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An analytical study
on the use of social media for the purpose
of advertisement
Submitted by
Kandarp Prajapati 138070592121
Jigar Thakur 138070592160
Sal institute of management
Submitted to:-
Prof. Shakunt jadav

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INTODUCTION

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Social media marketing is the process of gaining website traffic or attention
through social media sites. Social media marketing programs usually center on
efforts to create content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it
across their social networks. The resulting electronic word of mouth (eWoM)
refers to any statement consumers share via the Internet (e.g., web sites, social
networks, instant messages, news feeds) about an event, product, service, brand or
company. When the underlying 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, this form of marketing results in earned
media rather than paid media.
Social networking websites allow individuals to interact with one another and build
relationships. When companies join these social channels, consumers can interact
with them directly. That interaction can be more personal to users than traditional
methods of outbound marketing & advertising.
Social networking sites act as word of mouth. Social networking sites
and blogs allow followers to “retweet” or “repost” comments made by others about
a product being promoted. By repeating the message, the user's connections are
able to see the message, therefore reaching more people. Because the information
about the product is being put out there and is getting repeated, more traffic is
brought to the product/company.

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Through social networking sites, companies can interact 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.
Social networking sites also include a vast amount of information about what
products and services prospective clients might be interested in. Through the use of
new Semantic Analysis technologies, marketers can detect buying signals, such as
content shared by people and questions posted online. Understanding of buying
signals can help sales people target relevant prospects and marketers run micro-
targeted campaigns.
In order to integrate Social Networks within their marketing strategies, companies
have to develop a marketing model. In a marketing model (SNeM2S) based on
Social Networks is provided. The model includes the following steps: • selection of
potential Social Networks to use; • definition of a financial plan; • definition of
organisational structures to manage the Social Network in the market; • selection
of target; • promotion of products and services; • performance measures
Social Networking is used by 76% of businesses today. Business retailers have
seen 133% increases in their revenues from social media marketing.
Social network advertising, also social media targeting is a group of terms that are
used to describe forms of Online advertising that focus on social networking sites.

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One of the major benefits of advertising on a social networking site
(e.g. Facebook, Myspace, Friendster, Bebo, Orkut, etc.) is that advertisers can take
advantage of the users demographic information and target their ads appropriately.
Social media targeting combines current targeting options
(like geotargeting, behavioral targeting, socio-psychographic targeting, etc.), to
make detailed target group identification possible. With social media targeting,
advertisements are distributed to users based on information gathered from target
group profiles.
Social network advertising is not necessarily the same as social media advertising.
Social media targeting is a method of optimizing social media advertising by using
profile data to deliver advertisements directly to individual users. Social media
targeting refers to the process of matching social network users to target groups
that have been specified by the advertiser.
MARKETERS promoting their products online have followed a fairly standard arc
historically, first buying digital ads and building their own Web sites in the early
years of the Internet, and more recently amassing followers on social networks
like Facebookand Twitter.
Now, companies increasingly are running online ads that focus less on pitching
their products than promoting their Facebookpages and Twitter accounts.

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One of the main purposes in employing Social Media in marketing is as a
communications tool that makes the companies accessible to those interested in
their product and make them visible to those who have no knowledge of their
products. These companies use social media to create buzz, learn from and target
customers. It's the only form of marketing that can finger consumers at each and
every stage of the consumer decision journey. Marketing through social media has
other benefits as well. Of the top 10 factors that correlate with a strong Google
organic search, seven are social media dependent.
This means that if brands are less or non active on social media, they tend to show
up less on Google searches. While platforms such
as Twitter, Facebook and Google+ have a larger amount of monthly users, The
visual media sharing based mobile platforms however, garner a higher interaction
rate in comparison and have registered the fastest growth and have changed the
ways in which consumers engage with brand content.
Instagram has an interaction rate of 1.46% with an average of 130 million users
monthly as opposed to Twitter which has a .03% interaction rate with an average
of 210 million monthly users. Unlike traditional media that are often cost-
prohibitive to many companies, a social media strategy does not require
astronomical budgeting. To this end, companies make use of platforms such as
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram in order to reach audiences much
wider than through the use of traditional print/TV/radio advertisements alone at a
fraction of the cost, as most social networking sites can be used at no cost.

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This has changed the ways that companies approach interact with customers, as a
substantial percentage of consumer interactions are now being carried out over
online platforms with much higher visibility. Customers can now post reviews of
products and services, rate customer service and ask questions or voice concerns
directly to companies through social media platforms.
Thus social media marketing is also used by businesses in order to build
relationships of trust with consumers. To this aim, companies may also hire
personnel to specifically handle these social media interactions, who usually report
under the title of Online community managers. Handling these interactions in a
satisfactory manner can result in an increase of consumer trust. To both this aim
and to fix the public's perception of a company, 3 steps are taken in order to
address consumer concerns, identifying the extent of the social chatter, engaging
the influencers to help, and developing a proportional response.

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TYPES OF ADVERTISEMENTS:-
 Online Advertising
Posting ads on websites that receive heavy traffic is one way to get the word
out about your business. Social networking sites such as Facebook or
MySpace have advertising programs with ads tailored to a particular
demographic. These ads show up only next to profiles that meet the
specifications of your product's target market. You can also use the Google
Ad Words service to postonline ads.
 Email marketing
Email marketing is directly marketing a commercial message to a group of
people using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or
current customer could be considered email marketing. It usually involves
using email to send ads, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and is
meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness.

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Broadly, the term is usually used to refer to sending email messages with the
purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or
previous customers, to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business,
acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase
something immediately, and adding advertisements to email messages sent
by other companies to their customers.
 Newspaper Ads
A traditional form of advertising, daily and weekly newspaper ads allow you
to target specific geographic neighborhoods. Attaching an incentive, such as
a coupon, to the ad can help track the ad's effectiveness. Purchasing an ad in
a section relevant to your business -- for example, a home improvement
business ad in the home and garden section -- can also help you to reach
target clients.
 Radio Advertising
A catchy jingle and quick tag line can enhance a radio ad's effectiveness.
Matching the station you choose with your target demographic is key. If you
want to reach adults aged 35 to 64, an adult contemporary station is a good
bet. An alternative or urban station is good to reach youth aged 18 to 24. At
the time of publication, radio ad provider Strategic Media reports that those
who buy products in response to a radio ad spend an average of $148 per
purchase, compared to an average of $98 for television infomercials.

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 Television Advertising
Television ads on local stations might require time and effort to produce, but
can be especially effective if you sell a product or service with a high price
point. At the time of publication, strategic Media states that a TV ad can cost
$50,000, while a radio ad will cost only $1,500. However, you can justify
the difference if a TV ad can reach customers who would not respond to
radio.
 Public Speaking
If the product you sell relates to your own expertise, public speaking can be
a great advertisement. Offer your services to organizations that could benefit
from one of your workshops or lectures. Bring business cards and
promotional materials to the event to encourage your audience to spread the
word about your services.
 Door Hangers and Flyers
Canvassing the neighborhood, placing flyers in mailboxes or hanging ads on
doorknobs, is a good way to target a specific area and to make sure your
potential customers have seen your information. Even if most homeowners
will discard the information, gaining a handful of clients may be enough for
a positive return on the marketing campaign investment.

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 Event Sponsorship
Advertising your product or service through event sponsorship can take
many forms. You might receive an acknowledgement in the event program,
have an on-site location where you can give out sample product, or your
company logo might appear on the event posters. One option for events that
require a hand-stamp for entry is to provide the venue with a stamp that
bears your company logo; the attendees will then have your logo close by for
a day or two afterwards.
 Word-of-Mouth Advertising
A non-traditional form of advertising, word-of-mouth advertising involves
hiring people to talk about your product or service in a public place in a way
that other people overhear them. Hired marketers can go into coffee shops in
pairs and talk audibly about your bike shop on 3rd Avenue or your door-to-
door leaf blowing service. The campaign is effective if the essential
information needed to send clients to your business is simple and easy to slip
into conversation

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Blocking/Ignoring of advertisements
When most people think about the size of the internet, they think in terms of the
number of unique people online. Research reports talk about how many people,
what devices they use (hint: lots of smartphones), their connection speed, and if
they are wired or wireless. The punchline -- pretty much every consumer in the
U.S. is online, and those that aren't now are likely never going to be. As a
developed economy, we're pretty damn close to complete saturation. All that
misses perhaps the most disruptive point about what's truly happening -- it's
the choices that those consumers have that are throwing the whole media
ecosystem into convulsions. It's those choices that drive Facebook to spend $19
billion on a text-messaging app. It's those choices that make a large and profitable
company like Yahoo worth a negative $10 billion.
Today there are more than 1 billion registered domains, or websites, on the
internet. Inside those websites are countless articles, videos, photos, and status
updates.
About 20 percent of all registered websites are "active," meaning a human being
has visited these sites at least once in the prior 30 days. That's 200 million active
websites, or choices, and that doesn't even begin to touch on how many pieces of
content are inside those active websites.

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Over the past several years, marketers have become increasingly sophisticated in
accessing and using data about consumers to purchase ads more efficiently and at
an obscenely good ROI. Publishers reacted predictably as economics ebbed.
These publishers began by a) bluntly refusing to embrace programmatic
advertising by assuming, incorrectly, that this would solve the fragmentation
problem and b) starting to add more ad slots and formats to their pages to keep
RPMs consistent with declining ad prices. The first action put the publishers at an
increasing disadvantage when it came to understanding and leveraging data to
balance the economic equation. And the second action simply added to the glut of
supply, making the first problem worse. Perhaps it's ignorance, or perhaps because
each stakeholder is acting solely in its own best interest -- but in either case,
consumer attention is fragmenting and therefore waning. And as we all know,
attention is the crucible for effective marketing.
Consumers today are inundated with ads. Some are neat little standard squares or
rectangles, some are "native" masquerading as content, and some exploit
voyeuristic attention-bait lists and links. As an individual consumer, it's getting
harder to find the actual content. More ads in more forms obviously mean more
options for advertisers, but the attention fragmentation of today's internet means
they must come with lower prices paid to achieve a reasonable ROI. That might
sound good to a marketer acting in a short run self interest, but it risks spoiling the
fertile soil of engagement and quality content.

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TYPES OF SOCIAL MEDIA:-
Twitter
Twitter allows companies to promote their products in short messages limited to
140 characters which appear on followers’ home pages. Messages can link to the
product’s website, Facebookprofile, photos, videos, etc.

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Facebook
Facebook pages are far more detailed than Twitter accounts. They allow a product
to provide videos, photos, and longer descriptions, and testimonials as other
followers can comment on the product pages for others to see. Facebook can link
back to the product’sTwitter page as well as send out event reminders.
A study from 2011 attributed 84% of "engagement" or clicks to Likes that link
back to Facebookadvertising.

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Google+
Google+, in addition to providing pages and some features of Facebook, is also
able to integrate with the Google search engine. Other Google products are also
integrated, such as Google Adwords and Google Maps. With the development
of Google Personalized Search and other location-based search services, Google+
allows for targeted advertising methods, navigation services, and other forms of
location-based marketing and promotion. Google+ can also be beneficial for other
digital marketing campaigns, as well as social media marketing. Google+
authorship was known to have a significant benefit on a website's search engine
optimisation, before the relationship was removed by Google. Google+ is one of
the fastest growing social media networks and can benefit almost any business.

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LinkedIn
LinkedIn, a professional business-related networking site, allows companies to
create professional profiles for themselves as well as their business to network and
meet others. Through the use of widgets, members can promote their various social
networking activities, such as Twitter stream or blog entries of their product pages,
onto their LinkedIn profile page. LinkedIn provides its members the opportunity to
generate sales leads and business partners. Members can use “Company Pages”
similar to Facebook pages to create an area that will allow business owners to
promote their products or services and be able to interact with their customers. Due
to spread of spam mail sent to job seeker, leading companies prefer to use
LinkedIn for employee's recruitment instead using different job portals.

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Yelp
Yelp consists of a comprehensive online index of business profiles. Businesses are
searchable by location, similar to Yellow Pages. The website is operational in
seven different countries, including the United States and Canada. Business
account holders are allowed to create, share, and edit business profiles. They may
post information such as the business location, contact information, pictures, and
service information. The website further allows individuals to write, post reviews
about businesses and rate them on a five-point scale. Messaging and talk features
are further made available for general members of the website, serving to guide
thoughts and opinions.

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Foursquare
Foursquare is a location based social networking website, where users can check
into locations via a Swarm app on their smartphones. Foursquare allows businesses
to create a page or create a new/claim an existing venue. A good marketing
strategy for businesses to increase foot traffic or retain loyal customers includes
offering incentives such as discounts or free food/beverages for people checking
into their location.

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Instagram
In May 2014, Instagram had over 200 million users. The user engagement rate of
Instagram was 15 times higher than of Facebook and 25 times higher than that of
Twitter. According to Scott Galloway, the founder of L2 and a professor of
marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, latest studies
estimate that 93 percent of prestige brands have an active presence on Instagram
and include it in their marketing mix. When it comes to brands and businesses,
Instagram's goal is to help companies to reach their respective audiences through
captivating imagery in a rich, visual environment. Moreover, Instagram provides a
platform where user and company can communicate publicly and directly, making
itself an ideal platform for companies to connect with their current and potential
customers.

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Many brands are now heavily using this mobile app to boost their visual marketing
strategy. Instagram can be used to gain the necessary momentum needed to capture
the attention of the market segment that has an interest in the product offering or
services. As Instagram is supported by Apple and android system, it can be easily
accessed by smart phone users. Moreover, it can be accessed by Internet as well.
Thus, the marketers see it as a potential platform to expand their brands exposure
to the public, especially the younger target group. Many big names have already
jumped on board: Starbucks, MTV, Nike, Marc Jacobs, Red Bull are a few
examples of multinationals that adopted the mobile photo app early.
Instagram has proven itself a powerful platform for marketers to reach their
customers and prospects through sharing pictures and brief messages. According to
a study by Simply Measured, 71 percent of the world’s largest brands are now
using Instagram as a marketing channel. For companies, Instagram can be used as
a tool to connect and communicate with current and potential customers. The
company can present a more personal picture of their brand, and by doing so the
company conveys a better and true picture of itself. The idea of Instagram pictures
lies on on-the-go, a sense that the event is happening right now, and that adds
another layer to the personal and accurate picture of the company. Another option
Instagram provides the opportunity for companies to reflect a true picture of the
brand through the perspective of the customers, for instance, using the user-
generated contents thought the hashtags encouragement. Other than the filters and
hashtags functions, the Instagram’s 15-second videos and the recently added ability
to send private messages between users have opened new opportunities for brands
to connect with customers in a new extent, further promoting effective marketing
on Instagram.

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YouTube
YouTube is another popular avenue; advertisements are done in a way to suit the
target audience. The type of language used in the commercials and the ideas used
to promote the product reflect the audience's style and taste. Also, the ads on this
platform are usually in sync with the content of the video requested, this is another
advantage YouTube brings for advertisers. Certain ads are presented with certain
videos since the content is relevant. Promotional opportunities such as sponsoring
a video is also possible on YouTube, "for example, a user who searches for a
YouTube video on dog training may be presented with a sponsored video from a
dog toy company in results along with other videos. YouTube also enable
publishers to earn money through its YouTube Partner Program.

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SocialBookmarking Sites
Websites such as Delicious, Digg, Slashdot and Reddit are popular social
bookmarking sites used in social media promotion. Each of these sites is dedicated
to the collection, curation, and organization of links to other websites. This process
is crowd sourced, allowing members to sort and prioritize links by relevance and
general category. Due to the large user bases of these websites, any link from one
of them to another, smaller website usually results in a flash crowd. In addition to
user generated promotion, these sites also offer advertisements within individual
user communities and categories. Because ads can be placed in designated
communities with a very specific target audience and demographic, they have far
greater potential for traffic generation than ads selected simply through cookie and
browser history. Additionally, some of these websites have also implemented

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measures to make ads more relevant to users by allowing users to vote on which
ones will be shown on pages they frequent. The ability to redirect large volumes
of web traffic and target specific, relevant audiences makes social bookmarking
sites a valuable asset for social media marketers.
Blogs
Platforms like LinkedIn create an environment for companies and clients to
connect online. Companies that recognize the need for information, originality, and
accessibility employ blogs to make their products popular and unique, and
ultimately reach out to consumers who are privy to social media.
Blogs allow a product or company to provide longer descriptions of products or
services, can include testimonials and can link to and from other social network
and blog pages. Blogs can be updated frequently and are promotional techniques
for keeping customers, and also for acquiring followers and subscribers who can
then be directed to social network pages.

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Online communities can enable a business to reach the clients of other businesses
using the platform. To allow firms to measure their standing in the corporate
world, sites like Glassdoor enable employees to place evaluations of their
companies. Some businesses opt out of integrating social media platforms into
their traditional marketing regimen. There are also specific corporate standards that
apply when interacting online. To maintain an advantage in a business-consumer
relationship, businesses have to be aware of four key assets that consumers
maintain: information, involvement, community, and control.
Tumblr
Tumblr first launched ad products on May 29, 2012. Rather than relying on simple
banner ads, Tumblr requires advertisers to create a Tumblr blog so the content of
those blogs can be featured through the site. In one year, four native ad formats
were created on web and mobile, and had more than 100 brands advertising on
Tumblr with 500 cumulative sponsored posts.

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The ads, which have menu tabs and increasingly resemble mini-Web sites
themselves, allow users to click within the ad to see a brand’s Twitter messages or
Facebook wall posts in real time, or to watch a brand’s video content from
YouTube — all without leaving the Web page where the ad appears. In a survey of
700 marketers from all over the globe, Wildfire App discovered that nearly
all marketers find value from social media and that 75% of marketers plan to
increase their media spending in 2012.
The top two benefits highlighted by these marketers are increased brand awareness
and the ability to engage in dialogue directly with their customers. This compares
similarly to the 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report where we found
88% of marketers also indicated increased exposure to be the number-one benefit
of social media marketing.
Borrell Associates found that small- and medium-sized businesses (SMB) will
double their social media advertising budget in 2012. That’s up to an estimated $2
billion in the U.S. alone.
Over the last three years however with the gigantic boom in social media, a lot of
firms have been slowly realizing the true power of social media when used wisely.
The most effective ad agencies realize that it is not just about buying ad space,
especially with this troubling economy, it is about being smart and realizing how to
take advantage of the non-costly avenues that are available to you.

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There are some simple ways for monitoring activity on social media platforms.
Some obvious ways are internal methods such as monitoring Facebook likes,
retweets on Twitter, basically tracking what your customers are interested in and
changing what isn’t working.
1. SocialMention
 Social Mention will allow you to track and measure who is talking about
you, your company, your product, or any topic related to your industry.
Social Mention pulls data from hundred + social media platforms to give
you the most accurate, real-time information landscape in real-time.
2. TweetDeck
 TweetDeck is an effective and useful tool that allows you to arrange feeds
from all of your social networks in one place using the TweetDeck
dashboard. You can also schedule tweets and set-up customizable feeds for
your social search needs. Lists can also be created of the people you follow.
These lists can allow you to manage different target groups you want to
interact with and keep an eye on what’s being tweeted about.

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3. Hootsuite
 It’s easy to use and allows you to organize and execute campaigns across
multiple social networks from one secure, web-based dashboard. Hootsuite
enables organizations launch marketing campaigns, identify and grow
audiences.
 Key social network integrations include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,
and Google+ Pages, plus a suite of social content apps for YouTube, Flickr,
Tumblr and more.
 Hootsuite’s geo-location and geo- targeting can help get your business more
seen on social media platforms. HootSuite also offers tools to help multiple
collaborators be assigned to manage your social media accounts more
securely. Analytics tools are also available on Hootsuite to get more of an
insight into your businesses participation on social media platforms.
4. Twilert
 Twilert is a Twitter monitoring application that monitors all mentions of
your chosen keywords across the Twitter-sphere. What’s best about Twilert
is that it doesn’t simply monitor @mentions or hashtags, but monitors all
words within a tweet. So you will never miss out on anything you are
searching for. It’s an easy platform to use for social analytics. You can sign
in to Twilert with your Google or Twitter account. The keywords you search
can be sent directly to your email address.

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 What’s great about Twilert as well is that you can do an advanced search for
any topic. You can choose a particular geographical area. Maybe a certain
target audience you haven’t quite targeted yet that you want to do some
market research on, to see if your product or service meets their needs. You
can search by peoples attitude either positive, negative or asking a
question. This could be quite useful. See picture below to get a better
understanding of the advanced search toolfor Twilert.
5. Sprout Social
 Sprout Social lets you monitor your business & manage conversations with
one simple marketing analytics tool. Publish & schedule updates across
social channels with a single click. Manage teams, large social channels,
tasks and assignments to make life a bit easier.
 Sprout Social allows you to monitor your business efficiently and effectively
and help manage&grow your social presence across different platforms.
Sprout Social integrates with Twitter, Facebook Pages, LinkedIn,
FourSquare and other networks where your target market could be engaging
with businesses similar to yours. Other useful tools on Sprout Social are
contact management, competitive insight, lead generation, analytics.
 Sprout Social offers a thirty day free trial. So give it a try if you think it
would be a useful analytics tool for your business.

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6. Social Oomph
 Social Oomph is a useful marketing tool especially for Twitter. Twitter is an
excellent way for a business to build relationships with customers and assist
in retaining them as well.
 There are different tools that will let you manage multiple Twitter profiles
and you can configure lots of features such as Auto Direct Message, Auto
Follow and Auto unfollow.
 If it’s suitable for your business then I would suggest sending an auto direct
message to all your new followers. You have more than likely been sent one
by someone you have followed. Here an example: Thanks for connecting
here on Twitter, will love to see you on Facebook[Link]
 Twitter users will usually follow you because you follow them back and
later on if they unfollow you. Social Oomph’s Twitter auto unfollow tool
will come in handy to help clean up your newsfeed.
7. Sysomos
 Sysomos another great social media analytics tool for businesses. Sysomos
is the greek word for “everything together “. You will be provided with
intelligence and insights needed to measure results and ultimately make
decisions on what’s working and what’s not working.

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 Sysomos collects data from blogs, Twitter, social networks, messages,
boards, wikis and major news sources. Sysomos give you the ability to
notice the tone of conversations and identify opinions by gender, age and
location.
 Some of Sysomos’ products include: Heartbeat, a social media monitoring
and measurement tool. Heartbeat provides constantly updated snapshots of
social media conversations delivered using a variety of user-friendly and
intuitive graphics. Sysomos MAP, and Traffic Analytics. You can request a
demo here.
8. Brand Monitor
 Brand Monitor is an easy-to-use social media monitoring and engagement
platform. Brand Monitor provides a powerful blend of consumer brand
choice, multi-dimensional insights and relative acumen. A dashboard is
available for you to view weekly trends, reaction meter, posts volume,
reaction graph and top referrals. A graph with positive and negative response
trends for the past month can also be viewed.
 Sentiments can be manually updated and Brand Monitor is capable of
learning this and using this information to assign sentiment for future posts.
An email can be sent to you daily, weekly and monthly that will keep you
updated. Dashboard Charts and other data can be easily exported into an
editable Excel sheet or CSV file.

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9. Google Alerts
 Google Alerts is another effective monitoring system to analyse social
media. You can track anything you want. It can be a useful way for finding
out what’s being said about you or your company. You can keep track of
articles you write under your name; monitoring the competition or simply to
keep up to date on any given topic.
 You can set up Google Alerts to monitor certain keywords, such as your
blog name, your business name and your personal name, and you
will receive an e-mail any time they find those keywords in their search.
With Google Alerts, you can be instantly notified when and where any bad
content was placed on any social media platform and be able to respond
accordingly.
 It is essential for every organization to monitor and track what is being said
about them. It is especially important to interact with customers through
social media platforms and analyse any areas of their social media platforms
that need to be improved and essentially keep up to this on this very fast
paced environment.

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LITERATURE REVIEW

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(Trusov, Bucklin, & Pauwels, 2009), (Akrimi & Khemakhem, 2012). In recent
years, social networking sites and social media have increased in popularity, at a
global level. For instance, Facebook is said to have more than a billion active users
(as of 2012) since its beginning in 2004 (www.facebook.com). Social networking
sites can be described as networks of friends for social or professional interactions.
Indeed, online social networks have profoundly changed the propagation of
information by making it incredibly easy to share and digest information on the
internet.
(Mangold & Faulds, 2009)The unique aspects of social media and its immense
popularity have revolutionized marketing practices such as advertising and
promotion (Hanna, Rohm, & Crittenden, 2011). Social media has also influenced
consumer behavior from information acquisition to post-purchase behavior such as
dissatisfaction statements or behaviors and patterns of Internet usage.
(Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010) Social media is ‘‘a group of internet based applications
that builds on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and it
allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content’’. Social media has
many advantages as it helps connect businesses to consumers, develop
relationships and foster those relationships in a timely manner and at a low cost.

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(Williams & Cothrell, 2000) Other functions of social media involve affecting and
influencing perceptions, attitudes and end behavior, while bringing together
different like-minded people (Hagel & Armstrong, 1997). In an online
environment, Laroche (2012) pointed out that people like the idea of contributing,
creating, and joining communities to fulfill needs of belongingness, being socially
connected and recognized or simply enjoying interactions with other like-minded
members.
(Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Laroche et.al. 2012) The much higher level of
efficiency of social media compared to other traditional communication channels
prompted industry leaders to state that companies must participate in Facebook,
Twitter, MySpace, and others, in order to succeed in online environments. Thus,
more industries try to benefit from social media as they can be used to develop
strategy, accept their roles in managing others’ strategy or follow others’
directions.
(Mersey, Malthouse, & Calder 2010) Social media websites provide an opportunity
for companies to engage and interact with potential and current consumers, to
encourage an increased sense of intimacy of the customer relationship, and build
all important meaningful relationships with consumers especially in today’s
business environment when consumer loyalty can vanish at the smallest mistake,
which can additionally have online propagation of their unfortunate encounter with
a particular product, service, brand or company.

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Some companies are beginning to take notice of the power of social media. A few
corporate social networking websites already allow consumers to not only
exchange information about products or services, but also engage in co-creating
value in online experiences with offline outcomes, with both current and potential
consumers.
Vellido et al. (1999) investigated consumers’ opinion on online purchasing and
online vendors that seem to consist of the underlying dimensions ‘‘control and
convenience,’’ ‘‘trust and security,’’ ‘‘affordability,’’ ‘‘ease of use,’’ and
‘‘effort/responsiveness.’’ Using these dimensions as a segmentation base discerns
seven segments: ‘‘unconvinced,’’ ‘‘security conscious,’’ ‘‘undecided,’’
‘‘convinced,’’ ‘‘complexity avoiders,’’ ‘‘cost conscious,’’ and ‘‘customer service
wary.’’
Starting from consumers’ motivations to use the Internet, McDonald (1996)
segmented the Internet audience as ‘‘avid adventurers,’’ ‘‘fact collectors,’’
‘‘entertainment seekers,’’ and ‘‘social shoppers.’’
Also, Brengman et al. (2005) performed a cluster analysis based on seven factors,
such as “Internet convenience”, www.ccsenet.org/ijbm International Journal of
Business and Management Vol. 8, No. 14; 2013 “perceived self-inefficacy”,
“Internet logistics”, “Internet distrust”, “Internet offer”, “Internet Window -
shopping”.

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

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Introduction
 “Marketing Research is the function which links the consumer, customer and
the public to the marketer through information - information used to identify
and define the marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine and
evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve
understanding of market as a process.”
 Marketing research specifies the information required to address these
issues; designs the method for collecting information; manages and
implements the data collection process; analyses the results; and
communicates the findings and their implications. My marketing Research is
on customer satisfaction.
 However, there are also some limitations of marketing research like it is not
exact science and is too faulty and superficial in industry.
Research Design
 The research design for this study is Descriptive research.
 Descriptive research, also known as statistical research, describes data and
characteristics about the population or phenomenon being studied.
Descriptive research answers the questions who, what, why and how.

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Data collection Method:
• Researcher instruments is the tool by which the researcher can do research on
specific problems or objective. The most popular researcher instrument for
collection data is “Questionnaire” for a particular investigation.
• It is simple for a moiled set of questions presented to respondents for their
answers. Due to this flexibility, it is most common instrument used to collect the
primary data.
• During the pre-testing of questionnaire, I seen the reaction of respondents and
suggestions required to make change in research instrument. The questionnaire
contains three types of questions.
(A) Dichotomous question
(B) Multiple-choice question
(A) Dichotomous questions:
 It has only two answers in form ‘yes’ or ‘no’, ‘true’ or ‘false’, ‘use’ or ‘do
not use’. So the respondentis offered two or more choice.

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(B) Multiple-choice question:
 In this, the respondent is offered two or more choice. Here we use
Questionnaire .This is the most popular method for conducting the survey. It
helped in collecting the information from the framed question, to get
maximum necessary data for research.
Sampling Plan:
 Sample area: Ahmedabad City
 Sample Size: 200
 Sampling method: Random Convenience Sampling Method.
ResearchObjectives:
 To know the impact of social media advertisement.

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Source of Data:
(A). PRIMARY DATA
(B). SECONDARY DATA
(A) Primary Data:
 Data which are collected at first hand is primary data for collecting primary
data, There are four methods i.e. observation method, laboratory experiment
method, field experiment method and survey method. The questionnaire
should be designed well so the study becomes easy. It can be done through
personal interview, telephonic interview and mail questionnaire method.
(B) Secondarydata:
 Any data which have been gathered earlier for some other purpose are
secondary data in the hands of the data in the hands of the marketing
researcher. Thus, primary data collected by one person may become the
secondarydata for another.
 secondary data should not be outdated. The sources of the secondary data are
accounting records, sales force reports, internal experts, other responds of
company and government publications, none-government and organizations
publications etc.
 Internet
 News papers

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Advantages:-
 Advertisers can reach users who are interested in their products
 Allows for detailed analysis and reporting (including Business Intelligence)
 The information gathered is real, not from statistical projections
 Does not access IP-Addresses ofthe users
Disadvantages:-
1. The wrong online brand strategy could put you at a viral social disadvantage and
may even damage your reputation, i.e, when you make a mistake offline, a few will
know but when you make a mistake in front of hundreds or thousands of you
online audience, most of them will know!
2. Using social media for marketing and advertising could be more time consuming
than companies expect.
3. In order to get social media’s full effect, you need to understand how it works,
when and how to use it and which channels to focus on depending on your end
goal of using social media.
4. Social media can have a negative influence on worker productivity. Employees
may waste valuable time using social media channels such as Facebook and
Twitter. They can also use social media to attack the company’s reputation!
5. When social media is used excessively or in the wrong way, it could have serious
detrimental outcomes on both mental and even physical health of individuals.

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Questionnaire:-
Q.1 Age
 16-25 years
 26-35 years
 36 and more
Q.2 Qualification
 Undergraduate
 Graduate
 Postgraduate
Q.3 Employment detail
 Privet employee
 Government employee
 Businessman
 Student
 Housewife
 Professional
Q.4 Are you aware about any socialnetworking websites where you can
make a friends and socialize?
 Yes
 No
 Don’t know

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Q.5 which of the following websites are you aware of (can tick one or more)
 Face book
 LinkedIn
 Twitter
 Google +
 Tumblr
 Other _____________________
Q.6 Are you a registeredmember of social networking websites?
 Yes
 No
Q.7 Which of the following websites you a registeredmember are of (can tick
one or more?
 Facebook
 Linkedin
 Twitter
 Google +
 Tumblr
 Other
Q.8 How long have you being using socialnetworking websites?
 Less than 1 month
 1 Month to a year
 1-2 years
 2 years or more

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Q.9 How many hours a week do you spend on socialnetworking websites?
 0-5 hours
 6-10 hours
 11-20 hours
 21-30 hours
 30 hours and more
Q.10 Do you notice any offer/advertisementfor products/services ona social
networking site?
 Yes
 No
Q.11 Do you like to receive information on new products/offers services via
advertisements on socialnetworking site?
 Yes
 No
Q-12 which type of advertisements contentyou like to view on websites?
 Fitness
 Discount offers
 Sports
 Lifestyle products

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Q-13 Do you block any advertisements on any socialmedia/ websites if the
content is not as per your interest/ likings?
 Yes
 No
Q-14 would you registeryourself to any websites and make payments for the
blockings of inappropriate advertisements?
 Yes
 No
Q-15 The advertisements on which type of websites do you find more
interesting and involving?
 Social media
 Personal websites
 Blogs
 Online directories
 E-commerce websites

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Q.16 Have you ever purchased any service/products onthe basis of
information you receivedthrough a socialnetworking website?
 Yes
 No
Q-17 Give your reviews for questions below.
Strongly
agree
Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly
disagree
Advertisements are an
intrusion to privacy
Comfortable in receiving
ads relatedto the interest
Notice the ads if they state
benefits
Information received via
advertisements keep up to
date
Share information received
from advertisements with
family/friend
Ads helps in choosing
products/services

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Q.18 as a mode of communicating marketing updates, an advertisements on
social networking websitesis
 Informative
 Redundant
 Convenient
 Intrusive
 Short on details
 Compactand relevant detail