HI6008 Assignment 1: Social Networks in Business - Advantages

This report delves into the advantages and disadvantages of utilizing social networks in business, highlighting the increasing influence of social media marketing on company revenues and sales. It summarizes existing literature, emphasizing key aspects of social media marketing and elaborates on research methodologies, including qualitative and quantitative approaches, to gather data effectively. The project aims to enhance understanding of social media's role in business, evaluating its impact on performance. It covers topics from the rapid growth of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to their use in marketing strategies, brand positioning, and customer interaction. The report also addresses the potential drawbacks, such as hacking and negative feedback, and outlines research questions, hypotheses, and a research plan, including a Gantt chart, to guide the study.

Running Head: Business research 1

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Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Project objective..........................................................................................................................................4
Project scope...............................................................................................................................................5
Literature review.........................................................................................................................................6
Research questions..................................................................................................................................6
Hypotheses..............................................................................................................................................6
Research design and methodology..............................................................................................................7
Research limitations....................................................................................................................................7
Research plan..............................................................................................................................................7
Gantt chart...................................................................................................................................................8
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................9
References.................................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The research paper will be made on the topic of “Advantages and disadvantages of using social
networks in business” in which number of factors regarding social network and its influence on
business has been elaborated. The use of social media networking in business has increased day
by day which increase the revenues and sales of the company. Summary of the literature review
will be given in the research paper to emphasize the major aspects of the social media marketing.
The research methodology will be elaborated the different techniques and research approaches to
gather the data in a significant manner. The research process will be made so as to conduct the
implementation of the research program in a valuable way.

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Project objective
The objective of the research plan is to increase the knowledge about using of social media in the
business. Many factors of advantages and disadvantages are incorporated in the research with
taking help of social networking platforms in business. The major objective of the research to
evaluate the advantages as well as disadvantages of the business and their impact on the
performance of the business

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Project scope
The project scope of the research is wide as it facilitates in making better understanding about
the use of social media marketing in developing the growth of the business. the research will
discuss the number of factors regarding the benefits and drawbacks of the social media
marketing in various businesses.

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Literature review
Social media is an essential tool for enhancing organizational performance as it is the primary
tool used for marketing and promotion activities. Social media users are increasing rapidly, thus,
business organizations could easily approach to large customer segment in a short time period.
There are numerous advantages and disadvantages linked with the usage of social media in
business context. According toFuchs (2017), social media platforms have developed effective
and easy ways to approach to its target audience. Major tools of social media network are
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Facebook was launched in 2004 with 1 million and
in a very short period of time, Facebook has more than 2.20 billion users. With the appealing
growth of social media networks, business enterprises have adopted this technique as the main
source of marketing strategies.
As per Stelzner (2014), there are numerous advantages and disadvantages linked with social
media. Social media has enhanced ability of users to conveniently stay in touch with family
members, friends and relatives who live far away. Apart from this, social media has eased the
method of transfer of information. It is less time consuming to gain and share information,
pictures, videos, etc. in comparison to the other networks of communication and sharing
information. From 2006, unexpected growth has been noted and Facebook and Twitter are the
two most sources who have acquired huge market share.
Advantages of social media
While reviewing the thoughts ofTiago&Veríssimo (2014), it has been evaluated that social media
has various advantages through which organizations could easily approach and target its
customer segments. With the help of social media network, people could easily connect from

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each other anytime irrespective of the location and religion. Apart from this, social media
networks provide a freedom of speech to its users through which one can share and learn various
things. The usage of this network has been done by business enterprises to approach to the target
audiences. In this context, White (2016),says that,social media has helped organizations to
sustain in the dynamic and competitive business environment along with gaining appropriate
information about their target customers.
For example, Apple Inc. mainly uses all popular mediums of social media network across the
globe. With the help of these platforms, Apple Inc. spread awareness among their target audience
and majorly, their target audience is people age group 18-45. With the help of social media
networks, Apple Inc. generates curiosity amongst its target audience in relevance with their new
products and this helps the organization to increase demand for their products before its
launching. In contemporary business environment, almost every company uses this platform for
spreading awareness amongst the target audience.
According to Wright (2005), using social media networks, organizations could build their own
page and account through which relevant information could be shared to the users in order to
spread awareness amongst the target and potential customers. Apart from these advantages, there
are numerous other advantages of social media as marketing tool. Organizations could easily
gain information such as consumer behaviour, consumer attitude, their taste and preferences with
regards to the organizational products and services. As per Smith&Zook (2011), this is necessary
in order to meet with the target and potential consumer’s demands in an effective manner. Apart
from this, social media networks are also used by the business enterprises for the purpose of
establishing brand positioning and brand loyalty amongst the target audience. Personal

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interaction with the consumers is another crucial and significant advantage of using social media
network.
Figure 1: Rise in Social media users
Figure 2: Number of users visitsthese platforms on daily basis
From the above figures, it can be evaluated that approximately 78% people daily visit social
media platforms, thus, social media networks are highly result oriented for the organizations.
Numbers of social media users are increasing rapidly; hence, these platforms are added in

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marketing and promotional campaigns by most of the companies irrelevance to their nature, size
and scope.
Disadvantages of social media
As per Leonardi,Huysman&Steinfield (2013), there are numerous other advantages for social
media but there are more disadvantages also such as due to lack of control over these platforms,
consumers and general public could post anything for the organization as well as for the product,
quality, features, etc. If these comments are not in favour of the organization, it will work as
negative feedback through which brand image of the organization along with the goodwill
established in the target market gets declined.As per Fuchs (2017),hacking is another big issue
for the organization while social media networks. This could spread negativity for the
organization amongst the target audience. For example, there are numerous companies who have
faces challenges of using social media networks. Majorly, these include hacking. Yahoo, Sony,
HBO, etc. are certain victims who have seen the drawbacks of social media. HBO faced huge
losses due to hacking; certain episodes of their most popular show “Game of Thrones” were
leaked on internet before their official release by hackers.
Leakage of confidential data and credentials of organization is another big disadvantage of using
social media networks. For example, Netflix recently faced the big threat and loss from social
media network. Their original series “Orange is the new Black” was about to release, but just
before its release, hackers posted episodes of the all new show over internet through which
curiosity amongst the viewers was declined and subscription for Netflix were declined as
everyone was able to get the whole content from free sources without paying anything.

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Research questions
Research questions for this research program are defined below:
 How can social media marketing influence the productivity and the sales of the business?
 How advantages and disadvantages of the social media can put positive or negative
influence over the performance of the business?
 What factors need to be deemed at the time of choosing social networking platforms as a
marketing tool for business?
Hypotheses
 Social networking has affected the reputation of the business adversely.
 Social networking has affected the reputation of the business favorably.
Research design and methodology
Research methods
The combination of qualitative and quantitative research method has been considered to
implement the research assignment as it help to collect the data in more significant manner
(Gratton and Jones, 2010). The role of qualitative data in gathering the data is huge as it provides
the information regarding the topic in quality way. The quantitative research helps out to draw
the information in more effective way by giving information in statistic terms (Flick, 2013).
Research approaches
There are two kinds of research approaches such as inductive approach and deductive approach
and for this research study; researcher will use the inductive approach (Correa, Hinsley and De

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Zuniga, 2010). This selection of approach enables researcher to attain more subjective
knowledge regarding the research concern.
Data collection
Data collection is vital part for the research and to attain the data regarding the research,
researcher will use primary as well as secondary data (Hyman and Sierra, 2010). The
questionnaire has been made to gather the information through primary data and the data will be
drawn from journal articles, books and online sources to gather the information through
secondary data (Diga and Kelleher, 2009).
Sampling techniques
The data has collected in huge manner and due to limited time of span, the researcher will choose
the random sampling technique as it facilitates to give chance the population to get equal
opportunity for selection (Gray, 2013).
Research strategy
It is vital for the researcher to complete the research program within time frame. To attain this
objective, the systematic approach is considered by the researcher which will have helped in the
implementation of each activity in more sequence way (Stephen and Galak, 2012).
Ethical consideration
Ethics help in identify that what is going right and what is going wrong (Klenke, 2015). In this
research program the ethical consideration is kept by their searcher in more significant manner.
However, the researcher has to face the issues of plagiarism but it is being removed by him to
provide authenticate in-text referencing in each paragraph.

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Research limitations
There are some activities that act as limitations and affected the implementation process of the
research program. The short span of time is the big limitation for the research program for which
the researcher has opted random sampling technique. Lack of access to the data and lack of
resources are other research limitations of this research.
Research plan
Serial
no.
Activities Initiation
date
Duration
(days)
Completion
date
Description
1) Selection of the
topic
30 May 2018 2 31 May 2018 Selection of the
topic will be
done
2) Formulating
plans for the
research
01 June 2018 5 05 June 2018 Plans will be
formulated in this
step
3) Execution of the
constructed plans
06 June 2018 4 09 June 2018 Plans will be
executed
according to the
plans
4) Selection of data
collection
methods
10 June 2018 3 12 June 2018 Method will be
chosen to gather
the data in an
appropriate way

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5) Collecting data
using selected
method
13 June 2018 4 16 June 2018 Data will be
gathered with the
help of methods
6) Analysing
gathered data
17 June 2018 3 19 June 2018 Data will be
analyzed with the
help of sampling
data.
7) Interpretation of
results
20 June 2018 2 21 June 2018 Results will be
drawn and
interpreted in this
step
8) Drawing
conclusion and
providing
recommendations
22 June 2018 1 23 June 2018 The conclusion
and the
recommendations
will be made on
the basis of the
analyzed and
interpreted data

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Gantt chart
May
Serial no. 30 31 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
June

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Conclusion
It has been concluded that the social networking is attaining the active business environment.
The discussion has been made in this research project on the benefits and drawbacks of the social
media networking in the business. It is more effective platform in comparison to other platforms
of marketing and promotion. The research methodology has been discussed in this research
program by taking use of research approach, strategy and collection method.

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References
Correa, T., Hinsley, A.W. and De Zuniga, H.G. (2010). Who interacts on the Web?: The
intersection of users’ personality and social media use. Computers in Human
Behavior, 26(2), pp.247-253.
Diga, M. and Kelleher, T. (2009). Social media use, perceptions of decision-making power, and
public relations roles. Public Relations Review, 35(4), pp.440-442.
Flick, U. (2013). The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis. USA: SAGE.
Fuchs, C. (2017). Social media: A critical introduction. Sage.
Gratton, C. and Jones, I. (2010). Research Methods for Sports Studies.UK: Taylor &
Francis.
Gray, D. E. (2013). Doing research in the real world.USA: Sage.
Hyman, M. and Sierra, J. (2010). Marketing Research Kit For Dummies. USA: John
Wiley & Sons.
Klenke, K. (2015). Qualitative Research in the Study of Leadership. UK: Emerald Group
Publishing.
Leonardi, P. M., Huysman, M., &Steinfield, C. (2013). Enterprise social media: Definition,
history, and prospects for the study of social technologies in organizations. Journal of
Computer-Mediated Communication, 19(1), 1-19.
Smith, P. R., &Zook, Z. (2011). Marketing communications: integrating offline and online with
social media. Kogan Page.
Stelzner, M. (2014).2014 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. Social media examiner, 1-52.
Stephen, A. T., and Galak, J. (2012). The effects of traditional and social earned media on sales:
A study of a microlending marketplace. Journal of Marketing Research, 49(5), 624-639.

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Tiago, M. T. P. M. B., &Veríssimo, J. M. C. (2014). Digital marketing and social media: Why
bother?. Business Horizons, 57(6), 703-708.
White, C. M. (2016). Social media, crisis communication, and emergency management:
Leveraging Web 2.0 technologies. CRC press.
Wright, K. B. (2005). Researching Internet-based populations: Advantages and disadvantages of
online survey research, online questionnaire authoring software packages, and web
survey services. Journal of computer-mediated communication, 10(3), JCMC1034.