SOCIAL MEDIA

GBMP 509-02 Assignment 3 & 4 Integrated Phase # 1 Business Research Methods Prof: Lisa Mclachlan
Submitted by: Farrukh Shafaat (821-220-696) Sumeet Raju (821-166-576) Dapinder Singh (820-921-872)

SOCIAL MEDIA

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: To create a branded online presence through the use of social media that will allow Lisa Mclachlan (Our Client) to: To find the demographics that makes the most use of social media. Identify the target segments (potential customers) among the social media users that

our client should be interested in. Determine if the clients product and business model is compatible with social media

based marketing approach or not.

Determine whether it is beneficial to shift the focus from traditional marketing to social

media based marketing. On the basis of research findings, compute if the social media marketing approach

presents any strategic or economic value to the client or not. TOOLS OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Primary social media tools consist of: Blogs Social network websites (LinkedIn, Facebook) Micro blogs (Twitter) Image share portals (Flickr) Video share portals (YouTube) Mash up websites (user-customized portals that receive data from multiple sources) Third-party review sites & Check-in websites (Yelp, Foursquare)

WHY SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING? Social media is a perfect extension of traditional networking; the big difference is that anyone can effectively extend themselves without geographical boundaries or personal introduction. Social media is also an extremely viable marketing solution that doesnt require a large budget or extensive resources. With todays economy, there are few silver-bullets left for small businesses. Like many effective Internet marketing activities, intelligence combined with a good plan and follow-through can make a big difference, without a big price tag. TOP SOCIAL MEDIA QUESTIONS MARKETERS AND OUR CLIENT LISA MCLACHLAN WANT ANSWERED

RESEARCH: (SECONDARY) Time commitment for social media marketing:

A significant 58% of marketers are using social media for 6 hours or more each week and 34% for 11 or more hours weekly. It's interesting to note that 15% of marketers spend more than 20 hours each week on social media. The experience factor:

There's a direct relationship between how marketers have been using social media and their weekly time commitment. For people just beginning with social media, 59% spend 1 to 5 hours per week. However, for folks who have been doing this for a few months or longer, most spend 6 hours or more per week on social media activities. Age Factor:

There's a direct relationship between age and time spent on social media. The younger the marketer, the more time he or she spends on social media. People aged 20 to 29 years spend more time than other age groups using social media marketing (with 41% spending 11+ hours weekly), followed by 30to 39-year-olds (37% spending 11+ hours per week). This is an increase over our 2010 study. BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING The number-one benefit of social media marketing is standing out in an increasingly noisy world. A significant 88% of all marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses. Improving traffic and subscribers was the second major benefit, with 72% reporting

positive results. Nearly two-thirds of marketers indicated a rise in search engine rankings was a benefit of social media marketing.

As search engine rankings improve, so will business exposure and lead generation efforts, and overall marketing expenses will decrease. Slightly more than half of marketers found social media generated qualified leads. LISA HERE ARE SOME BREIF DETAILS ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA Brand Establishment and Awareness Creation

Most people all over the world are all over the social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Making your brand name known across these networks is a fast developing method of creating awareness and to establish your brand identity. Make interesting and highly entertaining YouTube videos that your audience would be eager to share. Also, creating entertaining online community that would be enticing and interesting for your customers to visit (using Twitter or Facebook) will increase your brand popularity. Social Media Network Enables You to Spy on Your Competitors

Social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter are great places to spy your competitors and to know what they are up to; this way, you can come up with a better strategy to outdo them. Advertise Your Products with a Mix of Fun and Interaction

Facebook and other top social media networks are great places to advertise your products for free; however, you must not pitch sales tone to avoid irritating your friends/follower who are in the social network solely to friend and share. Incorporate entertainment onto your ads and use engaging questions to get them to respond. You will generate customers this way, without being outright with your ads. Direct the Attention of Your Audience to Your Product

Once you get your brand name running on a social media network, you are already on a fast track towards getting attention of people to your offerings (your products and/or services). Accompany your brand with online promotion to the benefit of members of your community. Then watch how your sales will skyrocket. Social Media Enables You to Grow Customer Loyalty and Trust

You can achieve this by communicating with your customers on a personal level; this way, they will feel at home, as though they are relating to a friend rather than a company. This is a fast way to build customer loyalty and trust. Also, they will be willing to refer your business to others.

RESEARCH METHODS THAT CAN BE USED FOR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Statistics based mathematical tools form the base of any quantitative research. The main tools of quantitative research are surveys, questionnaire and scales. In this approach of marketing

research, a large sample from the target market is selected and the numerical data from the responses is analyzed used statistical models to draw the inferences. Since our client wants to determine the benefits of social media marketing for her company, it makes sense to go for online surveys. Some of the main reasons for this choice are as follows: Online surveys are relatively less expensive than the traditional forms of market

research Response rate is comparatively high i.e. more people prefer to answer online surveys

because it is less time consuming and people are more comfortable while answering the questions discretely sitting in the comfort of their homes or offices. It is easy to reach out to a large number of people. It is easy to design and modify the questionnaire if the need arises. It is more convenient and efficient to collect and analyse the responses by the online

participants. Most importantly, the participants in case of online surveys coincide with our clients

intended target market i.e. social media users. So the responses will be more reliable and a true representation of the actual situation. Search engine optimization is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion. Surprisingly, most marketers (71%) indicated they were planning on increasing their search engine optimization efforts.

Email marketing is directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using electronic mail 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 any email communication that is meant to build loyalty, trust or brand awareness. Email marketing can be done to either cold lists or current customer database.

Nearly 2 in 3 marketers (64%) plan on increasing their email marketing efforts in the near future. Small businesses were more likely to do so than large businesses.

Event marketing

A significant 60% of marketers plan on increasing their event marketing and speaking engagements. B2B are significantly more likely (67%) to increase event marketing than B2C (53%). The self-employed (70%) and small business owners (65%) are significantly more likely to use event marketing than large corporations (43% to 38%, depending on number of employees). Online advertising is a form of promotion that uses the Internet and World Wide Web to deliver marketing messages to attract customers. Examples of online advertising include contextual ads on search engine results pages, banner ads, blogs, Rich Media Ads, Social network advertising, interstitial ads, online classified advertising, advertising networks and e-mail marketing, including e-mail spam. Many of these types of ads are delivered by an Ad server. Press release or a Media release, as it is also called, is a condensed article that is written in a journalistic style. The purpose of the news release is to highlight interesting and newsworthy news about your company or organization. Press release publishing offers benefits to any business, and is a powerful marketing tool in an integrated marketing plan. Sponsorships, with this in mind, you can find unlimited opportunities to broaden your competitive advantage by increasing your credibility, image and prestige in sponsoring events attracting your target

market. Some trade show promotional opportunities include sponsorship of the press room, an international lounge, a speaker or VIP room, an awards reception, educational programs, banners, badge holders, audio visual equipment, display computers, tote bags, shuttle buses, napkins and drink cups. OTHERS CAN BE: Direct mail Print Ads Radio Ads Television Ads Mobile/Cellular Ads Collaborations with various top social websites

SAMPLING SIZE AND TECHNIQUES: It is advisable to go for a large sample size if the resources permit so, because small sample sizes do not necessarily reflect the ground realities. Since we are going for online surveys, large sample size can easily be accommodated at a negligible extra cost. The data collected from large sample of respondents is more reliable and valid. The next step is the selection of survey participants. This is referred to as sampling. The main concern here is to make sure that all the demographics of the target market are covered so that we can get accurate data. The target market for our client is social media users which mostly consist of young and middle aged men and women. Among this demographic, our focus should be on people that are regular users of online shopping services. However, if the scale of our clients operations is large, we

have to make sure that all the geographic areas that are part of the intended target market are represented carefully. Then we move on to preparation and distribution of survey questionnaire to the prospective respondents. It has to be kept in mind that questionnaire covers all the topics to collect the data necessary for achieving the research objectives. Unnecessary questions should be avoided as it may discourage a participant from answering the questionnaire. Although online surveys are convenient and user-friendly, not all persons may be interested in spending their time answering questions. In some cases, we have to provide some kind of incentive to the respondents. Some websites pay their users to respond to the surveys. It would be beneficial to hire the services of such a website if the number of responses is less than expected. BEST METHOD THAT CAN BE USED: SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION MARKETING AND EMAIL MARKETING The most popular method used to find websites (SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION MARKETING) People use search engines - a lot Qualified traffic ready to buy (Traffic search engines and directories deliver to websites is highly qualified because users are actively searching for the information.) More effective than banners (There are 5 6 times more online purchases made from traffic delivered by search engines compared to banner advertising. The cost for online marketing campaigns using search engines is significantly lower than that for banner advertising. Not only are search engines highly effective online marketing tools theyre also cost efficient.) Marketing managers "know" they work. (Given the above facts, its not surprising that 66% of web marketers rated search engine marketing as the top method for driving traffic to their web

sites. Second was email marketing (54%) (American Direct Marketing Association survey - Aug 2000) The experts say they work. (A report by Forrester Research stated "search engines reach valuable, motivated, and ready customers. To capitalize on search as a marketing tool, marketers should shift acquisition email and ad dollars to search..." (Forrester Research - April 2002) Competitors inaction (search engines may be the top method for finding sites on the Web, but only a small percentage of businesses dedicate a portion of their marketing budget for building cohesive search engine strategies. This gap between recognition of the benefits of search engine marketing and actually doing it is your opportunity. By exploiting it you can give your business a competitive advantage.) EMAIL MARKETING 1. Global reach: No matter where you are or whom you need to reach, targeted emails

pave the way. Borders are no obstacles in email marketing. 2. Lower cost: Costs incurred in designing, executing, testing, sending and receiving an

email is up to 78% less for a run of 5000 over paper-based direct mail version. When you add email to your marketing mix, you spend less time, money and resources than with traditional marketing vehicles like direct mail or print advertising. 3. Interactive: You can innovatively initiate campaigns using graphics, videos, music, quiz,

game or whatever that will be of interest to your prospect, to grab his attention and interest immediately. 4. Highly personalized: Email enables you to personalize and greet every person you

target. This helps in creating a special bond with the prospects.

5.

Round the clock marketing: With an email the audience can understand your offering

even when you are out of office. 6. Measurable results: Special tools are available that accurately measure click-through

rate, conversion rate, how a person one arrived at your website, and more, to enable you to assess the success of different email campaigns. 7. Targeted marketing: Since prepackaged and custom-built lists are available, you could

reach only those who might require your services, solutions or products without bothering those who do not. You can select each one of your targets based on geography, age, income, spends, and many other parameters. 8. Opt-in or unsubscribe options: Emails contain opt-in and opt-out options which help you

to shortlist your prospects and reach only the ones genuinely interested in your offerings. 9. Faster response: Time to receive responses through e-mail is one to three days, where

you will get maximum responses on day one itself, while a direct mail campaign would take minimum 7 to 12 days to generate any responses. Further, responding to a direct mail is more cumbersome, while a person can respond to an email immediately. 10. Simplest: Executing an email campaign is simple and you can do it sitting at home

without any extensive resources. REFERENCES: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/ http://expansionplus.com/impr/social-media.html http://www.slideshare.net/pauljamesclark/social-media-marketing-proposal http://www.social-marketing.com/research.html http://www.selfseo.com/story-14500.php http://www.viz.co.nz/search-engine-marketing-a.htm