A

PROJECT REPORT
ON

A Study on Social Media as a Tool of

Marketing
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment for the Award of the
Degree of Bachelor in Business Administration 20142017

Under the Guidance of:

Submitted By:

Mrs. Charu

Jayesh Gupta

Mohla

University

Enrollment

02214701714

Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Management Studies

Affiliated to Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi

No:

PSP Area, Plot No. 1, Sector 22, Rohini, Delhi 110086

STUDENT DECLARATION
This is to certify that I have completed the Project titled A Study on Social Media as a Tool
of Marketing under the guidance of Mrs. Charu Mohla in partial fulfillment of the
requirement for the award of Degree of Bachelor of Business Administration at Maharaja
Agrasen Institute of Management Studies, Delhi. This is an original piece of work & I have
not submitted it earlier elsewhere.

Date:

Signature:

Place:

Name: Jayesh Gupta

University Enrollment No.:

02214701714

CERTIFICATE FROM THE INSTITUTE GUIDE

This is to certify that the summer project titled A Study on Social Media as a Tool of
Marketing is an academic work done by Jayesh Gupta submitted in the partial
fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the degree of Bachelor of Business
Administration at Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Management Studies, Delhi, under my
guidance & direction.
To the best of my knowledge and belief the data & information presented by him/her in the
project has not been submitted earlier.

Signature:
Name of the Faculty: Mrs. Charu Mohla

Designation: Professor

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I wish to thank all those with whom I have worked, interacted and whose thoughts and
insights helped me in furthering my knowledge and understanding of the project.

I would especially like to express my gratitude and sincere thanks to Director Dr. C.S.
Sharma and assistant professor Mrs. Charu Mohla whose excellent teaching has left an
undeniable print on my mind leading me to prepare this project report in a better way and
which would not have been possible without her support and active guidance. I am highly
obliged to them for their opportunity that they gave me to work on A Study on Social
Media as a Tool of Marketing. The present report has made me learn a lot about the
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The project titled A Study on Social Media as a Tool of Marketing deals with the study
of an influential social media presence for a company on all major and niche platforms that
benefit a businesss bottom line.
Many have fallen into the business social media marketing trap at one point or another.
Pouring energy into growing a social presence and posting the polls, pictures, and videos to
entice fans into Liking and retweeting your posts.
Social networking sites and blogs allow individual followers to retweet or repost
comments made by the product being promoted. By repeating the message, all of the user
connections are able to see the message, therefore reaching more people. Social networking
sites act as word of mouth. Because the information about the product is being put out there
and is getting repeated, more traffic is brought to the product/company.
This project involves the study of social networking sites which plays a vital role in social
media marketing. It includes the history of social networking sites and how they help in
marketing.
Internet is the main source by which social media marketing is done.
Social networking websites allow individuals to interact with one another and build
relationships. When companies join the social channels, consumers can interact with them.
That interaction feels personal to users because of their previous experiences with social
networking site interactions.
Case studies such as Americas Got Talent Youtube submissions, Nike makesit count,
Clip In Touch are done to understand the marketing strategies and its concepts. Various

techniques are used by these companies to promote their products and events. These
companies have used various social networking sites as a source for marketing.

Table of Contents

Page No.

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Chapter 2 - Literature Review

Chapter 3 Methodology

26

Chapter 4 - Case Study

28

Analysis

Chapter 5 - Conclusion &

41

Suggestions

Chapter 6 - Limitations of the

43

study
Bibliography

44

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1
IntroductionTo Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing refers to the process of gaining website traffic or attention through
social media sites.
Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that attracts
attention and encourages readers to share it with their social networks. The resulting
electronic word of mouth (eWoM) refers to any statement consumers share via the Internet
(e.g., web sites, social networks, instant messages, news feeds) about an event, product,
service, brand or company. When the underlying message spreads from user to user and
presumably resonates because it appears to come from a trusted, third-party source, as
opposed to the brand or company itself, this form of marketing results in earned media
rather than paid media.

Social networking websites allow individuals to interact with one another and build
relationships. When companies join the social channels, consumers can interact with them.
That interaction feels personal to users because of their previous experiences with social
networking site interactions.

Social networking sites and blogs allow individual followers to retweet or repost
comments made by the product being promoted. By repeating the message, all of the users
connections are able to see the message, therefore reaching more people. Social networking
sites act as word of mouth. Because the information about the product is being put out there
and is getting repeated, more traffic is brought to the product/company.
In 2009, bloggers had an enormous impact on fashion, affecting everything from print
publishing to how brands market themselves online. There are thousands of style-related
blogs on the web these days, and those dedicated to their craft have earned industry
recognition. A number of unknowns earned recognition from Dolce &Gabbana, Burberry,
Alexander McQueen and leading publications such as Vogue. They participated in fashion
design collection collaborations and received front-row, international Fashion Week seats.
1

next to some of the most notable figures in the couture world. A recent Financial Times
article notes that being a style blogger is a perfectly respectable career for someone in the
fashion industry. The social web has removed the gatekeepers of an industry that was
notoriously hard to penetrate and build a name in. These sites have succeeded because of the
quality of their content. While each is unique, theyve built a cult following around their areas
of expertise and passion.
Through social networking sites, companies can interact with individual followers. This
personal interaction can instill a feeling of loyalty into followers and potential customers.
Also, by choosing whom to follow on these sites, products can reach a very narrow target
audience.
Social networking sites also include a vast amount of information about what products and
services prospective clients might be interested in. Through the use of new Semantic Analysis
technologies, marketers can detect buying signals, such as content shared by people and
questions posted online. Understanding of buying signals can help sales people target relevant
prospects and marketers run micro-targeted campaigns.
In todays rapidly-evolving media landscape, social media has not onlybecome a fundamental
tool for communication, but a must-have skill in amultitude of industries. With the right
amount of practice and social mediaeducation, students and professionals are empowered
with a competitiveedge in their studies, careers and communications.
This course will teach marketing students how to create and maintain asocial media presence
for business, including Facebook, Twitter, Google+,Tumblr, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram,
etc. Students will learn to usesocial media and content marketing to grow their business and
engagewith customers.
Social media has changed the way we communicate and the way we do business. Word of
mouth marketingis being replaced by tweeting recommendations to friends, and more and
more customers are researchingproducts online before purchasing.

LITERATURE REVIEW
What is Social Media?
Social Media is defined as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the
ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and
exchange of User Generated Content."

Furthermore, the New Zealand Government of

Internal Affairs describes it as "a set of online technologies, sites and practices which are used
to share opinions, experiences and perspectives. Fundamentally it is about conversation. In
contrast with traditional media, the nature of social media is to be highly interactive."
Moreover, the term social media is described an online tools that let people to interact and
communicate with each other. This has become a standard word for online and cultural and it
has a dominant ways for individuals to engage on the internet. By using social media
individuals became more closely and strongly connected than ever before.
Social Media as a Public Utility
Applying the term public utility to social media implies that social media websites are public
necessities, and, consequently, should be regulated by the government. While social media is
not as essential for survival as traditional public utilities such as electricity, water, and natural
gas, many people believe it has become vital for living in an interconnected world and
without it, living a successful life would be difficult. Therefore, many people believe that
social media has reached utility status and should be treated as a public utility. However,
others believe that this is not true because social media is constantly revolutionizing and
giving such platforms "utility status" would result in government regulation, which would
consequently hinder innovation. Over the past decade many have debated and questioned
whether or not "Internet service providers should be considered essential facilities or natural
monopolies and regulated as public utilities."

Individual Level
On the individual level, advocates of social media as a public utility believe that Internet
presence using social media websites is imperative in order to adequately take part in the 21st
century as an individual, and consequently, these sites are public utilities and need to be
regulated. Specifically, social media researcher Danah Boyd has argued that the social media
site Facebook is obtaining public utility characteristics, and due to such characteristics she
concludes that regulation will eventually take place in the future. She asserts "Facebook may
not be at the scale of the Internet (or the Internet at the scale of electricity), but that doesnt
mean that its not angling to be a utility or quickly becoming one,"
Additionally, Boyd points out that just like water, power, and sewage, most people will not
give up Facebook regardless of how much they hate it. She argues that Facebook is becoming
a public utility, and regulation is imminent. Specifically she states, "we can argue about
whether or not regulation makes things cheaper or more expensive, but we cant argue about
whether or not regulators are involved with utilities: they are always watching them because
they matter to the people."
Furthermore, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,
ZeynepTufeci expresses that social media is a public utility and is optional in the same sense
that electricity, telephone, and modern medicine are optional. Tufeci claims websites such as
Facebook act as a "phone directory" in the lives of young people. Additionally, she expresses
that maintaining a social media profile is not an easy endeavor and users are highly unlikely
to duplicate this effort across multiple services. She claims this is "the same way multiple
electric companies dont put down parallel cables to each neighbor to compete with each
other."
The research done by both Tufekci and Boyd illustrate the way advocates of social media as a
public utility feel about social media websites. Specifically, these advocates claim that such
websites are the equivalent of "social utilities" or "social commons," and are essential to
ones social existence.

Social Media Trends

Opponents of this theory claim that social media websites are not public utilities because new
social media websites continually come into existence and replace the old. Such evolution
does not happen with common public utilities like water, electricity, and natural gas. To
illustrate this argument, the following lists popular social media websites. Many were very
popular in the past, and have been displaced by similar websites of the present.
CompuServe, Prodigy&The WELL: popular social networking websites sites 25 years ago.
America Online: popular online service in the 90s, which charged a monthly fee and offered
many tools including its own browser, search engine, content, chat rooms, and email system.
GeoCities, Tripod.com &Yahoo! Groups: common websites of the mid-nineties. GeoCities
and Tripod offered tools that allowed users to publish web pages that others could discover.
Yahoo! offered a free ad-supported alternative to America Online
Google: Search engine which beat out Yahoo! by its uncluttered website design and relevant
search results.
Google+, in addition to providing the profiles and features of Facebook, is also able to
integrate with the Google search engine. Other Google products are also integrated, such
as Google Adwords and Google Maps. With the development of Google Personalized
Search and other location-based search services, Google+ allows for targeted advertising
methods, navigation services, and other forms of location-based marketing and promotion.
Blogger, TypePad, WordPress.com: common blogging websites.
Flickr, Photobucket, ImageShack: general websites where users can share photos.
YouTube: video sharing website that was eventually bought out by Google and thus is still
prevalent today.

YouTube is another popular avenue; advertisements are done in a way to suit the target
audience. The type of language used in the commercials and the ideas used to promote the
product reflect the audience's style and taste.
Also, the ads on this platform are usually in sync with the content of the video requested; this
is another advantage YouTube brings for advertisers. Certain ads are presented with certain
videos since the content is relevant. Promotional opportunities such as sponsoring a video is
also possible on YouTube, for example, a user who searches for a YouTube video on dog
training may be presented with a sponsored video from a dog toy company in results along
with other videos.Youtube also enable publishers to earn money through Youtube Partner
Program.

MySpace: began in 2003 and became the most popular social network site that allowed users
to interact, share photos, and videos.

Facebook: after one year, in 2004, this social media website beat out MySpace by nearly
doubling the amount of users and is currently the most popular online social network.
Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add
other users as friends, exchange messages, and receive automatic notifications when they
update their profile.
Facebook profiles are far more detailed than Twitter accounts. They allow a product to
provide videos, photos, and longer descriptions. Videos can show when a product can be used
as well as how to use it. These also can include testimonials as other followers can comment
on the product pages for others to see. Facebook can link back to the products Twitter page
as well as send out event reminders. Facebook promotes a product in real-time and brings
customers in.

As marketers see more value in social media marketing, advertisers continue to increase
sequential ad spend in social by 25%. Strategies to extend the reach with Sponsored Stories
and acquire new fans with Facebook ads contribute to an uptick in spending across the site.
The study attributes 84% of "engagement" or clicks to Likes that link back to Facebook
advertising. Today, brands increase fan counts on average of 9% monthly, increasing their fan
base by two-times the amount annually
LinkedIn: launched in 2003, business and professional networking site, popular site of today.
A professional business-related networking site, allows companies to create professional
profiles for themselves as well as their business to network and meet others. Through the use
of widgets, members can promote their various social networking activities, such as Twitter
stream or blog entries of their product pages, onto their LinkedIn profile page. LinkedIn
provides its members the opportunity to generate sales leads and business partners. Members
can use Company Pages similar to Facebook pages to create an area that will allow
business owners to promote their products or services and be able to interact with their
customers. Due to spread of spam mail sent to job seeker, leading companies prefer to use
LinkedIn for employee's recruitment instead using different job portals. Additionally,
companies have voiced a preference for the amount of information that can be gleaned from
LinkedIn profile, versus a limited email.
Instagram: Instagram is a free photo and video-sharing program and social network that was
launched in October 2010. The service enables users to take a photo or video, apply a digital
filter to it, and then share it with other Instagram users they are connected to on the social
network as well as on a variety of social networking services.
Twitter: launched in 2006, social networking and microblogging service that allows users to
post updates that are up to 140 characters long.

Twitter allows companies to promote their products on an individual level. The use of a
product can be explained in short messages that followers are more likely to read. These
messages appear on followers home pages. Messages can link to the products website,
Facebook profile, photos, videos, etc. This link provides followers the opportunity to spend
more time interacting with the product online. This interaction can create a loyal connection
between product and individual and can also lead to larger advertising opportunities. Twitter
promotes a product in real-time and brings customers in.
Social Media Platforms
Social networking websites and blogs
Social networking websites allow individuals to interact with one another and build
relationships. When companies join the social channels, consumers can interact with them.
That interaction feels personal to users because of their previous experiences with social
networking site interactions.
Social networking sites and blogs allow individual followers to retweet or repost
comments made by the product being promoted. By repeating the message, all of the users
connections are able to see the message, therefore reaching more people. Social networking
sites act as word of mouth. Because the information about the product is being put out there
and is getting repeated, more traffic is brought to the product/company.
In 2009, bloggers had an enormous impact on fashion, affecting everything from print
publishing to how brands market themselves online. There are thousands of style-related
blogs on the web these days, and those dedicated to their craft have earned industry
recognition. A number of unknowns earned recognition from Dolce &Gabbana, Burberry,
Alexander McQueen and leading publications such as Vogue.
They participated in fashion design collection collaborations and received front-row,
international Fashion Week seats next to some of the most notable figures in the couture
world. A recent Financial Times article notes that being a style blogger is a perfectly
respectable career for someone in the fashion industry. The social web has removed the
gatekeepers of an industry that was notoriously hard to penetrate and build a name in. These
sites have succeeded because of the quality of their content. While each is unique, theyve
built a cult following around their areas of expertise and passion.
8

Through social networking sites, companies can interact with individual followers. This
personal interaction can instill a feeling of loyalty into followers and potential customers.
Also, by choosing whom to follow on these sites, products can reach a very narrow target
audience.
Social networking sites also include a vast amount of information about what products and
services prospective clients might be interested in. Through the use of new Semantic Analysis
technologies, marketers can detect buying signals, such as content shared by people and
questions posted online. Understanding of buying signals can help sales people target relevant
prospects and marketers run micro-targeted campaigns.

Mobile phones
Mobile phone usage has also become beneficial for social media marketing. Today, many cell
phones have social networking capabilities: individuals are notified of any happenings on
social networking sites through their cell phones, in real-time. This constant connection to
social networking sites means products and companies can constantly remind and update
followers about their capabilities, uses, importance, etc. Because cell phones are connected to
social networking sites, advertisements are always in sight. Also many companies are now
putting QR codes along with products for individuals to access the company website or
online services with their smart-phones.

Facebook
History

Facebook is an online social networking service. Its name comes from the colloquial name
for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some American university
administrations to help students get to know one another. Facebook was founded in February
2004

by Mark

Zuckerberg with

University students Eduardo

his

college

Saverin, Andrew

roommates

McCollum, Dustin

and

fellow Harvard

Moskovitz and Chris

Hughes. The founders had initially limited the website's membership to students of the
University of Harvard, but later expanded it to colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League,
and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities
before it opened to high-school students, and eventually to anyone aged 13 and over.
Facebook now allows anyone who claims to be at least 13 years old to become a registered
user of the website.
Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add
other users as friends, exchange messages, and receive automatic notifications when they
update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by
workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists
such as "People From Work" or "Close Friends". As of September 2012, Facebook has
over one billion active users, of which 8.7% are fake. According to a May 2011 Consumer
Reports survey, there are 7.5 million children under 13 with accounts and 5 million under 10,
violating the site's terms of service. Facebook (as of 2012) has about 180 petabytes of data
per year and grows by over half a petabyte every 24 hours.

10
Role of Facebook in Social Media Marketing

Facebook profiles are far more detailed than Twitter accounts. They allow a product to
provide videos, photos, and longer descriptions. Videos can show when a product can be used
as well as how to use it. These also can include testimonials as other followers can comment
on the product pages for others to see. Facebook can link back to the products Twitter page
as well as send out event reminders. Facebook promotes a product in real-time and brings
customers in.
As marketers see more value in social media marketing, advertisers continue to increase
sequential ad spend in social by 25%. Strategies to extend the reach with Sponsored Stories
and acquire new fans with Facebook ads contribute to an uptick in spending across the site.
The study attributes 84% of "engagement" or clicks to Likes that link back to Facebook
advertising. Today, brands increase fan counts on average of 9% monthly, increasing their fan
base by two-times the amount annually.

The social network no longer supports social marketing and that it has become a traditional
ad seller. Although Facebook promises it will better connect marketers to their customers, the
social network shows 16% of each brand's posts to its fans, the report said. Facebook has also
done little to improve branded page formats and the tools marketers use to manage those
pages.
Instead of supporting social marketing, the social has instead become a traditional ad seller.
Although Facebook delivers as many as one-third of all display impressions online, fewer
than 15% of Facebook ads use social data to reach more-relevant audiences. "Facebook's
static-image ad units offer marketers less impact per impression than marketers could achieve
with the ad units other sites offer.

11

Facebook placed last in a list of 13 marketing channels by 395 marketers in the U.S., U.K.
and Canada. Social sites including LinkedIn, YouTube, Google Plus and Twitter all ranked
above Facebook. Facebook did, however, achieve a score of 3.54 on a scale of 1 to 5.

12
Instagram
History

Instagram is

an

online photo-sharing, video-sharing and social

networking service

that

enables its users to take pictures and videos, apply digital filters to them, and share them on a
variety of social networking services, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr.A
distinctive feature is

that it confines photos

to a square shape, similar to

Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid images, in contrast to the 16:9 aspect ratio now typically used
by mobile device cameras. Users are also able to record and share short videos lasting for up
to 15 seconds.

Instagram was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and launched in October 2010.
The service rapidly gained popularity, with over 100 million active users as of April
2012. Instagram is distributed through the Apple App Store and Google Play. Support was
originally available for only the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch; in April 2012, support was
added for Android camera phones. A third-party Instagram app is available for theWindows
Phone. On October 22, 2013, during the Nokia World at Abu Dhabi, UAE, Kevin Systrom
has confirmed that official Instagram app for Windows Phone will be available in the coming
weeks. The service was acquired by Facebook in April 2012 for approximately $1 billion in
cash and stock.

13
Instagram is a free photo and video-sharing program and social network that was launched in
October 2010. The service enables users to take a photo or video, apply a digital filter to it,
and then share it with other Instagram users they are connected to on the social network as
well as on a variety of social networking services. Instagram debuted as a photo sharing
network but implemented support for video on June 2013. As of June 2013, Instagram had
130 million monthly active users.
71 percent of the worlds largest brands have adopted Instagram, which now rivals the brand
adoption of Google+ and Pinterest, making it the fastest growing social network worldwide.
The brand hashtag monitoring, multi-account monitoring, competitive monitoring and a
complete social media snapshot.
This is a comprehensive view of activity that tracked brands across all social channels and
put in context with their other social media activity. Instagram is a channel weve been
tracking for some time. Its an excellent channel for brands to repurpose their marketing
content. Brand adoption has increased significantly, which has made it a great place for
consumers to connect with those brands.

Source: Simply Measured

14
The top brand on Instagram is Mercedes-Benz, with more than 425,000 followers and more
than 9 million engaged users. This might be surprising since Instagram draws a younger
crowd.
They are very strong all the way around. There is extreme interest in luxury goods and brands
on the network.
Like more brands, Mercedes-Benz gains the most engagement through photos, rather than
videos. Video use is increasing slowly, but the top 10 brands are the best users of the tool.
Photos will continue to outperform video in terms of engagement.
Other key findings from the study include:

As activity increases, so do followers. 57 percent of top brand marketers are now

averaging at least one post per week, up from only 38 percent in Q3 of 2012. As a
result, more than one third of top brands have 10,000 followers and 19 percent enjoy
audiences that exceed 100,000 followers.

Engagement is skyrocketing. Brand engagement has grown by a staggering 350

percent year over year, due, in part, to a 70 percent increase in brands posting to the
network.

Automotive, media and luxury brands dominate. Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi
make up three of the top five most engaging brands. In total, the Top 10 brands
received 83 percent of all Instagram engagement, while accounting for 33 percent of
all posts.

Photos receive more comments and likes than videos. Like most new features, video
adoption has been slow to gain momentum, accounting for only 6 percent of total
posts. Meanwhile photos continue to lead the way, driving 26 percent more
engagement than videos.

Hashags have become the norm. 83 percent of Instagram posts include at least one
hashtag, with 63 of the 65 active brands on Instagram using the new feature. Of
interest, top brands use hashtags more sparingly than other brands.

15
Blogs
History

A blog (a truncation of the expression web log) is a discussion or informational site published
on the World Wide Web and consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in
reverse chronological order (the most recent post appears first). Until 2009 blogs were
usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often covered a
single subject. More recently "multi-author blogs" (MABs) have developed, with posts
written by large numbers of authors and professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other
media outlets, universities, think tanks, interest groups and similar institutions account for an
increasing quantity of blog traffic. The rise of Twitter and other "microblogging" systems
helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into societal newstreams. Blog can also be
used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
A majority is interactive; allowing visitors to leave comments and even message each other
via GUI widgets on the blogs, and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other
static websites. In that sense, blogging can be seen as a form of social networking service.
Indeed, bloggers do not only produce content to post on their blogs, but also build social
relations with their readers and other bloggers. There are high-readership blogs which do not
allow comments, such as Daring Fireball.

Everyday there are more reasons for companies to use blogging platforms for their social
media repertoire. Platforms like LinkedIn creates an environment for companies and clients
to connect online. Companies that recognize the need for information, originality, and
accessibility employ blogs to make their products popular and unique, and ultimately reach
out to consumers who are privy to social media.

16
Blogs allow a product or company to provide longer descriptions of products or services. The
longer description can include reasoning and uses. It can also include testimonials and can
link to and from Facebook, Twitter and many social network and blog pages. Blogs can be
updated frequently and are promotional techniques for keeping customers. Other promotional
uses are acquiring followers and subscribers and direct them to your social network pages.
In a similar fashion, online communities benefit businesses because the online communities
enable the businesses to reach the clients of other businesses using the platform.
These online environments can be accessed by virtually anyone; therefore consumers are
invited to be a part of the creative process. To allow firms to measure their standing in the
corporate world,Glassdoor is a site where employees can place evaluations of their
companies.
Some businesses opt out of integrating social media platforms into their traditional marketing
regimen because their employees dislike such isolated online environments. There are also
specific corporate standards that apply when interacting online. Other corporations fear that
the general public have too much power over how their marketing is perceived, due to the
accessibility of Internet-retrieved information. To ensure having the advantage in a businessconsumer relationship, businesses have to be aware of four key assets that consumers
maintain: information, involvement, community, and control.

17
Google+
History

Google+ (pronounced and sometimes written as Google Plus is a social networking and
identity service that is owned and operated by Google Inc. Google has described Google+ as
a "social layer" that enhances many of its online properties, and that it is not simply a social
networking website. It is the second-largest social networking site in the world
after Facebook. 540 million monthly active users are part of the Identity service side, by
interacting

socially

with

Google+'s

Enhanced

Properties,

like Gmail,

+1

button, YouTube comments. 300 million monthly active users are part of the Social
Networking side by interacting with the Google+ social networking stream itself.
Google+ Mobile App was used by 30% of smartphone users between AprilJune 2014,
making it the fourth most used app. Google+ Enhanced apps and mobile sites are used on
92% of USA smartphones.
Two Main strengths Of Google+ Social Site are Photography and it's Hangouts feature. An
update in October, 2014 focuses on these areas. Google+ has 1.5b photos uploaded each
week.

18

YouTube
History

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February

2005 and owned by Google since late 2006, on which users can upload, view and share
videos. The company is based in San Bruno, California, and uses Adobe Flash
Video and HTML5technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content,
including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video
blogging, short original videos, and educational videos.

Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media
corporations including CBS, the BBC, Vevo, Hulu, and other organizations offer some of
their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program. Unregistered users can

watch videos, while registered users can upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos
considered to contain potentially offensive content are available only to registered users at
least 18 years old. YouTube, LLC was bought by Google for US$1.65 billion in November
2006 and now operates as a Google subsidiary.

19
MySpace
History

MySpace is a social networking service with a strong music emphasis owned by Specific
Media LLC and pop music singer and actor Justin Timberlake. Myspace was launched in
August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In June 2012, Myspace had 25
million unique U.S. visitors.
Myspace was founded in 2003 and was acquired by News Corporation in July 2005 for $580
million. From 2005 until early 2012, Myspace was the most visited social networking site in
the world, and in June 2006 surpassed Google as the most visited website in the United
States. In April 2008, Myspace was overtaken by Facebook in the number of unique
worldwide visitors, and was surpassed in the number of unique U.S. visitors in May

2009, though Myspace generated $800 million in revenue during the 2008 fiscal year. Since
then, the number of Myspace users has declined steadily in spite of several redesigns. As of
June 2013, Myspace was ranked 303 by total web traffic, and 223 in the United States.

Myspace had a significant influence on pop culture and music and created a gaming platform
that launched the successes of Zynga and Rock You, among others. The site also started the
trend of creating unique URLs for companies and artists.

In June 2009, Myspace employed approximately 1,600 workers. Since then the company has
undergone several rounds of layoffs and by June 2011, Myspace had reduced its staff to
around 200. In June 2011, Specific Media Group and Justin Timberlake jointly purchased the
company for approximately $35 million.
20

LinkedIn
History

LinkedIn's CEO is Jeff Weiner, previously a Yahoo! Inc. executive. The company was
founded by Reid Hoffman and founding team members from PayPal and Socialnet.com
(Allen Blue, Eric Ly, Jean-Luc Vaillant, Lee Hower, Konstantin Guericke, Stephen Beitzel,
David Eves, Ian McNish, Yan Pujante, and Chris Saccheri).
Founder Reid Hoffman, previously CEO of LinkedIn, is now Chairman of the
Board. LinkedIn is headquartered in Mountain View, California, with offices in Omaha,

Chicago, New York, London, and Dublin. It is funded by Sequoia Capital, Greylock, Bain
Capital Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partnersand the European Founders Fund. LinkedIn
reached profitability in March 2006. Through January 2011, the company had received a total
of $103 million of investment.
In late 2003, Sequoia Capital led the Series A investment in the company. In June 2008,
Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, and other venture capital firms purchased a 5% stake in
the company for $53 million, giving the company a post-money valuation of approximately
$1 billion.
In 2010, LinkedIn opened an International Headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, received a $20
million investment from Tiger Global Management LLC at a valuation of approximately
$2 billion,and announced its first acquisition, Mspoke, and improved its 1% premium
subscription ratio. In October of that year Silicon Valley Insider ranked the company No. 10
on its Top 100 List of most valuable startups. By December, the company was valued at
$1.575 billion in private markets.

21
Twitter
History

Twitter's origins lie in a "daylong brainstorming session" held by board members of

the podcasting company Odeo. Dorsey, then an undergraduate student atNew York
University, introduced the idea of an individual using an SMS service to communicate with a
small group. The original project code name for the service was twitter, an idea that Williams
later ascribed to Noah Glass, inspired by Flickr and the five-character length of American
SMS short codes. The developers initially considered "10958" as a short code, but later
changed it to "40404" for "ease of use and memorability." Work on the project started on
March 21, 2006, when Dorsey published the first Twitter message at 9:50 PM Pacific
Standard Time (PST): "just setting up my twitter". .Dorsey has explained the origin of the
"Twitter" title:
...we came across the word 'twitter', and it was just perfect. The definition was 'a short burst
of inconsequential information,' and 'chirps from birds'. And that's exactly what the product
was.
The first Twitter prototype, developed by Dorsey and contractor Florian Weber, was used as
an internal service for Odeo employees and the full version was introduced publicly on July
15, 2006.

22
In October 2006, Biz Stone, Evan Williams, Dorsey, and other members of Odeo, formed
Obvious Corporation and acquired Odeo, together with its assetsincluding Odeo.com and
Twitter.comfrom the investors and shareholders. Williams fired Glass, who was silent
about his part in Twitter's startup until 2011. Twitter spun off into its own company in April
2007. Williams provided insight into the ambiguity that defined this early period in a 2013
interview:
With Twitter, it wasn't clear what it was. They called it a social network, they called it micro
blogging, but it was hard to define, because it didn't replace anything. There was this path of

discovery with something like that, where over time you figure out what it is. Twitter actually
changed from what we thought it was in the beginning, which we described as status updates
and a social utility. It is that, in part, but the insight we eventually came to was Twitter was
really more of an information network than it is a social network.

23
Foursquare

History

Foursquare is

location-based social

networking website

for mobile devices,

such

as smartphones. Users "check in" at venues using a mobile website, text messaging or a
device-specific application by selecting from a list of venues the application locates
nearby. Location is based onGPS hardware in the mobile device or network location provided
by the application, and the map is based on data from the OpenStreetMap project. Each
check-in awards the user points and sometimes "badges". The user who checks in the most
often to a venue becomes the "mayor," and users regularly vye for "mayorships."
The service was created in 2009 by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai. Crowley had
previously founded the similar project Dodgeball as his graduate thesis project in the
Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University. Google bought
Dodgeball in 2005 and shut it down in 2009, replacing it with Google Latitude. Dodgeball
user interactions were based on SMS technology, rather than an application.
Foursquare is the second iteration of the same idea, that people can use mobile devices to
interact with their environment. As of April 2012, the company reported it had 20 million
registered users. The company was expected to pass 750 million check-ins before the end of
June 2011, with an average of about 3 million check-ins per day. Male and female users are
equally represented and also 50 percent of users are outside the US.Support for French,
Italian, German, Spanish, and Japanese was added in February 2011. Support for Indonesian,
Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Thai was added in September 2011. Support for Turkish
was added in June 2012.
24

Yelp
History

Yelp, Inc. is a multinational company that operates an online review site and local business
search service.

Headquartered

Stoppelman and Russel

in San

Simmons in

Francisco,

2004.

It

Yelp

received

was

founded

by Jeremy

$130

million

in venture

finance before going public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2012 with a valuation of
about $898 million. Yelp sells memberships to businesses and advertising on its website.
Yelp began as an email service for exchanging local business recommendations. An expanded
website in 2005 introduced networking features. Yelp also organizes member events such as
food and beverage tastings, offers discounts, and launched a mobile application. The body of
reviews and web and mobile traffic has grown sharply. The company's rating system and
tools for filtering reviews has been the subject of controversy and litigation.

Yelp Inc. developed out of a business incubator called MRL Ventures that was founded
by Max Levchin and several former PayPal executives. Stoppleman proposed a website
where users could ask friends for their recommendations on local services via email and
Levchin agreed to invest $1 million in the project. MRL co-founder, David Galbraith, who
had instigated the research into a Yellow Pages style Internet product, came up with the name
"Yelp", and the project was launched in 2004.

25

CHAPTER 2
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Chapter 2
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Methodology is the systematic, theoretical analysis of the methods applied to a field
of study, or the theoretical analysis of the body of methods and principles associated with a
branch of knowledge. It, typically, encompasses concepts such as paradigm, theoretical
model, phases and quantitative or qualitative techniques.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The objectives of the study of social media marketing are To understand the social media fundamental concepts and social media etiquettes. It
refers that how to use the concepts and etiquette of social media in marketing. These
concepts are helpful in effective marketing as they direct path in which social media
marketing has to be done.
Another objective of the study is to understand the social media strategy which is used
in marketing. It helps to know the various ideas and techniques used in social media
marketing. The strategy helps in understanding the market more effectively.

We also understand how to advertise by using social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter,
etc.Case study analysis helps in understanding how to advertise through social media.
Advertising is the most important part in marketing i.e., to sell any product or organize any
event the main part is to advertise it. So social media marketing plays a major role in
advertisement.
Case studies such as Americas Got Talent Youtube submissions, Nike Make It count,
Clip In Touch are done to understand the marketing strategies and its concepts. Various
techniques are used by these companies to promote their products and events. These
companies have used various social networking sites as a source for marketing.
The study of Social Media Marketing, since not being a related to particular company, has
been conducted through secondary data.
26

Secondary data, is data collected by someone other than the user. Common sources of
secondary data for social science includes

Censuses
Organizational records
Data collected through qualitative methodologies or qualitative research.

Secondary data analysis saves time that would otherwise be spent collecting data and,
particularly in the case of quantitative data, provides larger and higher-quality databases that
would be unfeasible for any individual researcher to collect on their own. In addition,
analysts of social and economic change consider secondary data essential, since it is
impossible to conduct a new survey that can adequately capture past change and/or
developments.
The data collected by a person is already been collected and used by some other individual. It
can be said as the re-usage of the data being collected. No questionnaires, etc. are involved in
this as the person seeks the information which is already present to him/her.
Secondary data refers to the data, which is not newly generated but rather obtained from.

Published sources.

Unpublished sources i.e., information about the performance of the company.

Secondary research uses outside information assembled by government agencies, industry

and trade associations, labor unions, media sources, chambers of commerce, and so on.
I have collected information from various sources like:1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Pamphlets
Newsletters
Trade publications
Magazines
Newspapers

27

CHAPTER 3
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS

Chapter - 4
Case Study Analysis
Case studies are analyses of persons, events, decisions, periods, projects, policies,
institutions, or other systems that are studied holistically by one or more methods. The case
that is the subject of the inquiry will be an instance of a class of phenomena that provides an
analytical frame an object within which the study is conducted and which the case
illuminates and explicates.
Case 1
"America's Got Talent" YouTube submissions.

Source: Google Images

28
Why this is one of the best social media campaigns of 2012:
This campaign crosses online and offline participation in a way that makes sense. Videos are
highly shareable, and when users see videos, they begin to build relationships with the subject
of the video and might be more likely to follow along on the television show. Furthermore,
opening up entries to all Americans (who have a YouTube account or a way to share videos)
ensures that the show is authentic and gives everyone a chance to compete.

Interpretation
Social networking site youtube has been used to promote a television show Americas Got
Talent. People got a chance to participate just by uploading their video on youtube and share
it with whole world. So social media marketing played an important role in grand success of
this show. Whole world got chance to see videos through youtube.

29

Case Study 2
Nike #MakeItCount in 2012 (Twitter)
The goals of the campaign were to use the Nike brand to encourage and motivate people to
"make it count" this year. The campaign focused on fitness and health and incorporating
powerful photos, content, and videos corresponding with the "make it count" message. The
campaign was cross-channel (Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook); however, the hashtag
was the stickiest aspect of the program.
Here's how the campaign was implemented on Twitter:

Source: Google Images

The #MakeItCount campaign was launched in January 2012, right around the time when
people are checking in on their New Year's resolutions. The campaign features 11 athletes in
three countries. Videos, photos, and links about how these 11 athletes were pushing their
boundaries and "making it count" were shared on social channels using the #MakeItCount
hashtag. This content was shared virally, and users began sharing their own #MakeItCount
experiences and how they were motivating and pushing themselves.
30

Why this was one of the best social media campaigns of 2012:
The campaign was in-line with Nike's core messaging: "Just Do It." Choosing 11 athletes and
leveraging their fans and followers amplified the messages. The #MakeItCount hashtag was
brilliantly crafted to be succinct, to-the-point, relevant, and easily shareable. Furthermore, the
videos are highly engaging and motivational.
Interpretation
In this case study of nike, the company focused on creating awareness of physical fitness
through social networking sites such as Twitter, Youtube, Facebook. Various photos, videos
were uploaded on social networking sites.

31

Case Study 3
British Midland International's (BMI) Pinterest lottery
The goals of the campaign were to drive awareness to the newly created Pinterest account for
BMI and incentivize users to pin destination photos to BMI's boards (thus creating a large
amount of user-generated content). Here's how the campaign was implemented on Pinterest:

Source: Google images

Destination boards were created on BMI's Pinterest account. Each board contained exactly
nine pins that each had a unique number on them (1-9). Each week, a number would be
chosen at random. Everyone who had re-pinned the image that corresponded to that number
was entered into the drawing. A winner was chosen at random, and the prize was a round-trip
ticket from any BMI destination.
Interpretation
The company BMI had launched a campaign Pinterest account in which there were nine pins
each having unique number. The winners were choosen at randoms through social networking
sites. So social media marketing played important role for BMI. They gave updates to people
through social networking sites.
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Case Study 4
MTV Bloc Party

MTV wanted to be more than just a TV channel, it wanted to connect with its target audience
and build a community that the fans could associate strongly with. 76 per cent of the
youngsters state that live music events are important or extremely important to them and they
would love to experiment with new genres of music and 95 per cent place music as an
important and central aspect of their lives.

Execution

A Bloc(k) Party is an established international concept, which is a celebration spread across

an entire city block. Indias first ever MTV Bloc Party was set by the sea in Juhu, Mumbai. It
was one big party at the center, integrated with multiple party hubs across the block and
music thumping with 30 World Class DJs and indie bands, and all accessed through a single
ticket; the cost of that one ticket was approximately Rs. 4,000 for 2 days. People stepped in
the Bloc(k) that housed the longest party ever, and danced away the 2 days. To heighten the
experience, MTV hosted a relaxed beer garden through the leisurely Saturday afternoon. This
was followed by a high energy sun-down party. Post sundown, an immersive audio visual
spectacle added to the musical experience using projection technology across the stage and
venue to bring alive the essence of the celebration mood. The experience was heightened
through interactive games, fun graffitis, and origami art and trash art installations. Radio taxi
service was provided to fans to hop from one party hub to another. And, yes, it was all
inclusive in that magical single ticket.

Interpretation

A seamless party that integrated different sounds of Dance Music electronic or beyond and
also allowed the fans to interact with the artistes across multiple venues.

33
The idea was: One Entry. Multiple Parties! With an incredible line up of DJs and an audio
visual experience like never before, all that fans needed to do was to get access with the
single ticket to be a part of Mumbais longest party. It was an idea with great potential.
With a target scale of reaching upto 5000 8000 people, a bloc party was the craziest but
perhaps the best idea MTV could have come up with to meet its objective.

Case Study 5
Find Your Bliss LG

It was a community building campaign which drove over 80,000 targeted users to Facebook
fan page.

It was published over 100 blogs and tweeted over 75 times in a span of 4 weeks.
This campaign generated over 7000 fans in just 4 weeks.
Social media marketing was done through Facebook which gained success in a very less
time.

34
Interpretation
It was a campaign launched by LG to build community. Social networking site Facebook was
the source through which marketing was done by the company. The company wanted to
promote campaign in short period of time so they did social media marketing.

Case Study 6

Fashion Touch LG

Source: google images

LG organized Fashion Touch party at Soho House, West Hollywood, CA.
Fashion Touch LG was an an ambassador campaign recruited 4 influential fashion
bloggers that lead asFashion Ambassadors .
This campaign generated over 5000 fans in a span of 4 weeks which was a huge success.
It also drove over 50 pieces of usergenerated content per week to the Facebook Fan Page.
35
Facebook was the source through which social media marketing was done.
Interpretation
This was an ambassador campaign which was launched by LG company for

fashion

ambassador of their company. Facebook was the source through which company wanted this
campaign to become popular. These kind of campaigns also helps in advertisement of the
company through social media.

36
Case Study 7
Clip in Touch

It was a Facebook promotion campaign which reached over 5000,000 impressions. This
campaign generated over 26000 unique Facebook users within 1 month which is great
achievement. It was published on 20 blogs and Tweeted over 200 times over the course of a 2
week campaign.
This campaign also used Facebook as a Social media marketing. It helped to attach with large
number of people in very less time, so this campaign was very successful.

37
Interpretation
In this campaign company use social networking site Facebook as a source.

This campaign gained huge success in very short time period. Social media marketing was
done to promote campaign. It generated lot of unique Facebook users within period of one
month. So, social media marketing is a great source for promoting any campaign.

38
Case Study 8
Full Ride Musicians Institute

The Robertson Scholars Leadership Program is a joint full-ride merit scholarship and
leadership development program at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill. The scholarship offers participants a unique dual citizenship at both Duke
University and UNC-Chapel Hill to approximately 36 students selected from among the more
than 60,000 applications to the two schools each year.
The program was created in 2000 by benefactor Julian Robertson, a 1955 graduate of UNCChapel Hill. Mr. Robertson sought to increase collaboration between Duke and UNC-Chapel
Hill as well as to recruit students to the two universities. His initial $24 million gift as well as
his subsequent gifts to the program and the universities are overseen by a Board of Directors
including Duke University President Richard Brodhead, UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden
Thorp, and Julian Robertson himself.
It was a micro-site contest which drove over 1500 participants from over 35 different states.
It also generated over 7,000 targeted fans on Facebook.It was published on over 10 highly
influential musician blogs.
39
Interpretation
Facebook is one of the main sources which is used by companies to promote their products.

In this case, facebook is used for micro-site contest which gained huge success in very short
time period. Facebook is the main site through which marketing is done.

40

CHAPTER 4
CONCLUSIONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS

Chapter 4

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Conclusions
Marketers have been confronted with the fact that their dominance in the marketplace is
fading; push marketing, based on mass-media communication is becoming less efficient
while substantial changes in the marketplace and developments in the area of Information and
Communication Technologies have put the customer in control of the communication and
marketing process. Increasing customer power goes hand-in-hand with decreasing trust in
traditional marketing, and in the diminishing effectiveness of long-established marketing
approaches.
The present evolutionary stage of the Internet, widely known as Web 2.0, has boosted
customer power by presenting individuals with a new generation of online applications, tools,
and networking opportunities, commonly referred to as the Social Media.

Social media has changed the way we communicate and the way we do business. Word of
mouth marketing is being replaced by tweeting recommendations to friends, and more and
more customers are researching products online before purchasing.
So social media marketing plays a vital role in selling or advertising the products and events.
But on other hand it has various drawbacks too such as it is time consuming process,
hackers threat is always there, risk of negative comments, etc.
Social media marketing can be done through various social networking sites such as
Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, etc.
Case Studies help in understanding detailed information, strategies, and concepts about the
topic. In this project various case studies have been used to know more about social media
marketing. This helped to understand the concepts and strategies which companies uses to
promote there products. Case study of LG, Nike, MTV have been done in this project which
helped to know more about social media marketing.
41
Recommendations

Social media marketing success doesnt take place over night. Its a cumulative process that
produces success with persistent and consistent execution. Once you've developed your social
media marketing strategy, the success of your efforts is dependent on your execution.

1. Spend time every day executing your social media strategy If youre not investing, at a
minimum, the equivalent of 25% of a full-time employee daily to execute your social media
marketing strategy, you likely will not get the results you need and expect.

2. Develop a 3-Month Editorial Calendar Now that you know who you want to reach and
where you plan to find them, you need to develop an editorial calendar that identifies the
content and message you want to communicate over a 3-month period
3. Use the 10-4-1 Rule Your audience will quickly tune you out if all you talk about is YOU!
While its entirely appropriate to share your blog posts and landing pages on social media,
you need to be helpful above all else. Post interesting content from other sources (trade
journals, business press, etc.) that your ideal customers would find valuable.

4. Involve your sales team in your social media marketing While youre focused on
optimizing your companys social media marketing channels, have your sales and
management team amplify your efforts with their personal accounts.

5. Make it easy to share your content and follow your company on social media Social media
is all about sharing. Make sure you have "follow" buttons on your website, email signatures
and marketing collateral. Make sure to include share buttons on your email marketing,
landing pages and blog articles.
42

CHAPTER 5
LIMITATIONS OF STUDY

Chapter - 6
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
Time constraint because of which the research could not be made more detailed.
It was not possible for me to collect some data because of the confidential issue.
The research is time crucial due to the deadline placed on the submission of the final
research findings. Therefore, everything needs to be done as quickly as possible thus
leaves researcher with limited amount of time.

43
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Kothari CR, Research Methodology, New Age International Publishers, Second

Edition.13
Kotler, KoshiJha, (2009), Marketing Management, edition, Pearson Education.
Saxena, Rajan, (2008), Marketing Management, 3rd edition, McGraw Hill Education.

Weblinks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_marketing
http://socialmediatoday.com/pamdyer/1478771/7-facebook-marketing-case-studies
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/33265.asp
http://www.businessinsider.in/The-Top-Facebook-Marketing-Companies-And-The-5Strategies-Theyve-Used-To-Help-Clients-Succeed/articleshow/25457480.cms
http://www.businessinsider.in/The-Top-Facebook-Marketing-Companies-And-The-5Strategies-Theyve-Used-To-Help-Clients-Succeed/articleshow/25457480.cms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instagram
http://www.globalcommunities.info/limitations-of-social-media-marketing-strategy.php
http://www.wisitech.com/blog/social-media-marketing-tool/

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