Research Project: Social Media Marketing Impact on UK Fashion Sales

This research project proposal investigates the impact of social media marketing on increasing sales in the UK fashion industry during the Covid-19 pandemic, focusing on H&M as a case study. It aims to understand the concept of social media marketing, analyze the strategies employed by H...Read More

Research Project
Proposal
(Impact of social media marketing in
increasing the sale of UK fashion
industry during Covid 19 pandemic)
1

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Overview of the topic..................................................................................................................3
Background of the organisation...................................................................................................3
Research rational with justification.............................................................................................3
Project aim and objective.............................................................................................................4
Research question........................................................................................................................4
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................4
Introduction..................................................................................................................................4
Concept of social media marketing in context of organisation...................................................5
Social media marketing strategies used by H&M to market their product and increase their
sale during Covid 19 pandemic...................................................................................................5
Impact of social media marketing in increasing the sale of H&M during Covid 19 pandemic. .6
INTENDED METHODOLOGY.....................................................................................................7
RESOURCES REQUIRED AND ACTION PLAN........................................................................8
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10
2

INTRODUCTION
Overview of the topic
Social media marketing is gaining more importance after the adoption of digitalisation in
the recent age. Social media is defined as the collection of various website and application to
make interaction in the society. Social media is used in an organisation to make communication
and collaboration between the community in order to advertise and promote their goods and
services (Raji, Rashid and Ishak, 2019). The global pandemic has created a situation where doing
cold marketing becoming impossible and in that time social media marketing help them
company to enhance their sale. Through using various social media platform like Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram and many more help the fashion industry to attract more target buyers
towards them.
Background of the organisation
To undergo current investigation, the chosen organisation is H&M. It is Swedish
multinational clothing brand which was founded in the year 1947 by Erlling Persson. It is one of
the leading fast fashion brand for men, women and children. The headquarter of the brand is
Stockholm, Sweden and the company operates their business worldwide. Their business
operation is in 74 countries and approx. 5000 stores are there of H&M. During the pandemic to
enhance their sale company adopt the marketing strategy of social media so that they can sale
their product on larger quantity and gain competitive advantage to other fashion brand
(Agnihotri, 2020).
Research rational with justification
The major motive behind the existing research is to gain a deeper understanding about the
topic impact of social media marketing in increasing sale of the company. This investigation will
also enhance knowledge regarding the social media and the important role played by social
media marketing an organisation. This investigation will also highlight the various social media
strategies used by the Brands in order to increase their sale. The current research will also aid me
in fulfilling, dual objective which are personal and professional (Almazrouei and et. al, 2020). In
perspective to personal objective this research will enhance my various skill such as problem
solving skill, communication skill, data analytical skill and many more. The current investigation
will also develop my knowledge about the method used for completing the research in systematic
3

manner. on the other side, with professional objective this will helps me in developing the
professional career in sound manner.
Project aim and objective
Research aim
To identify the impact of social media marketing in increasing the sale of UK fashion
industry during Covid 19 pandemic: A study on H&M.
Research objective
 To understand the concept of social media marketing in context of organisation
 To analysis the various social media marketing strategy used by H&M to market their
product and increase their sale during Covid 19 pandemic
 To identify the impact of social media marketing in increasing the sale of H&M during
Covid 19 pandemic
Research question
 What is the concept of social media marketing in context of organisation?
 What are the various social media marketing strategy used by H&M to market their
product and increase their sale during Covid 19 pandemic?
 What is the impact of social media marketing in increasing the sale of H&M during
Covid 19 pandemic?
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
Literature Review can be defined as the overview of the work which was previously
published by some of the authors on a specific research topic. It is the term which basically refers
to the scholarly paper as a whole. It includes books and articles along with the journals and many
more written authentic content. It is considered as the academic writing which depicts the
understanding and knowledge of the academic literature in terms of any particular topic. It also
contains the critical evaluation of the context and that is why it is known as the literature review.
The following literature review is based on the concept of social media marketing, social media
marketing strategies and the impact of social media marketing in increasing the sale during covid
19 pandemic.
4

Concept of social media marketing in context of organisation
According to Evans, Bratton and McKee, (2021), Social media marketing can be defined
as the usage of several social media platforms and different websites in order to promote and
advertise the product and service of the company. It is one of the most popular and emerging
aspect of the entire digital market and e-marketing area. This is because it is growing as most of
the brands prefer social media marketing as a priority for online marketing. It also uses the social
networks which helps companies to engage with the existing customer and also to reach out to
the new ones as well while simply promoting the culture and mission along with the tone of the
company. There are several platforms of social media marketing which are mostly used by the
companies such as Facebook and Twitter along with the LinkedIn and Instagram which is
followed by the YouTube and Pinterest and also the Reedit and Snapchat as well. Facebook is
considered as one of the biggest social media platform and the largest social media site having
2.5 billion monthly users.
According to Tuten, (2020), In context of H&M, company highly uses the social media
marketing for promoting their products and services and uses the social media platforms on a
large basis in an optimum manner. Company advertises itself as a whole on social media sites
and also sells on social media. It basically rules the social platforms with the online presence of
its products and services in a vast way. It has millions of followers in which Instagram alone has
the 37.4 million followers of H&M. It has the major presence on Instagram and Facebook where
they advertise and sell their products in an online manner.
Social media marketing strategies used by H&M to market their product and increase their sale
during Covid 19 pandemic
According to Dwivedi, Ismagilova, Hughes and Kumar, (2021), H&M uses the chatbots
in order to provide the enriched experience to the customers. It creates the personalised
experiences for their target customers. It has good strategy of content marketing in a diversified
manner and also has created community for the audiences. They also use the brand advocates
while creating the profiles on the relevant channels. They also plan about the budgets for social
media marketing which also includes the running across the channel campaigns. Company also
goes live and connects with the audiences while telling the story of the brand. They have realistic
and social media marketing goals while determining the most relevant metrics. They also
5

conduct the market research in terms of competitor's social media approaches. They also set the
best time and set up the calendar as well for frequent posts on the social media platforms.
According to Li, Larimo and Leonidou, (2021), there are several types of social media
strategies which are used by H&M in order to connect with the audiences in the times of Covid
19 pandemic. Social networks are one of the strategy. This strategy is related to the using of the
social networking sites for promotions. Social news is an another strategy. This strategy allows
the company to attach the link to the post which opens up on the external site for attractive
marketing. Micro-blogging is also an another strategy. This strategy is used to write the short
written entries for the detaining of the products and services. Bookmarking sites is also an
another strategy. This strategy facilitates with the tagging of the specific people or targeted
followers. Media sharing is one of the strategy. This strategy supports in sharing the media
online in the form of images and videos. Community blogs is an another strategy. This strategy
shares the message to the community without using any specific channel or medium.
Impact of social media marketing in increasing the sale of H&M during Covid 19 pandemic
According to Jacobson, Gruzd and Hernández-García, (2020), there is a positive impact
of social media marketing in increasing the sale of H&M during Covid 19 pandemic. It has
increased the brand awareness of the company in a very fast duration. Inbound traffic is also
increased in the website of H&M. It has also benefited with the improvement in the rankings of
search engines. H&M has experienced higher conversion rates with better customer satisfaction
and enhancement of brand loyalty as well. It has gained the market place insights in the cost
effective manner with better brand recognition and increment of sales and also by measuring the
success with analytics.
According to Shareef, Mukerji, Dwivedi and Islam, (2019), moreover, other positive
impacts on H&M while adopting the social media platforms at the rime of Covid 19 pandemic in
order to increase the sales are such that H&M has benefited by discovering the way of
connecting the audiences using social listening in a cost and time efficient nature. It has also
helped in increasing the authority of the brand which supports in ruling the industry.
Furthermore, H&M is now able to collect the relevant data from the audiences in the form of
researches so that it can improve its strategies of social media marketing. It further has helped in
re-marketing of the products and services of the company.
6

INTENDED METHODOLOGY
Research methodology is that section of the research which helps in gathering and analysing
the information as per the chosen topic. This section plays a vital role in identifying, analysing
and interpreting the information in scientific manner. Research methodology also helps in
attaining aims and objective in appropriate manner (Mukherjee, 2019). The validity and
reliability of the data is also evaluated by the information collected using various philosophies,
approaches, strategies and many more.
Research philosophy: There are two types of research philosophy which are positivism and
interpretivism. In the current research, researcher will be choosing positivism philosophy to
gather quantitative information. The reason fir opting this philosophy is data will be collected in
more generalised and objective manner.
Research approach: Research approach is classified into two parts that are inductive and
deductive approach. As per the present investigation, investigator will be selecting deductive
approach. The main advantage to use this approach is it will test existing theories and hypothesis
with the help of numerical information. It will not lay stress on building new theories for the
topic (Bairagi and Munot, 2019).
Research strategy: There are serval kind of research strategies some of them are survey,
interview, action research, case study and many more. Under the present investigation survey
strategy will be choosing to gather quantitative data from mass population. To use this strategy
researcher, need less time and cost as well as can reach to large audience at a single time.
Research choice: Quantitative and qualitative are the two kinds of research method to
collect data. in the existing investigation, investigator will be choosing quantitative research
method. The major reason for choosing this is numerical data can be gathered from number of
respondent. Data is in the form on numbers so evaluating the data is quite easier and validity can
be made.
Time horizon: Cross sectional and longitudinal are the two-time framework which is used to
know the point of time. As per the research study cross sectional time horizon will be used to
gather information in one go. Another reason is it will observe multiple variable at single point
of time (Ledford and Gast, 2018).
Data collection: Data collection is the process of gathering raw data from various sources.
Primary and secondary are the data collection method. In current investigation both primary and
7

secondary data will be used, primary data is fresh data which is going to use in data analysis and
presentation part and secondary data will use for literature review section in order to get answer
of the research question. The research instrument which will be used for gathering data is
questionnaire in primary data and systematic literature review in secondary data (Säfsten and
Gustavsson, 2020).
Sampling: Probability and non-probability are the two sampling technique. In current
research, researcher will be selecting probability sampling. The reason is it will provide equal
and fair chance to each and every participant to being selected. The sample size will be 30
marketing manager of H&M.
RESOURCES REQUIRED AND ACTION PLAN
8

9

REFERENCES
Books and journal
Agnihotri, R., 2020. Social media, customer engagement, and sales organizations: A research
agenda. Industrial Marketing Management. 90. pp.291-299.
Almazrouei, F.A., and et. al, 2020, October. Social media impact on business: a systematic
review. In International conference on advanced intelligent systems and informatics (pp.
697-707). Springer, Cham.
Bairagi, V. and Munot, M.V. eds., 2019. Research methodology: A practical and scientific
approach. CRC Press.
Dwivedi, Y.K., Ismagilova, E., Hughes, D.L. and Kumar, V., 2021. Setting the future of digital
and social media marketing research: Perspectives and research propositions. International
Journal of Information Management, 59, p.102168.
Evans, D., Bratton, S. and McKee, J., 2021. Social media marketing. AG Printing & Publishing.
Jacobson, J., Gruzd, A. and Hernández-García, Á., 2020. Social media marketing: Who is
watching the watchers?. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 53, p.101774.
Ledford, J.R. and Gast, D.L. eds., 2018. Single case research methodology. New York, NY:
Routledge.
Li, F., Larimo, J. and Leonidou, L.C., 2021. Social media marketing strategy: definition,
conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda. Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science, 49(1), pp.51-70.
Mukherjee, S.P., 2019. A guide to research methodology: An overview of research problems,
tasks and methods. CRC Press.
Raji, R.A., Rashid, S. and Ishak, S., 2019. The mediating effect of brand image on the
relationships between social media advertising content, sales promotion content and
behaviuoral intention. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing.
Säfsten, K. and Gustavsson, M., 2020. Research methodology: for engineers and other problem-
solvers.
Shareef, M.A., Mukerji, B., Dwivedi, Y.K. and Islam, R., 2019. Social media marketing:
Comparative effect of advertisement sources. Journal of Retailing and Consumer
Services, 46, pp.58-69.
10