Sample 2 -CW B

Sample Research Proposal - 2

LS Business Publishing

LS Education Group

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Research Proposal

on

Analysis of the importance of social media in building customer loyalty in

Telecommunications industry in Bangladesh

Word Count: 2574

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................................... 3

1.1 Rationale of this study ............................................................................................................................................... 3

1.2 Research Aims .............................................................................................................................................................. 4

1.3 Research Objectives ................................................................................................................................................... 4

1.4 Research Questions .................................................................................................................................................... 4

1.5 Research Hypothesis .................................................................................................................................................. 4

2. Literature Review ............................................................................................................................................................... 5

2.1 Social media ................................................................................................................................................................... 5

2.2 Social network services ............................................................................................................................................ 5

2.3 Social Media and Marketing .................................................................................................................................... 5

2.4 Social Media and Branding ...................................................................................................................................... 6

2.5 Branding, Brand Equity and Customer Loyalty .............................................................................................. 6

2.6 Conceptual Framework ............................................................................................................................................ 6

3. Research Methodology ..................................................................................................................................................... 7

3.1 Type of Investigation ................................................................................................................................................. 7

3.2 Data Collection Method ............................................................................................................................................. 8

3.3 Sampling Method ......................................................................................................................................................... 8

3.4 Accessibility Issues ..................................................................................................................................................... 8

3.5 Ethical Issues ................................................................................................................................................................. 8

4. Anticipated Findings.......................................................................................................................................................... 9

5. Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................................................... 9

Reference .................................................................................................................................................................................. 10

Appendix A : Dissertation Structure .............................................................................................................................. 11

Appendix B : Research Time Frame ............................................................................................................................... 12

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1. Introduction

Social media marketing is a new form of marketing. Currently it is generating a lot of interest

(Brogan, 2010). Marketing has changed due to introduction of the internet and social media. It

brings both possibilities and challenges. The use of traditional marketing models and theories has

also challenged by the ever-evolving field of social media (Kasbo, 2008). Traditionally, advertisers

spent most of their marketing budgets on TV advertising but now a day the numbers are decreasing

(Buzzeo, 2010). The reason for this is that internet is getting more and more consumer attention

and all traditional media have a diminished share of how much time is spent with the media. In

Europe and America over 80% of teens and young adults are using different types of social media

(Li, Wang and Cai, 2011).

Due to the above fact global companies are moving towards social media marketing rather than

traditional forms of marketing. Soft drink giant Coca-cola is already integrating Facebook as a part

of their marketing plans with 20 million of Facebook fans (Wortham, 2010). Companies of all sizes

are using social media whether based in developed or developing countries. In Bangladesh, many

organizations are also promoting in social media especially organizations of telecom industry.

Under telecommunications industry in Bangladesh six mobile phone operators are competing with

each other and trying gain substantial market share. Previously they spent 90% of their marketing

budget in traditional form of advertising such as TV and news paper advert. But now companies

such Grameen Phone and Banglalink are moving towards social marketing and spending substantial

amount of money (Choudhury, 2012). However, other organizations are slow in this regard and still

focusing on traditional form of marketing. Therefore, this research is going to investigate the

importance of social media in building the customer loyalty for the telecom industry in Bangladesh.

1.1 Rationale of this study

As discussed above, companies of all sizes are using social media in recent years to promote their

product and services. Since most of them are free to join in and can be managed with a low budget

(Wortham, 2010). Buzzeo (2010) stated that 72% of the Fortune 500 companies have Facebook

accounts and CEOs of all of the Fortune 500 companie’s have LinkedIn accounts. Even small

companies can benefit from the usage of social media as it can be managed with low budget as

discussed above. Although social media marketing is much popular in the developed world but the

potential benefits of it are less highlighted in the developing markets like Bangladesh (Bradshaw,

2010). No researchers have conducted or documented empirical research in Bangladesh in this

regard despite the importance of social media for building customer loyalty.

As there is no such research available for Bangladesh context, the researcher decided to conduct

this study to eliminate the research gap in this field. However, the telecom industry has been

selected as it is the most rising industry in Bangladesh and their business depends on customer

relationship and trust.

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This research may contribute to the literature in many ways (Choudhury, 2012). The outcome of

this study can help the corporate decision makers in designing customer focused marketing

strategy by using social media (Bruns, 2008). On the other hand this research may contribute to

fulfil the business objectives of different industries in Bangladesh through increased understanding

and proper use of social media (Li, Wang and Cai, 2011). Moreover, the purpose of selecting this

topic by the researcher was due to the personal interest held by the researcher about social media

marketing.

1.2 Research Aims

This study will concentrate on social media and its importance to ensure customer loyalty.

Therefore, the main aim of this research is to find out the impact of social media marketing upon

the consumer loyalty in Bangladesh context. To fulfil the aim of this study the following objectives

have been identified and presented below.

1.3 Research Objectives

To examine the importance of social media as a marketing platform

To find out how social media marketing can build strong customer loyalty.

To determine the impact of social media marketing on customer loyalty and overall

corporate performance of telecom companies in Bangladesh.

To recommend how social media can be used effectively to build customer loyalty in

Telecommunications industry in Bangladesh

1.4 Research Questions

Now social media is in the midst of its boom (Nambisan & Watt, 2011). However, research is

somewhere lagging behind and it is yet to be identified how social media can be a part of branding

process to ensure customer loyalty (Kasbo, 2008). So, finding out answer of the following questions

can help to fulfil the research objectives.

How social media can a marketing platform for the selected industry?

How social media can be a part of branding process to ensure customer loyalty?

What is the impact of social media marketing on consumer buying behaviour?

How company can create brand equity through upsurge of social media?

How social media marketing can influence the overall performance of a company?

1.5 Research Hypothesis

A hypothesis is an appropriate guess that is based on the theoretical research as stated by Kaplan &

Haenlein, (2010). So, the following hypothesis has been formed for this study as setting of

hypothesis is the most effective way to start the research.

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H1: Social media is a strong marketing platform for companies of telecommunications industry in

Bangladesh.

H2: Social media marketing can build strong customer loyalty.

H3: Social Media marketing can influence the corporate performance through branding and brand

equity.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Social media

The term social media has different meaning to different people based on emphasized content or

communications (Brogan, 2010). According to him social media is a two-way web as internet

applications allow users to create and exchange content based on the requirements. On the other

hand, Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) define social media as collectivism in networks.

Social media can help in growing it through increased findability. That means a user can easily

access a social media site or company’s web page through search engine optimization. And more

value can be added with more accessibility. Popular social media sites are listed high on the search

engine result pages and help to create strong social network services (Dou, et. al. , 2010).

2.2 Social network services

For the purposes of networking and maintaining relationships social network services are

developed. This networking and relationships helps for customer relationship management to

increase customer loyalty. Li, Wang & Cai (2011), revealed that social networking sites have been

regularly visited by 45% of internet users. This social network services can create a fertile ground

for marketing through cross-linking and cross-commenting (Bruns, 2008).

A good example of social network services is Facebook. The number of Facebook users has grown

exponentially to 500 million in 2010 whereas it was only From 6 million in 2006. Therefore, it

becomes world’s largest social network site (Wortham, 2010). As a result this site has become

popular among companies. As discussed above own Facebook fan pages has been maintained by

72% of Fortune 500 companies.

2.3 Social Media and Marketing

Social media works as an important marketing platform. It has two important dimensions social

networking websites & blogs and mobile phone. Advertiser provides information in the social

networks such as Facebook and Twitter about the likes and dislikes of their consumers. It provides

the businesses with a target audience and this technique is crucial as information relevant to the

user’s likes is available to businesses. Later on the company can use that information to advertise

accordingly (Dou, et. al. , 2010).

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The role of social networking in establishing an integrated marketing strategy has been studied by

the (Nambisan & Watt, 2011). According to them companies can get the information from the social

media easily about the customer’s choice and preference, what they feel about a particular products

etc. Therefore, the company can formulate their marketing strategy based on the collected

information to gain more market shares (Kasbo, 2008).

2.4 Social Media and Branding

In modern times, another method used by advertisers to promote their products is social media

based brand activities. By using social media the company can create unique position in the mind of

the consumers. If many users like the page they will circulate it through cross-link and cross

comments as discussed earlier. In this way they will become the fan of the products and will by the

products to test it (Buzzeo, 2010).

So, social media is helping the business organizations to do their branding in different ways rather

than traditional form of branding. Pookulangara & Koesler (2011), also compared the traditional

way of looking at the brand equity with the social media form of branding. They identified that

strong brand ought to be based on the dialogue with the customer rather mare one way

communication from the company. Social media facilitate the two way communication with the

customer resulting strong brand loyalty.

2.5 Branding, Brand Equity and Customer Loyalty

There are verities of concepts regarding branding and the brand awareness. However, the most

common concept for branding, as discussed above, is creating unique position in the mind of the

consumer regarding the company and its products (Dou, et. al. , 2010). On the other hand strong

brand can create the brand equity. Basically, brand equity is the value of brand. It can be defined

from two perspectives: financial considerations or simply the customer’s perceptions of the brand

(Adjei, Noble & Noble, 2010).

Li, Wang & Cai (2011), provided a prudent explanation of the brand equity based on customer

perspective. He stated that from customer’s perspectives brand equity depends on value provided

by the products or services against customer’s perception. If customer considers that the said

product generated much more value than expected then they become loyal for the product and will

purchase the product repeatedly. This is also known as customer loyalty. So, social media can help

to establish strong brand and resulting customer loyalty.

2.6 Conceptual Framework

Based on the literature review above the following research framework has been developed to

present the relationship among the variable and to fulfil the research objectives.

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Figure: Conceptual Framework

3. Research Methodology

Research method cannot be chosen randomly. The research problem and chosen method should be

closely bound together and usually divided into quantitative and qualitative methods (Kaplan &

Haenlein, 2010). Sometimes researcher uses a mixed method which is much popular in recent times

(Griffin and Babin, 2009). Therefore, the mixed method will be used for this research as this

research is exploratory in nature. The overall data collection and sampling techniques along with

other methodology issues have been presented in this section.

3.1 Type of Investigation

As discussed above, this research is exploratory in nature. This study will try to investigate the

impact of social media marketing on customer loyalty through branding and brand trust. By

keeping it in mind research hypothesises have been developed and presented in the section 1 as

hypothesises are the informed statements tested specifically in research in every research (Griffin

and Babin, 2009).

Therefore, two areas of marketing innovation such as new marketing platform social media and,

branding and customer loyalty trough it will be investigated in this study. However, in developing

country Bangladesh, this topic has not been researched and as such this study will try to find out

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the impact of social media marketing on customer loyalty in Bangladesh context to remove the

research gap in this field.

3.2 Data Collection Method

As this research is going to use a mixed method of research, both qualitative and quantitative data

will be required (Griffin and Babin, 2009). The required qualitative and quantitative data will be

collected from both primary and secondary sources. For secondary information, Brand Pages of the

selected telecom companies along with other published materials such as website, articles, journal

and news paper reporting will be used.

However, an internet questionnaire will be developed for primary data. The developed

questionnaire will be sent to 5% of the sample respondent to find out the usefulness of the

questions. Based on the pilot survey outcome the final questionnaire will be formulated and sent to

the all sample respondent to get their feedback (Li, Wang & Cai, 2011).

3.3 Sampling Method

Quota sampling will be used in this study as it segregates different categories of social media user

(Griffin and Babin, 2009). On the other hand, Quota sampling provides a timelier and cheaper

means to conduct primary survey (Wu, 2011). When developing new measures or in exploratory

work, this sampling technique is more useful as new theory would be generated (Dou, et. al. , 2010).

In this regard, to find out such types of exploratory research outcome a sample size of 50 can be

useful (Griffin and Babin, 2009). However, larger sample size will help to form more concrete

opinion. A sample size with a large number of respondents can be considered to be more reliable

than one with smaller amount of respondents (Nambisan & Watt, 2011). So, careful consideration is

required to select the sample size. Based on the above discussion, researcher felt that sample size

with 100 respondents will be perfect for this research.

3.4 Accessibility Issues

The crucial factor for any research is data accessibility. The research outcome would be vague one if

the researcher cannot access in the required data (Li, Wang & Cai, 2011). For this research, most of

the data will be collected from the internet regarding social media marketing of the selected

companies of telecom industry in Bangladesh. On the other hand primary data will be collected

through internet based questionnaire survey. So the required data will be accessible to fulfil the

objectives of this research (Griffin and Babin, 2009).

3.5 Ethical Issues

Increasingly, researchers have had to deal with the ethical issues. That means the contemporary

social research establishment might have the system of ethical protections. It indicates that

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prospective research participants must be fully informed about the procedures and risks involved

in the research (Li, Wang & Cai, 2011).

Moreover, to disclose the provided information it is needed to collect their consent. As discussed

above, data will be collected from both the secondary and the primary sources for this research.

There will be no ethical question except referencing for secondary sources of data as it is already

published. However, for primary data ethical questions may arise (Weber, 2009). To resolve the

ethical issues proper permission will be sought from the participants to collect and use those data.

4. Anticipated Findings

In an exploratory research, the researcher anticipates the findings and tests the anticipation trough

application of empirical data in the research model. The main anticipated findings of this research

is that social media is a strong marketing platform now a days to promote the products and services

and to create brand trust. So, there is a strong relationship between the social media marketing and

customer loyalty. And social media marketing can influence the overall performance of an

organization through customer loyalty.

5. Conclusions

The overall aims and objectives of the research including the research hypothesis have been

presented in this research. For developing research methodology a brief literature review also

presented here. To conduct this study research methodology has been formed based on the

guidance form reviewed literature. To find out the research outcome the proposed research will be

carried out using the resear methods and approach outlined here.

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Reference

Adjei, M. T., Noble, S. M., & Noble, C. H. (2010), The influence of C2C communications in online

brand communities on customer purchase behavior. Journal of the Academy Marketing Science,

38(5), 634-653.

Bradshaw, T. (2010), Advertisers embrace social networks. Financial Times, June 26th.

Brogan, C. (2010), Social Media 101: Tactics and tips to develop your business online. Hoboken:

John Wiley & Sons, Inc..

Bruns, A. (2008), Blogs, Wikipedia, Second life and beyond: From production to produsage. New

York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc..

Buzzeo, N. (2010), Leading platform for creating Facebook applications, Marketing Weekly News

July 3rd.

Choudhury, J. (2012), Telecommunications companies are focusing on social media marketing to attract more customers, The Daily Star, March 18th. Dou, et. al. (2010), Branding positioning strategy using search engine marketing. MIS Quarterly-June, 261. Griffin, M. and Babin, B. J. (2009), How quality, value, image, and satisfaction create loyalty at a Chinese telecom. Journal of Business Research, 62(10), 980-986. Kaplan, M. & Haenlein, M. (2010), Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of

social media. Business Horizons volume 53, 59-68.

Kasbo, A. (2008), Internet strategy involves more than a flashy website. NJBIZ March 17th.

Li, X. G., Wang, X., & Cai, J. Y. (2011). Corporate-, Product-, and User-Image Dimensions and Purchase Intentions: The Mediating Role of Cognitive and Affective Attitudes. Journal of Computers, 6(9), 1875-1879. Morgan, J. & Peters, J. (2009), Twittfaced: Your toolkit for understanding and maximizing social

media. Troy: Clay Bridges Communications & Publishing.

Nambisan, P. & Watt, J. H. (2011), Managing customer experiences in online product communities.

Journal of Business Research, 64(8), 889-895.

Pookulangara, s. & Koesler, K. (2011), Cultural influence on consumers‟ usage of social networks

and its impact on online purchase intentions. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 18(4),

348-354.

Weber, L. (2009), Marketing to the social web: How digital customer communities build your

business. 2nd edition. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Wortham, J. (2010), Facebook tops 500 million users. The New York Times, July 22nd.

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Appendix A : Dissertation Structure

Figure: Dissertation Structure

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Appendix B : Research Time Frame

The entire research project would be compiled as per following schedule:

Task/ Time

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Introduction and search for secondary data

Literature Review

Research Methodology

Design of Data Collection Methods

Data Collection

Data Analysis and Presentation

Conclusions and Recommendations

Proof-Reading

Sending First Draft to Supervisor

Printing, Binding and Submission

Table : Research Time Frame (Proposed)

Sample 2 -CW B

Documents

Transcript of Sample 2 -CW B