An empirical examination of the impact on social media on business

This is a project about the economic impact of social media on business entities. It is in line with the initiative of the government for digitalization for business purposes. The primary aspects of social media that are being considered for these projects are WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram.

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ISSN Print: 0976-6502 and ISSN Online: 0976-6510

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AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF THE IMPACT ON SOCIAL MEDIA ON BUSINESS

Dr SwetaRani

Assistant Professor, Army Institute of Management, Kolkata, India

Snehashish Patra

Student, Army Institute of Management, Kolkata, India

ABSTRACT

This is a project about the economic impact of social media on business entities It

is in line with the initiative of the government for digitalization for business purposes The primary aspects of social media that are being considered for these projects are WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram The usage of social media for the various purposes done by the business entities has been considered Data collection has been done through a survey In today’s world of globalization and digitalization where our business stands I have tried to find out This has a direct impact with the volume of business done by the entity So it has been named as the economic impact of social media

Keywords: Growth, MSME, Public Sector Banks, Performance, Impact

Cite this Article: Dr SwetaRani and Snehashish Patra, An Empirical Examination of

the Impact on Social Media on Business, International Journal of Management (IJM),

11 (2), 2020, pp 14–22

http://www.iaeme.com/IJM/issues.asp?JType=IJM&VType=11&IType=2

1 INTRODUCTION

This is a project about the economic impact of social media on business entities It is in line with the initiative of the government for digitalization for business purposes The primary aspects of social media that are being considered for these projects are WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram

The usage of social media for the various purposes done by the business entities has been considered Data collection has been done through a survey This survey has been conducted

at various shops and outlets of almost all the types of industries There has been a primary data collection conducted through this survey It consisted of a concise and elaborate questionnaire that contained the various aspects of usage of social media The respondents had to answer those questions and their valuable opinions have been recorded in the survey This data has been used for analysis through the analytical tools and techniques The importance and relevance of social media for business have been found out as per the

analysis In today’s world of globalization and digitalization where our business stands I have tried to find out This has a direct impact with the volume of business done by the entity So it has been named as the economic impact of social media It affects the economic position of the entity individually as well as it affects the economy of the industry to which it belongs It has impact both at micro and macro level

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Raman Deep Kaur (Blog writer of Myindia.com) - Role of social media in business and

consumer market in India cannot be undermined It is the change in consumers’ behavior that

is changing the role of social media in India With time, use of social media has seen a drastic change from just used for fun to fun plus knowledge and marketing For business purposes, Facebook is the most important social media platform as there is customers’ engagement, followed by Twitter, YouTube and blogging

Mohammed Begum (Lecturer of Ameen Institute of Information Sciences) - In 2017, 80% businesses have increased their digital marketing budget, which may have surpassed the

IT budget Only the illiterates cannot access the potentials of the digital marketing because of the accessibility to computing devices and computer education Many of the people in this category still don’t trust the method of an online payment and they lack training in English Language and other foreign languages to market online in global markets

Lips India Blogs - Customer acquisition is essentially the art of building and maintaining

relationships to improve the traditional customer acquisition and retention processes It’s not restricted to social media, but social media is certainly a good place to start Apart from the traditional push marketing, pull marketing has also become an integral part of the system 70% of the people trust brand recommendations from friends and family People talk about different brands on social media, follow them or even like the pages And the cost of not being involved with social media is rising with every single day

Lyfe Marketing (A Marketing Website)- Social media proves to be a powerful tool

when it comes to growing your brand awareness There are businesses who dismiss it as a way to build a brand, but by doing that, they’re leaving an open ground for competitors On the other hand, many reputable chief marketing officers agree that social media has a definite impact on brand awareness Before you start focusing on a particular social platform, find out whether your target audience is on it You can do this by searching for relevant conversations about your product or industry

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research methodology is a systematic theoretical analysis of methods applied to field of study It comprises of body of methods and principles associated with a branch of knowledge This process is used to collect information and data

4 RESEARCH DESIGN

Research design is the framework that has been designed to seek answers to the research questions The arrangement of conditions for the collection and analysis of data in a manner that aims to combine relevance to the research purpose Research design is the collection, measurement and analysis of data It provides the outline as to what the researcher will do from writing the hypothesis to operational findings to final analysis of the data It is conceptual structure for conducting research

Exploratory- An Exploratory research design is conducted for a research problem for

gaining insights and for investigation undertaken when problems are in the preliminary stages

of investigation

Conclusive - Conclusive research is used for statistical tests, advanced analytical

techniques, larger sample sizes with exploratory studies It is more likely to be used for quantitative studies than for qualitative studies

Conclusive Research has two types- Descriptive Research-Descriptive research is a type

of conclusive research It means that it gathers quantifiable information that can be used for statistical inference on target audience through data analysis As a consequence, this type of research takes the form of close ended questions which limits its ability to provide unique insights This research design is followed in this study

Casual Research- As the name specifies tries to determine the cause underlying a given

behavior It finds the cause and effect relationship between variables It seeks to determine how the dependent variable changes with variations in the independent variable

Data Collection-Data collection is the process of gathering and measuring information on

variables of interest, in an established systematic fashion that enables one to answer stated research questions, test hypotheses, and evaluate outcomes

4.1 Methods of Data Collection

The instrument that was used for collecting data were:

1-Structured designed questionnaire in tablet

2-Face to face interview

3- Personal interview

Sample size -The sample size refers to the number of units that were chosen for collecting

the data There is a designated sample size which is number of sample units selected for data collection

Sample size- 300

5 DATA ANALYSIS & FINDINGS

5.1 Type of Digital Media used

Interpretation

From the above pie chart, it can be observed that most of the respondents (67%)prefer only WhatsApp for their business activities followed by the respondents (22%) who prefer both WhatsApp and Facebook for their business activities People use Facebook (7%) for business purposes and they use Facebook<WhatsApp, Instagram for their business purposes (3%) Lastly they use Facebook and Instagram (1%).It is ranked lowest in the category

5.2 Test of Association

Test of Association between classification of organization according to the number of workers and preferred digital platform

Chi-Square Test

H0: There is no significant association between classification of organization according to the number of workers and preferred digital platform

H1: There is significant association between classification of organization according to the number of workers and preferred digital platform

Table 1 Classification of org according to number of workers I am going to read out the names of

some digital platform Cross tabulation

Count

Facebook Facebook,

Instagram

Facebook, WhatsApp

Facebook, WhatsApp

Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram

WhatsApp WhatsApp,

classification

of org

according to

number of

workers

Table 2 Chi-Square Tests Value Df Asymp Sig (2-sided)

Table 3 Symmetric Measures

Value Approx Sig

Nominal by Nominal Contingency Coefficient 004 022

Figure 1

Interpretation

From the above symmetric measures table, the p value can be observed as less than 05 so we can reject H0 and we can accept H1 and we can conclude that there is significant association between classification of organization according to the number of workers and preferred digital platform

Test of association between type of company and some digital platform used

Chi square Test

Ho: There is no significant association between type of company and type of digital platform

used

H1: There is significant association between type of company and type of digital platform

used

Table 4 Chi-Square Tests

14 cells (66.7%) have expected count less than 5 The minimum expected count is 07

Table 5 Symmetric Measures

Value Approx Sig

Figure 2

Interpretation-

From the above symmetric measures table, the p value can be observed as less than.05 So we can reject H0 and we can accept H1 and we can conclude that there is significant association between type of company and type of digital platform used

5.3 Frequent Usage of Instagram

Table 6 Frequent use Instagram Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative

Percent

Valid

Figure 3

Interpretation

From the above graph we see that Instagram is used for more than once a day by 66.67% users The frequency of usage of Instagram is being seen here It is found that the respondents who use Instagram for their business purpose are using it for more than once a day Instagram

is a important medium for them for all the factors that we have considered like getting feedback, showing the product or service, making announcement etc The different editing features of a picture makes this digital app appealing to the business persons to use it

5.4 Frequent use of WhatsApp

Table 7 How often you use WhatsApp for Business purpose

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative

Percent

Valid

Figure 4

Interpretation

From the above graph we find that WhatsApp is being used for business purposes for more than once a day by 85.45% WhatsApp is more of a personal medium, it provides the facility

of one to one than Facebook, Instagram So it is being used by business persons for multiple purposes The proprietor or the seller can take advantage of direct communication with his

prospect customers and can inform them about their products or services

5.5 Frequent use of Facebook

Table 8 How often you use Facebook for business purpose

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative

Percent

Valid

Figure 5

Interpretation

It can be seen from the above table that Facebook is being used for more than once a day The frequency of using Facebook is more than once a day Facebook has wide coverage It can be used for making announcements or showing a product or service All the users can see the announcements made through the Facebook It is a public forum Business person can keep using the platform of Facebook for this purpose Facebook is thus gaining popularity and is being used for more than once a day

6 CONCLUSION

From the above project we find out the relevance and usage of digital platforms for business purposes We find that from the responses of the survey WhatsApp is being used by 65% of the people for the business purpose This was followed by 22% people who use WhatsApp and Facebook For showing the product Facebook is considered the most important medium

as it has a wide range of audience For selling the product WhatsApp is considered the most important medium as the business persons can communicate one to one with customers For making announcements Facebook is considered as most important medium as Facebook has a wide coverage of audience

Through the Chi-square test we found that there is significant relation between type of organization and type of digital platform used We also found there is significant relation between type of organization and type of digital platform used

WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagramare being used for more than once a day by the businesses that are using it Thus it indicates there is high acceptability among the persons who are using it for the business purposes As we move into the era of digitalization these digital platforms are becoming more relevant with the passage of time They have a wide variety of features They provide the facility of reaching out to a large audience Physical presence is no longer a necessity as people are using digital media to reach out to various markets This have a direct impact on their revenue and it is increasing With more adaptability and more usage of internet the relation between digital media and increase in revenue will keep on increasing day by day

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