CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1
 INTRODUCTION

Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create

content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it

with their social networks. A corporate message spreads from user

to user and presumably resonates because it appears to come from

a trusted, third-party source, as opposed to the brand or company

itself. Hence, this form of marketing is driven by word-of-mouth,

meaning it results in earned media rather than paid media.

Social media has become a platform that is easily accessible to

anyone with internet access. Increased communication for

organizations fosters brand awareness and often, improved customer

service. Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive

platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns.

The power of social media marketing comes from the un parallel

capacity of social media in the core marketing areas; and customer

data. Social media marketing has transformed the way businesses

are able to influence consumer behaviour from promoting content

that drives engagement to extracting personal data that makes

messaging resonate with users.

Not only does Social media enable business to connect with

customers in ways that were previously impossible, but there is

also an extraordinary range of avenues to connect with target

2
audiences from content platforms (like You Tube) and social sites

(like Facebook) to micro blogging services (like Twitter).

After the invention of the Internet and World Wide Web

technology; people and Institutions launched their Internet pages.

However; these pages had static infrastructures and limited

functionalities. In literature this era is called Web 1.0. People could

only find the information that the companies released. In time,

technology improved and for the Internet a new era, which is

called Web 2.0 or Social Media started.

Social Media consists of social networking sites, forums, virtual

worlds, content communities, blogs and bookmarking sites. The key

feature of social media which differentiate it from Web 1.0

technology are content and information sharing and two-way

communication with others. Because the functions and contents of

the Internet sites getting richer, everyday more people prefer to use

social media tools rather than mass media tools.

One of the most important impact of social media has been in

marketing. Companies can communicate with the customers and get

feedback from them, also customers can communicate with other

customers and share the information about the products and services

(Mangold and Faulds, 2009). Another important aspect of social

3
media in Marketing is Segmentation (Brandtzaeg, 2010). By using

social

media tools, companies can catch their target market and don’t

waste their resources.

In order to be successful in social media segmentation and

targeting, classifying diverse user behaviors into meaningful

categories of user types, according to the frequency of use, variety

of use and content preferences are very important (Brandtzaeg,

2010).

Therefore the main objectives of this study is classifying the social

media users who are in the Generation Y segment, according to

their variety of use, content preferences and frequency of use in

Turkey and determining the demographic affinities of these groups.

Another objective of this study providing a comprehensive

information about the social media and its types.

Although some researchers conducted related to the social media

usage classifications, none of them include Turkey. Culture

influences the lifestyle, and the lifestyle influences the way we

communicate and interact with new media technologies (Brandtzaeg,

2010). Therefore; it is not possible to generalize the results of the

studies conducted in other countries. This study will be the first in

this area and provide benefits to the companies and marketers to

4
better understand the social media usage groups in Turkey and

more effective segmentation and marketing opportunities. Another

contribution of this study is that Classification

of the social media users will help developers of social media to

provide better services to different types of users.

In order to classify the social media users a questionnaire will be

formed in Likert format in light of previous studies and applied to

the Generation Y people according to the convenience sampling

method. The Survey results will be tested in Cluster analysis.

Different Methods of Social Media Marketing

Social network marketing is popularly called as Internet marketing.

Today you can find many ways for internet marketing. Many

people who enter this online marketing are less worried because of

its guaranteed success. If you see in Internet totally all types of

products has been marketed online without much effort. Internet

attracts many business people to promote their business online.

Social network marketing is grown to such a height that today

many people can’t earn without it.

Some of the most recognized network marketing tools are Face

book, MySpace and LinkedIn. Twitter became regular place for

people who have newly entered the field of social network

marketing.

5
1. BLOGGING: When you start Blogging or posting your data

about any product, you can see less response from clients. Later it

will become big business via blog. Websites and blogs are most

powerful tools for social network marketing when matched with

other networking tools. Blog is an amazing tool which provides

many other facilities in addition to just marketing your business. It

also helps you to communicate with other clients in case if you

have any problems.

2. WEB DESIGN : It is important to have private website if you

are a freelancer. Your website will help your clients to know about

you and it will make them clear that you are a serious freelance

marketer and help to make huge revenue via online marketing.

3.ARTICLE SELLING: It is also best and cheap internet

marketing method. It is a mode of advertising our trade just by

writing articles and attracting endless number of users across world.

We usually sell our articles to different article database websites

and article directories. Today it provided free business to many

advertisers and publishers and they are really benefited through

their articles.

4. EMAIL SENDING: Electronic mail sending is the best way to

marketing. Collect list of email addresses through portfolio websites

and email about your business to all internet users. Your Email

6
should be attractive in such a way that your recipient will be

impressed to get back to you.

5. USE SOCIAL NETWORKING WEBSITES: Social networking

websites like Twitter, face book can be used to promote your sales.

These provide best platformfor all who are thinking of online

marketing.

6. VIDEO PROMOTION: Use several video distribution websites

for your marketing. These websites uploads your service to the

whole world. All that you need to do is film a video about

marketing and send it to video uploading sites like You Tube. It

seems it is the easiest way of marketing than any other modes

since many people will be interested in view videos rather than

word form of advertisement.

Social Media Platforms :

What comes to mind when you talk about social media platforms?

Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube and

Instagram. Correct?

The ascent of social media is another important pattern that has

been a standout amongst the most persevering medium of Digital

Marketing far and wide. From Facebook and Instagram to Snapchat

and YouTube, the advertisers have begun making and distributing

customised content, stories and channels for entertainment as part of

7
their marketing system.With the brands having their own app and

website which is not mobile-friendly specific, there arises an

overlap with those that have mobile-friendly sites and apps. This is

because the brand which has mobile-friendly sites indicates that

they are specifically looking for a separate channel of engagement.

All the marketing channels of social media are popular but different

from each other in marketing through their unique models.

At present, India is the second-biggest client of Facebook and

YouTube on the earth and if this pattern is to be accepted,

traditional marketing mediums like TV, Print will soon initiate

social media marketing as being each brand’s pack of marketing

cards.

1. Facebook

Facebook has more than 2 billion active users per month and is

one of the best media to connect with friends and family through

videos, posts, chats, etc.Marketing through Facebook builds trust

and it motivates the users to site sign up instead of selling directly.

The model of marketing through Facebook includes sharing videos,

posts on a page, promotion of page, location, interest and

demography based targeting and paid model for boosting pages and

ads.

2. WhatsApp

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 Months active users on WhatsApp exceeds 1300 million as it

allows free instant messaging (personal and group) with more

privacy. It is suitable for E-commerce, banks, individual service

providers, travel and tourism companies. It maps users’ behavioural

data by using it as a data repository by Facebook. These are then

used by businesses to focus on relevant products to leads.

Partnerships with various businesses are allowed to communicate

directly with users.

3. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business networking site that has approximately 500

million users monthly and includes professionals and corporate to

connect with each other through job postings and professional

knowledge intimating. This platform is apt for corporate clients,

B2B and small to medium-sized companies to MNCs. Marketing

models include boosting the post and top menu bar ads.

4. Twitter

Twitter is a micro-blogging site to connect with the world through

tweets below 140 words and videos. It allows freedom of

expression of reviews on present issues andhas approximately 328

million active users per month. This platform is good for skilled

B2C and B2B professionals.Brand image can be boosted with

conversation and posts can be targeted using hashtags.

9
5. Instagram

Instagram has more than 700 million active users per month and

it is used for photo sharing and is linked with Twitter, FB, and

Flickr. This is accurate for local businesses, B2C, travel companies,

lifestyle brands for visual contents, and showcasing the company’s

picture through pictures.

6. YouTube

This is one of the best video sharing platforms for local business,

entertainment business, and B2C companies which have 1.5 billion

monthly active users.Marketing models include entertaining and

educative videos to enhance engagement and if the view is more,

you will get more money.

7. Quora

It is a social forum to ask questions and exchange answers for

that with 100-200 active users monthly. This will fit for education

institutes, skilled professionals, teachers and professors as it can

establish authority over a subject through knowledge sharin

10
 INDUSTRY OVERVIEW

(Social Media-Media and Entertainment Industry)

Introduction

The Indian Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry is a sunrise sector for the

economy and is making high growth strides. Proving its resilience to the world,

the Indian M&E industry is on the cusp of a strong phase of growth, backed by

rising consumer demand and improving advertising revenues. The industry has

been largely driven by increasing digitalization and higher internet usage over

the last decade. Internet has almost become a mainstream media for

entertainment for most of the people.

The Indian advertising industry is projected to be the second fastest growing

advertising market in Asia after China. At present, advertising revenue

accounts for around 0.38 per cent of India’s gross domestic product.

Market Dynamics

Indian media and entertainment (M&E) industry grew at a CAGR of 18.55 per

cent from 2011-2017; and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 13.9 per cent to

touch US$ 37.55 billion by 2021 from US$ 22.75 billion in 2017.The industry

provides employment to 3.5-4 million people, including both direct and indirect

employment in CY 2017.

Over FY 2016-21, radio will likely grow at a CAGR of 16.1 per cent, while

digital advertising will grow at 30.8 per cent. The largest segment, India’s

11
television industry, is expected to grow at a CAGR of 14.7 per cent, while print

media is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.3 per cent.

The number of newspaper readers in India has increased by 38 per cent

between CY 2014 and CY 2017 to reach 407 million.

India is one of the highest spending and fastest growing advertising market

globally. The country’s expenditure on advertising is expected to grow at 12.1

per cent to Rs 68,334 crore (US$ 10.59 billion) by the end of 2018. Mobile

advertisement spending in India is estimated to grow to Rs 10,000 crore (US$

1.55 billion) by the end of 2018.@

Recent development/Investments

The Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows in the Information and

Broadcasting (I&B) sector (including Print Media) in the period April 2000 –

September 2017 stood at US$ 6.86 billion, as per data released by Department

of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).

 The Indian digital advertising industry is expected to grow at a

Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 32 per cent to reach Rs

18,986 crore (US$ 2.93 billion) by 2020, backed by affordable data and

rising smartphone penetration.

 India is one of the top five markets for the media, content and

technology agency Wavemaker where it services clients like Hero

MotoCorp, Paytm, IPL and Myntra among others

 After bagging media rights of Indian Premier League (IPL), Star India

has also won broadcast and digital rights for New Zealand Cricket upto

April 2020.
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Government Initiatives

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is set to approach the

Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, with a request

to fastrack the recommendations on broadcasting, in an attempt to boost

reforms in the broadcasting sector.

The Government of India has supported Media and Entertainment industry’s

growth by taking various initiatives such as digitising the cable distribution

sector to attract greater institutional funding, increasing FDI limit from 74 per

cent to 100 per cent in cable and DTH satellite platforms, and granting industry

status to the film industry for easy access to institutional finance.

Road Ahead

The Indian Media and Entertainment industry is on an impressive growth path.

The industry is expected to grow at a much faster rate than the global average

rate.# TV advertising sector is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.1 per cent

during 2016-21, as against the global average of 2.8 per cent. Cinema in India

is estimated to grow at 10.4 per cent compared to global average of 4.4 per

cent. Internet video sector is expected to grow at a CAGR of 22.4 per cent

while the global average is estimated to be 11.6 per cent. TV subscription will

grow at CAGR of 11.6 per cent as against the global average of 1.3 per cent.

Growth is expected in retail advertisement, on the back of factors such as

several players entering the food and beverages segment, e-commerce gaining

more popularity in the country, and domestic companies testing out the waters.

The rural region is also a potentially profitable target.

13
 Overview of Social Media

Definition of Social Media

Internet usage rate, speed and web site applications have developed gradually,

and all these developments open a new world and create some opportunities to

both consumers and corporations related to social relationships and business

practices. One of the most important term which was emerged through the

developments is social media. In the literature there is not a standard definition

of social media. Academics, internet experts and consultants make their own

definition of social media.

Weber (2007, s.4) defines Social Media as “The social Media is the online

place where people with a common interest can gather to share thoughts,

comments, and opinions”. According to Robinson (2007), social media are the

tools used for communication that have Web 2.0 attributes – that is, they are

participatory, collaborative, knowledge sharing, user-empowering tools

available on the Web. Safko and Brake (2009, s.6) defines social media as

“activities, practices, and behaviors among communities of people who gather

online to share information, knowledge, and opinions using conversational

media”.

As it is seen in the definitions there are some common points between them.

The first common point is sharing that in Social Media sites people may share

their knowledge, comments, videos and photos. Second point is the

communication that people communicate with their friends, family members,

experts or new people. In this aspect, online word of mouth concept gain

importance. The differences between online and offline word of mouth is reach
14
count and speed. Mangold and Faulds (2007, p.4) points out that

‘‘Conventional marketing wisdom has long held that a dissatisfied customer

tells ten people. But that is out of date. In the new age of social media, he or

she has the tools to tell 10 million’’.

Social media marketing

Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content

that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it with their social

networks. A corporate message spreads from user to user and presumably

resonates because it appears to come from a trusted, third-party source, as

opposed to the brand or company itself. Hence, this form of marketing is driven

by word-of-mouth, meaning it results in earned media rather than paid media.

Social media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with

internet access. Increased communication for organizations fosters brand

awareness and often, improved customer service. Additionally, social media

serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations to implement

marketing campaigns.

Social media have impacts on several functions for the businesses. One of the

most important department which can derive benefit from the Social Media is

Marketing. Because “it provides a great way to reach and engage existing and

potential customers” (Halligan and Shah, 2010, s.85). Through social media’s

communication function, Mangold and Foulds (2009) claimed that social media

should be considered as the sixth tool of the promotion mix. Joaker (2009, s.12)

defines social media marketing as “an interaction with a set of online social
15
media conversations from marketing perspective, based on converged media

(since conversations can span both technologies and the media)”. Another

definition of Social Media Marketing is Media is about “enabling conversation

[and] the ways that this conversation can be prompted, promoted, and

monetized” (Safko & Brake, 2009)

Social Media can be used for different areas of Marketing. One of the most

important benefits for the marketers and companies is Segmentation

(Brandtzaeg, 2010). In social media there are many tools and internet sites; and

customers choose the tools according to their demography, preferences and

life-styles. Thereby, Companies and marketers can reach to their core target

customers with smaller budgets.

Another benefits of social media related to the marketing is marketing research

function. The emergence of social media offers marketers an array of

collaborative tools with which to develop new research approaches to explore

the rapidly changing social and media environment (Cooke and Buckley,

2007). Today several companies use social media tools for marketing research

in the context of netnography (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). In addition,

companies and marketers can get instant feedback about their products,

services and campaigns from the customers what they think and how they react

without spending money on different kinds of marketing researches.

Today, social media tools have became a very important tool for the promotion

activities. There are three main purposes for promotion; first, to increase

product awareness, second to persuade people to purchase the product, or (c) to

remind people that the product exists (Kotler & Keller, 2007). Social Media

tools enable companies to implement their three purposes for promotion. The
16
companies can communicate with the customers and provide information to

them. For Example they can open an account on Facebook and Twitter, so they

can easily provide information about their campaigns, new products and

activities. Viral Marketing is the most common promotion tool in social media

(Thackeray and others, 2008). Porter and Golan (2006, p. 33) defines Viral

marketing as “unpaid peer-to-peer communication of provocative content

originating from an identified sponsor using the internet to persuade or

influence an audience to pass along the content to others”. Clifford and Marsh

(2009, p. 51) claimed that “The key difference between a viral and a TV ad is

that a viral is something you will seek out, take pleasure in finding, and send on

for someone else to enjoy”. Therefore it can said that Viral marketing has more

impact on customers than Mass media tools.

Social media marketing tools

Besides research tools, various companies provide specialized platforms and

tools for social media marketing:

Social media measurement

Social network aggregation

Social bookmarking

Social analytics

Automation

Social media

Blog marketing

17
Validation

Different Methods of Social Network Marketing

Social network marketing is popularly called as Internet marketing. Today you

can find many ways for internet marketing. Many people who enter this online

marketing are less worried because of its guaranteed success. If you see in

Internet totally all types of products has been marketed online without much

effort. Internet attracts many business people to promote their business online.

Social network marketing is grown to such a height that today many people

can't earn without it.

Some of the most recognized network marketing tools are Face book, My

Space and LinkedIn. Twitter became regular place for people who have newly

entered the field of social network marketing.

1. Blogging: When you start Blogging or posting your data about any product,

you can see less response from clients. Later it will become big business via

blog. Websites and blogs are most powerful tools for social network marketing

when matched with other networking tools. Blog is an amazing tool which

provides many other facilities in addition to just marketing your business. It

also helps you to communicate with other clients in case if you have any

problems.

2. Personal website or blog: It is important to have private website if you are a

freelancer. Your website will help your clients to know about you and it will

make them clear that you are a serious freelance marketer and help to make

huge revenue via online marketing.

18
3. Article selling: It is also best and cheap internet marketing method. It is a

mode of advertising our trade just by writing articles and attracting endless

number of users across world. We usually sell our articles to different article

database websites and article directories. Today it provided free business to

many advertisers and publishers and they are really benefited through their

articles.

4. Email sending: Electronic mail sending is the best way to marketing.

Collect list of email addresses through portfolio websites and email about your

business to all internet users. Your Email should be attractive in such a way

that your recipient will be impressed to get back to you.

5. Use social networking websites: Social networking websites like Twitter,

face book can be used to promote your sales. These provide best platform for

all who are thinking of online marketing.

6. Video promotion: Use several video distribution websites for your

marketing. These websites uploads your service to the whole world. All that

you need to do is film a video about marketing and send it to video uploading

sites like You Tube. It seems it is the easiest way of marketing than any other

modes since many people will be interested in view videos rather than word

form of advertisement.

7. Press Release or media release: It attracts several public clients and

increases relationship among them.

8. Search Engine Optimization: It improves the traffic to your website by

providing quality web content. It uses RSS feeds and many SEO techniques.

19
Social networking websites and blogs

Social networking websites allow individuals to interact with one another and

build relationships. When products or companies join those sites, people can

interact with the product or company. That interaction feels personal to users

because of their previous experiences with social networking site interaction

Social networking sites and blogs allow individual followers to “retweet” or

“repost” comments made by the product being promoted. By repeating the

message, all of the user’s connections are able to see the message, therefore

reaching more people. Social networking sites act as word of mouth. Because

the information about the product is being put out there and is getting repeated,

more traffic is brought to the product/company.

Through social networking sites, products/companies can have conversations

and interactions with individual followers. This personal interaction can instill

a feeling of loyalty into followers and potential customers. Also, by choosing

whom to follow on these sites, products can reach a very narrow target

audience.

Engagement

In the context of the social web, engagement means that customers and

stakeholders are participants rather than viewers. Social media in business

allows anyone and everyone to express and share an opinion or idea

somewhere along the business’s path to market. Each participating customer

becomes part of the marketing department, as other customers read their

20
comments or reviews. The engagement process is then fundamental to

successful social media marketing.

Example-

2008 Presidential Election

The 2008 presidential campaign had a huge presence on social networking

sites. Barack Obama, a Democratic candidate for US President, used Twitter

and Facebook to differentiate his campaign. His social networking site profile

pages were constantly being updated and interacting with followers.

Kony 2012

A short film released on March 5, 2012, by humanitarian group Invisible

Children, Inc. This 29 minute video aimed at making Joseph Kony, an

International Criminal Court fugitive, famous worldwide in order to have

support for his arrest by December 2012; the time when the campaign ends.

The video went viral within the first six days after its launch, reaching 100

million views on both YouTube.

Implications on traditional advertising

Minimizing use

Traditional advertising techniques include print and television advertising. The

Internet had already overtaken television as the largest advertising market.

Websites often include banner or pop-up ads. Social networking sites don’t

always have ads. In exchange, products have entire pages and are able to

interact with users. Television commercials often end with a spokesperson

21
asking viewers to check out the product website for more information. Print ads

are also starting to include barcodes on them. These barcodes can be scanned

by cell phones and computers, sending viewers to the product website.

Advertising is beginning to move viewers from the traditional outlets to the

electronic ones.

Leaks

Internet and social networking leaks are one of the issues facing traditional

advertising. Video and print ads are often leaked to the world via the Internet

earlier than they are scheduled to premiere. Social networking sites allow those

leaks to go viral, and be seen by many users more quickly. Time difference is

also a problem facing traditional advertisers. When social events occur and are

broadcast on television, there is often a time delay between airings on the east

coast and west coast of the United States. Social networking sites have become

a hub of comment and interaction concerning the event. This allows individuals

watching the event on the west coast (time-delayed) to know the outcome

before it airs.

Social media marketing mishaps

Social media marketing provides organizations with a way to connect with

their customers. However, organizations must protect their information as well

as closely watch comments and concerns on the social media they use. A flash

poll done on 1225 IT executives from 33 countries revealed that social media

mishaps caused organizations a combined $4.3 million in damages in 2010.The

top three social media incidents an organization faced during the previous year

22
included employees sharing too much information in public forums, loss or

exposure of confidential information, and increased exposure to litigation

An example of a social media mishap includes designer Kenneth Cole's Twitter

mishap in 2011. When Kenneth Cole tweeted, "Millions are in uproar in

#Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online

at [Kenneth Cole's website]".This reference to the 2011 Egyptian Revolution

drew objection from the public.

General Social Networking Statistics

• 62% of adults worldwide now use social media

• Social networking is most popular online activity, with 22% of time

online spent on channels like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest

• 65% of the world’s top companies have an active Twitter profile

• 90% of marketers use social media channels for business, with 93% of

these rating social tools as “important”

• 43% of marketers have noticed an improvement in sales due to social

campaigns

• 72% of marketers who have worked in social media for three or more

years said that they saw a boost in turnover due to social channels (the longer

you’re working in it the better you get)

• 91% of experienced social marketers see improved website traffic due to

social media campaigns and 79% are generating more quality leads.

23
• The average time spent by marketers on social media is 1-5hrs per week

for those just getting started and 6+ hours per week for those with 3+ years of

experience

• The most popular social networking tool for marketing is Facebook –

being used by 92%, followed by Twitter (84%), LinkedIn (71%) and blogs

(68%)

• LinkedIn is 4X better for B2B lead generation than Facebook and

Twitter

• Only 10% of marketers are actively monitoring social media ROI

• Only 22% of businesses have a dedicated social media manager

• 23% of Fortune 500 companies have a public-facing corporate blog

• 58% of Fortune 500 companies have an active corporate Facebook

account, 62% have an active corporate Twitter account

• 47% of customers are somewhat likely to purchase from a brand that

they follow or like

Types of Social Media

Social Media concept consists of a wide range of tools and platforms. The most

important and common used social media types are Social Networking Sites,

Content Communities, Virtual Worlds, Blogs, Microblogging Sites, Online

Gaming Sites, Social Bookmarking and News Sites, Forums. These concepts

will be explained in details with the aspects of definition, history and elements.

24
Social Networking Sites

Social networking is an increasing phenomenon related to the internet, and

several studies have been conducted about social networking sites. Although

there are various definitions concerning social networking by distinguished

scholars (Raacke and Bonds-Raacke, 2008; Dunne and Others, 2010;

Constantinides,2009; Zarella, 2010), two of the most common definitions have

been used in this study.

Social Networking Sites are ‘‘web-based services that allow individuals to (1)

construct a public or semipublic profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate

a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and

traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.”

(Boyd & Ellison, 2008)’’. In addition Kaplan (2010) defines social networking

sites as “Social networking sites are applications that enable users to connect

by creating personal information profiles, inviting friends and colleagues to

have access to those profiles, and sending e-mails and instant messages

between each other. These personal profiles can include any type of

information, including photos, video, audio files, and blogs”.

Kaplan (2010) claimed that the first social networking site which was called

“Open Diary” was founded by Bruce and Susan Abelson 20 years ago. In 2005,

In 1995, Classmates.com, which enables people to find their old school friends,

and Match.com, which is an online dating site, were created; both remain fairly

popular sites in their niche (Zarella, 2010). In 1997, www.sixdegrees.com

which is in very similar form with current social networking sites that users

could create their profiles and listed their friends. Between the years 1997 -

25
2001 several social networking sites such as AsianAvenue, blackPlanet and

miGente appeared. In 2001, ryze.com was launched, but this social networking

site was just for the business networks (Boyd and Ellison, 2007).

The growing availability of high-speed Internet access further added to the

popularity of the concept, leading to the creation of social networking sites

(Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). In 2002, The modern era of social networks

began, when Jonathan Abrams launched Friendster, inspired by Match.com

(Zarella, 2010, p:55), and which was designed to help friends‐of‐friends meet

(Boyd and Ellison, 2007). In 2003, Myspace was launched by duplication of

Frienster’s functionality and added some new features such as customizable

user profile and mostly focused on music applications. In a short time MySpace

became one of the best social networking site (Zarella, 2010). Since Myspace’s

popularity increased rapidly in 2005 Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate

News Corp purchased MySpace the amount of $580 million (Mintz, 2006).

Today, MySpace is the 22th most clicked website in the world (Alexa.com).

Although there is no certain information about number of total registered users,

in his internet site Elkin claimed that myspace has 185 million user.

Subsequently in 2004, Facebook which is a social utility that helps people

communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers was

founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004. (Facebook.com). However, previously

users had to have a harvard.edu email address in order to join Facebook. One

year later Facebook expanded to include high school students, professionals

inside corporate networks (Boyd and Ellison, 2007). Eventually in 2006,

everybody could join to facebook with an e-mail address (Zarella, 2010).

Today, Facebook is the second most clicked web site in the world among all

26
types of internet sites comes after the google (Alexa). According to Facebook’s

own statistics (2010), on facebook there are more than 400 million active users,

every user on average has 130 friends, people spend over 500 billion minutes

per month.

Boyd and Ellison (2007) claimed that while MySpace attracted the

majority of media attention in the U.S. and abroad, Social Networking sites

started to getting more popular globally such as Orkut in Brazil, Friendster in

Pacific Islands, Mixi in Japan, Lunarstorm in Sweden, Grono in Poland, Hi5 in

Latin America and Bebo in United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia

(Boyd and Ellison, 2007).

Elements of Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites differentiate themselves from all other types of social

media. Because most of the social networking sites include all other social

media sites’ tools, features and applications at one platform. For instance in a

social networking site, a user can create a profile, send private message, upload

photos and videos, watch videos, play games, join a social group, arrange an

event and use several applications. Zarella (2010), summarize the elements of

social networking sites as below.

Profile: Individuals and Companies can create a Profile on Social Networking

Sites. This information can be about personal, educational, employment and

interests.

Connecting: Two or more people can connect which is one of the most

important feature through social networking sites.

27
Private Messaging: Users can send private or group messages via Social

networking sites

Public Messaging: Public messages are called comments in MySpace and wall

messages in Facebook. Comments can be made to profiles, photos, videos,

events, groups and company pages.

Groups: Most social networks contain the concept of a group which consist of

the users who have similar interests and they can share and discuss the

contents.

Photos and Videos: Sharing photo and video are two of the most popular

features of social networking sites. For Example, Facebook’s photo-sharing

feature is more popular than all of the other photo-sharing sites.

Events: Most social networks will allow you to create an event and invite your

friends to attend it. These events most commonly occur in the real world

Applications: Social networks have exposed their functionality through

application programming interfaces (APIs) to developers, allowing them to

create applications that plug into their site.

Content Communities:

With the advent of easy-to-use digital cameras and camcorders as well as high-

speed Internet connections, media-sharing sites have become extremely

28
popular (Zarella, 2010, p:77). The main objective of content communities is the

sharing of media content between users. Content communities exist for a wide

range of different media types, including text, photos, videos, music (Kaplan

and Haenlein, 2010).

One of the earliest Content Community Site, IFILM.net, was launched in 1997

as an online collection of short videos where users could also submit their own

work. In 1999, Ofoto, Shutterfly and webshots which were photo sharing and

uploading sites were founded. In 2002, Flash MX was released and this tool

enabled users to watch videos without downloading a special player However

content communities became more popular after Flicker’s launch in 2004.

(Zarella, 2010). Flickr is one of the best online photo management and sharing

application in the world. Two main purpose of Flickr is helping people to make

their content available for other people who matter to them. The second

purpose is providing new ways for organizing photos. (Flicker.com). Now

there are approximately 4 billion images in Flickr (trak.in)

The second revolution of content communities was the founding of Youtube

which allows its users to post videos for public viewing and commentary.

Youtube was founded in 2005 by PayPal employees Chad Hurley, Steve Chen,

and Jawed Karim (Kelli, 2008). In a short time Youtube became the fastest

growing internet site ( Kelli, 2008). On October 2006, Youtube was acquired

by Google company for 1.65 billion value (Google Press Center). Youtube

allows people to upload their own videos and watch others’ videos, the youtube

database contains numerous videos on any topic (Mabry, 2010). In Addition,

YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others

29
across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators

and advertisers large and small (Youtube). Today, Youtube is the 3 th most

clicked web site in the world (Alexa).

Forums:

Forums are the interactive sites that the users share their knowledge and ideas

with other people who have similar interests (Constantinides, 2009), In his

book Zarella (2010) claimed that Forums are the oldest type of social media

and modern form of community bulletin boards. In forum sites the focus is on

the discussion. Users post what they know or wonder and other users reply

them or make comments to them.

Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds are platforms that replicate a three dimensional environment in

which users can appear in the form of personalized avatars and interact with

each other as they would in real life (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009). Today, there

are millions of users in Virtual worlds and this number is increasing day by day

(Tikkanen and others, 2009). Kaplan and Haenlein (2009 p: 64) claimed that

virtual worlds are probably the ultimate manifestation of Social Media, as they

provide the highest level of social presence and media richness of all

applications discussed thus far.

Kaplan and Haenlein (2009), Tikkanen and others (2009) and Zarella (2010)

categorize virtual worlds into two. First category is social oriented virtual

worlds and the second one is game oriented social worlds.

30
Virtual Game worlds

The virtual worlds games include similar elements of traditional video games

and their purposes to reach higher levels by gaining extra points (Tikkanen and

others, 2009), and require their users have to obey the strict rules in the context

of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (Kaplan and Haenlein,

2009). One of the most popular virtual world game is “World of Warcaft”

(Zarella, 2010) and 8.5 million subscribers or the game who explore the virtual

planet of Azeroth in the form of humans, dwarves, orcs, or night elves, to fight

monsters or to search for treasure (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009 p:64). Although

there are millions of users in virtual game worlds, the social marketing

possibilities in these worlds are often very limited (Zarella, 2010).

Virtual social worlds

The second group of virtual worlds is the virtual social world which allows

inhabitants to choose their behavior more freely and essentially live a virtual

life similar to their real life Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009). In addition advanced

subscribers can create objects and places (Zarella, 2010) . In social worlds,

users don’t have certain goals. Since there is an interaction and networking

with other users, virtual social worlds are similar to the Social networking sites

(Tikkanen and Others, 2009).

Blogs

In Literature, Blog is defined by several authors (Zarella, 2010; Kelli, 2008;

Huffman, 2008; Kaplan, 2007; Weber, 2008). One of the most comprehensive

31
definition of blog is “Blogs are personal web sites written by somebody who is

passionate about a topic, provide a means to share that passion with the world

and to foster an active community of readers who provide comments on the

author’s posts.(Scott, 2010, s. 37)

One of the first blog which was about the video games and gaming conventions

was created by Justin Hall in the mid-1990’s (Zarella, 2010). In 1997, the term

weblog which is combination of the words web and log was created by Jorn

Barger and in time it has started to called as Blog (Aschenbrenner and Miksch,

2005) . Blogging started to became popular when LiveJournal and Blogger

were launched (Zarella, 2010). This opened Blogs to larger audience

(Aschenbrenner and Miksch, 2005). Today, the exact total number of Blogs are

not known, but it is estimated to be around 150 million and Globally

approximately 350 million people read blogs (Thefuturebuzz.com, 2010)

Microblogging is a new form of communication in which users can

describe their current status in short posts distributed by instant messages,

mobile phones, email or the Web (Java and Others, 2007, s.1). In 2004, micro

blogging term appeared when a group of technologists and activists created

TXTmob that allow people to communicate through short text messages

(Zarella, 2010).

However Micro-Blogging became popular after the launch of Twitter in

2006. On Twitter subscribers update their status and share information about

their activities and opinions which is limited only 140 characters (Java and

Others, 2007). Twitter rapidly growth in 2009 as a result of well-known

32
celebrity members and a mention on Oprah (Zarella, 2010). Today, according

to the Alexa Twitter is the 11th most visited web site in the world. Twitter is

one of the most effective tool in social media marketing. Zarella (2010, s.31)

claimed that “Most companies should be on Twitter; it’s easy, requires very

little investment of time, and can quickly prove worthwhile in increased buzz,

sales, and consumer insight”. In addition Twitter can be used in order to

announce offers, events and promotions.

Social Bookmarking and News Sites

Zarella (2010, s.103) defines social new sites as “Social news sites are websites

that allow users to submit and vote on content from around the Web”. People

vote the news and it became very easy to differentiate interesting and useful

links from the others.

“Social bookmarking sites are similar to social news sites, but the value

presented to users is focused on allowing them to collect and store interesting

links they’ve found and may wish to revisit” (Zarella, 2010, p.103). Companies

can track the number of people who are bookmarking you page and can

understand how remarkable their format message is. If nobody bookmarks a

web site, they have to reconsider about their content (Halligan and Shah, 2010)

ITList was the the first social bookmarking site which was launched in April

1996, and from that point until the pop of the first dot-com bubble, a plethora

of sites offering public and private online storage of your favorite links

emerged (Zarella, 2010). Today, Digg which was launched in 2004 is the most

popular social news sites. “Digg allows users to submit and moderate their

stories by voting on them” (Lerman, 2007, p.1). On the other hand Delicious
33
(Del.icio.us) is one of the most popular social bookmarking site. Delicious

which is belong to Yahoo group, boasts more than 5 million users and more

than 150 million URL’s (Weinberg, 2009). Users can put their favorite links

onto their own web pages within delicious domain. In addition, Delicious

offers a search function that provides users to search their own bookmarks (

Barsky and Purdon, 2006).

34
 CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

35
 LITERATURE REVIEW

1. Palmer and Lewis (2009) titled an experiential, social

network-based approach to direct marketing and Ralf Beuker

and Erik Roscam Abbing (2010) paper titled "Two Faces of

Social Media": Brand Communication and Brand Research.

According to Forrester research study (2011) by Ernst.J,

David M. and Cooperstein, Dermoga M, found that companies

(brands) are gradually shifting their advertising priorities to

align better with today's buyers. Today's buyers are tech

savvy and social media maniacs. In the last couple of years,

different kind of social media networking services have

merged and currently there are innumerable social media

channels that connect people to each other. The most popular

social networking sites that are widely used are; Facebook,

Twitter, YouTube and Linkedin. In fact, Facebook, twitter and

YouTube are the most common channels companies use in

their online marketing for creating brand awareness or just

engaging with the customers.

2. Priyanka P.V and Padma Srinivasan (2015) in her research

study identified various factors that determine the purchase of

a product using social media from a customer's point of

view. A model from the retailer's perspective has been

developed that explains how social media can be used for

36
 increasing customer loyalty. The study concludes that

continuous customer support services will result in

improvement of customer retention. New applications and

social platforms will flourish and allow even greater

personalization and real-time, location-based engagements in

media.

3. Brendan James Keegan and Jennifer Rowley (2017)

contributes to knowledge regarding social media marketing strategy

by developing a stage model of SMM evaluation and uncovering

the challenges in this process. The research paper has developed a

Social Media Marketing Evaluation framework. This framework has

the following six stages: setting evaluation objectives, identifying

key performance indicators (KPIs), identifying metrics, data

collection and analysis, report generation and management decision

making. Moreover, the paper also identifies and discusses challenges

associated with each stage of the framework with a view to better

understanding decision making associated with social media

strategies. Two key challenges depicted by the study are the

agency-client relationship and the available social analytics tools.

4. Scott (2009) states the reasons for brand promoters preferring

online web for marketing is that the tools, techniques and content

are constantly evolving. The buyers reward creativity by responding

to the online efforts like:

37
“If you are open to trying out new things, you can be first in your

industry to use something new to communicate to your buyers”.

Marketing in some social networking websites are still the most

popular in their niche.

5. Shih (2009) says that there are hundreds of millions of active

users across sites like Face book, Hi5, Orkut and MySpace. 2.6

billion min are spent on Face book each day. These websites are

enabling brands to engage the right people in the right conversation

at right time. Marketing the brands through social media is

becoming precise, personal, interesting, interactive and social.

6. Weber (2009) says promoting a community is just like as

promoting a new brand product or service to the consumers. Social

media is used to communicate people in the promotional aspect and

inclined to involve the 236 J. Media Commun. Stud. people.

Traditional advertising and direct marketing in social media is to

send people to the digital community to be informed, entertained

and heard. Users find appealing, a value high enough to encourage

them to participate.

7.Borges (2009) finds that today's buyers want to be engaged

differently than in years past and many traditional marketing tactics

simply do not work anymore. Social media marketing is a

revolutionary way to build solid relationships with buyers. Low

38
cost, brand building, staffing advantages, loyalty and level playing

field are key benefits of social networking sites as a successful

marketing media.

8. Zarrella (2010) says the roots of online social networking can

be traced to the 1980s bulletin board systems (BBS). These systems

allowed the users to create personal profiles, helps to share

information by sending private messages, public messages and post

events at low speed connectivity. After emanation of social

networking technology in the internet world, it grew higher and

popular among the internet user.

9. Lacy and Hernandez (2009) says Twitter gives the ability to

share nearly 140- characters thoughts in a split second, where user

can easily share links to press releases and stories about their

business, service or product. Making tweets interesting and diverse,

there is a more possibility of increasing the followers, by consider

with news sharing and stories about the industry that they

serve.The rules of marketing had to change and the web has

proved a catalyst in bringing the changes forward and amplifying

their scale. The sudden emergence of the Web 2.0 marketing

techniques demand additional approaches, while most marketers are

still wrestling with the first generation, savvy brands are exploring

the landscape that social media and social networks create for

marketers. These techniques are allowing much deeper drivers in

39
social change to be unleashed, with a profound impact on planning

customer connections. The new generation of relationship marketing

responds to the additional challenges of digital media literacy and

in the right hands can trigger a rebuild of the entire marketing mix

through different strategies. Relationship marketing for the Face

book generation demands both thinking and acting differently.

10. Stroud (2007) says that the ability of social networking sites to

generate these huge volumes of web traffic is proof of their huge

popularity. Google, Yahoo and News International have bought

themselves a presence in the social networking arena. The detailed

rationale for these acquisitions differs but all have a common theme

of wanting access to the enormous audiences.

40
 CHAPTER 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

41
 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

To analyze and find the effectiveness of communication strategy in

developing brand, communication through social networking sites

was done with the survey method and content analysis in the

research.

Methods of data collection

The survey method helped to identify the reach of the brand

among its target audience, ways of impact, usage of these social

networking sites and access to these form of communication. And

the content analysis is another method used to analyze the

communication strategy of different social networking sites with

certain parameters among top three Indian social networking sites

which are tabulated with results.

Research design

This research study adopted survey and content analysis in order to

find the effectiveness and the impact of communication in branding

any product or the service among the target market through social

networking sites like Face book, Twitter and Orkut.

42
Survey

Survey was conducted randomly among Face book, Twitter and

Orkut user community, by sending questionnaire through online to

collect the individual opinion from the respondents.

Sampling

Non probability sampling technique is used to collect the opinion

from the online respondents. The total population is social

networking user community, but to collect the effective data the

sampling is constrained to the target population like young adults,

graduates within the age of 16 years to 30 years. The sampling

size is 50.

Content analysis

In content analysis, the following three popular social networking

sites were selected to find the effective brand communication

among its users (Face book, Twitter and Orkut).

Parameters and units of analysis

1. Target group: category of audience visiting these sites.

2. Types of advertisements: what are the types of brand

communication followed by them?

3. Ads placement: how do these sites place their ad in their pages?

43
4. Communication strategy: kinds of brand promotion used by them.

5. Visual appealing factors: regarding the appearance of these sites.

6. User Interaction: kinds of participation with the brand.

7. Accessibility: how legibly they present themselves.

8. User interest: the forms of expectations from users in these sites.

9. Customization: the factors that the users could create by

themselves.

44
 CHAPTER 4

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

45
 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Usage of internet by the user

It has been found that 12% of audience use internet once a week,

19% of the respondents use 2 to 3 days a week. 30% of the

respondents use 1 or 2 h a day and the remaining 39% of users

are accessing internet more than 3 h a day. It is understood that

the new media and its technology is an emerging trend in

communication which attracts almost all the people, if they have

knowledge of computers. So this digital media has more snatchers

towards its communication and internet is becoming part of

necessary communication among the students and professionals, etc

(Table 1).

Awareness of social networking sites

From this result, it is observed that nearly 98% of the internet

users are aware of social networking sites and only 2% of them

are clueless. Although the concept of computer-based communities

dates back to the early days of computer networks, only some

years after the advent of the internet online social networks have

met public and commercial in a successive manner. At the most

basic level, an online

social network is an internet community where individuals interact,

often through profiles that represent their selves to others (Donath

46
and Boyd, 2004). Social networks have grown rapidly, and some

like face book, orkut, have achieved the mass market and

penetrated in a few months since their inception, such applications

have infringed their users in different strategy to interact with more

people (Table 2).

Number of profiles in social networking sites

The study found that all the respondents that is, 100% of

respondents have profiles on Face book. And also, 88% respondents

of the same group have profiles on Orkut, 62% respondents have

connected to twitter and 37% of users have account on other social

networking sites. The users can create many accounts in different

social networking site. Face book is useful for communication, self-

promotion, to know about friends’ community and to find the

missed out school and college mates. The peers use the Face book,

Orkut and Twitter for the same reasons to share the information

and communication. Due to this reasons, Face book, Orkut and

Twitter were more popular among the internet users of youth

population comparatively with other social networking sites (Table

3).

47
Ads in different social networking sites

From the earlier mentioned, it is found that 45% of the users find

Face book as a well communicated social networking sites, which

promotes more brands and

advertisements, gives information about product and service which

is useful for the young user community in an interactive way to

learn more about the particular brands, 12% user suggests Twiiter,

please follow one pattern all here small words has effective

communication of advertisements. 28% of users find Orkut as the

second option in communicating brand advertisements (Table 4).

Exposure of different kinds of ads

From the data, it is found that 32% of respondents have come

across web banner ads in these social networking sites like Face

book, Twitter and Orkut; whereas 8% cut across pop up ads and

flash ads in various websites and 31% of users found video ads in

YouTube and in other sites. Google, Yahoo and News International

have bought themselves a presence in the social networking arena

with different communication strategy to have innovative appearance

in content and display (Stroud, 2007). The detailed rationale for

these acquisitions differs,

48
but all have a common theme of essential access to the enormous

audiences of these sites .

Communication creates trust on ads

From the survey data, it is understood that 38% of user agreed and

satisfied with ads appearing in social networking sites, whereas

11% of the user disagreed and unsatisfied with certain

communication of information. Only 51% of the respondents found

it neutral. The web has proved a catalyst in bringing the changes

forward and amplifying their scale in creating trustworthiness (Table

6).

Accessibility of ads

Only 8% of the total samples say that they have never accessed or

shown interest to the ads displayed in social networking sites, while

browsing internet for other communication purposes. And 36% of

the respondents use to access often and were interested to listen to

the advertisements of various brands, 35% user says they listen to

the brand communication and also link to the brand sites to gather

more information and 21% of the user access according to the way

of communication it appears, because sometimes the brand

promotion could be in the form of display ads, interactive feedback

forms or as interactive games, accessing of advertisements

information differs sometimes according to the format of brand

49
communication . Today's customers want to be engaged differently

than in years past and many traditional marketing tactics simply do

not work anymore. Social media marketing is a revolutionary way

to build solid relationships with customers long before first contact

with fun, attractive messages and interactions

Brand communication that attracts the users

Games, quiz and updates of latest information are the kind of

interactive communication messages that attracts 28% of users. 26%

of users are attracted to fan pages and posts. 20% of users are

pulled their interests towards flash ads, 14% of users listened to

video ads and remaining 12% of users are interested to traditional

banner ads. Most of the social networking websites are enabling

brands to engage the right people in the right conversation at right

time (Shih, 2009). Nowadays communication on branding in social

networking sites is more personal, contentious, fascinating and

influencing among the user community (Table 8).

Impact of communication

According to the respondents, 67% of user agreed that the

communication strategy used in brand communication creates impact

on certain brands effectively and also which could helps them to

recall the same often and interactively. 24% of users said that it

partially creates impact and traffic of communication, which result

50
to confusion in users mind. The remaining respondents almost 9%,

says that it does not create much impact on ads but still effective

for other communication purpose like sharing and chatting

information..

Content analysis

The three social networking sites Face book, Twitter and

Orkut were chosen to analyze the units of parameters and the

presentations of data are shown in Table 10.

Results of the analysis

As seen earlier, the various brand communication factors involve in

these kinds of social media advertising and day by day competition

among the brands increase. So, to survive brands, the

communicators come up with more and more innovative, interactive

and interesting kinds of brand communication messages

which make the users to access them and develop closeness with

the different brand communication strategy with attractive name and

its service.

1. The finding of the study states that the audiences respond more

to interactive marketing than the traditional ads followed in internet

advertising.

51
2. Almost everyone is communicated through social networking

sites.

3. Nearly 70% of the audience has impact through ads in social

networking sites and half of them access these ads e.g. games,

quiz, events, etc.

4. Users remember the brand by the way they advertise. They

respond to any new form of advertising which interest them.

5. Social networking sites will become the primary arena for highly

targeted marketing and advertising. Social networking sites present

an unmatched opportunity to build brand.

6. Users of Face book and Orkut are of same age group and

category. In twitter, people do not show much interest because it’s

just like a micro-blogging site.

7. Interaction is more in the display banners adver-tisements in

Face book and Orkut. All the networking

240 J. Media Commun. Stud.

Table 10.Layout of content analysis with parameters.

S/N

Parameters for content analysis

Facebook

52
Twitter

Orkut

1.Target Group

Nearly 54% lie in the age group 16 – 30. Graduates and students

of all age

16% stay updated with news, 22% for stay in touch with friends

and to update status. Graduates > 16 yrs53% < 25 years, 32%

between 25 - 34 years. Graduates, students of all ages

2.Types of Advertisements comm.

Poll engagement ads, Video engagement ads, Banded gift

engagement ads, Event and hybrid engagement ads, Fan pages

No advertisements but regular brand follow ups and updates.

Banner ads, Ad optimization using ad trackers

3.Ad placements

Generally placed right hand side corner and in wall posts

NA (Not applicable)

Right hand side top , above the profile page e.g.: Docomo

4.Communication strategy

53
Brand promotion, To sell, users to interact, brand identity, sharing,

fan and follow ups. Managing online reputation.

Regular feeds from brands and retain the brand identity with users

Using ad tracker, particular groups are selected and ads are hosted,

themes and fan pages are one among the form.

5.User interaction

Through fan pages, posts, events and games

To retweet and reply. Share messages among brand followers

Through fan pages and click ads

6.Visual appealing factors

No themes, but visually appealing with cool colors like blue and

white

Can customize the page and can ad own contents. Usually the

designs are standard

Themes available. Usually colorful

7.Accessibility

Clean and clear. Ads and content gets loaded fast. Friendly user

interface

Easy loading and no time out

54
Same as facebook, but contents get loaded slower than other two.

8.User interest

Expect brand to be communicated thro games, fan pages and events

Regular updates from following brands

Usually banner ads and optimization ads. So no expectations

9.Customization

People can create their own ad and upload, sell products thro

market place option

NA (Not applicable)

Can create own fan pages and send posts to users and can also

create their own ads.sites have their own space in their web pages

for promoting ads.

8. Communication strategy and user interaction are unique among

each site. Face book promote and allows user interaction, Twitter

regularly feed posts regarding the brand and Orkut promote through

click ads and promotional brand pages.

9. Face book follows a default backdrop and text whereas twitter

and Orkut can be customized.

10. Accessibility is more in Face book than others. Twitter show

importance only for text.

55
11. Users expect brand communication than brand marketing in

these sites.

12. People can create their own ads in Orkut and Face book.

56
 CHAPTER 5

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

57
 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

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 Orkut 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 throng

their ads 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.

58
Social media is working more as a search engine these days

because people trust people rather trusting companies. Also people

think that it would be cheaper to buy from the people directly

rather than going to the company website. Hence, an area of

interest is searched on a social media and concerned people are

found and communicated with. Social media

marketing creates a positive effect on many business markets such

as financial institutions, travel and tourism businesses, retail

businesses, knowledge businesses, entertainment industry, and so on.

Since the process of social media marketing saves money, time and

is highly engaging and interesting social media marketing seems to

be the next big thing to hit the world as a whole.

One of the biggest advantages of social media marketing as

opposed to traditional advertising is that potential customers can be

precisely targeted. For example, in Facebook, if a person species

that his area of interest is interior designing; his home page would

have advertisements of interior designers on it. Thus, it doesn’t

seem to be a hassle for the customer because they would definitely

want to see those advertisements. As for the

business owner, he/she needs to pay only if a person clicks on

his/her advertisements. Thus it is a win- win situation for both the

business owner and the customer.

59
Similarly small business start-ups should utilize the endless

opportunities provided by social media sites such as Facebook,

Twitter and LinkedIn. The biggest advantage for small business

start-ups is that the amount of money to be spent on

advertisements can be massively cut down and brand building can

be done effectively. As in LinkedIn which is customisable, more

than one products being sold by the same company can also be

marketed. This works perfectly for B2B clients who cater to more

than one product from the same verticals.

In fact social media sites themselves are changing at a fast pace to

keep up with the marketing trend that is present today. Though

LinkedIn was started for professional networking, it has added

much functionality recently which makes it an attractive platform

for business development. Likewise although Facebook is considered

as a medium for personal space, it is changing at a rapid pace to

cater to the needs of businesses as well. More companies are trying

to market their products through Facebook. Twitter is the least

preferred social networking website used for business development.

The main reason for this is that Twitter is more demanding in

terms of frequent tweets and more time should be spent on it to

respond to customer queries. However, Twitter is also changing to

caterto business development needs. Marketing Week (2012) reports

that Twitter now provides various tools for gauging the impact of

60
promoted tweets. Now brands who want to advertise on Twitter can

customise their advertisements on the basis of what is working for

them. Thus all popular sites are into marketing and it can be seen

as a good sign of opening the horizons for a new way of

marketing which cheaper, greener and moreeffective.

61
 CHAPTER 6

RECOMMENDATIONS

62
 RECOMMENDATIONS

Communication should be more preferred than advertising: people

do not prefer buying products through social networking sites. So,

if the brand is communicated well and remembered by the

audience, then it is a greatest success to the company for their

promotion through social media.

Promotional way of advertising is best: the usual banner ads and

pop-up ads make the users to ignore them. So advertising must be

interactive, promotional and in innovative form to hold the

audience. It should target the individuals than the mass. If an ad is

hosted for a group then that would be no advantage in delivering

specified information. Adding more multimedia elements to have

more interactive factors in fan pages and group would benefit the

brand user

From this report it can be concluded that social media presence is

inevitable in the coming years. Not only that social media is useful

as a marketing tool, it has become the order of the day to be

present in social media. Therefore this report recommends all kind

of businesses- small scale, large scale, business to business clients,

business to consumer clients, manufacturing industries and so on to

be actively present in social media. An important fact to be kept in

mind in this context is that most social networking sites have a

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cyclic growth. It starts from minimum, attains a maximum and goes

down to a minimum again. Thus, this is the perfect time to invest

time and resource in popular social media sites such as Facebook,

Twitter and LinkedIn. Owing to the relatively small amount of

investment, it is not a high risk investment as the usage of social

media will come to a minimum only gradually.

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 CHAPTER 7

IMPLICATIONS

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 IMPLICATIONS

Social media marketing provides an unprecedented opportunity to

communicate with consumers, connect with a worldwide audience

and build a loyal audience. Beyond brand recognition and reach,

social media marketing significantly influences customer

relationships, revenues and overall business performance. So,

businesses must use the power of social media marketing and

modify their plans to stay ahead in a continually shifting market if

they want to stay relevant in the digital age.

Social media marketing has transformed how businesses interact

with customers and develop their brands. When pulled off right, it

can provide significant benefits, including greater customer

engagement, brand awareness and cost-effective advertising.

However, companies must also be aware of the possible drawbacks,

such as unfavourable reviews and concerns about data privacy. But

remember that you can always get a better idea of how to go

about your social media marketing strategy and learn how to

leverage the power of relationships by looking at successful

companies like Wendy's, Airbnb and Nike.

Social media plays an important role in how consumers discover,

research, and share information about brands and products. In fact

60 percent of consumers researching products through multiple

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online sources learned about a specific brand or retailer through

social networking sites. Active social media users are more likely

to read product reviews online, and 3 out of 5 create their own

reviews of products and services. Women are more likely than men

to tell others about products that they like (81% of females vs.

72% of males). Overall, consumer-generated reviews and product

ratings are the most preferred sources of product information among

social media users.

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 REFERENCES

Borges B (2009). Marketing 2.0.Wheat mark, pp. 45-63.

Brinle D (2007). Does Internet Advertising Work?

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Chaffey D (2003). Internet Marketing, Strategy, Implementation and

Practise.2nd edition, Pearson Education Limited, pp. 115-186.

Donath J, Boyd D (2004). Public displays of connection. BT

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Eric E (2008). 2008 Growth Puts Face book In Better Position to

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facebook-in-better-position-to-make-money.

Lacy K, Hernandez M (2009). Twitter Marketing for Dummies. pp.

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Nicole K (2007). Building a Brand through Social Networks, http:/

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Shih C (2009). The Facebook Era. Tapping online social networks

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 QUESTIONNAIRE

Dear Sir/Madam

Name: ………………………………………………………..

Contact No: …………………………………………………

City: ………………………………………………………..

State: ………………………………………………………

PART-A

1. Age

2. Educational Qualification

3. Marital Status

4. Occupation

PART-B

4. How often do you use internet?

• Once a week

• 1 or 2 hrs a day

• 2 to 3 days a week

• More than 3 hrs

5. Are you aware of social networking sites?

70
• Yes

• No

6. How often do you log in those networking site?

• Daily

• 2 to 3 times a day

• Once a week

• More than 3 times a day

7. How many SNS profile do you have? Mention the number here

and tick the options…………

• Orkut

• Face book

• Twitter

• Others

8. In which SNS do you find ads communicated well?

• Facebook

• Orkut

• Twitter

• Others

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9. What kinds of ads have you come across in these sites?

• Web banner

• Pop ups

• Flash ads

• Video ads

• Others

10. Do you agree ads appearing in SNS?

• Strongly Agree

• Agree

• Neutral

• Disagree

• Strongly Disagree

11. Have you ever accessed these ads coming on your way?

• Often

• Sometimes

• Never

• Depending on ads

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12. What kinds of Brand communication attract you in SNS?

• Interactive Flash ads

• Banner ads

• Games, quiz, updates

• Video ads

13. Did these kinds of ads made an impact over you?

• Strongly Agree

• Agree

• Neutral

• Disagree

• Strongly Disagree

73