A Comprehensive Analysis: Social Media Impact on Small Business Growth

This report examines the impact of social media marketing on small businesses, exploring how these platforms influence various aspects of their operations. It investigates the benefits of social media, including improved customer engagement, increased brand awareness, and enhanced marketing efficiency. The research employs a quantitative methodology, utilizing surveys to gather data and analyze the relationship between social media use and business success. The report includes a literature review, research methodology, findings and analysis, discussion, and recommendations, offering insights into effective social media strategies and their impact on a business's competitive advantage. The study concludes with recommendations for small businesses on leveraging social media to achieve sustainable growth, addressing limitations, and suggesting future research directions. The report also provides recommendations for future research and addresses ethical considerations and accessibility issues relevant to the study.

Running head: IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON SMALL BUSINESS
IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON SMALL BUSINESS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON SMALL BUSINESS
Abstract
As the globalization has brought about the different businesses closer, it needs to be understood
that, all the business operations would be required to ensure that they are being able to meet the
needs of the customers and other shareholders alike. Hence, this is the domain where the social
media comes in useful. The report is based on finding the impact of social media on the small
businesses. The chapters have been laid out in a comprehensive manner and each of the chapters
aim to attain the overall research aims. The introduction sets the background of the paper and the
Review of Literature focuses on the analysis of the social media marketing as a concept and also
seeks to ensure that the overall impact of the business can be assessed. The research techniques
were based on the quantitative analysis techniques which through a survey found the impact of
social media on the small businesses and the null hypothesis was rejected. The last chapter has
provided certain recommendations on how the small businesses would be required to make use
of social media marketing techniques to enable a sustainable competitive positioning.

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Acknowledgement
I would like to express the deepest appreciation to my committee chair Professor _________,
who has the attitude and the substance of a genius: he continually and convincingly conveyed a
spirit of adventure in regard to research and scholarship, and an excitement in regard to teaching.
Without his guidance and persistent help this dissertation would not have been possible.
I would like to thank my committee members, Professor _______ and Professor _______, whose
work demonstrated to me that concern for global affairs supported by an “engagement” in
comparative literature and modern technology, should always transcend academia and provide a
quest for our times.
In addition, a thank you to Professor _________, who introduced me to Linguistics, and whose
enthusiasm for the “underlying structures” had lasting effect. I thank the University of _______
for permission to include copyrighted pictures as a part of my dissertation. I also thank ___ Press
for permission to include Chapter 5 of my dissertation, which was originally published in ____
Journal. I would also like to thank to _______ Foundation for their financial support granted
through predoctoral fellowship.

3IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON SMALL BUSINESS
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction....................................................................................................................7
Overview......................................................................................................................................7
Problem statement.......................................................................................................................8
Research aim................................................................................................................................9
Research Objectives.....................................................................................................................9
Research Questions....................................................................................................................10
Hypothesis.................................................................................................................................10
Research Rationale....................................................................................................................11
Structure of the Paper................................................................................................................11
Chapter 2: Review of Literature....................................................................................................13
Overview....................................................................................................................................13
Social Media Marketing............................................................................................................13
The marketing opportunities of small businesses......................................................................15
The social media marketing strategies.......................................................................................19
Application of social media marketing in small business.........................................................21
The factors affecting the Social media use in a business...........................................................21
Impact of social media on the business.....................................................................................22
Future of social media marketing..............................................................................................23
Conceptual Framework..............................................................................................................24

4IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON SMALL BUSINESS
Summary....................................................................................................................................24
Chapter 3: Research Methodology................................................................................................25
Overview....................................................................................................................................25
Research Outline........................................................................................................................25
Research Philosophy..................................................................................................................26
Justification of the Positivism research philosophy...................................................................26
Research Approach....................................................................................................................26
Justification of the Deductive Research Approach....................................................................27
Research Design........................................................................................................................27
Justification of the Descriptive research design........................................................................27
Research Strategy......................................................................................................................27
Justification for the Research Strategy......................................................................................28
Sampling Technique..................................................................................................................28
Data collection...........................................................................................................................28
Justification for the Data collection method..............................................................................29
Data analysis..............................................................................................................................29
Justification for the Data analysis method.................................................................................29
Ethical considerations................................................................................................................29
Accessibility Issues....................................................................................................................30
Summary....................................................................................................................................30

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Chapter 4: Findings and Analysis..................................................................................................31
Overview....................................................................................................................................31
Descriptive Statistics.................................................................................................................31
Inferential Statistics...................................................................................................................36
Correlation Analysis..................................................................................................................37
Regression Analysis...................................................................................................................39
Hypothesis testing......................................................................................................................42
Findings.....................................................................................................................................42
Summary....................................................................................................................................43
Chapter 5: Discussion....................................................................................................................44
Discussion on the Literature Review.........................................................................................47
Discussion on Data analysis......................................................................................................48
Summary....................................................................................................................................49
Chapter 6: Conclusion and Recommendations..............................................................................50
Overview....................................................................................................................................50
Linking with the Objectives.......................................................................................................50
Limitations of the study and future scope..................................................................................51
Future scope...............................................................................................................................51
Recommendations for small businesses....................................................................................51
References......................................................................................................................................53

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Appendix........................................................................................................................................58
Questionnaire.............................................................................................................................58

7IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON SMALL BUSINESS
Chapter 1: Introduction
Overview
The social media has become an integral part of the business and it is in relation to this,
that it can be largely understood that, in order to ensure long term success, it becomes critically
crucial for all the businesses specially those who are small in size and seek to expand in the
future, would be required to take integral procedures and steps so as to ensure that they are being
able to find considerable success in the long run. Hence, this paper has been developed in order
to inspect the impact of social media marketing on the small businesses (Hoffman and Fodor
2010). The social media as well as the social media marketing have been largely successful in
changing the overall domain of the business and have allowed the small businesses to expand its
operations in the long run. The social media is believed to be providing a large number of
benefits to the business in the long run and in relation to this, it becomes necessary for the
organization to adopt the social media marketing and related tools as a medium which will help
the firm to showcase its capabilities in the long run and similar to this, allow them to be able to
reflect on the different customer trends, so that the business is essentially able to take integral
steps and be able to improve its overall competitive advantage (Zarrella 2009). Hence, it is with
respect to this that it is recommended that the business is able to build a good online presence
with the assistance of the social media marketing techniques and through this, they are able to
deal with the different customers in a sound manner.
However, the usage of social media for a business is always not easy and very often it
becomes considerably difficult for the organization to be able to make use of the social media as
a medium due to the different factors associated with the use of it. This means that, very often
the business is not necessarily in a condition to make use of the social media for the long term

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benefit and success of the business and is governed by a large number of factors like the domain
of target market, the cost of social media in the business, the ease of adoption of the social media
factors in a business and such related factors which are present in an organization (De Vries,
Gensler and Leeflang 2012). Hence, using social media is a big decision for the business and in
relation to this, the examination of the benefits which the social media will bring about for the
business also needs to be examined in a sound manner. Therefore, if a firm wants to ensure
considerable success in the long run then in relation to this, it will have to examine the set of
benefits which the social media will bring for their business and the usage of which social media
tools will be appropriate for the business in the long run.
Therefore, it is through this research, that the study aims to find the different ways in
which the business is affected by the use of the social media and also analyze the manner in
which the business shall benefit in the long run (Kim and Ko 2012). The use of a number of
journal articles as well as business reviews will be made in order to assess the impact of social
media marketing in a small business. The paper will make use of the quantitative research
methodology which assist in gathering data from the different respondents present as well as
relating this information to the theory available in the domain. Additionally, the paper will also
reflect on the research ethics, timescales as well as the resources which are required for the
purpose of data collection as well as the analysis as present.
Problem statement
Very often the small businesses are unable to understand and identify the manner in
which they will be required to ensure long term success in the business. In addition to this, it also
becomes considerably difficult for them to find ways in which by making the use of a limited
number of resources, they will be successfully able to reach out to their right target audience.

9IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON SMALL BUSINESS
Hence , this paper aims to deal with the manner in which the social media can be made use of as
a medium to reach out the right customers as present and in a manner similar to this, be able to
identify the manner in which the organization can make use of the social media marketing as a
tool to target their customers, carryout related operations as present in a business and
additionally be able to see to it that, they are being able to reach out to the target audience in the
right manner. The social media essentially allows the different businesses to be able to extend
their overall operations in the right manner and increasingly be able to hire the right kind of
talent for the organization as well (Tuten and Solomon 2017). Therefore, it is through this paper,
that the researcher aims to seek ways in which the overall operations of the business can be
managed using social media marketing and more importantly analyze the way in which the
organization will be able to improve its overall competitive positioning through this tool.
Research aim
The aim of the research is to analyze the manner in which the social media marketing has
an impact on the small businesses. The domain of the businesses which may be impacted by this
can range from the Human resource management department, the operational department, the
marketing department, the financial department and other related departments as well.
Research Objectives
The research objectives which the study aims to answer can be understood to be as
follows:
 To understand the overall concept of social media marketing as an essential concept
which is made use of by the different organizations.
 To analyze the manner in which the social media marketing tends to affect the different
business operations which exist

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 To find a relationship between the social media marketing and the operational success of
a business
 To provide recommendations adhering to which a business will be able to find long term
success by using the social media marketing as a tool.
Research Questions
The research questions which the study aims to answer can be understood to be as
follows:
1. What is the overall concept of social media marketing as an essential concept which is
made use of by the different organizations?
2. In which manner the social media marketing tends to affect the different business
operations which exist?
3. What is the relationship between the social media marketing and the operational success
of a business?
4. What recommendations can be provided to the business adhering to which with which it
will be able to find long term success by using the social media marketing as a tool?
Hypothesis
The Research Hypothesis forms an essential aspect of the business report which helps in
ascertaining the impact of the independent variable on the dependent variable as present. In
regard to this, given below is the information regarding the use of the Dependent Variable and
the Independent Variable and relating to this is the, hypothesis which will be tested for the paper.
Dependent Variable: Operational and marketing efficiency of small businesses
Independent Variable: The social media marketing

11IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON SMALL BUSINESS
Hypothesis
H1 (Alternate Hypothesis): The social media marketing has considerable impact on the
operations of a small business.
H0 (Null hypothesis): The social media marketing does not have any impact on the small
businesses.
Research Rationale
Although there exist various research papers and related domains which seek to examine
the overall impact of the social media marketing on the small business, however, the gap which
the given study seeks to fulfill is to present a more comprehensive analysis in the given business
which will assist the firm to understand the manner in which they will successfully be able to
make use of the social media as a relevant tool and additionally also be able to ensure that they
are being able to deal with the different customers in a comprehensive manner (Evans 2010). The
most effective advantage of the social media is that helps the different organizations to gain an
understanding of the manner in which the different customers react on the social media and to
understand how a business will be able to ensure that all the long term goals of the business can
be achieved successfully (Erdoğmuş and Cicek 2012). Therefore, the study will primarily focus
on the manner in which the social media marketing has an effect on the overall operations of the
firm in relation to the management of the customers and in the secondary perspective, it will be
focusing on the manner in which, the social media tools and marketing can assist in carrying out
the other operations of the business as well.
Structure of the Paper
The structure which will be followed by the paper can be understood to be as follows: