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Prashant Pareek Assistant Professor MBA, R.B Institute of Management Studies Gujarat Technological University Ahmedabad, Gujarat Postal Address: 2- Satvik Park, near varahi high school, opposite shantidham flats D- cabin, Sabarmati, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India: 380019 Contact No.- +91 9725333945 Email:prashantp@rbi.edu.in |
Social media marketing refers to the process of gaining website traffic or attention through social networking websites. Social media is going main stream for marketing now a days for most of the companies. And for businesses it represents an unprecedented marketing opportunity that transcends traditional middlemen and connects companies directly with customers. Social media marketing programs usually center on effort to create content that attract attention and encourage readers to share it with their social networks. According to leading marketers of India, the top three online investment channels for 2013 are Social media, Email marketing and Search marketing. 52% of the top marketers said that it is extremely important to integrate social media. Marketers place high value on social media: A significant 90% of marketers indicate that social media is important for their business. Face book is the most preferable and well known social networking websites. Now a day’s Google plus and linked in are also becoming popular among the social networking users. Most of people says that promotion on social networking websites provide knowledge about the product and brands. Advertisements on social media are less time consuming and direct link to company’s websites is the positive aspect of internet marketing. Now advertisers target more over to these media due to high rush in variety of audiences. So they hire this as the ideal platform to communicate their brand and create an effective brand identity through highly effective and interactive communication strategy. Most of the advertisers present their ads in interactive form so that people tend more to check them and gain a little knowledge about the product. There are various forms of brand communication available in social networking sites.
Keywords:Social media, Marketing, Advertising, Smartphone Applications, and Growing reach of social media.
Social media sites is not just about dealing with people say about you online though, it’s about communicating with your customers and future customers. As the world is exponentially going social this work aims to investigate how social networking sites create impact in promotion of Smartphone application and product.
Social networking sites are dynamic and interactive computer-mediated communication tools that have high penetration rates in the general population in high-income and middle-income countries. The global use of social networking sites steadily increase now a day’s which is helpful for the company to promote their products and brand. The number of social networking sites user around the world is 1.73 billion (approximately).
In India number of social networking sites user id 91 million (approximately) social networking sites is helpful for the company to build a reputation, improving the brand awareness. 77% of companies use social networking sites as promotion tool. Social media play components and vital role in online promotion of Smartphone application, product and brands.
In its current form, internet is primarily a source of communication, information and entertainment, but increasingly, it also acts as a vehicle for commercial transactions. Since the explosion of the web as a business medium, one of its primary uses has been for marketing. Soon, the web could become a critical distribution channel for the majority of successful enterprises. One among them is marketing and spreading brand communication through Social networking sites (Thompson, 2002).
Social networking websites are online communities of people who share interests and activities or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. They typically provide a variety of ways for users to interact, through chat, messaging, email, video, voice chat, file-sharing, blogging and discussion groups. As World Wide Web grew in popularity, social networking moved to web-based applications. In 2002, social networking era really started. In 2006, anyone with an email address could sign up in social networking sites.
Now advertisers target more over to these media due to high rush in varsity of audiences. So they hire this as the ideal platform to communicate their brand and create an effective brand identity through highly effective and interactive communication strategy. Most of the advertisers present their ads in interactive form so that people tend more to check them and gain a little knowledge about the product. There are various forms of brand communication available in social networking sites. The effective way of brand communication present in these networking sites would be the main aim of the study.
Social media:
Social media advertising is a paid form of brand, service or business promotion and requires a proper and planned communicative message and budget. Advertising is customer centric in nature. Customers play an important role in any major or minor communication because they are the one who are going to decide the fate of the advertising communication. Some benefits of social network advertising include:
1. Popularizing your brand, idea or service to the target group.
2. Informing target audience about your brand or service’s presence in the market.
3. Encouraging healthy competition in the market.
4. Providing social benefits for the brand.
5. Making the audience to interact and keep them intact with the brand.
Advertising in internet provides a major contribution to brand competition in the market. Advertising here not only provides information about a product or service but also promotes innovation. Besides it also facilitates consumer satisfaction. Big and small companies, individuals of all walks of life, major and minor events, concepts, etc.
With over 200 million active users, Face book, Twitter and Orkut have become a personal, product and corporate branding hub in India. Every brand that exists on social networking sites has the same core features and benefits, such as the ability to create a page, share resources, add multimedia and much more (Eric, 2008). The effective brand communication strategies are analyzed to find the impact among the users.
Social networking sites:
A social networking site creates network communication among the user community. Though social networking site serves for communication purposes among special interest groups, the marketing strategy has also entered this medium for its reach. People get exposed to various kinds of brand communication through this media. They tend to interact with the brand and also get awareness about the brand and its service in an interesting way (Nicole, 2007). Hence, there is a need to study the effective way of communication in branding the product in social networking sites and analyze its reach among the people and their perceptions in this research.
In recent trend of marketing in social networking sites, various brand communications are widely used to attract targeted leads. So, this study would help to know the effectiveness of communication and strategy done through social networking sites which make the target audience to participate in this kind of advertising. This is mainly studied on networking sites which are popular among Indian users were Face book, Twitter and Orkut. This study would help the advertisers to understand the effective communication strategy to communicate their brand among the users.
1 Research Objective
Ø To know the impact of social networking sites in promotion of Smartphone applications
Ø To know the users perception on advertisement of Smartphone applications on social networking sites.
Ø To know the behavior of social media users after watching the advertisement of Smartphone applications on social networking sites
Ø To know the satisfaction level of people after downloading the Smartphone applications
2 Scope of the study
Ø The study will help in gathering the opinion of people for social networking sites, how do they use it, what are the things that they do on social and professional networking sites and how these sites help them in socializing with their personal and professional contacts.
Ø The study further helps in analyzing the benefits of promoting through social media, identifying the benefits of branding and promoting via SNS.
Ø The study will help to formulate and implement Marketing strategies for branding, promoting and communicating the information to the customers through Social Networking Sites.
3 Sampling
Ø Sample size: 172 social networking site users were being selected in Ahmedabad to undertake this study
Ø Sampling technique: Sampling technique was non- probability sampling technique with judgment sampling since only social networking site users were being sampled in this study
Ø Sample unit: Social networking site users from Ahmedabad city in Gujarat state
4 Research tool: Investigator administered questionnaire was used as a research tool
5 Research Design: This study has synthesized both research designs i.e. exploratory and descriptive
6 Hypothesis
H0: There is no relationship between occupation and social media usage
H1: There is a relationship between occupation and social media usage
H0: The preference of various age groups of people toward social media is equal.
H1: The preference of various age groups of people toward social media is not equal.
H0: There is no association between time spent on social media and download the application which is promoted on social media.
H1: There is association between time spent on social media and download the application which is promoted on social media.
H0: The satisfaction level of respondent from various occupations towards the latest Smartphone app downloaded is equal.
H1: The satisfaction level of respondent from various occupations towards the latest Smartphone app downloaded is not equal
(3) Data Analysis and Hypothesis testing
| (1)Age wise description of respondents (Table- I) | |||||
| Age group | Frequency | Percent | Valid Percent | Cumulative Percent | |
| 10-20 | 12 | 7.0 | 7.0 | 7.0 | |
| 20-30 | 140 | 81.4 | 81.4 | 88.4 | |
| 30-40 | 10 | 5.8 | 5.8 | 94.2 | |
| >40 | 10 | 5.8 | 5.8 | 100.0 | |
| Total | 172 | 100.0 | 100.0 | ||
| (2)Gender of respondents (Table- II) | |||||
| Frequency | Percent | Valid Percent | Cumulative Percent | ||
| male | 141 | 82.0 | 82.0 | 82.0 | |
| female | 31 | 18.0 | 18.0 | 100.0 | |
| Total | 172 | 100.0 | 100.0 | ||
| (3Occupation of respondents (Table- III) | |||||
| Frequency | Percent | Valid Percent | Cumulative Percent | ||
| Student | 116 | 67.4 | 67.4 | 67.4 | |
| Businessman | 15 | 8.7 | 8.7 | 76.2 | |
| Professional | 9 | 5.2 | 5.2 | 81.4 | |
| Employee | 21 | 12.2 | 12.2 | 93.6 | |
| Housewife | 8 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 98.3 | |
| Others | 3 | 1.7 | 1.7 | 100.0 | |
| Total | 172 | 100.0 | 100.0 | ||
(4) Which social networking websites do you use most often? (Chart- I)
(5) After sign in social networking sites, which activity you prefer to do? (Chart- II)
(6) What type of post do you like in your social media? (Table- IV)
| Frequency | Percent | Valid Percent | Cumulative Percent | ||
| post by friends | 143 | 83.1 | 83.6 | 83.6 | |
| post by celebrity | 17 | 9.9 | 9.9 | 93.6 | |
| post by the companies to promote their products | 7 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 97.7 | |
| Other | 4 | 2.3 | 2.3 | 100.0 | |
| Total | 171 | 99.4 | 100.0 | ||
| System | 1 | .6 | |||
| Total | 172 | 100.0 | |||
(7) What is your view on that post which is posted by companies to promote their product? (Chart- III)
(8) Do you download the application which is promoted by the companies on social media?
(Chart- IV)
(9) What you think about promotion of Smartphone applications on social media?
(Chart- V)
(10) How much satisfied you are from the latest Smartphone application which you have downloaded after watching advertisement on social media? (Chart- VI)
(11) Do you share about the application which is promoted on social media?
(Chart- VII)
(12) If you watch any advertisement of Smartphone application on social media, what would your immediate action? (Chart- VIII)
(1) H0: There is no relationship between occupation and preference for social media.
H1: There is a relationship between occupation and preference for social media.
| Correlation | |||
| occupation of respondent | Do you prefer social networking sites? | ||
| occupation of respondent | Pearson Correlation | 1 | .131 |
| Sig. (2-tailed) | .086 | ||
| N | 172 | 172 | |
| Do you prefer social networking sites? | Pearson Correlation | .131 | 1 |
| Sig. (2-tailed) | .086 | ||
| N | 172 | 172 | |
Test shows that the correlation value is 0.131 which indicates that there is positive correlation between occupation and preference for social networking sites. Even the sig (2- tailed) value is 0.086 which is greater than 0.05 level of significance. Thus we fail to reject the null hypothesis in this case but the correlation is not a strong positive correlation here.
(2) H0: The preference of various age groups of people toward social media is equal.
H1: The preference of various age groups of people toward social media is not equal.
| ANOVA | |||||
| Sum of Squares | df | Mean Square | F | Sig. | |
| Between Groups | .021 | 3 | .007 | .306 | .821 |
| Within Groups | 3.886 | 168 | .023 | ||
| Total | 3.907 | 171 | |||
In the above table the F value is 0.306 and the significance value is 0.821 which is greater than 0.05 therefore we fail to reject the null hypothesis and we can say that the preference of various age group people towards social media is equal.
(3) H0: There is no association between time spent on social media and download the application which is promoted on social media.
H1: There is association between time spent on social media and download the application which is promoted on social media
| After sign in, how long you spend your time on social networking sites? | |||
| Observed N | Expected N | Residual | |
| 0 to 30 minutes | 81 | 34.4 | 46.6 |
| 30 minutes to 1 hours | 52 | 34.4 | 17.6 |
| 1 hours to 2 hours | 24 | 34.4 | -10.4 |
| 2 hours to 3 hours | 2 | 34.4 | -32.4 |
| more than 3 hours | 13 | 34.4 | -21.4 |
| Total | 172 | ||
| Do you download the application which is promoted by the companies on social media? | |||
| Observed N | Expected N | Residual | |
| Yes | 54 | 86.0 | -32.0 |
| No | 118 | 86.0 | 32.0 |
| Total | 172 | ||
| Test Statistics | ||
| After sign in, how long you spend your time on social networking sites? | Do you download the application which is promoted by the companies on social media? | |
| Chi-Square | 119.105a | 23.814b |
| Df | 4 | 1 |
| Asymp. Sig. | .000 | .000 |
| ANOVA | |||||
| Do you download the application which is promoted by the companies on social media | |||||
| Sum of Squares | Df | Mean Square | F | Sig. | |
| Between Groups | 1.521 | 5 | .304 | 1.422 | .219 |
| Within Groups | 35.525 | 166 | .214 | ||
| Total | 37.047 | 171 | |||
Key Findings
Ø Face book is the most preferable and well known social networking websites.| Promotion on social media | Very good | good | Average | Bad | VERY BAD |
| Percentage | 19.2% | 37.2% | 23.3% | 14.5% | 5.8% |
| How often respondents sign in | Daily | Once in week | Twice in week | Once in month | Twice in month | Occasionally | Other |
| Percentage | 71.5% | 7.6% | 8.1% | 4.1% | 4.1% | 4.1% | 6% |
| Level of satisfaction | Highly satisfied | Satisfied | Can’t say | Dissatisfied | Highly dissatisfied |
| Percentage | 15.1% | 41.3% | 37.8% | 5.2% | 0.6% |
Ø Its shows that people are more involved into Social networking sites. Most of
people comes in use are for the purpose of chatting with the friends, information
and many other activity like sharing, tagging, check notification, watching the
different post, etc.
Ø Majority portion of the people has accounts on more than one social networking
websites.
Ø Promotion of the product, brand and application on Facebook and twitter are communicated
well compare to other social networking websites.
Ø 41% respondents say that they are satisfied with the Smartphone application which they download after the watching advertisement on social media. There are very less number of people who are dissatisfied with the application which they download after watching advertisement on social media.
| Level of satisfaction | Highly satisfied | Satisfied | Can’t say | Dissatisfied | Highly dissatisfied |
| Percentage | 15.1% | 41.3% | 37.8% | 5.2% | 0.6% |
Ø Its shows that people are more involved into Social networking sites. Most of people use for the purpose of chatting with the friends, information and many other activity like sharing, tagging, check notification, watching different post, etc.
Ø Majority of the people has accounts on more than one social networking websites.
Ø Promotion of the product, brand and application on Face book and twitter are communicated well compare to other social networking websites.
Communication about the product or service provides a major contribution to brand competition in the market. It not only provides information about a product or service but also promotes creative innovation. Besides advertising, it also facilitates consumer satisfaction. The hidden fact is that no brand can progress without effective communication strategy to attract their customers or users. Big and small variety of brands nowadays laid their base on social network communication to get recognized in the target market.
Social networking sites users of Face book, Twitter and linked in have become a personal, product and corporate branding hub in India nowadays in digital era. Every brand that exists on social networking sites has the same core features and benefits, such as the ability to create a page, share resources, add multimedia and much more.
Social networking sites are filled with potential users who are mainly young adults. They spend more time in these networking sites due to heavy commercial contents, entertainment and social gathering. So, product or service communicators promote their products in these areas with more and more interactive and with fascinating factors so that their brand identity is developed among the right choice of focused audience. Advertisers and brands uses social networking sites as the major resource for their promotion and developing brand identity among the focused market.
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