research report investigates the impact of social media on business promotion, particularly for small and newly established businesses. It explores the advantages and disadvantages of using social media for marketing, referencing platforms like Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The research methodology includes both primary and secondary data collection, with secondary data sourced from annual reports of organizations utilizing social media for promotion and primary data gathered through interviews with business heads. The report delves into how social media is used for business promotion, examining its positive impacts such as increased brand awareness, direct customer communication, and cost-effective marketing, as well as its negative impacts like potential damage to brand reputation from negative feedback and the time-consuming nature of monitoring online activities. A SWOT analysis is also included to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the research design.

Running head: INF 6024
INF 6024: Impact of Social Media in Business Promotions
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction......................................................................................................................2
2. Literature Review............................................................................................................2
2.1. Overview...................................................................................................................3
2.2. Impact of Social Media on Business Promotion.......................................................3
2.2.1. How is social media used in business promotion?............................................3
2.2.2. Positive Impact of using social media for business promotions........................5
2.2.3. Negative Impact of using social media for business promotions......................6
3. Methodology....................................................................................................................6
3.1. Sampling Strategy.....................................................................................................8
4. Ethical Stance..................................................................................................................9
5. SWOT Analysis.............................................................................................................10
5.1. Strength...................................................................................................................11
5.2. Weakness....................................................................................................................12
5.3. Opportunities..........................................................................................................13
5.4. Threats....................................................................................................................13
References..........................................................................................................................14

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1. Introduction
This research study is undertaken in order to analyze the impact of social media in
business promotion, mainly the small business and newly established business. With the
increasing users in social media different business organizations are adopting the strategy of
digital advertisements and marketing in order to promote their business globally. This research
report will perform a detailed analysis of the impact of social media on business by evaluating
the advantages and disadvantages of use of social media in business. Researches prove that the
different business managers across the world are making used of different social media platforms
such as Google+, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn in order to promote and advertise their
business. Even the leading business organizations maintain a website in order to provide the
clients and expected clients with the details of the organization and their business methods. In
this research project, the researcher will be proposing the methods of primary and secondary data
collection that will help in answering the research questions. The research will be collecting a
secondary data from the annual reports of the organizations that make use of social media for
their business promotion. Along with that, an interview will be observed with the business heads
who make use of social media in business promotion. The use of social media in business
promotions has considerably increased over the years since it is easier to target a particular group
of customers in social media. The basic process of business promotion in social media is to
create a web page and promote the business among the different social media platforms. The
research methodology, literature review and the SWOT analysis on the research design in
discussed in the following paragraphs.
2. Literature Review

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2.1. Overview
The research has been undertaken in order to identify the positive and negative impacts of
social media on business. The objective of the project is to identify the advantages and
disadvantages of the use of social media in business promotion in order to analyze its impact.
The primary research question identified for the project is as follows (Alvesson & Sandberg,
2013)-
 What are the positive and negative impacts of social media in business
promotions?
The answer to the research question can be achieved by analyzing the data that will be
collected in the context. In order to understand the positive and the negative impact of social
media in business, the use of social media in business is needed to be evaluated. The literature
review has been undertaken in order to review the previously published journals and literatures
in order to find the answer to the primary question.
2.2. Impact of Social Media on Business Promotion
2.2.1. How is social media used in business promotion?
Social media is extensively used in business firms as it is one of the cheapest and
effective marketing tools. The picture below represents the most commonly used social media
tools in business promotions.

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Figure 1: Representing most commonly used social media tools
(Source: Fan & Gordon, 2014)
In order to make use of social media in business promotion, a business organization
develops a webpage or website that contains all the information regarding the business and the
products (Andzulis, Panagopoulos & Rapp, 2012). Social media is further used as a platform to
establish a direct communication with the customers (Castronovo & Huang, 2012). The queries
of the customers can be resolved in no time with the help of social media. This in turn increases
the customers’ satisfaction (Agnihotri et al., 2016). Furthermore, the social media network helps
in business advertisements in a global platform (Baruah, 2012). For example, in Twitter, certain
promoted tweets about the product specifications of a particular company can increase
customers’ reach in no time. For example, Apple promotes their products on Twitter that infuses
an interest on the customers to check out their new range of devices such as iPhone X.
Furthermore with the increase in traffic of the business website and Facebook page helps in
increasing the brand awareness and popularity of the products (Gensler et al., 2013).

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2.2.2. Positive Impact of using social media for business promotions
There are a number of advantages of making use of social media in business promotion.
With the increase in the traffic of the social media pages, the brand exposure and popularity of
the brand increases which is one of the significant advantages of business promotion using social
media. Brand awareness is needed in order to promote a business and it refers to the extent by
which a customer is able to recognize a brand quite readily (Hutter et al., 2013). The social
media advertisements and promotions therefore help in creation of brand awareness (Tsimonis &
Dimitriadis, 2014).
The direct communication with the customers and solving the customers’ queries by
providing online support helps in gaining the trust of the customers and further helps in
increasing the customers’ satisfaction (Jussila, Kärkkäinen & Aramo-Immonen, 2014). Another
advantage of using social media in business promotion is that it helps in increasing the inbound
traffic. Without the use of social media it becomes very difficult to increase the customer reach
outside the loyal customer circle (Stelzner, 2014). Based on the promotions, the existing or even
the new customers would show there interest in engaging with the business. However, in order to
increase the traffic of the website, search engine optimization is essential (Tiago & Veríssimo,
2014). An improved search engine ranking is expected to increase the traffic of the website thus
providing a business advantage to the organization (Berthon et al., 2012). The use of social
media in business promotions helps in increasing the discoverability of the brand in Search
Engine.
Another significant positive impact of the use of social media in business promotion is
that it helps in cutting down the marketing cost as social media channels are one of the most

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affordable ways of marketing a particular brand (Laroche, Habibi & Richard, 2013). However,
there are certain negative impacts of using social media for business promotion, which is
discussed in the following section.
2.2.3. Negative Impact of using social media for business promotions
With a number of advantages, there are certain negative impacts of making use of social
media for business promotion. The online feedback system that helps in increasing the
customers’ satisfaction can have a negative impact on the business as well. This is because a
negative public review or feedback can result in a significant risk on the brand reputation.
Furthermore, the mistakes made on social media are very hard to rectify.
The use of social media in business promotions is subjected to a continuous monitoring
of the online traffic and online activities, which are highly time consuming works (Jussila,
Kärkkäinen & Aramo-Immonen, 2014).
Therefore it can be seen that there are both positive and negative impact of use of social
media in business and therefore, this project is undertaken to research on the impact of social
media in business promotions.
3. Methodology
For this research, both secondary and primary methodology is chosen. Designing a proper
research approach associated with the chosen research methodology is essential in order to
enhance the process of data collection and analysis of the data. For this research, the data that
will be collected will be collected from a specific organization that is making use of social media

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for business promotion over the years. In order to implement the project, appropriate approach,
tools and methods of data collection is needed to be chosen.
The table below gives an idea of the selected methodological tools that will be used for
collection and analysis of the data that is associated with the project.
Methodological Tools Tools Chosen for the Research
Research Approach Deductive
Research Philosophy Positivism
Research Design Descriptive
Method of Data Analysis Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis
Table 1: Representing the Chosen Methodological Tools for the Research
Selecting a research approach is essential in order to determine the course and plan for
the project. There are mainly two types of research approach which are inductive and deductive.
In the deductive research approach, the past research models and hypotheses are used for the
research. The inductive approach on the other hand proposes new speculations and theories.
Therefore, the deductive approach is chosen for implementation of the research project.
Choosing a particular research philosophy is essential as it provides fundamental ideas of
performing a research in a legitimate way (Chandra & Sharma, 2013). For this research project, a
positivism philosophy is chosen as it helps in cross checking particular information that is
associated with a research. This philosophy will be a great help in performing this research
project as the data obtained from different primary and the secondary sources can be cross
checked, which will in turn help in getting the answer to the identified research problems. The

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use of positivism philosophy in the research was essential as the research will be considering
secondary data sources that needs proper cross checking (Okazaki & Taylor, 2013). This in turn
encourages the researcher in performing the research study in a genuine manner.
Research design helps in gathering the information required for a research in a planned
manner (Leedy & Ormrod, 2013). The choice of the research design is mainly based on the scope
and aims of the research. The use of a descriptive research design in performing a research
project helps in easier identification and analysis of the research problem. The use of descriptive
research design further helps the researcher in choosing an appropriate data collection method
for the research study.
3.1. Sampling Strategy
For this research, both primary and the secondary data will be collected. The primary data
collection process refers to the process of directly information gathering from the people who
have a firsthand knowledge about the identified research problem. The different process of
collection of primary data mainly include, direct interview, conducting online surveys and
observation. Along with the primary data, secondary data will also be collected. The sources of
secondary data includes, previously published research papers and annual report of the
companies. For this research, the data about the business benefits of social media for a particular
organization will be collected. The collection of the information that is already published in
books, articles and the research papers is generally referred to the secondary data collection
(Neuman, 2013). However, in collection of secondary data, the reliability of the data is needed to
be checked. The use of positivism research philosophy ensures that genuine data is collected as
the secondary data.

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For the primary research, an interview will be held to collect the social media data from a
business head or official of an organization that make use of social media data for business
promotion. This will give a clear idea of the positive and the negative effects or impact of social
media in business promotions (Trainor et al., 2014). The research will be based not only on the
data obtained from the primary research but also from the data obtained from the secondary
research (Taylor, Bogdan & DeVault, 2015). A qualitative data analysis will be performed on
basis of the data collected from the secondary sources, while the data obtained from the primary
sources will be used to perform a quantitative analysis for obtaining the answer of the identified
research problem (Lewis, 2015).
Performing both primary and secondary research helps in proper analysis of the research
problems as both primary and secondary data sources are considered.
4. Ethical Stance
There are certain ethical issues associated with this research project that mainly concerns
this project that includes data collection and presentation of the results of data analysis. Any
research project work needs the researcher to adhere to a particular set of ethical guidelines or
rules that are mainly set up by the academic councils. The research project therefore should abide
by certain ethical stance, which are as follows-
1. The safety and confidentiality of the research participants and the respondents of the
interview is needed to be maintained with a high priority.
2. The protection of the privacy of the information that will be shared by the participants
is another significant ethical consideration that is associated with this research project.

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3. Before the interview, it is essential to take the permission of the respondents in order to
evaluate whether the participants are willing to take part in the research and only after that the
researcher will be able to proceed to the data collection part of the research.
4. The anonymity of the participant of the interview is needed to be maintained as it is
one of the significant ethical considerations associated with a project.
5. Maintaining the transparency of the collected information is another significant ethical
consideration that is associated with the project. Misquoting the data obtained from the interview
will be ethically incorrect.
The ethical challenges that are associated with this research project will be addressed by
adhering to the above discussed ethical considerations that are associated with majority of the
research project. Maintenance of data transparency is essential in order to obtain accurate results
of the research that is undertaken (Sashi, 2012). Only the respondents who will be willing take
part in the research will be chosen for the interview and data collection process. The authenticity
of the secondary resources will also be considered while collecting the secondary data.
The results obtained after analyzing the collected data (both primary and secondary data)
will be presented in its original form in order maintain the data transparency. The results
obtained will not be misquoted or modified and the original data will be kept unchanged in order
to address the different ethical issues associated with this research projects.
5. SWOT Analysis
SWOT analysis is a process that helps in identifying the strength, weakness, opportunities
and the threats of a particular organization, process or product (Antony, 2012). A SWOT

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analysis is performed in order to identify the strength, weakness, opportunities and threats
associated with the choice of the research design and the research processes that is chosen for
this research project.
5.1. Strength
The scope and the project are clear, which is strength of the research project. The aim of
this research project is to identify the impact of social media in business promotions. The project
plan has been prepared that involves literature review followed by the collection of the primary
and the secondary data and analysis of the collected data. The choice of appropriate research
methodologies, research philosophy and research design adds to the strength of the project. The
choice of positivism research philosophy in conducting the research study helps in maintaining
the authenticity of the research by cross checking the validity of the sources from which the data
is collected. In order to obtain a more realistic data, the respondents of the interview will be
chosen from the business managers who have a first-hand experience of making use of social
media to advertise and promote their business. This adds to the strength of the research design
that is chosen for this project. A descriptive research design further helps the researcher in
performing the research study according to the research plan. Therefore, use of descriptive
research design further adds to the strengths of the research process.
The Choice of making use of primary data in analyzing the impact of use of social media
in social media adds to the strengths of the research design. The data obtained by analyzing the
primary data is more appropriate in comparison to the data obtained from the analysis of the data
that is obtained from the secondary research. Therefore, it is another strength associated with this
project. This is another significant strength of the project. The project is expected to provide