Role Of Social Media In Marketing Among Small Business In Australia

Project Overview

Social media marketing is one of the significant categories of online marketing where small businesses could market their product and services. A major purpose of the proposed project is to evaluate the role of social media among the small business in Australia. The research investigates how small organizations use social media as their marketing strategy to gain positive outcome.  As put forward by Bakeman and Hanson (2012), social media marketing has become a necessary part of online marketing strategy among all businesses due to its cost effectiveness and ability to reach targeted audience. A survey conducted by Meske and Stieglitz (2013), indicates that social media has been proved to be a significant tool for small business for branding, as presently almost 83% of the customers prefer to connect the bran on different social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and others. Through social media, the business could interact with the customers directly. It is certain that small business could interact with the consumers by engaging them with some interactive process like questions and answers.

The proposed research will evaluate the role of social media marketing in the small business. The research investigates how and why social media marketing gains popularity in the small businesses. The project will investigate the factors that influence the marketers to adopt social media marketing in the business. The proposed research will also focus on how small businesses gain profit through social media marketing in Australia. The study will include both primary and secondary analysis. Thus, to gain the primary data, Pearly White a small Australian company, which uses the social media marketing, will be involved in the research. The primary data will be collected through survey and interview. Similarly, the secondary data will be collected from annual reports, blogs and other secondary sources. The collected data will be analyzed by linking them to the findings of existing research.

The implementation of the proposed research will help to understand why the small businesses are largely depended on social media marketing for their business expansion. The proposed research will also help to learn how a technologically developed nation like Australia sustains the small businesses and fulfils the technical demands of marketers. The implementation of the research project will make determine the relevancy and usefulness of social media marketing in the business in the coming future.

Social media is a broad term used to describe all different online technology that enable people interact easily via interne and through sharing information and resource. The increasing adoption of social media is turning to be more apparent by the day and it is changing the ways marketers conduct the business. Social media marketing includes the use of social media site as the aspect of online marketing strategy. The sites like Facebook, Twitter and other popular sites provide significant ways to reach the wide target market and delver the marketing messages (Hassan, Nadzim and Shiratuddin 2015). To support this statement, Panahi, Watson and Partridge (2012) mentioned that social media is a powerful tool for customer service; it is not just for marketing. Any business whatsoever could benefit from social media marketing, particularly the local business. In this context, Young (2012) commented that geographic features on social media sites make it more transparent and easy for people to find the customer’s profile. Nevertheless, Brooks, Heffner and Henderson (2014) commented that Information Technology could be tough to deal with in the large crowd, especially when it is a small business. However, some particular small Aussie brands have managed to use the social media to gain advantage. For example, the small firm “Second to None Nutrition” located in North Queensland has been tremendously been successful. The remote location has not stopped SECOND’s operation from gaining global reorganization with organization’s social media page boasting nearly 490,000 likes (Second To None Nutrition. 2017).

Project Scope

Likewise, another small Aussie firm namely Black Milk Clothing, which does no marketing and it fully depends on social media. It hits over 600,000 likes on Facebook, which has generated a loyal following that enabled them spread the Black Milk across the large audience (Blackmilkclothing.com 2017).

There has been an evolution from the use of simple web page to provide information regarding a business or product, to the use of Internet for business. Presently, the improvement of Web 2.0 technologies has developed the formulation of social media content. Stockdale, Ahmed and Scheepers (2012) defined Web 2.0 as the technology platform especially for social media. It is studied that Web 2.0 is not any specific set of technological advancement, however certain technologies such as Adobe Flash and RSS are needed to facilitate formulation of social media. As put forward by Panahi, Watson and Partridge (2012), the term Web 2.0 describes the technological advances in computer hardware and software that have enabled web users to generate content, interact with the customers as well as facilitate interoperability. For instance, the user-friendly interactive website could provide developed content to user and motivate participation. A significant shift has been observed in the role of computer users from a passive role. In the first phase of internet development, the user would retrieve the information from the internet and now they interact with people as the part of a community.

Primary Question

1. What is the role of social media marketing in small business?

Secondary question

1. How can social media be used in small business?
2. What is the impact of Information Technology in small business?
3. How do social media tools help the marketers to reach the wide audience?

Qualitative Research

Approaches to reliability and validity- The reliability and validity should be addressed in a concise manner in the proposed research. The reliability is referred to the degree to which the same response can be gained with the help of same instruments (Miller et al. 2012). This means, by conducting an interview method, the response regarding the use of social media in small business. On the contrary, the validity of research can be explained as a degree at which the requirements of scientific research techniques that need to be followed at the time of generating research findings.

Sampling- In order to collect the qualitative data for the secondary analysis, the non-probability sampling technique will be used. In non-probability, sampling all members in the selected population cannot participate in the study. In addition, in non-probability sampling, the individuals who have intensive knowledge regarding the context of the research can take part in the interview. The sample group members have to be selected based on the accessibility and personal of judgment of the authorities. Thus, the majority of non-probability sampling process includes an aspect of subjective judgment. The sample size for qualitative research is 5. This means 5 managers of Pearly White, Australia will be selected for collecting qualitative data.

Data collection techniques-The primary data will be collected by conducting an interview. The interview will be conducted among the managers of Pearly White, Australia.

Research Instruments- In order to collect the data for primary analysis, a questionnaire will be prepared for the respondents. For analyzing the data, different statistical tools such as regression and other statistical calculation methods will be used.

Literature Review

Quantitative data analysis process- For analyzing primary data, the collected data will be presented in graph and tables. The data will be converted to numerical digits to make statistical calculation. Thereafter, the data findings will be compared and contrasted to the outcome found in the existing research. The data will be linked to the literature studied on the research context.

Sampling and sample size- For quantitative data analysis, probability-sampling technique will be used. This sampling method does not include any criterion for the candidates. Thus, any individual could take part in the interview. The capacity of sample includes 50 employees of Pearly White, Australia. 

Interviewing and questioner design- The interview will be conducted among the employees of Pearly White. A set of close-ended questions regarding the role of social media in small business will be designed.

Reliability and Validity- It is expected that quantitative data for the proposed research will be reliable as the study result can be reproduced with this similar interview method. In addition, the data for the proposed research will be validated as the research instrument makes it easy for the authority to measure the outcome what it is intended to measure.

Even though, the proposed research includes both primary and secondary analysis, the research is limited to one single context. This means the propose research lacks a comparative analysis. The outcome of the study would be more intensive if a comparative study is conducted among other small firms that use social media marketing. In addition to this, the sample size of the proposed research is very small.

Main activities/ stages	Month February	Month March	Month April	Month May	Month June	Month July
Topic Selection	ü
Data collection from secondary sources	ü	ü
Framing layout of the research		ü
Literature review		ü	ü	ü
Formation of the research Plan			ü	ü
Selection of the Appropriate Research Techniques				ü	ü
Primary data collection					ü	ü
Analysis & Interpretation of Data Collection					ü	ü
Conclusion of the Study						ü
Formation of Rough Draft						ü
Submission of Final Work						ü

Table 1: Research Time Table

9. Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be mentioned that research techniques designed for the proposed research will be provide a desired outcome as the techniques are examined and analyzed effectively. Moreover, as the research includes both primary and secondary data analysis, the outcome of the research will be useful for further studies on the same context.

References and Bibliography 

Bakeman, M.M. and Hanson, L., 2012. Bringing social media to small business: A role for employees and students in technology diffusion. Business Education Innovation Journal, 4(2), pp.106-111.

Hassan, S., Nadzim, S.Z.A. and Shiratuddin, N., 2015. Strategic use of social media for small business based on the AIDA model. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 172, pp.262-269.

Young, T.E., 2012. The Everything Guide to Crowdfunding: Learn how to use social media for small-business funding. Simon and Schuster.

Panahi, S., Watson, J. and Partridge, H., 2012. Social media and tacit knowledge sharing: Developing a conceptual model. World academy of science, engineering and technology, (64), pp.1095-1102.

Miller, T., Birch, M., Mauthner, M. and Jessop, J. eds., 2012. Ethics in qualitative research. Sage.

Brooks, G., Heffner, A. and Henderson, D., 2014. A SWOT analysis of competitive knowledge from social media for a small start-up business. The Review of Business Information Systems (Online), 18(1), p.23.

Blackburn, R.A., Hart, M. and Wainwright, T., 2013. Small business performance: business, strategy and owner-manager characteristics. Journal of small business and enterprise development, 20(1), pp.8-27.

Lange-Faria, W. and Elliot, S., 2012. Understanding the role of social media in destination marketing. Tourismos, 7(1).

Blackmilkclothing.com. (2017). Black Milk Clothing. [online] Available at: https://blackmilkclothing.com/ [Accessed 6 Jun. 2017].

Second To None Nutrition. (2017). Second To None Nutrition – Best Prices on Top Brands. [online] Available at: https://www.secondtononenutrition.com/ [Accessed 6 Jun. 2017].

Stockdale, R., Ahmed, A. and Scheepers, H., 2012, July. Identifying Business Value From The Use Of Social Media: An Sme Perspective. In PACIS (p. 169).

Meske, C. and Stieglitz, S., 2013, June. Adoption and use of social media in small and medium-sized enterprises. In Working Conference on Practice-Driven Research on Enterprise Transformation (pp. 61-75). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.