Social Media Marketing and its Significance

Discuss about the Impact Of Social Media Marketing On Brand Awareness- “A Case Study Of Woolworths”.

This study will identify the significance of social media marketing in improving the brand awareness of Woolworths. Woolworths is the market leader in the retail segment in Australia but have in facing issues in the recent years and losing their loyal consumers. Social media marketing is the one of the most crucial aspect of marketing in modern business and the shift from product orientation to marketing orientation has increased the significance of marketing and brand awareness. Brand awareness is one of the key component of marketing campaigns and is essential to gaining new consumers from the market.

Woolworths is the largest retailer in Australia selling both grocery and liquor products to the consumers. The organization has been serving the consumer for almost a century and has been operating more than 1000 stores in Australia. The organization also has their online presence and delivers products to consumers (Woolworths.com.au. 2018). The organization has been loyalty programs of different types for retaining their existing and consists of variety of products such as grocery products, household products, DVDs, health and beauty products, stationery items and other products.

Social media marketing has it positives and negatives, the social media can provide big advantage to different companies but the strategies can back fire at the same time. This is the case of Woolworths which launched a marketing campaign on Anzac Day reinventing the product unique selling proposition, “Fresh food people” to “Fresh in our memories”. This campaign on the social media website was taken down by the company’s marketing team due the criticism it received for commercializing the national identity of Australia (Marketing Magazine, 2015). This shows that social media is very vocal and opinionated about the actions of all the companies and none will be spared if they do something unethical. Moreover, the organization was to slow to respond to the comments on the social media which aggravated the consumers even further. Therefore, it can be seen that the use of social media will have to done effectively by the companies so that it does not seem offensive to the consumers and the organizations will have to critical about the sentiments of the consumers so commercialization of each and every aspect may not be the brightest idea for every organization.

Social media has a vast reach due to the disruption of national boundaries on the online platform and the organizational promotional campaign on the social media website have increased the level of market penetration. Therefore, effective marketing campaign can enhance the brand awareness both in a positive way and in a negative way. The research will identify the significant importance of social media in improving brand awareness.

Components of Social Media Marketing

The objective of the current study are as follows:

• To evaluate the impact of social media marketing on brand awareness in Woolworths
• To identify the key elements of social media marketing in Woolworths
• To identify the different elements of brand awareness in Woolworths
• To recommend suitable strategies for improving the brand awareness of Woolworths

Primary Research Question

• What is the impact of social media marketing on brand awareness in Woolworths?

Secondary Research Question

• What is the key elements of social media marketing in Woolworths?
• What is the different elements of brand awareness in Woolworths?

H₀: There is no positive impact of social media marketing on brand awareness in Woolworths

H₁: There is positive impact of social media marketing on brand awareness in Woolworths

As stated by Godey et al., (2016), social media marketing is an important topic of discussion especially for companies in business to business market and has a deep significance in affecting brand equity and brand image. The advent of web 2.0 has changed the marketing aspect of various companies and most of the companies have witness success due to their marketing orientation.

Social media marketing consists of interactive platforms and mainly consist of content that are generated by the users. The pages on these social media have similar interests and are interactive in nature. The interaction between the users can be multidirectional and bidirectional. The different types of social media platform are Facebook, Google plus, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. These sites vary from being blogging, micro blogging and online rating websites. As stated by Ashley and Tuten, (2015), the number of users in the social media marketing have increased significantly and will increase even further in the upcoming years. The penetration level of social media is huge and this is the reason that the companies have been using social media as the key component of their marketing strategy. These websites have increased the level of transparency on the online platform where information regarding organizational products and their reviews are readily available. Therefore, social media can be used effectively by companies to gain competitive advantage in the market.

Components of social media marketing

The different components of social media marketing are entertainment, interaction trendiness and customization. As stated by Ahmad, Musa and Harun, (2016) the different components of social media marketing should be utilized effectively by different companies in order to increase the brand awareness. The collection of these components is used by all the successful companies in the market.

Entertainment

As opined by Schivinski and Dabrowski, (2016), entertainment is an aspect which draws the attention of the consumers to different social media websites. Therefore, the organizations design different activities that will attract more consumers and engaging them to such activities increases the traffic on the social media websites and organizational websites. These will consist of developing programs such as events and social media campaigns for influencing the buying behaviour of the consumers. The consumers attracted by the creativity of the content the companies post on their page. This has a positive influence on the consumers about the brand image of the company.

Brand Equity and Its Elements

Interaction

According to Barreda et al., (2015), social media is a platform which has allowed the consumers to interact directly with the consumers. The interaction with the consumers enables the companies to identify the varied and changing needs and wants of the consumers. The continuous interaction with consumers provides insights and develops a friendly relationship. The companies are able to pass on their values and extend their brand identity to the consumers. The consumer sentiments are linked to the products and companies especially for the loyal consumers. Therefore, friendly interaction with the consumers results higher conversion rate ion terms of product purchasing.

Customization

As stated by Tsimonis, and Dimitriadis, (2014),customization is the new requirement for majority of the consumers in the market. Customization of the product is the key for gaining competitive advantage in the market and the companies using social media to provide consumers with customized service enhances their long-term sustainability. This also include providing information regarding customized products which would definitely improve the image of the brand in the minds of the consumers. The organization can use this to develop a different perception in the minds of the consumers.

Brand equity

Brand equity provide the company with additional monetary value even if the rival companies have identical product. These is the power of the brand and its identity that creates different perception in the mind of the consumers. The added value of the products and features that differentiate the product of a particular organization from other companies are responsible for providing competitive advantage. Therefore, different companies enhance their brand equity by communicating elements such as emotions, values, status and lifestyle. As stated by Kumar, Choi and Greene, (2017), brand can create an image in to the minds of the consumers that the product offered by a particular company is the best in the market.

Elements of brand equity

The different elements of brand equity are brand image, brand identity and brand awareness. These components are essential for creating a perception about the consumers about the products and services offered by the company.  The organization will be able to create association with the consumers and create a varied perception.

Brand awareness

According to Kim, Lim and Brymer, (2015), one of the most important aspect of branding is brand awareness and is used to develop a particular brand.  The consumers ability to recognize a brand and remember the key features of the product is essential for increasing the awareness of the brand. Therefore, organizations use social media to portray an image of the brand in the mind of the consumers so that consumers recognize the brand when the product category is talked about.

Research Methodology

Brand image

The perception of the consumers regarding a particular product and a brand is known as brand image. The attributes, benefits and attitudes are the categories which defines the image of a brand. The features of the products offered by the companies are defined by the attributes. The benefits are developed from the consumer experience which could include factors such as experimental benefits, functional benefits and symbolic benefits. The evaluation about the brand in the mind of the consumer can be defined as attitude (Kim, Lim & Brymer, (2015).  These factors combined together will develop an image within the minds of the consumers.

Research methodology is used to evaluate and identify the different method, frameworks and dogmas that are significant for data collection and analysis in a particular study. The nature and purpose of the research is key component for choosing the different research methodologies. A research can be applied or fundamental based on these factors and in this current study, the topic chosen is an applied in nature where the research will evaluate the key components of social media marketing and its impact on brand awareness in Woolworths (Flick, 2015). The findings of the study have a practical implication to it and can be used by the managers of Woolworths and other similar companies having similar issues to mitigate the issues faced by them. Research methodology will be described based on the Saunders research onion.

The research philosophy is used for identifying the diverse methods for data collection and analysis. There are mainly four research philosophies and they are realism, positivism, interpretivism and pragmatism. In this current study, positivism has been chosen as the research philosophy as it is generally used for objective research topics (Taylor, Bogdan & DeVault, 2015).  Positivism is used in studies where the data collection is based on observation and the data collected is discrete in nature. Therefore, positivism will facilitate in conducting statistical analysis of data.

Research approaches are of mainly two types deductive and inductive. The deductive and the inductive approach are differentiated by the importance of hypothesis in a particular study. The inductive approach is used to develop new dogmas and frameworks which are tentative in nature (Mackey & Gass, 2015). On the other hand, deductive approach is used to validate the existing theories developed in the literature review. In this current study, deductive approach will be selected which will facilitate in testing the formulated hypothesis and improving the observational scope.

Research Design are exploratory and conclusive in nature which is selected which is selected based on the nature of data collection. In exploratory study, data is explored and the study is basically subjective in nature. Therefore, the study will not provide any definite results but will provide alternate suggestion to the study (Silverman, 2016). Conclusive research will provide definitive conclusion to the study based on the objective of the study. In this current study, conclusive research is the research design which will be used.

In this current study, primary data collection will be used where close ended questionnaire will be developed and will be asked to the consumers. The collected data will be statistically analysed which will consist of response frequency of the respondents, graphs and descriptive statistics (Humphries, 2017). Data analysis will also consist of regression analysis where the relationship between the independent and dependent variable will be determined.  This will also establish the correlation between the both the variables and the regression equation will develop a model which will explain the capability of the dependent variable. Ms excel will be the statistical tool used to develop relevant results in the study.

Sampling is used to minimize the sample population for the studies having huge target population. Sampling will reduce the complexity of the calculation, time and overall cost of the research. Sampling can be of two types, probabilistic sampling and non-probabilistic sampling.  The different methods of probabilistic sampling are cluster sampling, simple random sampling, systematic sampling and stratified sampling. Simple random sampling will randomly select respondents from the overall population in the study (Cuervo?Cazurra et al., (2017). Systematic sampling is a method where respondents at a given interval and if the interval is considered to be k, then the kth variable after each interval will be selected. Stratified sampling is a method in which the sample population is divided into groups that are not overlapping with each other. Randomization will be used to select population sample from these different groups. Cluster sampling is a multi-stage sampling method where the remaining sampling methods are used in stages to obtain the respondents. In this current study, simple random sampling will be used and data will be collected from 200 respondents. However, randomization will reduce the sample size to 100 respondents which are the consumers of Woolworths or may have switched to a different brand.

Reliability is the capability a research to reproduce similar or same result by using diverse data set. In order to check the reliability of the questionnaire, initially pilot study will be conducted and the questionnaire will be sent to 10 respondents to evaluate whether the desired result is obtained or not (Marczyk, DeMatteo & Festinger, 2017). The study will use multiple data sets to check whether the same conclusion can be drawn from the methods and models. The study will use test rated reliability to evaluate the reliability. Validity measures the correctness of the data collection and analysis method in the study. In this study, construct validity will be used to verify the validity of the study.

Ethical consideration is important in research as it is essential to abide by the rules and regulations of the data protection act. The anonymity and privacy of the respondents will be maintained and the data collected will not be used for any other purpose (Ary et al., 2018). The respondents will be made aware of the objective of the study so that they can decide on their own about their participation. They respondents will participate on their own consent and no one will be forced. The data collected will not be manipulated to develop results that will be suitable for the research and has not been used in any other journal for similar purpose.

Conclusion

Thus, it can be concluded from the study that the from the study that the research objective and research methodology has been developed. The study will provide positive results if the proposed methodology is followed. The expected outcome for the study is that there may be positive relationship between the social media marketing and brand awareness.

References

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Woolworths.com.au. (2018). {{metaController.metaData.title}}. Retrieved from https://www.woolworths.com.au/