RESEARCH PROPOSAL On SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISEMENT AND ITS LINK WITH BUYING BEHAVIOUR INTRODUCTION: Our contemporary society

calls 21st century - the century of information and they are absolutely right in that description. The current thesis goes over one of the discoveries of 21st century and also a proof of how far the spread of information can go. The phenomenon that is discussed later is namely social media advertisement and its link with buying behavior. The rise and wide spread of Internet and the fast growing consumers digital media use led companies occupied in different business sectors to think about a new way of communication with customers (Cheong & Morrison, 2008). Among the fastest growing online tools for reaching the consumers is the so called social media (Trusov, Bucklin & Pauwels, 2009). Social media represents the online content publicly created and available to end users. It is becoming one of the main tools used to spread information among customers. Social media is becoming more and more popular every day. Companies are continuously coming up with new ideas of using social media for their advantage and advertising is only one of the many purposes that social media can be used for. The expectations concerning the power of social media as an advertising channel have been set very high. Social media is expected to be a very effective channel for marketing with minimum investments. A rapid growth and an increasing popularity of social media such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter etc. have drawn more and more attention from marketers and researchers. Companies now are throwing big money at advertising on social media, hoping to attract consumers eyeballs. But what are the social media users attitudes towards social media advertising? What are affecting their attitudes towards it? Unfortunately, there is a lack of quantitative studies on social media users perceptions of or attitudes towards advertising on social media. So we take this challenge as an opportunity to conduct a study on investigating social media users attitudes towards social media advertising. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Its known and obvious that in todays world where the information and internet take a significant role in peoples lives, the social media phenomenon will be an interesting topic to research, as well as its influence on buying behavior of customers toward advertisements. Despite the popularity of the social media, there is very limited research literature regarding social media advertising itself and measuring its link with buying behavior . Based on our research, most of previous research studies had been working on investigating consumers attitudes towards advertising on traditional media (O'Donohoe, 2001, pp. 91-108), or attitudes towards advertising on new media such as the Internet (Shavitt, Lowrey, & Haefner, 1998) or mobile phone (Tsang, Ho, & Liang, 2004). Of relevance to this study, there are some literatures discussing different aspects of social media but with certain limitations. For example study made by Hoy & Milne (2010) about gender differences in privacy beliefs towards social media among young adult aged between 18-24, but there is expectation for a further study in order to understand how privacy concern impacts on attitude towards advertising. Moreover it also needs to extend its research sample to other age segments rather than young adults. Hoy, M. G., & Milne, G. (2010). Gender Differences in Privacy-Related Measures for Young Adult Facebook Users. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 10(2), 28-45. Another study made by Kelly, Kerr and Drennan (2010), discusses about the teenagers advertising avoidance on social networking sites.

It concludes that teenagers avoidance on advertising on social networking sites because of their previous bad experience with it regardless of medium. However it only focuses on qualitative research and needs a future study on how the credibility of social media affects its targeted audiences. At last, Wolin and Korgaonkars study (2003) presents the attitude differences between genders. The finding of their study concludes that the females are more favorable towards online advertising. However, so far little research work discusses about the different attitudes towards social media advertising between genders. Therefore there is demand for investigating on gender issue. RESEARCH QUESTION & PURPOSE 1. What is a users attitude towards advertisements that are promoted on social media? 2. Whether there is a concern related to privacy and its impact on the attitude of users towards advertisements?. 3. Whether relationship exists between awareness and preference of brands that are promoted on social media sites? 4. Whether relationship exists between people seeking information about products and brands onsocial media and the actual buying behavior for the same? This study also aims to facilitate the marketers in a practical way with regard to advertising on social media. REVIEW LITERATURE As advertising on the social media is a rather new form of marketing communication, there are some important issues about how to assess social media users attitudes towards advertising. The following section presents the current relevant concepts and theories regarding traditional advertising, Internet advertising, social media advertising. Murdough (2009) have positively agreed on the potential of social media but like any other marketing tool it is difficult to gauge the kind of impact that it lays on the masses. According to Winterberg (2010), social media websites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter come with unbelievable techniques to communicate with family, colleagues and friends. Benson, Filippaios, & Morgan (2010) have studied the usage of social networks in career development of students and also building the relationship with their employers and have concluded on some better understanding of motivations as an effective application of these networks on businesses. Backer (2010) have investigated the usage pattern in adoption of new technologies like Facebook and Smart phones on students and found that such applications create a sense of motivation and responsibility as well as it enriches their learning experiences. Donna and Fodor (2010) have found out that instead of using companies investment for calculation of returns on investment, managers must assess consumer motivations for using social media and measure customers investments in calculation of ROI. Sara Tye (2010) have analysed the impact of advances in technology and how it transformed the traditional business procedures in communicating to their target audience. Chan & Prendergast (2007) have perceived Materialism and social comparison as important issues, amongst adolescents and found that Social comparison with friends and with media figures were both positive predictors of materialism. Advertising Advertising is one type of communication tools that are adopted by marketers in order to deliver company or promotional messages to targeted audience (Cook, 2001, p. 281). Most commonly, advertising messages are sponsored and could be categorized by media platforms: (1) traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, television, radio, outdoor and direct mail, and (2) new

media such as Internet websites, text messages or social media (Graydon & Clark, 2003, p. 210). Advertising also could be considered as a non-personal way of communication of information, and they are usually paid by the sponsors to persuade the audience to change actions or perception about products, services or viewpoints via the various media. (Bovee, Thill, & Schatzman, 2003, p. 37) Internet Advertising Advertising on the Internet began in the middle of the 1990s, in the form of banner advertisements that appeared in commercial websites (Zeff & Aronson, 1999, p. 30). Nowadays, even though there are numerous different new contents, types or appearances of advertising popping out on the Internet, majority of advertising on the Internet are still in the forms of banners. The domination of banner ads on web advertising makes them as a standard advertising format on the Internet (Cho, Lee, & Tharp, 2001, p. 50). People will be redirected to the advertisement pages by clicking the banners. This banner ads clicking are believed to be the first advertising that created the interactivity through the Internet (Shamdasani, Stanaland, & Tan, 2001, p. 9). Difference between Internet advertising and advertising on traditional media according to (Liu, 2001, p. 3) is that as traditional media only provide one-way communication with the ad viewers, there is no way for the advertisers to monitor the number of viewers and measure effectiveness of advertising. However, the interactivity of the Internet advertising that create two-way communication, can not only allow the consumers to have a freedom of choice by clicking on the ads they want to see, but also facilitate the advertisers to timely monitor the number of viewers through examining the clicks or traffic. Social Media Advertising Social media is an on-line environment established for the purpose of mass collaboration (Bradley, 2011). It is the media for social interaction by adopting highly open and accessible communication techniques. Social media uses web-based and mobile technologies to turn oneway communication into interactive dialogue (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2009, p. 63). Social media combines user-generated content and Web 2.0 that users interaction by creating, delivering, sharing and modifying information, and participating different activities such as discussion etc. In the discussion regarding different categories of social media, five distinct types of social media outlets are focused on 1) social networking sites, 2) social news, 3) media sharing, 4) blogs, and 5) microblogging. Each of these social media platforms has provided unique features and experiences to individuals and entities, for instance marketers and consumers, in the social media sphere. Social Networking SItes Social Networking Sites (SNSs) are platforms where individuals are able to connect with others, for instance Facebook and MySpace. Social networking sites, as Weinberg (2009, 149) states, are generic terms for sites that are used to connect users with similar backgrounds and interests. These platforms, generally, have few common elements across most of them (1) users are able to create interactive and customized profiles, either a public or a semi-public, within a bounded system, (2) a list of suggested friends with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system (Boyd and Ellison 2007, 211). To consumers, they are the outlets, which present wealth opportunities for establishing a closer relationship with the brand via several functions fan pages, plug-in applications, and groups. Social News and Bookmarking Sites

Social News sites and Social Bookmarking sites, for instance Digg, Reddit, and Scoop.it, are fairly similar, and are very much in the trend of online community. Social News enables users not only to be in control of their news streams, but also allows individuals to submit and vote on content around the Web but the core value of the latter one is to allow users to collect and interesting links they have discovers and may wish to revisit. (Zarrella 2010, 103.) In other words, individuals get to control and customized their news streams, this special attribute of social news site facilitates the democracy which creates values to users. These sites allow individuals to discover websites that a large number of people have already discovered; some say social news sites have changed the concept of newspaper nowadays and are governed by the wisdom of crowds (Weinberg 2009), due to the fact that the contents personal and targeted news and they empower users by putting the audience in the center via active discussions and which reacts on how readers interact (Baekdal 2009). Media-Sharing Sites Media-Sharing sites (e.g. Youtube and Flickr) are outlets where individuals can upload, store, and share their multimedia files, for instance photos, videos, and music, with other users. There are myriad opportunities through the engagement to these websites, because these certain platforms within the social media segment has always been a stronghold to online societies, as they provide users opportunities to create their own podcasts with affordable technology and to propaganda their identical channels via subscriptions. One of the major elements of these media-sharing sites has to be highlighted is the tag. A tag is a word assigned to a piece of content that helps describe it, which means that businesses have to acknowledge the importance of the search words on the search engines (Zarrella 2010, 81). Blogs A blog is an online journal which is as refer to a type of content management system (CMS), typically maintained by individuals or groups, and featured commentary and ideas for a larger group of audience (Safko and Brake 2009). Blogs create good hubs for other social media marketing tools (videos, hyperlinks, pictures, and so on), because they can be integrated into the platforms and posts; besides, blog software provides a variety of social features such as comments, blogrolls, trackbacks, and subscriptions (Zarrella 2010, 9). On the other hand, Weber (2009) has pointed due to the fact that blogs allow everyone to publish and to join multithreaded conversations online, in which some of the bloggers have no editorial restrains and have access to the entire Web; as a result, their posts can impact personal, products, or brand reputation harmfully. Microblogging Microblogging is a real-time information network, which shares similarity to blogging, yet it limits the size (number of words) of each post and encourages a faster mode of communication. Microblogging allows users to spread their short-texted messages via instant messages, mobile phones, e-mails, or the Web. For instance, Twitter, launched in 2006, is one of the primal and leading microblogs that currently has over 140 million users as of 2012 and handles over 1.6 billion search queries per day (Twitter 2011). Obviously, Twitter provides companies with leverage via Internet traffic by creating a buzz on online communities, as users get the essence and concise information through short-texted posts. Many companies have been using Twitter to tap into the business prospects, influencers, and customers; by doing so, businesses are able to take advantage in relationship building, achieving on-line and offline marketing objectives, and brand building etc. (Weinberg 2009). Retweet is one of the most powerful mechanisms to marketers, in which individuals can copy and paste what others have posted onto their Twitter

stream. Consequently, the certain tweet gets to spread virally in a furious speed (Ingram 2012). This is a new trend of online advertising to reach customers. However, it is not a mature market. There are many forms of online advertising and advertising on social networks is one among of these which is getting a lot of attention from organizations and businesses. Online social networking sites provide both profit and non-profit services and play an important role in economic development (Lea, B.R. et al. 2006). According to Hogg & Adamic (2004 cited Lea, B.R. et al. 2006) the use of social networks on a computer gives the opportunity to users to share information about a variety of products offered, cost & price, and quality of services. Today online social networking sites are not only the medium to interact with each other but are also a means for companies to reach customers. The usage growth of social networking sites is explosive. Social networking sites are getting close to Google and Yahoo in attracting traffic. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY RESEARCH DESIGN: It indicates a plan of action to be carried out in connection with the proposed research work. The present study is exploratory and analytical in nature. SOURCES OF DATA: The study is based on both primary and secondary sources of data. Primary data shall be collected from various customers and consumers who have been consuming products of those firms who promote a cause and those who do not promote one by means of a structured open and close ended questionnaire. The secondary data shall be collected from various sources such as company revenue chart, journals, websites and so forth. SAMPLE SIZE: A sample size of 500 consumers shall be selected for the study. Two stage stratified simple random sampling method shall be adopted. STATISTICAL TOOLS TO BE USED: Simple Percentage, Chi Square, Annova and Correlation shall be applied to test the dependency of variables and relationship among the variables.

HYPOTHESIS: H0: Users have positive attitude towards advertisements that are promoted on social media. H1: Relationship exists between awareness and preference of brands that are promoted on social media sites. H2: Relationship exists between people seeking information about products and brands on social media and the actual buying behavior for the same. H3: There exists significant difference in perceptions of males and females with respect to the duration of time they surf on social media. H4: Educational qualifications do have significant impact on category of people with whom you communicate. H5: There is significant relationship between the reason why people join a social media network and their working status. H6: There is specific preference indicated by respondents for different social media websites. ROAD MAP: The road map discusses about the route plan and the time taken for a researcher to complete the research. The road map or the design of the research that I would or my research would take involves the following consideration : a. Reviewing and collecting literature 3 moths

b. Setting of hypothesis - 2 months c. The time I would take to design the questionnaire 3 months. d. Time devoted for designing the sample - 2 months e. The time devoted for collection of data both primary as well as secondary- 6/8 months. f. Once data has been collected selecting the tool for analysis mainly which statistical tool to be used- 1 month g. Testing of hypothesis 7 months h. Finally interpreting and preparing the report 5 months i. At the end submission and getting awarded -5/6 months j. Expected utility of the study REFERENCES Banner Advertisement. Images, Google. Searched by banner ads. http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/Coca-Cola-Facebook.jpg [Last Accessed 1 September 2008]. Boyd, D. M., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship [online]. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), Article 11. Available from: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html [Last Accessed 1 September 2008]. Kelly, L., Kerr, G., & Drennan, J. (2010). Avoidance of advertising in social networking sites: The teenage perspective. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 10(2), 16-27. Korgaonkar, P., & Wolin, L. D. (2002). Web usage, advertising, and shopping: relationship patterns. Internet Research, 12(2), 191-204. Cheong, H., & Morrison, M. (2008). Consumers' reliance on product information and recommendations found in UGC. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 8(2), 1-29. Trusov, M., Bucklin, R., & Pauwels, K. (2009). Effects of word-of-mouth versus traditional marketing: Findings from an Internet social networking site. Journal of Marketing, 73(5), 90-102. O'Donohoe, S. (2001). Living with ambivalence: Attitudes to advertising in postmodern times. Marketing Theory, 1(1), 91-108. Shavitt, S., Lowrey, P., & Haefner, J. (1998). Public attitudes toward advertising: More favorable than you might think. Journal of advertising research, 38(4), 7-22. Tsang, M. M., Ho, S. C., & Liang, T. P. (2004). Consumer attitudes toward mobile advertising: an empirical study. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 8(3), 6578. Chris Murdough (2009), Social Media Measurement: It's Not Impossible, Journal of Interactive Advertising, Vol. 2010, No 1 (Fall 2009), pp 94-99. Biil Winterberg (2010) Tools and Techniques to Leverage Social Media, Journal of Financial Planning, May 2010. Benson, Vladlena, Filippaios, Fragkiskos & Morgan, Stephanie, (2010), 'Online Social Networks: Changing the Face of Business Education and Career Planning, International Journal of e-Business Management, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 20-33. DOI 10 3316 / IJEBM 0401020. Donna L. Hoffman and Marek Fodor (2010), Can You Measure the ROI of Your Social Media Marketing?, MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2010, Vol.52, No.1.

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