University Business Research Proposal: Social Networking Impact

This business research proposal examines the advantages and disadvantages of using social networking in business organizations. The report begins with an executive summary, followed by an introduction outlining the evolution of social media and its significance for businesses. The objectives and sc...Read More

Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Business Research Proposal
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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Executive Summary
The following proposal will be focused on identifying the advantages and the disadvantages of
the use of social networking in the business settings. A critical analysis has been done on the
following topic identifying the major advantages and some disadvantages. Gap has been
identified in the literature where possible research can be conducted. The scholarly work on the
disadvantages of the topic is poor in number where prospect of research is high. The objectives
are set in the initial part of the research proposal along with the research scope.

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Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................1
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................4
2. Project Objective.........................................................................................................................4
3. Project Scope...............................................................................................................................5
4. Literature Review........................................................................................................................5
Social networking and its use in Businesses................................................................................5
Business transformation...............................................................................................................6
Advantages...................................................................................................................................7
Customer Insight......................................................................................................................7
Brand awareness and loyalty....................................................................................................7
Inbound Traffic.........................................................................................................................8
Reduced marketing Cost..........................................................................................................8
Customer Satisfaction...............................................................................................................9
Thought Leadership..................................................................................................................9
Disadvantages............................................................................................................................10
Promotion Management via Social Networks........................................................................10
Maintenance effort.................................................................................................................11
Policies and procedures..........................................................................................................11

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Literature Gap............................................................................................................................11
5. Conclusion.................................................................................................................................12
6. Reference List............................................................................................................................13
7. Appendix....................................................................................................................................16

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1. Introduction
Social media was once considered only a medium of connecting people. It was basically
a kids’ tool and no business can use it to gain profit out of it. Soon these sceptics proved to be
wrong and now it is considered as a useful tool for every business in various grounds primarily
in their promotion. It is useful in gaining customers’ valuable insights, increase brand awareness
and loyalty, run targeted ads with real time results, generate higher converting leads, provide rich
customer experiences, increase website traffic and search ranking, identify competitors’ activity,
share content faster and easily, geo-target content, build customer relationship and many more.
As there are advantages, there must be some disadvantages that come along with it. The report
will be flowing in a direction to identify these advantages and disadvantages of using social
networking in the business organizations (Whiting and Deshpande 2014). A thorough literature
review has been carried out in the following. Project objectives and scopes are also identified in
the following research proposal.
2. Project Objective
 To critically analyse the applications of social networking in Business Organizations.
 To identify the advantages and disadvantages of using social networking in the business.
 To critically evaluate the promotional activities of business organization through social
networking.

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3. Project Scope
The scope of the projects lies within the history of development of social networking and
the point of views of business organizations towards it. The change in the viewpoint and the
impact will also be considered.
4. Literature Review
Social networking and its use in Businesses
Social networking can be represent as a structure in the internet that joins people with
common interest. Its sole purpose is to connect people. Facebook, Pinterest, twiter are the msot
common social networking sites that are used by people around the world. It has become an
integral part of almost every business around the world. It has considerably modified the
thinking of the entrepreneurs. It not only contributes in providing information to identify new
opportunities, but also helps to in the process of implementation. The social networks help in
triggering the enactment of opportunities of the international businesses by bringing modification
in the way business organizations see the feasibility and desirable opportunities. The evaluation
of opportunities by experienced international businesses inclined to be linked with their strong
network ties. The new companies gain benefits from these experienced well-established
organization for setting up their business. Marketing and promotions are the two important
grounds where the social networking comes into action for the international organizations. It is
considered as the fastest means of getting public attention and recommendations (Nowiński and
Rialp 2016).

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Business transformation
Social network is playing vital role in changing way of communication, creation,
collaboration and consumption. It is one of the important transformative approaches taken by the
business organizations in information technology, within and outside the organization. It directly
influences in promoting the products and services and transformed the way. Popular social
networking sites like facebook, twitter, instagram and many more are used in the process.
Business organizations are using these social networking sites not only for promoting their
products but also to build customer relationship by allowing them to place their opinion asking
their feedback. It helps organizations in their social and economic value creation. They are
placing ads with the help of e-business management team that is often found in the social
networks that directly links to the business page of the company. It completely reframed the
business models of the companies. It has also impact on the CSR policy of the companies (Aral,
Dellarocas and Godes 2013). It also has advantages on Customer Relationship Management.
CRM is influenced by both social network marketing and customer-centric management, which
believed to have interactive effect in formation of firm level capabilities (Trainor et al. 2014).
The application of social media helps the organization to implement innovative form of
communication and co-create content with the customers. Transformation in the society is
currently forcing the business organizations to make their presence in the social network
platform. The social network can be integrated in the business organization is several ways
depending on the desired benefits and the usage. The relationship-based interaction model with
the customers is improving the social value of the organization (Tiago and Veríssimo 2014).

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Advantages
Various advantages can be identified of using the social network as a valuable tool for the
business organization. The following part of the proposal will be conducting research based on
existing literatures that are available in the market. This part of the literature review will be
identifying the advantages and a critical analysis will be done based on that.
Customer Insight
Social networking provides a huge amount of valuable data on the customers that can
provide an insight of their likings and dislike which will in turn help the business to focus on the
customer satisfaction. These relevant data help to take smarter business decisions. The business
that did not include social networking in their business model needs to conduct survey, which
needs greater capital investment. Moreover, question of reliability remains in the data acquired
from the survey (Roy, Maxwell and Carson 2014). Amazon adopted this advantage and used it
for serving their customers in an efficient way.
Brand awareness and loyalty
Presence in social network will increase the brand recognition as the business will be
engaged in a global audience of customers. It provides a greater exposure of the company, which
in turn will create a strong customer base. It can also show potential improvement in brand
loyalty. Customer satisfaction and brand loyalty are two sides of a coin which cannot be
separated from one another. For gaining high brand loyalty, it is important to get the customer
insight from the social networking sites. This process brings benefit to the company. It takes
more time and money to spread brand awareness to the customers outside social network in the

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age of technology (Kim, Lim and Brymer 2015). Australia based digital marketing company
WME has come a long way since their opening in 2007 with the help of various social
networking sites as the promotional platform.
Inbound Traffic
The number of customers is restricted to the usual customers for the companies who did
not make their presence in the social networking sites. Hence, it can be said that, social
networking is a gateway for the business to develop the number of customers. It will reduce the
difficulties in reaching anyone other than the loyal customers. More the number of profile one
make for their business in social media, more the chances are to get customers’ attention (Leung
et al. 2013). Making different pages for different target population will increase the brand
awareness among the customers. It will also supplement in increasing conversion rate. The
higher conversion comes with increased visibility. Increased interaction like frequent
commenting, sharing content, and posting status will in turn increase the visibility of the business
which will increase the conversion rate (Nord, Paliszkiewicz and Koohang 2014). Macy’s is a
international clothing store who actively uses the social networking sites like facebook,
instagram in the process.
Reduced marketing Cost
Potential advantages can be identified in making marketing budget of the business
organizations. It is also the most cost-efficient advertising strategy that is available today. It is
also gaining importance in destination marketing organizations. The popularity of the strategy is
due to the low cost and wide range of accessibility. The businesses can access the global market

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with ease. Almost everyone in developing and developed countries is accustomed with the social
network and uses them in their daily life. Hence, it is a golden opportunity for the companies to
promote their products and services (Fan and Gordon 2014). It also cut down the marketing
budget of the company. They can access global market with such low price using the social
networks. The impact of this on the customers also shows higher potential than other marketing
strategies for the same reason. With low investment in marketing, business can utilize their
capital in other fields which will gain benefit to the organization (Hays, Page and Buhalis 2013).
Customer Satisfaction
The use of social networking sites as an integrated tool of business management has
considerably changed the seller and buyer interaction. The use of social media by the salesperson
has indicated improvement in information communication behaviour, which simultaneously
enhances customer satisfaction and salesperson’s responsiveness. Customers are enabled to
provide opinion about the company on their social networking websites which can supplement in
creating value of the company by bringing modification to satisfy customers’ needs. The
salesperson’s better responses in social network proved to show positive impact in customer
satisfaction. It is a promising medium business can use to communicate information to
customers. For the purpose, the salesperson needs to enhance their behavioural skills to increase
customer satisfaction. Goals with relation to social media need careful assessment from the
manager to make proper use of their sales force. Hence, using social networking made it easier
for the company to provide customer satisfaction which out facing major challenges like
collecting data on the customers’ opinion (Agnihotri et al. 2016; Hudson and Thal 2013). Dan

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Murphy’s, a Australian liquor company using facebook as a platform to interact with the
customers to gain better insight for look after the customer satisfaction issue.
Thought Leadership
Creating a good profile by making well written and insightful content on the social media
can brush up the leadership skills in the particular field. There is no single way of becoming
thought leader; it demands work that can be supported by online networking tool. To become an
expert in the field, social media is a good medium to establish one’s presence (Jeske and Shultz
2016).
Disadvantages
As there are advantages in using social network in the business strategy, there are
disadvantages too. Different approaches are required for making profitable use of the social
network, failing of which can also have negative impact on the business. Proper planning is
necessary for avoiding these unwanted circumstances. Some of the major disadvantages are
identified in this report.
Promotion Management via Social Networks
Promoting through social networks requires active management of the presence, lack of
which can bring no real time benefits. Moreover, mismanagement can also create negative
impression of the business to the potential customers, which requires utmost avoidance. Potential
risk lies on unwanted or inappropriate behaviour on the social network page (Ngai, Tao and
Moon 2015). Moreover, exposure needs to be managed in appropriate manner. The low exposure

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will fail to establish the brand value to the customers. Likewise, high exposure also has its effect
on the social networks. Extra exposure will attract the risks like negative feedback, information
leaks or even hacking. These risk factors need to be eliminated with utmost priority (Sharda,
Delen and Turban 2013). Burger King is one of the companies whose social networking
promotion backfired on them due to their inconvenient tag line.
Maintenance effort
As the social network needs daily update, it requires daily monitoring on regular basis.
Failing in monitoring the pages on a daily basis can potentially reduce the brand value of the
organization. One needs to implement additional resources for the above reasons. It will help
maintaining the online presence of the business. Hence, it is important for appointing extra force
that will again require extra investment in the business (Laroche, Habibi and Richard 2013). On
the other hand, it will become easier for the owner to handle the situation much easier. The
handler must have experience of marketing and also social network strategy as these are required
to maintain and increase the benefits of the business. The manager with low expertise will surely
fail in preparing clear marketing strategy based on social networking will in term reduce the
benefits of the business (Zeng and Gerritsen 2014). Company like Amazon spends a huge
amount of money in maintaining their social network pages for their promotion which consumes
a noticeable portion of their profit. They need to decrease their investment in social networking
pages to increase their profit margin.

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Policies and procedures
These risk factors regarding the social networking can be managed by preparing policy
and following proper procedures carefully beforehand. Claiming something about one business,
that is not true or misleading on the social network page can reduce customer base. Business can
also be fined judging on the severity of the crime. Misleading information about the competitors
or the rank of the business in the market or customer testimonials and fan posts are such things
that can make business pay for the crime (Dijkmans, Kerkhof and Beukeboom 2015). EBay is
currently facing challenges due to their poor policies in customer’s feedback channel in their
social networking pages. It resulted in a continuous downfall in customer’s satisfaction of the
company.
Literature Gap
The scholarly works that are available in the internet have focused more on the
advantages of using social networks by various businesses. The literatures on the disadvantages
or the cons of using social networking as an integral part of the business strategy are
comparatively few in number. Moreover, only a few literatures provide insight on the necessary
procedure required in earning these advantages and fewer talks about the procedure of
overcoming the disadvantages. This is a wide range of vacuum in the research work which can
be studied. Nonetheless, there are hardly any study is engaged in the analysing scopes for the
small businesses firms in using social network marketing. The procedure and advantages
mentioned in the articles are for the big international firms. Hence, it is necessary to conduct a
study on the ground level and identify the small businesses that are using social networking for
their promotional activity and the advantages they are enjoying out of it.

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5. Conclusion
Conclusion can be drawn from the above discussion that there are potential advantages of
social networking in business organizations. It has various applications in the business, apart
from only marketing. Social and economic value can be increased using social networking
websites and also the customer value can be hiked. Advantages of using social network are
identified from the studies that have been conducted earlier. They are brand awareness and
loyalty, customer insights, inbound traffic, business transformation, reduction advertising cost
and many more are identified and discussed thoroughly in the report. Different disadvantages are
also identified and analysed. Suggestion is also provided in overcoming the cons of using the
social networking in business. The final part of the business proposal is the literature gap, where
the required areas of study have been identified with valid reasons.

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6. Reference List
Agnihotri, R., Dingus, R., Hu, M.Y. and Krush, M.T., 2016. Social media: Influencing customer
satisfaction in B2B sales. Industrial Marketing Management, 53, pp.172-180.
Aral, S., Dellarocas, C. and Godes, D., 2013. Introduction to the special issue—social media and
business transformation: a framework for research. Information Systems Research, 24(1), pp.3-
13.
Dijkmans, C., Kerkhof, P. and Beukeboom, C.J., 2015. A stage to engage: Social media use and
corporate reputation. Tourism Management, 47, pp.58-67.
Hays, S., Page, S.J. and Buhalis, D., 2013. Social media as a destination marketing tool: its use
by national tourism organisations. Current issues in Tourism, 16(3), pp.211-239.
Hudson, S. and Thal, K., 2013. The impact of social media on the consumer decision process:
Implications for tourism marketing. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 30(1-2), pp.156-
160.
Jeske, D. and Shultz, K.S., 2016. Using social media content for screening in recruitment and
selection: pros and cons. Work, employment and society, 30(3), pp.535-546.
Kim, W.G., Lim, H. and Brymer, R.A., 2015. The effectiveness of managing social media on
hotel performance. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 44, pp.165-171.
Laroche, M., Habibi, M.R. and Richard, M.O., 2013. To be or not to be in social media: How
brand loyalty is affected by social media?. International Journal of Information
Management, 33(1), pp.76-82.

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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401212000916%20%C3%8F
%E2%80%9E%C3%8E%C2%BF%C3%8F%E2%80%A6%202013
Leung, D., Law, R., Van Hoof, H. and Buhalis, D., 2013. Social media in tourism and
hospitality: A literature review. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 30(1-2), pp.3-22.
Ngai, E.W., Tao, S.S. and Moon, K.K., 2015. Social media research: Theories, constructs, and
conceptual frameworks. International Journal of Information Management, 35(1), pp.33-44.
Nord, J.H., Paliszkiewicz, J. and Koohang, A., 2014. Using social technologies for competitive
advantage: Impact on organizations and higher education. Journal of computer information
systems, 55(1), pp.92-104.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08874417.2014.11645744
Nowiński, W. and Rialp, A., 2016. The impact of social networks on perceptions of international
opportunities. Journal of Small Business Management, 54(2), pp.445-461.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jsbm.12149/full
Roy, A., Maxwell, L. and Carson, M., 2014. How is social media being used by small and
medium-sized enterprises?. Journal of Business and Behavior Sciences, 26(2), p.127.
Sharda, R., Delen, D. and Turban, E., 2013. Business Intelligence: A Managerial Perspective on
Analytics. Prentice Hall Press.
Tiago, M.T.P.M.B. and Veríssimo, J.M.C., 2014. Digital marketing and social media: Why
bother?. Business Horizons, 57(6), pp.703-708.

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Trainor, K.J., Andzulis, J.M., Rapp, A. and Agnihotri, R., 2014. Social media technology usage
and customer relationship performance: A capabilities-based examination of social
CRM. Journal of Business Research, 67(6), pp.1201-1208.
Whiting, A. and Deshpande, A., 2014. Social media marketing: A myth or a necessity. The
Journal of Applied Business and Economics, 16(5), p.74.
Zeng, B. and Gerritsen, R., 2014. What do we know about social media in tourism? A
review. Tourism Management Perspectives, 10, pp.27-36.
Fan, W. and Gordon, M.D., 2014. The power of social media analytics. Communications of the
ACM, 57(6), pp.74-81.

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7. Appendix
Social media are fundamentally changing the way we communicate, collaborate, consume, and
create. They represent one of the most transformative impacts of information technology on
business, both within and outside firm boundaries.
Social media have changed how buyers and sellers interact, and increased involvement through
social media may yield positive results for sales organizations if salespeople utilize it in
facilitating their behaviors.
This study examines how social media technology usage and customer-centric management
systems contribute to a firm-level capability of social customer relationship management.
Social media are gaining prominence as an element of destination marketing organization
(DMO) marketing strategy at a time when public sector cuts in their funding are requiring them
to seek greater value in the way marketing budgets are spent.
Social media plays a significant role in many aspects of tourism, especially in information search
and decision-making behaviors, tourism promotion and in focusing on best practices for
interacting with consumers. Leveraging off social media to market tourism products has proven
to be an excellent strategy.
To improve social networking engagement, marketers must focus on relationship-based
interactions with their customers.