Social Media Marketing and Consumer Behavior in UK Retail: Tesco

This report examines the impact of Social Media Marketing (SMM) on consumer behavior, specifically within the context of Tesco's retail operations in the UK, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report begins with an introduction outlining the aim to analyze SMM's impact and objectives, including the evolution of SMM, its impact on consumer behavior, challenges faced, and recommended strategies. The methodology includes a literature review of books, journals, and research papers. The research problem highlights the difficulty of primary research during the pandemic, leading to a reliance on online methods. The research question focuses on the influence of SMM on consumer behavior during the pandemic, along with related factors. The report then delves into the reason behind the chosen topic, emphasizing the increasing importance of SMM in the retail sector. The literature review synthesizes insights from various sources, while the appendix provides a detailed team agreement outlining goals, responsibilities, expectations, and processes to ensure effective teamwork and successful project completion. The report aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the role of SMM in shaping consumer behavior within the UK retail sector during the pandemic.

TOPIC DEVELOPMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Topic................................................................................................................................................3
Aim & Objectives........................................................................................................................3
Reason behind taking the topic....................................................................................................4
Literature Research......................................................................................................................5
Research problem........................................................................................................................5
Research Question.......................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7
APPENDIX......................................................................................................................................9

Topic
“To evaluate the impact of Social Media Marketing (SMM) on the consumer behaviour
especially in times of pandemic of COVID-19 in the context of retail industry of UK”. A study
on Tesco.
Aim & Objectives
Aim: To analyse the impact of Social Media Marketing on the behaviour of consumers of Tesco
in UK especially in times of pandemic of COVID-19.
Objectives
 To analyse the evolution of Social Media Marketing during the time of pandemic of
COVID-19 in the retail sector of UK.
 To examine the impact which SMM has on the consumer behaviour especially in the
times of COVID-19 in Tesco.
 To ascertain the challenges in using the social media marketing as a tool to influence the
consumer behaviour.
 To recommend various strategies which can help in influencing the behaviour of
consumers through social media marketing during the pandemic.
Research Questions
 How can the evolution of Social Media Marketing be understood at the times of
pandemic of COVID-19 in context of retail sector of UK?
 What is the impact of social media marketing on the consumer behaviour of Tesco
especially in the times of pandemic of COVID-19?
 What challenges can be faced by the retail companies in using the SMM as a tool to
influence the consumers’ behaviour?
 What strategies can be recommended to the company which can help in influencing the
behaviour of consumers through SMM during pandemic?
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Reason behind taking the topic
Due to globalization, the social media marketing is becoming the best tool to promote the
products and services of any company. The social media market if becoming giant day by day
due to the fluctuations in the demands of the consumers and also for the company to become
technologically advanced. Earlier the marketing was done through the traditional methods like
mouth publicity, campaigning etc. But in this today’s emerging markets for gaining the
competitive advantage among the competitors, the companies are trying to bring improvements
in the marketing tools and techniques as this is the major practice which is used by the
companies to promote their products and services. Social Media marketing is the best way in
which the companies can seek to reach out to their prospects and the customers (Ramanatha,
Subramanian and Parrott, 2017). Especially the retail companies are being facilitated by it as it is
giving more opportunities to the companies to interact with the customers through online
platforms which is cost-effective method. Though the social media marketing is evolving day by
day but especially during the pandemic of COVID-19 when the campaigns and the promotional
activities were restricted as it involves the real interaction of many people in groups, the need of
SMM increased at this time. The retail companies like Tesco did not find any option to continue
its operations and marketing in the times of pandemic so the SMM proved to be the best option
through which the companies can even influence the behaviour of the consumers also. The
competition among the retail companies was increasing day by day as all of them strived hard to
emerge as the leading market players so that it becomes able to attract large number of customers
(Young and et.al., 2017).
This was observed that when the customers need any product or service, they first choose the
option of social media to make their decision. They decide on the basis of the presentation of the
company on the social media whether to make a purchase or to go to the alternatives. The
companies can make use of this opportunity to reach to large number of customers to whom the
physical advertising is not possible. This also ensures that the message reaches to the target
audience without any barriers. There are many social networking sites in which the companies
can perform its marketing activities to impact the consumer behaviour such as Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and many more. At the times of lockdown, when the people had no
work to do, they were more active and updated on the social networking sites, the companies can
enhance their presence on the same (Beitzen-Heineke, Balta-Ozkan and Reefke, 2017). So, the
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main reason behind the topic is to examine the ways in which the Tesco being the largest retailer
company in UK is using the social media marketing to gain the larger customer base and to
divert the from its competitors.
Literature Research
The team went through many books, journals, articles, research papers, publications,
blogs, websites and many other sources to gain deeper insight about the topic and to gain
significant conclusions. These were already published by well-known publishers and authors.
This helped in gaining a good contextual understanding regarding the topic which is the impact
of social media marketing on the consumers behaviour especially in the times of COVID-19.
According to Bilinska-Reformat and Stefanska (2016), the implementation of the social
networking sites has been emerging continuously which satisfied the social needs of the
consumers as well as increased the opportunities for the retailers to advertise their products and
services in more personalised way. Also, the scholars identified that the social media marketing
contributes significantly in changing the thinking of the consumers before making a purchase.
Use of internet is increasing day by day which forces the retailers to advertise its products and
services through the social networking sites on which most of the people are being updated.
On the contradiction to the above point, Lu and Miller (2019), argued that people also sometimes
give the negative feedbacks regarding the products and services of the companies which destroys
the image of the company. The customers after seeing the negative feedbacks can shift their
decision towards other retail companies due to which companies face a major loss of customers
as well as the decreased profitability.
Research problem
The main problem which is raised in the research is that at the times of pandemic, it
became very difficult to perform the primary research as meeting the respondents which are the
consumers of the Tesco was not possible. The method of questionnaire was very difficult to
implement as the consent forms, declaration forms and even the questionnaires cannot be sent
and received in this time of pandemic as the health and safety of the employees as well as
customers must be ensured. But the primary research is mandatory as it can help in gaining much
better outcomes as it is the raw and fresh data collected through the respondents based on their
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opinions and experiences. Therefore, the online methods like emails will be chosen to get the
responses of the respondents. This created many obstacles as most of the respondents denied
giving the responses because of the risk of the data leak and the leak of personal information
(Marriott, Williams and Dwivedi, 2017). Therefore, all the possible actions will be taken to
analyse the impact of the social media marketing on the consumers behaviour regarding the retail
industry of UK in the times of pandemic of COVID-19 (Kizgin and et.al., 2020).
Research Question
The main research question is that “What is the impact of Social media marketing on the
consumers’ behaviour in the times of pandemic of COVID-19 in context of Tesco in UK”. The
team will be focussing on answering this question throughout the whole research.
But in addition to the above main research question, the team will also be laying emphasis on the
evolution of the social media marketing due to COVID-19. It will also highlight the challenges
which are faced by the retailer companies to use the social media marketing as a tool to influence
the behaviour of consumers and various recommendations will be given which cab help the
companies to attract the customers through social media marketing.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Beitzen-Heineke, E.F., Balta-Ozkan, N. and Reefke, H., 2017. The prospects of zero-packaging
grocery stores to improve the social and environmental impacts of the food supply
chain. Journal of Cleaner Production. 140. pp.1528-1541.
Bilinska-Reformat, K. and Stefanska, M., 2016. YOUNG CONSUMERS'BEHAVIOURS IN
RETAIL MARKET AND THEIR IMPACT ON ACTIVITIES OF RETAIL
CHAINS. Business Excellence. 10(2). p.123.
Lu, Q.S. and Miller, R., 2019. How Social Media Communications Combine with Customer
Loyalty Management to Boost Green Retail Sales. Journal of Interactive Marketing. 46.
pp.87-100.
Marriott, H.R., Williams, M.D. and Dwivedi, Y.K., 2017. What do we know about consumer m-
shopping behaviour?. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management.
Ramanathan, U., Subramanian, N. and Parrott, G., 2017. Role of social media in retail network
operations and marketing to enhance customer satisfaction. International Journal of
Operations & Production Management.
Young, W. and et.al., 2017. Can social media be a tool for reducing consumers’ food waste? A
behaviour change experiment by a UK retailer. Resources, Conservation and
Recycling. 117. pp.195-203.
Kizgin, H. and et.al., 2020. The impact of social media on consumer acculturation: Current
challenges, opportunities, and an agenda for research and practice. International
Journal of Information Management. 51. p.102026.
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APPENDIX
1. Explain the team’s agreed goals and timeline for completion (Due dates, meetings,
milestones, deliverables from individuals)
Th goals are to achieve the objectives of the research which is to analyse the impact
which the Social Media Marketing has on the behaviour of consumers of Tesco. This will
take almost 11 weeks in which 11 meeting which be held in which the members will
discuss the progress and the things collected by them in certain time.
2. Who is responsible for each activity?
The members of the team will be responsible for each activity.
3. What particular team-roles will each member contribute to the team?
Member 1 will be responsible for doing the literature review.
Member 2 will be responsible for collecting the data through questionnaires.
Member 3 will be responsible for analysing the data collected from both the sources.
4. What are your team’s expectations regarding meeting attendance (being on time,
leaving early, missing meetings, etc.)?
The expectations are that everyone attend the meeting by coming on time without leaving
the meetings early and no one must miss the meeting.
5. What process will team members follow if they have an emergency and cannot attend a
team meeting or complete their individual work promised to the team (deliverable)?
They must manage the time to attend the meeting or if not can attend the meeting online
and even if this is also not possible then the conclusion of the meeting must be delivered
to the group of team members.
6. What are your team’s expectations regarding the quality of team members’ preparation
for team meetings?
The quality must be satisfactory up to the mark as it represents the whole team.
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7. What are your team’s expectations regarding team members’ ideas, interactions with
the team, cooperation, attitudes, and team-member contributions in general?
The ideas must be innovative, completely new, members must be well-behaved,
cooperative, positive attitude and must contribute in achieving the goals of the project.
8. How will your team ensure that members contribute as expected to the team and that
the team performs as expected?
The deadlines must be set and feedbacks must be taken from each member regarding the
work of other.
9. How will your team reward members who do well and how will you collectively manage
members whose performance is below expectations?
Rewards will be given in the form of less workload and also maximum credit and the low
performers will be provided with constant support.
10. Add any other team agreements and commitments here.
The team members will work as a single entity where everyone contributes in achieving
the goals of the project.
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