M&S & Social Media: Covid-19 Impact and Platform Investigation

This case study investigates the role of social media and its various platforms during the Covid-19 pandemic, focusing on Marks and Spencer (M&S). It examines the impact of social media on retailer firms during the pandemic, highlighting the use of platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. The study explores how social media facilitated marketing, customer engagement, and overall business operations for M&S amidst restrictions and challenges. It also addresses challenges faced by retailer companies in the UK, such as developing effective social media strategies and measuring ROI. The research employs a mixed-methods approach, utilizing qualitative and quantitative data collected through questionnaires from M&S managers and secondary sources like books, journals, and websites. The findings reveal that M&S effectively uses social media to market products, enhance employee productivity, and improve customer service, while also acknowledging potential negative impacts like negative feedback and security breaches. The study concludes with recommendations for retailers to optimize their social media strategies and overcome associated challenges. Desklib provides access to similar case studies and solved assignments for students.

ASSESSMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Topic: To investigate the role of social media and its various platforms in the pandemic of
Covid-19 : A study on Marks and Spencer......................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Background..................................................................................................................................3
Objective......................................................................................................................................4
Research question........................................................................................................................4
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................4
The concept of social media and its various platforms in retailer firm of UK like M&S...........4
The impact of social media on the retailer firms in the times of pandemic of COVID-19.........5
The challenges faced by the retailer companies of UK in making use of various platforms of
Social media.................................................................................................................................6
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY....................................................................................................6
FINDING.........................................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION............................................................................11
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1
APPENDIX......................................................................................................................................3
Questionnaire...............................................................................................................................3

Topic: To investigate the role of social media and its various platforms in the
pandemic of Covid-19 : A study on Marks and Spencer.
INTRODUCTION
Social media plays the important role while through which it come to know about those
thing which could be important for having the better business development. Although this could
be also important for the business in having the organization products and services through social
media from which they can attract more customer and have their large size of better income
sources. This is observed that the companies of any industry are facilitated by making use of
social media and its various platforms (Alaimo and Kallinikos, 2017). The research will be based
on the ways in which the retailer firms like M&S make use of various platforms of social media.
It will also highlight the impact of the same on the profitability of company. The research will
also shed light on the various challenges which can be faced by the retailer companies in
implementing the strategies of social media and various recommendations will be mentioned
which can help in meeting those challenges.
Background
Social media is giving various opportunities to the businesses in innovating and changing
the ways in which companies perform various operations. Especially in the time of pandemic of
COVID-19 when the business cannot reach to the customers really, then the social media
platforms can help the businesses and the employees to the customers and they can easily convey
the required information to them in very cost effective method (Gautam and Sharma, 2017). The
various platforms of social used by the retailer companies are Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter,
Instagram, YouTube and many others (Jacobson, Gruzd and Hernández-García, 2020). The
report will focus on the company Marks and Spencer (M&S) which is a multinational retailer
having headquarters in London, England. The company deals in selling of home products, food
products, clothing etc. and that of with their own label (Marks and Spencer, 2021). The company
performs its operations in various countries which is why the use of social media is much found
in the company. This is why, the research will shed light on the role played by social media in
the company.

Aim
"To investigate the role of social media and its various platforms in the pandemic of
Covid-19. A study on Marks and Spencer"
Objective
 To examine the impact of social media and its various platforms on the retailer firms in
the times of pandemic of COVID-19.
 To recommend appropriate strategies which can help retailer firms like M&S in meeting
the challenges faced while making use of social media.
Research question
 What are the impact of social media and its various platforms on the retailer firms in the
times of pandemic of COVID-19?
 What are the recommendations which can be suggested to meet the challenges faced by
retailer companies of UK in making use of various platforms of Social media?
LITERATURE REVIEW
The literature review means it is type of academic paper while through which it come to
know about the analyse, gathered information or collected the sources while by having the
various author views. This literature review will critically analyse the main aim for explaining
about the concepts social media and its various platforms for the retailing business and impact of
the social media towards the retailing sector due to having the covid-19. Along with this also
explain about the challenges that have been faced by the UK companies and having the various
platforms.
The concept of social media and its various platforms in retailer firm of UK like M&S
According to Morris and James (2017), social media is considered to be the interactive
technologies which helps in exchanging or sharing of ideas, other forms of expressions, career
interests through virtual networks and communities. This is observed that social media is used in
the retailer firms of UK in performing various operations like marketing, taking feedback from

customers, using the social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, twitter and many more for
supplementing the existing marketing campaigns etc.
Building blocks to the above points, Dabija, Bejan and Tipi (2018), further elaborated that
social media is mostly used by the retailers in reaching to the customers overseas in different
countries by advertising the products, getting the online order, delivering the products at the
customer’s doorsteps, taking feedback from them and many more. This is how, it can be said that
social media made the operations easier to be performed by the retailer firms like M&S in UK. It
is also must for the retailer to choose the platforms which can be used by them. This can be done
by researching about the customer trends and the platforms on which the customers are most
updated upon. The use of social media is realised at the time of pandemic of COVID-19 when
there were complete restrictions on going of the customers to the stores, getting import from
various suppliers from overseas, even there are complete restrictions on performing the
marketing campaigns. This is why, the social media at this played the most important role at this
time to be on contact with the customers, stakeholders suppliers etc. for running the business.
The impact of social media on the retailer firms in the times of pandemic of COVID-19
As per the view of Scuotto and et.al., (2017), social media helped the retail businesses to
increase the in-store as well as online sales, establishing the brand, building relationships with
the customers along with improving the spending of the customers. The market trends also
helped in realising the ways in which shoppers are engaging and relying on the social media
platforms to buy products and services. The retailer companies of UK can easily connect with the
influencers and advocated for the brand which will not only increase the customer base but also
this can help in increasing the overall customer loyalty which improves the brand. Also, this was
analysed that the companies come to know about its competitors and their strategies through the
social media platforms which helps in gaining greater competitive advantage among the
competitors in UK and in other countries.
On the contradictory note, Sihi and Lawson (2018), argued that the retailer businesses are
also negatively impacted by these social media platforms as the customers can also be influenced
by the negative comments of some customers. When anyone is not satisfied with the products of
the company then they are more likely to post their negative experiences on social media which
is seen by every person connected by the company in any way. Also, this is observed that the

employees get very less opportunities to interact with each other which is why, this impacts the
employee productivity and communication negatively. Furthermore, the author also argued that
the social media platforms reduces the confidentiality as well as the image of the companies as
this can lead to many possible breaches which can lead to damaged reputation of the company or
people started doubting about its reliability and credibility.
The challenges faced by the retailer companies of UK in making use of various platforms of
Social media.
According to Olanrewaju and et.al., (2020), despite being much beneficial to the retailer
companies, the social media platforms also pose various challenges to these companies. The
retail firms face various challenges in developing the social media strategy according to the goals
and objectives of the company. Also, the company face problems while calculating the social
media ROI which means purchases on social media, downloads, visits on different platforms,
newsletter sign-ups etc. This was observed that retail firms also face various challenges while
choosing the social media platforms because most of the people are updated on one site while the
other people on the other sites. Developing and establishing humanistic behaviour with the
customers or clients also become the secondary challenges which must be met up the companies
through various strategies.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The research will make use of systematic research methodology which can help in deciding
the overall outline through which research can be carried out. The qualitative as well as
quantitative type of research will be used as the research needs both theoretical as well as
numerical type of data for gaining valuable insights about the research topic. Also, Interpretivism
philosophy will be used which can help in knowing that the research is based on the researchers’
interest and the views of individual. Inductive philosophy will be used as there is no established
through to be tested at first instead it will be developed after the complete research. Descriptive
design will be used for evaluating the role of social media in the business of retail firms
(Bhimani, Mention and Barlatier, 2019). The data will be collected through primary and
secondary sources of data collection in which questionnaire will be used for gaining views of
respondents who will by simple random sampling and the respondents will be 30 managers of

M&S. The secondary data will be collected through various books, journals, websites, blogs,
articles etc which will be presented in the literature review (Heggde and Shainesh, 2018). The
data will be analysed through thematic data analysis in which various themes will be developed
according to the research objectives and the data collected will be presented in the form of
pictures, figures, patterns, graphs etc. This will help in drawing significant conclusions and
appropriate findings.
FINDING
Findings will be obtained by linking the data collected from primary as well as secondary
sources. Below themes will be made according to the questionnaire which will be sending to the
managers of M&S through online modes.
Theme 1:
Do the company M&S make use of social media platforms for
performing various options?
Respondents
Yes 22
No 8
Total 30
73%
27%
Yes
No
Interpretation: This can be interpreted from the above picture that more than half of the
respondents i.e., 73% of the total respondents believe that the company M&S make use of
various social media platforms in performing various operations of the company. This was also

mentioned in the literature review that the large organisations need to use various online
platforms to reach the customers overseas (Yahia, Al-Neama and Kerbache, 2018).
Theme 2:
Which social media platforms are used by the company in order
to market its products and services?
Respondents
Facebook 4
Instagram 3
YouTube 1
LinkedIn 2
All the above 20
Total 30
13%
10%
3%
7%
67%
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube
LinkedIn
All the above
Interpretation: This can be identified from the above pictorial representation that 67% of the
respondents which is majority of the respondents believe that the company M&S not only makes
use of single platform of social media but make use of various platforms like Facebook,
Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and many other platforms.
Theme 3:
Do you agree with the fact that social media platforms made
easier for the employees of the company to perform specific
tasks?
Respondents

Yes 23
No 7
Total 30
77%
23%
Yes
No
Interpretation: This can be analysed from the above pictorial representation that majority of the
respondents i.e., 77% of the respondents believe that these social media platforms helps in
making the work of the employees easier in various aspects.
Theme 4:
Which benefits are faced by the company after making use of
social media platforms?
Respondents
Increase in online sales 5
Improves the brand awareness 3
Increases trust among the customers 1
Improves customer service and relations 3
All the above 18
Total 30

17%
10%
3%
10%
60%
Increase in online sales
Improves the brand
awareness
Increases trust among the
customers
Improves customer service
and relations
All the above
Interpretation: This can be evaluated from the above pictorial representation that more than
half of the respondents i.e., 60% of the respondents realise various benefits of using social media
platforms such as increase in the online sales, improves the brand awareness, increase the
customer’s trust, improves the customer service and relations and many more. Similar was
mentioned in the literature review.
Theme 5:
What challenges are faced by the company in using social media in
performing various operations?
Respondents
Developing social media strategy 8
Measuring social media ROI 0
Choosing the social media platform 12
Building humanistic relationship with customers 2
Answering the questions of customers regularly 8
Total 30

27%
40%
7%
27% Developing social media
strategy
Measuring social media
ROI
Choosing the social media
platform
Building humanistic
relationship with
customers
Answering the questions
of customers regularly
Interpretation: The above pictorial representation represents that 40% which is the highest
percentage of respondents who believes that the company face the challenge of choosing the
social media platforms while using social media in various operations. The other challenges
identified were developing social media strategy, measuring social media ROI, building human
relationship with customers etc.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
The above research concluded about the use of social media platforms in the retailer firms of
UK. The qualitative and quantitative data was used for gaining valuable insights about the
research objectives. Also, the research made use of primary and secondary sources of data
collection which also helped in collecting wide range of data from the authors as well as the
managers of the company. This is how, it was identified that company face various benefits by
using social media platforms and also various challenges in using the same. The company strives
hard to resolve the various challenges and try to make use of various social media platforms.
Marks and Spencer is facilitated by social media in times of pandemic of COVID-19 when there
are restrictions on the supply as well as visiting the customers to stores. The research made use
of interpretivism philosophy and inductive approach to analyse the experiences of the

respondents and also developing theories after analysing the data. The study overall examined
the role played by social media in retail firms of UK like M&S.
This can be recommended that the company must not rely on single social media platform
instead must make use of various platforms. Also, the companies must monitor the success
gained from each platform so that they can continue with the same and can ignore the other
platforms (Amaro and Duarte, 2017). The company must also set the budget for investing in each
platform. This is how, companies like M&S can improve its marketing and other operations by
making use of social media.