Factors Helping Indian SMEs Implement Social Media Marketing - Assessment Answer

Background and Academic Contexts

Background

The proper application of social media marketing can provide a huge amount of support for enhancing sales and performance in a particular environment. Proper management of various types of activities by social media marketing can help the organisation to analyse the overall trend of customers. Different types of marketing techniques can be effective for the organisation to recognise the proper development of factors. Social media platforms are very much well-known as one of the integral parts of people's lives. This type of factor can be effective for enhancing performance and sales due to several types of reasons. As analysed by Nyagadza (2020), this type of marketing technique can be crucial in shaping the overall behaviour of the consumer. Active user base all over India, small and medium-sized enterprises are using different types of the social media marketing that help the organisation to engage their target audience effectively with different types of functions. As depicted by Li et al. (2021), proper implementation of social media marketing strategies can offer different types of benefits to small and medium-sized enterprises which can help to increase the branded website traffic and customer reach by generating a good amount of leads that improve the customer engagement and ultimately the sales of the businesses.

Small and medium-sized enterprises can be effective in developing the major factors of the organisation. Small and Indian size enterprises are measured operating with limited resources compared to a large number of enterprises (Chatterjee and Kar, 2020). Therefore it is very much essential for the organisation to identify different types of key factors which can help the SMS effectively by utilising their overall marketing process with their different types of resource constraints. As depicted by Syaifullah et al. (2021), this type of research can help provide clarity about the cost-effective strategies along with best practices Taylor with the specific challenges and requirements of small and medium-sized enterprises. A large number of organisations in India are acting on awareness and knowledge about the potential of social media marketing and their leveraging process. As opined by Zollo et al. (2020), small and medium-sized enterprises are very much that awareness or have different types of knowledge about the application of social media marketing. Therefore, getting proper evidence from different types of research work and having the insights of proper recommendations on implementing social media strategies can be effective in addressing the knowledge gap which enhances the competitiveness of the overall environment.

In today's world, social media is becoming one of the crucial standards for business organisations across various countries effectively. Compared to the other big organisations, SMEs are failing to adopt and leverage description media effectively which may be a major disadvantage compared to the other competitors present in the market (Ebrahim, 2020). Understanding the different factors which can help SMEs to implement social media marketing successfully, can give them a proper comparative benefit which levels the playing field of different types of larger companies in a particular area (Lies, 2019). Due to these types of factors the researcher has chosen the topic to find out the importance of social media marketing for Indian small and medium-sized businesses to increase promotion and sales. This research will analyse the major factors that impact the business organisation. In this research proposal, the overall background along with the research aim and objectives are going to be analysed by providing a better idea about the research methodology.

Hypothesis

H1: Social media marketing is very much effective for the small Indian SMEs to increase the sales and revenue

H0: Social media marketing is not so much effective for the Small SMEs for enhancing their revenue and sales

Literature Review

Importance of Digital Marketing Strategies Such as Social Media Marketing on SMEs

The application of marketing strategies can be affected for getting the success of small and medium-sized enterprises in a particular area of operations. These businesses are also open operating with limited types of resources to face various unique challenges compared to other kinds of larger corporations. Implementation of marketing strategies can be affected for small and medium size enterprises to achieve they are based objectives by developing and acting in the customers for driving towards the growth of the environment. The major reasons behind the application of digital marketing services for SMEs are described below.

Enhancement Brand Awareness

Proper development of marketing strategies can be helpful for SMEs to enhance their overall visibility in a particular market. It can help develop brand awareness among all kinds of target audiences. As opined by Ansari et al. (2019), leveraging various types of marketing channels including search engine optimization and advertising can be helpful for SMEs to teach a good and wider range of audiences to establish a brand presence.

Customer Acquisition and Retention

The application of effective marketing strategies can be helpful for small and medium-sized enterprises to extract a lot of new customers and retain the existing ones. As depicted by Chen and Lin (2019), the proper understanding of the target market and the development of Taylor marketing campaigns can help SMEs to engage with various types of potential customers that effectively communicate the evening value of the proper services and products which also convert leads to the paying customers in a particular domain. Maintaining strong relationships with the help of various strategies including loyalty programs and email marketing can help to foster customer loyalty and encourage business organisations.

Competitive Edge

Most of the small and medium-sized enterprises are often operating in the high computer market where the larger organisations are already present with a higher rate of resources that dominates. Proper implementation of well-defined marketing strategies can allow SMEs to differentiate themselves from the other computers present in the market. As opined by Potvin Kent et al. (2019), highlighting various types of unique selling points, the organisations can deliver a better personal experience and showcasing their expertise please help them to gain a good amount of competitive edge.

Cost-effective Promotion

Having a limited amount of marketing budget is very much crucial to utilise their proper resources wisely. Social media marketing is one of the primary strategies that include better strategies in managing activities. These strategies are helping people to allow SMEs to reach a good range of target audiences at a better fraction of the cost of traditional marketing methods.

These are the primary strategies which help the organisation to generate a good amount of revenue for the SMEs by increasing promotion and sales.

Different Issues Faced by the SMEs

At the time of implementing social media marketing, small and medium enterprises are facing several types of challenges which may create a huge amount of strategies for attracting a good amount of consumer base. The major issues faced by SMEs in managing the implementation of social media marketing are described below.

Small and medium-sized enterprises are having limited budgets, personal dedication and time to manage marketing efforts. It can make it also challenging for allocating sufficient resources to maintain and create an effective social media presence. Social media staff may not be feasible for all kinds of social media enterprises. Along with that, as analysed by Erlangga (2021), lack of advertisement and audience targeting is also creating a huge amount of issues that affect the operation of the SMEs in the overall activities. Social media platforms are constantly evolving, introducing new features, algorithms, and trends. SMEs may find it challenging to stay updated with these changes and adapt their strategies accordingly. As depicted by Cheung et al. (2020), changes in platform algorithms can impact organic reach, and staying ahead of emerging trends can be time-consuming for SMEs with limited resources. Proper measurement of ROIs and their effectiveness can be more complex which assists the management to face a huge amount of issues.

Research Objectives

The application of proper research can be effective for organisations to manage different types of findings about the research topic. The major aim of this research is to find out the impact of social media marketing strategies on small and medium size enterprises to generate a good amount of sales and promotion activities. The major objectives of this research are described below.

• To identify different types of factors and marketing strategies available for the social media platform
• To evaluate the importance of social media marketing campaigns for the small and medium have enterprises
• To understand different types of issues faced by small and medium-sized enterprises in using social media marketing campaigns.

Methods and Ethics

Proper application of research methodology can assist the researcher which helps to get a good amount of findings. This research methodology is one of the prime factors for the researcher which can effectively identify the overall findings. The researcher will be following the layer of the research Saunders onion that helps them to get the primary findings. As analysed by Hair et al. (2019), among the major types of research methods, design approach, data collection and others are the prime factors which help the research to get proper data from a large number of databases. The research philosophy is one of the most effective methods of research. The implementation of positivism philosophy will be one of the primary philosophies that can be used by the researcher to get a good amount of findings. As analysed by Marsonet (2019), this philosophy will be based on different types of realistic observations and data that help to maintain a good bonding between the variable and the scientific data. Secondly, the researcher will be also using the research approach which helps the researcher to identify different types of factors. As depicted by Opie (2019), evaluating the approaches of the research,  the implementation of an inductive approach will be effective to find out different types of quantitative observations in a particular research work. This type of approach can be effective for analysing different types of patterns by evaluating different data in a particular research process. After identifying the major patterns of the research process, the application of descriptive designing will be effective to describe all kinds of factors in research work. As depicted by Turale (2020), the descriptive design can be helpful for the researcher to answer all kinds of WH-based research questions. This type of design will be also efficient for providing a clear description of the place population and other factors of the research.

Evaluating the data collection process, the proper application of different types of methods can be effective to identify different findings about the research based on the application of social media marketing by SMEs (Vaughn and Jacquez, 2020). Among the major types of research methods available in the market, the researcher will be planning to use primary data collection methods to gather different ideas about the realistic observations of the research. As analysed by Mazhar et al. (2021), this type of data collection can be effective for the researcher to gather some clear ideas to manage the overall research process. Among the two types of research methods, the researcher planned to use a primary quantitative data collection method for getting the large data. The application of surveys through the use of Google Forms can be effective for the researcher to find out different types of facts. A total of 30 respondents will be selected by the researcher working in the marketing department of SMEs to give their responses. The researcher will be using statistical analysis to find out the major data from the respondents. Application of random something method will be used to collect the responses randomly from the participants.

Ethics

Proper management of research ethics can be very much efficient for getting approval from the ethical committee of the country to get better results. As per the influence of Constantinescu and Kaptein (2020), the researcher needs to maintain the confidentiality of every participant. Similarly, all types of collected data also need to be stored in confidential storage to secure the overall process of research. The researcher will also maintain different types of plagiarism and copyright acts which offer them the proper support in getting a good amount of results. Management of research ethics can be helpful for the researcher to get a good amount of support and benefit at the time of offering a better result of findings to the readers. No participants under the age of 18 will be chosen for giving the responses in this research.

Research Plan

Figure 1: Research plan

Following the above research plan, the researcher can easily complete the research work with collecting the data from the participants and idealizing the findings to meet the objectives.

Significance

Conducting this research will be effective for me to identify the current trends of the customers on using the social media platforms. Similarly, I can also gather a good overview about the digital marketing and social media marketing which can be helpful for me to be a perfect digital marketer in the future workplace.

References

Ansari, S., Ansari, G., Ghori, M.U. and Kazi, A.G., 2019. Impact of brand awareness and social media content marketing on consumer purchase decisions. Journal of Public Value and Administrative Insight, 2(2), pp.5-10.

Chatterjee, S. and Kar, A.K., 2020. Why do small and medium enterprises use social media marketing and what is the impact: Empirical insights from India. International Journal of Information Management, 53, p.102103.

Chen, S.C. and Lin, C.P., 2019. Understanding the effect of social media marketing activities: The mediation of social identification, perceived value, and satisfaction. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 140, pp.22-32.

Cheung, M.L., Pires, G. and Rosenberger, P.J., 2020. The influence of perceived social media marketing elements on consumer–brand engagement and brand knowledge. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics.

Constantinescu, M. and Kaptein, M., 2020. Ethics management and ethical management: Mapping criteria and interventions to support responsible management practice. In Research Handbook of responsible management (pp. 155-174). Edward Elgar Publishing.

Ebrahim, R.S., 2020. The role of trust in understanding the impact of social media marketing on brand equity and brand loyalty. Journal of Relationship Marketing, 19(4), pp.287-308.

Erlangga, H., 2021. Effect of digital marketing and social media on purchase intention of Smes food products. Turkish Journal of Computer and Mathematics Education (TURCOMAT), 12(3), pp.3672-3678.

Hair, J.F., Page, M. and Brunsveld, N., 2019. Essentials of business research methods. Routledge.

Li, F., Larimo, J. and Leonidou, L.C., 2021. Social media marketing strategy: definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 49, pp.51-70.

Lies, J., 2019. Marketing intelligence and big data: Digital marketing techniques on their way to becoming social engineering techniques in marketing.

Marsonet, M., 2019. Philosophy and logical positivism. Academicus International Scientific Journal, 10(19), pp.32-36.

Mazhar, S.A., Anjum, R., Anwar, A.I. and Khan, A.A., 2021. Methods of data collection: A fundamental tool of research. Journal of Integrated Community Health (ISSN 2319-9113), 10(1), pp.6-10.

Nyagadza, B., 2020. Search engine marketing and social media marketing predictive trends. Journal of Digital Media & Policy.

Opie, C., 2019. Research approaches. Getting Started in Your Educational Research: Design, Data Production and Analysis, 137.

Potvin Kent, M., Pauzé, E., Roy, E.A., de Billy, N. and Czoli, C., 2019. Children and adolescents' exposure to food and beverage marketing in social media apps. Pediatric obesity, 14(6), p.e12508.

Sedalo, G., Boateng, H. and Kosiba, J.P., 2022. Exploring social media affordance in relationship marketing practices in SMEs. Digital Business, 2(1), p.100017.

Syaifullah, J., Syaifudin, M., Sukendar, M.U. and JUNAEDI, J., 2021. Social media marketing and business performance of MSMEs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business, 8(2), pp.523-531.

Turale, S., 2020. A brief introduction to qualitative description: A research design worth using. Pacific Rim International Journal of Nursing Research, 24(3), pp.289-291.

Vaughn, L.M. and Jacquez, F., 2020. Participatory research methods–Choice points in the research process. Journal of Participatory Research Methods, 1(1).

Zollo, L., Filieri, R., Rialti, R. and Yoon, S., 2020. Unpacking the relationship between social media marketing and brand equity: The mediating role of consumers’ benefits and experience. Journal of Business research, 117, pp.256-267.

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