Advantages And Disadvantages Of Social Networking In Businesses

Background to the Research (Literature Review)

This report provides an intensive analysis of advantages and disadvantages of social networking in businesses. The major purpose of the report is to examine potential advantages and drawbacks associated with social networking in today’s modern businesses. So, the research has been performed on Iceland Food Retail which has incorporated social networking into its businesses. The research particularly focuses on the emergence of social networking, how social networking has been incorporated into businesses, the profits businesses gains from social networking, the challenges that business faces during the operation due to social networking.

Social networking has fundamentally changed the way businesses interact with the consumers. As social media has incorporated several functions and reaching capability, it made many changes in the ways businesses communicate with their existing and potential clients. The social networking particularly has changed the business landscape for both organizations and the business landscape which have incorporated them and for those who did not. According to Turban et al. (2017), social networking fins it easy to learn what is significant to customers due to deliberate and planned approach in the era of empowered customers. Business which incorporates social networking platforms as the core part of their strategy better understand that social networking environments should not be used push out promotional activities but should be used to develop a collaborative communication with the clients, employees and other prospects to obtain significant understanding and sustainable relationship.

However, even though, it is undeniable that social media provides optimal opportunities to develop, shape and expand businesses but not all the time social networking provides the same. This means there can be several disadvantages such as inclusion of resources, negative feedbacks, ineffective uses and many more. Many studies have been performed on the incorporation or adoption of social networking but most of the studies are unclear about challenges and drawbacks associated with social networking (Men  and Tsai  2014). Thus, it is necessary to perform a research on this context, which would help to identify the specific advantages and disadvantages associated with social networking when adopting to businesses. This research may prove to be effective for the emerging businesses, especially of those adopting social networking in the recent time or the large corporations that are in the process of expanding their operation in the global markets through social networking. Even though, the research is performed on Iceland Food Retail but the findings provide many ideas that in general helps other business to lead with respect to the use of social networking.

Advantages of Social Networking in Businesses

Kasavana, Nusair and Teodosic (2010) performed a study on the effect of social networking in today’s modern businesses and discovered that organizations that have incorporated a strategic approach when using social media holds the capability of gaining competitive advantages. Thereby, the businesses with such strategy can get customer information using social networking sites faster than the business with a traditional model. According to the author, the organizations can develop business models which are flexible to use and deal with the customer change in real-time using the cloud service. Baltar and Brunet (2012) performed a research and mentioned that organizations can achieve better outcome and greater scale of satisfaction if and when they apply more comprehensive approaches to the incorporation of social media with a single point solution. This should be incorporatedintoseveralelements of the business. When it comes to using social media, Smith and Zook (2011) mentioned that organizations may use it a resource to collect data, a platform of building relationship and also the platforms for sales and development of services. On the basis of this findings, it can be added that a comprehensive approach to social networking enable organizations to make a link between their effective traditional technique and effective social networking to reach the customer satisfaction goals (Madera  2012).

However, Shih (2011) argued that maintaining or developing substantial endeavour and time should be there to build an interactive social media networking environment. Thus, an organization might have to deal with a significant marketing factor, if it is facing the challenge of limited resources. Another study performed by Cook (2017), mentioned that users in social media have made a significant use of platforms, as they can share and post whatever they want; for example a happy customer can share a glowing review with wide but an unsatisfied customer can use the opportunity to share negative reviews about the brand or the organization. Picazo-Vela et al. (2012) argued that negative reviews could come from the internal environment of the business, for example, when dissatisfied employees share their concerns, they may use the medium to tarnish the brand image of the organization. According to the author, such negative reviews could present a bad impression to the public and it can also damage the potential client base.

A study carried out on the implementation of social networking in businesses by Leonardi,  Huysman and Steinfield (2013), mention the fact that people can share whatever they want on social media without a proper or depth understanding. According to the author, such poor though of post can create negative consequence for an organization with a large number of audience. So, here the mistakes hardly go unobserved. The study provided the example that social media controllers of Digino Pizza have observed the hashtag “#whyIsayed” was trending on social networking site like Twitter and they used the trend by adding “#whyIstayed You Had Pizza”(Diginos.com 2018). This is ideal statement used for conventional promotion but when thinking deeply, the hashtag is used to describe the reasons behind why the victims of domestic violence stay in an abusive relationship. Therefore, audience from different regional environments threw their negative remarks for such way of posting. Particularly, people have considered it that organization was having the fun in the pain of others. Audiences have strongly criticized the brand for inadequate information and carelessness when using a global media (Moqbel,   Nevo  and Kock  2013).

Disadvantages of Social Networking in Businesses

Gronum, Verreynne and Kastelle (2012) mentioned that users in the social networking environment can be dynamic in their way of using; thereby, managing them may require an attractive posts that make them desire for more. Nonetheless, to do this, the individuals may require a significant level of creativity which are usually not found in them. Although, this is known as the challenge, if a business spends or make a significant investment of time and effort, it could be able to reach the milestone (Treem  and Leonardi  2013). This is highly required for developing a sustainable relationship with customers to make them pay repeated visits.  (Gronum, Verreynne and Kastelle 2012).  Furthermore, Kirti? and Karahan (2011) have mentioned that there is a significant exposure to the online, market could present significant challenges such as information leak, hacking. Thus, if the organization is not concerned, the competitors can use the information the organization shares on social media. This could certain affect the overall brand image of the business.

It is certain that social networking is an emerging trend which reports a rapid growth in a way that businesses are able to reach out the targeted customers quite easily. In a general sense, businesses uses the social media channels to promote their predicts and service’s as well s interact with the customers. However, when delving into the use of social media, some major advantages and disadvantages associated with social networking sites have been discovered.

Advantages

Culnan, McHugh and Zubillaga (2010) particularly mentioned that cost of running promotional, selling or advertising activities in social media platforms is typically lower than the marketing platforms like face to face salesperson or the distributors. This study also provides the fact that social media marketing allows organizations to reach customers that may not be accessible because of the temporal as well as the regional restrictions of existing distributional channels (Kluemper,   Rosen  and Mossholder  2012). For example, Amazon presently holds the top position in terms of customer base; it has used the popular social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram where millions of users remain active on a regular basis (Amazon.com 2018). Hence, Amazon plays a dual role in managing social media tools; it promotes its products through advertising on the mentionedsocial media channels; likewise, it has administrative pages on Facebook where it responds to customer queries. Consequently, people living in the remote areas learn about products and services of Amazon through Facebook in a random manner (Nikolaou  2014).

Challenges of Social Networking in Businesses

Cost-related

As put forward by Aral, Dellarocas and Godes (2013), the organizations gain the major advantages of social networking that are related financial barrier and expense. The author ha particularly mentioned that most of social networking sites do not charge any cost when accessing and posting any information. Nonetheless, the marketing campaigns with conventional approaches may charge millions of dollars but here channels of social media for the use of operation. Qualman (2010) mentioned that small business can operate marketing campaign with the use of scoail media channels under a limited budget. Thus, the benefits of reaching target audience for a limited investment could be sunbstantial and consumers looking for organizational information follow the brand. In addition, the pay-per click avermentactivities in social media sites such as Facebook are “geo targeted” in accordance with the particular criteria to reach the appropriate audience. Shih (2011) provided the fact about viral nature of social media which means the users who are having the capability to read and share the news further within her own cycle. Therefore, the information can reach a large number of people in a short time.

Social Interaction

As put forward by Andzulis, Panagopoulos and Rapp (2012), one of the significant prominences of social networking is that it increased the frequency and developed new kinds of social communication. Audiences spend a lot time online; such as they remain involved in communication practise that appear similar to the total time spent for general entertainment. Zeng and Gerritsen (2014) performed a consumer behaviour study and revealed the fact larger access consideration to suggestions and information found online and websites providing third party progress stealing more time of the users. On the other side, Evans (2010) mentioned that such kind of information can directly influence the buying decisions even if it received from authentically virtual sources.

Interactivity

A study performed by Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick (2012), mentioned the fact interactivity is not similar to the practice of watching TV or listening to radio channels; rather it could allow new consumers to become a recipients of inspiration. Chen, Chiang and Storey (2012) mentioned that interactivity can broadly be used as the degree to which users can be involved in the modification form as well as the content of the mediated platform in a significant manner. A study performed by Berthonet al. (2012), increasing range of interactivity may lead to constant involvement and more positive attitudes towards the websites with rising level of credibility. In addition, such level of interactivity is letting customers be involved in personal networking by selecting the content and communication activities. The author of this article has also mentioned the fact that some particular applications of social media could empower customers in a way that they could take significant control and form a two-way communications (Gowen et al. 2012).

Case Study of Iceland Food Retail

Targeted market

Social media offers an ability to choose and focus on audience based on individual interest found in the pages of the websites For example, if an individual prefers a country music, he/she could be observing advertisement regarding the country music artists and concerts. On the other side, some sites’ advertising could mention which nation artists friends of that individual prefer to provide on a personal interaction (Oh, Ozkaya  and LaRose  2014). So, organizations are able to meet people who are highly interested in what the organizations offers, with such advanced marketing and advertisement. According to Briones et al. (2011), social networking also enables world of mouth to promote the products beyond what advertising alone could do. .

Disadvantages,

It is identified that not all good in social networking sites, which means even though social media tools provide several opportunities, there are significant disadvantages that business online have to deal with.

Time intensive

Even though social networking remains interactive, Kumar and Mirchandani (2012)  mentioned that marketing trends in social media environment are dynamic in nature and the business will always have to focus on building a long –term relationship with each parties involved in business. This means, when a business has adopted social networking, one on a frequent basis has to monitor each network, respond to the commitment and answer to the research question or share product informationthat customers might find significant. So, the businesses those have social networking might find it difficult to compete without the above mentioned initiatives. On the other side Turban et al. (2017) mentioned that first preliminary consideration that business needs to do is, make a significant investment. Thus, it is worth mentioning that by simply getting into social networking with a limited amount of resource and expecting a significant return could be just imaginary. Thus, the organization in this path should understand the significance of the time commitment.

Issue of trademark and copyright

Baltar and Brunet (2012) conducted a research on social media marketing and mentioned it is essential for the organizations to keep their own trademark and copyright safe as it is using social media platforms for promoting the business. The authors have alsomentioned that and brands and intellectual property is always significantly valuable just like the products or service they offer to the customers. Smith and Zook (2011) argued that the capacity of social media to lead the informal and unrehearsed communication on a frequent basis could help the organizations in placing their brands as well as disseminating materials of copyright but there is always a scope for third party abuse of a firm’s copyright and trademarks. Therefore, when implementing social network, the marketers should need to monitor the use of third party trademark irrespective of the fact that whether it is done through organization’s own social networking channels or a third party outlet. This means that organizations need to strictly monitor their own social networking channels as well as third party platforms to ensure that those sending content via media outlets are not exploiting organization’s property (Chen  and Sharma  2013). Shih (2011) argued that such copyright issues are minor in today’s rapidly growing social networking sector, as the entire operation is monitored through the technology. Theauthor has particularly mentioned the fact that business that entirely incorporate social media marketing in business have their own policy of checking copyright and trademarks. Moreover, the businesses are very concerned about the misuse of their own intellectual property.

Conclusion

Issues related to Trust, Privacy and Security Systems

Trust, privacy and security system remain as a great challenge to promotion of products and services in social networking platforms. Thus, Leonardi, Huysman, and Steinfield (2013) arguably mentioned that it is highly important for the business to become aware of such issues and takes proper measures to reduce their exposure to liability related to personal data collection, maintenance and consumption. In the context of trust in social networking, Gronum, Verreynne and Kastelle (2012) mentioned that trust, specially the unique dimension of transitional security as well as privacy, plays a great role in creating customer loyalty to social media marketers. The author in the findings have also demonstrated that fear of online credit and debit card frauds, which is probably the major reasons customers tend to hesitate when making an online purchase. In addition, the analysis in the study indicate that the fact that concerns related to privacy have led to a public relations disaster for some major social media marketing leading in substantial brand image corrosion. Nonetheless, Kirti? and Karahan (2011), provided an argumentative statement in their study by highlighting the fact that privacy policies are well stiffed because the large social media channels like Facebook and YouTube build their own privacy policy governing and monitoring the use of users’ data.

Negative feedbacks

It is identified that emerging social media platforms in every manner help to transform into marketers and all parties involved in the process will have to deal with both positive and negative aspects of the business, products and services. However, it all depends how the entire operation is presented to such wide public media- social media. Aral,Dellarocas and Godes (2013) mentioned the fact that review of products along with tags and images remain as an essential source of information for the customers. This practices also let the customers make the choices of the products. The impact is mostly found in the electronic sector with the presence of web 2.0. The author of this study has also mentioned the fact that one significant element of social networking that is particularly damaging to marketing campaigns is a negative post response. It is certain that unsatisfied customers have the access to post offensive pictures, post and there is nothing much the marketers can do to prevent such consequences. On the basis of such findings, Andzulis, Panagopoulos and Rapp (2012) mentioned that social networks should be managed perfectly to immediately respond as well as neutralize harmful posts, which could take more time.

Recommendations

The existing studies have effectively presented how social media is used in business, potential advantages and disadvantages. However, the discussion in the papers are quite specific and limited to a certain areas. This means social media is an emerging platforms where advantages and limitations cannot be specific. Over the years, it may develop to facilitate the business but business in turn may face significant challenges. So, there should not be any particular areas of limitations or advantages.  The studies have skipped the fact that social media platforms are supposed to develop with time; it may provide new opportunities that business have not predicted yet or the challenges that businesses today are not able to predict. In addition to this, the studies have biasedly paid more attention to advantages while less attention has been given to disadvantages. By observing the positive gains from social networking in small and medium size businesses, the scholars have mostly highlighted the positive sides of social networking but even though the technology is developing, there is always a loophole for the setback. Studies did not provide any particular examples of real-world examples where business had to suffer. A proper emphasis was also needed on how businesses overcome those challenges and lead again with the practices.

The aim of the research is to examine the potential advantages and disadvantages of social networking in business. In order to derive authentic and evidence-based outcome from the analysis, the research considers the business operation of Iceland Food Retail, which has incorporated social networking in business. The following are the key objectives which help to fulfil the research purpose.

• To analyse the social networking practices in business
• To examine the advantages and disadvantages of social networking in business
• To address the issues in incorporating social media in business

Research Questions

• What are the social networking practices used in businesses?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of social networking in business?
• How can the issues related to social networking practices in business be addressed?

Data collection method helps to collect information from reliable sources which further helps to derive the Reponses and assess the issues of the research. The technique is further categorized as primary and secondary techniques. The selection of both these processes have been discussed in the following with proper justification.

As mentioned by Taylor, Bogdan and DeVault (2015), secondary data is one such data that have already been used and taken by others and published in the books, newspapers, journals, online portals. It is identified that there is plenty of data available in such particular sources about the research areas, irrespective of the nature. Due to this factor, implementation of appropriate set of criteria to choose secondary data in the research a great role with respect to a significant level of research validity and reliability. However, in the present study, the data has been gathered from reliable secondary sources such as books, peer-review journals on social networking in businesses, case studies and newsletter of some particular organizations that have incorporated social networking in businesses.

References

The secondary data collection process has been selected because social networking in business is an emerging field of research despite a number of studies already have been performed. There is a rapid development in the adoption of social networking due to extending areas and increasing adoption and there have been many businesses that have incorporated social networking; Thereby, sticking to one single organization may not be appropriate for analysis. Moreover, limited sources of data may not provide appropriate research outcome, as the research topic is broad in nature, which requires recent facts and findings to make proper judgments. The criteria followed for selecting the secondary data is not limited to the data of issuing; it includes the reliability of sources, depth of analysis and contribution. All secondary sources used in the study were published after 2010.

Primary data collection methods can be divided into two different categories namely quantitative and qualitative. According to Lewis (2015), quantitative data collection techniques are on the basis of mathematical calculation in different formats. It is identified that techniques of quantitative data collection and analysis may include questionnaire with close-ended questions, techniques of regression, mean, mode, median and others. Lewis (2015) argued that quantitative methods are cheaper in nature to implement as well as they can be implemented within a shorter duration of time compared to qualitative methods. On the other side, qualitative research techniques do not include numbers or any sort of mathematical calculation as this research methods are associated with sounds, words, emotions and feelings (Alvesson and Sköldberg 2017).

 It is found that qualitative studies tend to ensure an intensive level of understanding and the process may include questionnaire, interviews with open-ended questions, observations and focus groups. In the present research, the qualitative methods have been applied by performing an interview with the manager of Iceland Food Retail, while quantitative data has been collected by performing a survey among the customers of Iceland Food Retail. The primary data has been collected because in order to gain specific outcome related to advantages and disadvantages of social networking, it is necessary to consider an organization which has incorporated social networking in business. This research requires specific outcome related to issues and benefits of social networking as sticking to secondary data may only provide theoretical views and excluding primary analysis only leads to broad non-specific views about the research context. Qualitative data analysis has been performed among the managers because customers do not have much knowledge about how social networking has been implemented into the business. Thereby, personnel involved in managerial and organizational operation have been engaged in the interview.

Qualitative data has been gathered by conducting interview among the senior managers, and business executives of Iceland Food Retail. Thus, the method includes the reformulation of stories presented by the respondents considering the context of each case and different experience of the participants. Thereafter, the responses have been further analysed by the findings and case scenario found in the existing papers provided in the literature.

To analyse the quantitative data, raw data such as numbers and digits have been turned into meaningful data with the application of rational and critical thinking. The data has been presented with the help of graph, and charts and then the number of responses have been specified with digits and percentage to indicate a particular figure. Thereafter, the data has been linked to the findings found in the literature. In addition, to make the analysis critical in nature, primary findings have been analysed as well as objectively interpreted by comparing it to other findings within the research framework

Sampling is usually defined as the specific principle applied to choose members or the participants of population to be involved in the research. This is usually done because many populations of interest remains broad to work with. Hence, the target population for performing interview and survey is the customersand managers of Iceland Food Retail. Hence, the size of the sample is 40customers and 5 managers. For performing interview among the managers of the chosen organization, non-probability convenient sampling method has been used, while for conducting survey among the employees, random probability sampling methods have been used.

Even though the study includes both secondary and primary analysis, it is performed on only one organization. The study lacks a comparative analysis. Many businesses in the recent time have incorporated social networking practices in their business. So, inclusion of few more organizations in the research would have increased the relevancy of the research outcome. In addition, the sample size selected for survey and interview is limited or less in number. The engagement of managers and supervisors of other businesses would have provided a more clear ideas about the benefits and issues of social networking in business.  

1. Age?

Row Labels	Count of no of respondents
Less than 25	12
25-30	14
31-40	6
41 and above	8
Grand Total	40

Table 1: Age

Source: (As created by author)

The above question has attempted to identify the age of the respondents taking part in the study. The results show that the majority of the respondents are below the age group of 25 years which counts up to 30% of the respondents. They are closely followed by the respondents in the age group of 25-30 and above which is 35% of the total respondents.  There are 15% respondents in the age group of 31-40 and 20% respondents in the age group of 41 and above. The majority of the respondents are below the age of 25 years which means that it is expected that majority of the respondents will prefer using social media platform.  

1. Your Gender?

Row Labels	Count of no of respondents
Male	24
Female	16
Grand Total	40

Table 2: Gender

Source: (As created by author)

This question aims to identify the gender of the consumers taking part in the study. The study shows 60% of the respondents are male and the remaining respondents are female.  This will assist in analysing whether opinion vary due to the diversity in gender among the respondents.

1. Your income?

Row Labels	Count of No of respondents
Less than 15,000 Pound Sterling	15
15,000 – 35,000 Pound Sterling	11
36,000 – 45,000 Pound Sterling	7
46,000 and above Pound Sterling	7
Grand Total	40

 Table 3: Income

Source: (As created by author)

The question has depicted the income of the consumers taking part in the study.  The results show that 37% of the respondents are below the income group of 15,000 Pound Sterlingand 27% are below the age group of 15,000 – 35,000 Pound Sterling.  On the contrary, 36% of the consumers have income above the 35,000 Pound Sterling. Therefore, the preferences of choosing social media is also affected by the income of the consumers and it may happen that income may be one of the decisive factors for social media preferences.

1.  How far do you agree that Iceland Food Retail provides you with better experience on the social media platform?

Row Labels	Count of no of respondents
Strongly agree	8
Agree	11
Indifferent	7
Disagree	4
Strongly disagree	10
Grand Total	40

Table 4: Better experience

Source: (As created by author)

Findings

This question addresses the question whether Iceland Food Retail provides better service on the social media platform. The findings shows that 20% of the respondents have strongly agreed to the research question where they feel that the organization provides better service on the social media platform and they have been supported by 25% of the consumers. On the contrary, there are 35% of the respondents that do not agree to the given research question and 18% are indifferent. However, there are large percentage of consumers that are not satisfied with the social media experience provided by Iceland Food Retail. 

1.  Identify the social media platform you use the most

Row Labels	Count of no of respondents
Facebook	7
Twitter	10
Instagram	6
YouTube	12
Watsapp	5
Grand Total	40

Table 5: Most used social media platform

Source: (As created by author)

Findings

The question aims to identify the most used platform of social media marketing by the consumers. The results shows that 30% think that YouTube is the most appropriate form of social media platform, 25% uses Twitter the majority of the occasions, 17% considers Facebook as the platform to gain information regarding products,15% uses the Instagram as a social media platform and other than that 13% of the consumers use Watsapp as a social media platform. Therefore, there is no clear majority about the most used form of social media platform and different consumers has different opinions so have to be critical about choosing their social media platform. Moreover, this also suggests that all the forms of social media are effective and can be used effectively by the organization to increase their brand awareness and value. Therefore, in order to increase their consumer base the organization will have to active on all of these forms of social media platform.

1.  Select from one of the following reasons for choosing social media platform?

Row Labels	Count of no of respondents
Easy to use	5
Social Interaction	6
Less time consuming	12
Personalised response	13
Effortless	4
Grand Total	40

 

Table 6: Choice

Source: (As created by author)

The question is attempting to identify the major reason of choosing social media over other forms of marketing platform for the consumers. The findings of the study shows that 30% consider time as the most crucial factor for choosing social media platforms. This means that consumers have to spend less time on shopping on the online platform. It is already known that the cost of implementing social media marketing is quite less when compared to the traditional form of marketing. Social interaction is the third highest voted benefit of social media marketing where the consumers is able to communicate freely with the organizations and gain knowledge about the products and other queries.  This is the reason that 15% consumers have considered social interaction as a benefit which make them choose social media over any other platform. On the other hand, 33% of the respondents consider personalised response as their reason of choice which is the clear majority. There are consumers take prefer using social media due to ease of using it which makes it more effortless so 22% consumers choose the social media platform due to this reason.

7.Do you consider yourself as a loyal consumer of Iceland Food Retail?

Row Labels	Count of no of respondents
Yes	23
No	17
Grand Total	40

Table 7: Loyal consumers

Source: (As created by author)

This question is trying to identify whether the consumers are loyal to Iceland Food Retail. The results of the study shows that 57% of the respondents consider themselves as loyal to the organization and there are 43% of the respondents that do not consider themselves as loyal consumers. This shows that there are large amount of consumers that cannot be considered as the loyal consumer and Iceland Food Retail has the opportunity on improving on their consumer based by getting more consumers from the market.

1. How far do you agree that you prefer using social media updates than emails, newspaper and web chat?

Row Labels	Count of no of respondents
Strongly agree	13
Agree	18
Indifferent	4
Disagree	1
Strongly disagree	4
Grand Total	40

Table 8: Preferability

Source: (As created by author)

This question has aimed to evaluate whether social media platform is more preferred by the consumers than emails, newspapers and phone calls. According to the survey, 45% of the respondents have agreed to the fact that social media platform is more preferred by them than the traditional platform and 32% of the respondents have strongly agreed to the research question.  On the contrary, 10% of the respondents are indifferent to the research question and 13% have disagreed to the statement and consider traditional form of marketing to be more preferable. Therefore, it can be seen clearly that the consumers are preferring social media as the platform than the traditional platforms and Iceland food retail will have to focus more on their social media aspect to improve on their consumer base and consumer satisfaction.

1.  How far do you agree that social media platform helps in timely interaction with organizations?

Row Labels	Count of no of respondents
Strongly agree	10
Agree	21
Indifferent	4
Disagree	2
Strongly disagree	3
Grand Total	40

Table 9: Timely interaction

Source: (As created by author)

This question has evaluated whether social media platform provides timely interaction with the consumers. According to the survey, 52% of the respondents have strongly agreed to the fact that social media platform provides timely interaction with the organizations and they have been supported by 25% of the respondents.  On the contrary, 10% of the respondents are indifferent to the research question and 13% have disagreed to the question.  The majority of the consumers can raise their query and issues on the social media platform and they get instant solution to their problems which is more effective than the lengthy procedure of the traditional marketing platforms.

1. How far do you agree that Iceland Food Retail provides relevant content on the social media platform?

Row Labels	Count of no of respondents
Strongly agree	14
Agree	17
Indifferent	4
Disagree	2
Strongly disagree	3
Grand Total	40

Table 10: Content relevancy

Source: (As created by author)

This question examines if Iceland Food Retail uses relevant content updates on their social media platform while giving updates. The findings show that 42% of the respondents have strongly agreed that their organizations have been using relevant content on their social media platform and 35% have agreed to the majority. On the other hand, 10% of the respondents are indifferent to the research question and 13% have disagreed to the question and they feel that Iceland Food Retail has not used effective content on their website. Therefore, there is margin of improvement for the organization and they can audit their content even further to make it relevant for all types of consumers.

1. How far do you agree that Iceland Food Retail updates on social media are regular and timely?

Row Labels	Count of no of respondents
Strongly agree	12
Agree	19
Indifferent	4
Disagree	4
Strongly disagree	1
Grand Total	40

Table 11: Regularity of updates

Source: (As created by author)

Findings

This question scrutinises if Iceland Food Retail is regularly updating on their social media websites or not. The findings show that 47% of the respondents have strongly agreed that their organizations have been regular on giving updates on the social media platform and 30% have agreed to the majority. On the other hand, 10% of the respondents are indifferent to the research question and 13% have disagreed to the question. However, this shows that Iceland Food Retail has plenty of opportunity and scope of improvement as 13% respondents are still giving negative reviews about the regularity of updates. Moreover, as the majority of the respondents belong to the age of less than 25 years the content may be appropriate for them and they may feel that the updates are timely but it may not be the case for other age groups.

Row Labels	Count of no of respondents
Strongly agree	5
Agree	14
Indifferent	6
Disagree	9
Strongly disagree	6
Grand Total	40

Table 12: Preferred organization

Source: (As created by author)

This question inspects whether Iceland Food Retail is the preferred organization of choice for the consumers. The findings show that 12% of the respondents have strongly agreed that the question and 35% have agreed to the first. On the other hand, 15% of the respondents are indifferent to the research question and 38% have disagreed to the question. This shows that respondents feel that the organization should make changes to their content on the social media websites. This can be shown that Iceland Food Retail is lacking in their social media marketing strategy as almost 40% of the consumer prefer shopping from other rival companies.

	Preferability	timely interaction	content relevancy	Regularity of updates
Preferability	1
timely interaction	0.811701	1
content relevancy	0.873127	0.825985	1
Regularity of updates	0.805616	0.826415	0.771203	1

Table 13: Correlation Table

(Source: As created by author)

Correlation is used to identify the degree of association and nature of association among Preferability, timely interaction, content relevancy and regularity of updates.  There is high degree of correlation between these factors which means that these factors are highly important for the consumers for choosing a particular organization and if a organization lacks in any of these factors they will lose out of consumers that will migrate to different organization due to the low switching cost in the industry.

Questions	Remarks	Count
What is your purpose of using social media marketing?	“Social media marketing increases our brand awareness which in turn increases our inbound traffic. Moreover, social media marketing is less expensive and can have a long term impact at minimal cost if used effectively. “ “Social media marketing improves the conversion rates and search engine ratings of our websites. Moreover, it provides better insights on the market trends and the change in needs and wants of the consumers. “	3 2
What do you expect to achieve by using social media marketing?	“I expect that by using social media marketing we can penetrate further into the market and increase our share in the market. “ “We have set goals and targets which can be achieved by using social media marketing. We want to increase our consumer base by acquiring new consumers. “	3 2
What are your strategies of effectively implementing social media marketing?	“We are to continuously audit the social media content to check its relevancy, tone and voice. We are using Search engine optimization and search engine marketing as tools to increase the rating of our websites” “We are forming partnership with different celebrities where they will be promoting the organizational products. We are also approaching personnel that are famous on social media platforms for promoting our products.”	3 2
How does your growth plan accommodate social marketing?	“Social media marketing is one of the essential aspect of our growth plan. In order to grow in new market, increasing brand awareness is necessary as it invokes brand loyalty among the consumers.” “We are focusing social media marketing as a strategy in our growth plan. Social media will help in identifying the current market trends and gather information regarding the changing consumer needs. This will provide competitive advantage to the organization.”	2 3
What are the social media platform you plan to use?	“ The social media platform we will be using are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube”	5
How will it benefit the organization?	“The organization will gain competitive advantage by using the social media platform as the current trends in the market and the future market trends can be analysed easily.” “Social media marketing increases the market penetration and interaction. We are able to interact freely with consumers and maintain a level of transparency. “	3 2

The qualitative and the quantitative analysis of the data has revealed the different advantages and disadvantages of using social media as a tool of marketing.  The first benefit of using social media marketing for the organization is increase in the brand awareness.  The business visibility can be highly increased using the social media marketing which makes it the most cost effective medium in digital marketing. Social media increases the recognition of the brand due as the organization is able to interact with broad area of consumers at the same time. The quantitative analysis of the data shows majority of the customers have given high level of importance to the use of social media marketing. They prefer using the social media platform that other forms of media platforms.  The different form of social media marketing fare equally effective and regular updating of content on all forms of social media websites are essential for the increasing the awareness.  Social media marketing will increase the inbound traffic otherwise the organization will be limited to the loyal consumers.  Therefore, in order to acquiring new consumers’ from the market, the organization will have to focus on using social media to grab the attention of new consumers.  The traffic on the organizational websites will be high which will make them aware of the product offerings of the organization.  The use of social media is still not as effective as it should be which is reflected from the responses of the consumers. The customer experience can be improved drastically which can be seen from 35% of the consumers that think that customer experience should be improved.

Search engine ranking is a crucial point made by one of the managers stating the fact that they will use social media marketing to improve their search engine rankings. The emergence of the web 2.0 have changed the current scenario of the online platform and the need generation of the consumers results in searching of their desired product. Therefore, higher search engine ranking will increase the chances of the consumer of coming across the organizational products. The majority of the consumers navigate on the first page on Google so the organization is focused on optimizing their search engine optimization strategy. These strategy can be used by the organization to increase their consumer base and penetrate in to the market.  The conversion rate of the organization increases drastically due to the increase in visibility on the social media websites.

 According to a manager, social media marketing assists in developing a positive impression on the minds of the consumers. The personification of the brand can be executed effectively by constantly commenting and posting content on the social media platforms.  This will assist in developing an effective relationship between the consumers and the organization.  The consumers use the social media platform to stay connected with their friends, and families and receiving updates. Therefore, the organization can make use of the opportunity to provide information regarding product offerings and offers.

As stated by one of the manager, social media marketing will improve the customer satisfaction. The personalised response they receive on their posted message improves the quality of service. The acknowledgement of each of the comments of the consumers will appropriately address the needs and wants of the consumers. The social media platforms provide the opportunity of demonstrating compassion towards the customers.  It also increases the level of transparency about the organizational products and offerings so positive reviews and comments will assist the organization in gaining more consumers.  The organization also wants to develop a loyal consumer base and social media plays an important part in it.  Customer satisfaction and brand loyalty are dependent on each other where with increase in consumer satisfaction increases the loyalty of the consumers towards a particular brand.  The consumer considers the social media platform as a service channel which they access to communicate their queries and issues to the organization. Therefore, effectiveness of the social media platform helps in improving the level of service for the organization. The current generation are the extremely loyal to their respective brands so by providing the best possible consumer experience, the organization can definitely increase their consumer base by making their social media platform more effective.

The survey conducted has shown that the relevance of the social media marketing is very high as the use of digital marketing is absolutely necessary for the companies as they are cost effective and have broader reach than the traditional form of medium. However, this is a key disadvantage for the organization at the same time as negative reviews about any organization and their product will hamper their consumer base.

 Moreover, the correlation analysis between four factors appropriate tone, appropriate voice, cost and content are crucial and interrelated factors that highly affect the social media marketing.  Therefore, the organization will have to review the content every time they share some status on their social media pages. This is because of the fact that the consumers have become conscious about the message the organizations are trying to portray and there are plenty of occasions where the organization was misread or the comments and campaigns become controversial due to the inappropriate content. The diversity of the culture is something that every organization has to take into account before developing content on their social media websites. This shows that there has social media content has different layers to it and the organizations will have to be careful in making their choice in content relevancy.

However, managing of social media platforms is one of the major challenges faced by the organization.  There has to be continuous updates on the websites to leave an impression on the consumers. The competition in the social media platform is high and keeps on increasing due to the emergence of small scale companies that are following the path of the multinational companies. In this study it has been seen that there are large sets of consumers that believe that Iceland Food Retail is using effective social media marketing. On the contrary, there are a huge amount of consumers that have not been converted to loyal consumers so significant efforts have to be made from the part of the company to increase their consumer base and improve their conversion rate.

The survey conducted shows that consumers highly connected and active on the social media platform which act backfire for the organization. The organizations face challenge in developing their content on the social media websites as it has to be directed to all the consumers belonging to different cultural and ethnical backgrounds. The content may be offensive to the values of some of the consumers which shows that impact of the content has to be analysed on a regular basis. Negative publicity is one of the major challenge faced by the organization. There are 17 consumers out of the 40 that are not the loyal consumers of the organization which shows the developing effective social media marketing strategy for addressing all the consumer segment is tough for the organization.  Content relevancy, timely interaction and regularity of the updates are few issues that the organization face on a regular basis and is for important for sustainability in the market.

Conclusion

The research was conducted on the advantages and disadvantages of social networking practices in contemporary businesses. The major purpose of the research is to examine the potential advantage and disadvantages associated with social networking practices. To learn about the contemporary facts on the chosen context, a detailed review of literature has been performed. The review indicates that even though social media provides a broad platforms to the businesses today, in most of cases, managing social networking platforms remains challenging. It is found that business communication in social media often go viral due to inappropriate presentation and misinterpretation of the messages. Moreover, the review clarifies the fact that privacy, security and negative feedbacks are the permanent challenges in social media platforms. As the context of the topic is broad, both secondary and primary analysis have been performed. The secondary data has been collected from books, journals, newsletter, and case studies of the businesses while the primary data has been collected by performing survey and interview among the customersand supervisors of the organization Iceland Food Retail Limited. In order to respond to the research questions set in the introductory section of the study, the subject of the interview and survey have been kept similar. The data findings have been linked to the findings found in the literature review. In literature, it was found that businesses today tend to follow the market trends; so most of the organizations are incorporating social networking practices in business.

Consequently, the small and medium size firms have also started adopting social networking practices in business but just like an old cliché the technology is developing and at the same time, it is also creating significant challenges like managing site on a regular basis, treating the negative feedbacks, attracting customers with dynamic approaches, maintenance of privacy policy. In addition, the primary data findings imply the fact that major advantage that business finds in using social networking practices is cost reduction, which means promoting and operating businesses through social networking is less costly compared to traditional practices. Now, when linking this fact with the literature review, it was found that businesses, especially the small and medium size businesses find it easy and effective when using social networking practices in business. It is not always possible for a small business to promote their products in a wide and remote market. On the other side, even though Iceland Food Retail is a large corporation but the techniques of managing social media platforms need to be modified. The message shared by the organization on social media is not transparent and moreover, Iceland Food Limited do not share its posts or the advertising message on a frequent basis. Therefore, the audiences hardly see the posts that appear on their newsfeed. The findings also indicate that many small and new businesses are crowding at the social media platforms,; thereby, managing the sites on a regular basis could be challenging for the business. In order to resolve such as, a set of suggestions have been provided in the following which could help Iceland Food Retail to effectively manage the social media platforms

The study found that social networking practices in business requires proper supervisions on a regular basis. Iceland Food Retail have successfully implemented social networking practices in business but the firm is not able to manage the platforms properly; thereby, its investment on social networking could be alarming. Therefore, the following remedies have been suggested to the organization.

Increased brand awareness

To start with social networking, the business needs to create a social media profile for business and then start interacting with different parties involved in the business. The organization needs to positively influence their employees to go through the regular updates on the marketing pages by hitting “Like and “Sharing” the pages. It is certain that when business makes their people interact with the content shared on the social media, it will increase the brand awareness and it also helps the business to build their reputation as a business. The business needs to keep a record of the recent activities or the current affairs and the posts must be linked to the current events. In addition, the business needs to introduce each post to a new network of individuals, which could further lead to become potential customers. Likewise, people get know about the businesses. This strategy will be effective for the business because, an experimental study performed by Zeng and Gerritsen (2014) reveals the fact that by spending few hours in each weak, almost 91% of marketers claimed that their social marketing efforts largely enhanced the exposure. So, on the basis of this fact, it is worth mentioning that by having a social media page and by managing it on a regular basis, the business can potential benefits.

Improved Search Engine Rankings

Even though posting on social media could provide business some site traffic, more effort compared to that is needed to observe the significant success. It is worth mentioning that search engine optimization is very significant for achieving higher page rankings as well as obtaining traffic to the business websites. For example, every user uses Google to find information as well as they usually will not navigate the page 1, as their responses are normally is on the first page of the search results. Thereby, if the business websites are not ranked towards the top of search results, the business should probably adjust the search engine optimization technique.

More inbound traffic

It is identified that without marketing the business on social networking, the inbound traffic of the business is restricted to usual customers. The audience familiar with the business would probably be searching for the same keyword that business already ranks for. It is necessary to note without implementing social media as the part of marketing strategy, the business may have more difficult in reaching any individual outside of the loyal customers. Therefore, it is worth mentioning that every social media profile, the business adds to the marketing mix is a gateway to website as well as every piece of content the business post on the channels, could be another significant opportunity to gain new consumers. 

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