Social media's influence in purchase decisions

Social Media’s Influence in Purchasing Decisions at USA

Chapter 1
Introduction to the study

The social networking sites are gaining a lot of popularity these days with almost all of
the educate people using one or the other such site. These have played a crucial role in
bridging boundaries and crossing the seas and enabling them to communicate on a
common platform. It has become a popular and a potential mean for them to stay
friends with the existing ones and to grow up their social circle at least in terms of
acquaintances.

The question regarding the safety, privacy and the legal issues have been cropping up all
this time. The objective of this research is to find out the impact of these networking
sites on the purchasing decision of people using them. It is a very subjective question to
answer and is very opinion based and the same is reflected in the research methodology
adopted.

The report is initiated with the definition of the objective followed with the research
methodology used along with the research design, sample size, methods used for the
purpose of conducting survey. It also incorporates the sampling frame and the data
collection procedure.

Subsequent to this is the Introduction to the networking sites along with a brief
description of the most popular sites. Then the issues of concern which have come up
along the way in all these years since these sites gained popularity are discussed. The
various issues and concerns of the respondents are also incorporated there. The next
part of the research has the literature surveys which are the articles I took up from the
published reports. Then I analyzed and interpreted the data at length. The last part deals
with the suggestions and recommendations that has come up with after carefully
analyzing and incorporating the opinion of all concerned.

Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable
communication techniques. Social media is the use of web-based and mobile
technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue.

Andreas Kaplan and Michael Heinlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based
applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, which
allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content."Businesses may also refer
to social media as consumer-generated media (CGM). A common thread running through
all definitions of social media is a blending of technology and social interaction for the
co-creation of value.

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People obtain information, education, news and other data from electronic media and
print media. Social media are distinct from industrial or traditional media, such as
newspapers, television, and film. They are relatively inexpensive and accessible to
enable anyone (even private individuals) to publish or access information, compared to
industrial media, which generally require significant resources to publish information.

Social media are widely used in marketing of products and services. One of the key
components in successful social media marketing implementation is building "social
authority". Social authority is developed when an individual or organization establishes
themselves as an "expert" in their given field or area, thereby becoming an influencer in
that field or area.

It is through this process of "building social authority" that social media becomes
effective. That is why one of the foundational concepts in social media has become that
you cannot completely control your message through social media but rather you can
simply begin to participate in the "conversation" in the hopes that you can become a
relevant influence in that conversation.

However, this conversation participation must be cleverly executed because while people
are resistant to marketing in general, they are even more resistant to direct or overt
marketing through social media platforms. This may seem counter-intuitive but is the
main reason building social authority with credibility is so important. Thus, using social
media as a form of marketing has taken on whole new challenges. Someone performing
a "marketing" role within a company must honestly convince people of their genuine
intentions, knowledge, and expertise in a specific area or industry through providing
valuable and accurate information on an ongoing basis without a marketing angle overtly
associated. If this can be done, trust with, and of, the recipient of that information – and
that message itself – begins to develop naturally. This person or organization becomes a
thought leader and value provider - setting themselves up as a trusted "advisor" instead
of marketer.

As a result of social media – and the direct or indirect influence of social media
marketers – today, consumers are as likely – or more likely – to make buying decisions
based on what they read and see in platforms we call "social" but only if presented by
someone they have come to trust. Additionally, reports have shown organizations have
been able to bring back dissatisfied customers and stakeholders through social media
channels. This is why a purposeful and carefully designed social media strategy has
become an integral part of any complete and directed marketing plan but must also be
designed using newer "authority building" techniques.

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Social networking websites function like an online community of internet users.
Depending on the website in question, many of these online community members share
common interests in hobbies, religion, or politics. Once you are granted access to a
social networking website you can begin to socialize. This socialization may include
reading the profile pages of other members and possibly even contacting them.

The friends that you can make are just one of the many benefits to social networking
online. Another one of those benefits includes diversity because the internet gives
individuals from all around the world access to social networking sites. This means that
although you are in the United States, you could develop an online friendship with
someone in Denmark or India. Not only will you make new friends, but you just might
learn a thing or two about new cultures or new languages and learning is always a good
thing.

Since their introduction, social network sites (SNSs) such as MySpace, Facebook,
Cyworld, and Bebo have attracted millions of users, many of whom have integrated
these sites into their daily practices. As of this writing, there are hundreds of SNSs, with
various technological affordances, supporting a wide range of interests and practices.
While their key technological features are fairly consistent, the cultures that emerge
around SNSs are varied. Most sites support the maintenance of pre-existing social
networks, but others help strangers connect based on shared interests, political views,
or activities. Some sites cater to diverse audiences, while others attract people based on
common language or shared racial, sexual, religious, or nationality-based identities.
Sites also vary in the extent to which they incorporate new information and
communication tools, such as mobile connectivity, blogging, and photo/video-sharing.

Scholars from disparate fields have examined SNSs in order to understand the practices,
implications, culture, and meaning of the sites, as well as users' engagement with them.
This special theme section of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication brings
together a unique collection of articles that analyze a wide spectrum of social network
sites using various methodological techniques, theoretical traditions, and analytic
approaches. By collecting these articles in this issue, our goal is to showcase some of the
interdisciplinary scholarship around these sites.

One of the most important parts of social media marketing research is that it opens up
the door to communication with your current and prospective customers. This gives you
an unequalled opportunity to form a relationship with them, understand them, and
ensure that they understand you. Social media marketing research means that you can
have a conversation with precisely the individuals who are buying your products or
services, or who are currently looking for what you have to offer. With this
communication, you can answer questions and, in doing so, not only educate your

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customers but also find out what they want to know about your business. This helps you
to improve your marketing so that it provides improved information within its message.

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Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a recent addition to organizations’ integrated marketing
communications plans. Integrated marketing communications is a practice organizations
follow to connect with their target markets. Integrated marketing communications
coordinates promotional elements: advertising, personal selling, public relations,
publicity, direct marketing and sales promotion. Increasingly, viral marketing campaigns
are also grouped into integrated marketing communications. In the traditional marketing
communications model, the content, frequency, timing, and medium of communications
by the organization is in collaboration with an external agent, i.e. advertising agencies,
marketing research firms and public relations firms. However, the growth of social media
has impacted the way organizations communicate. With the emergence of Web 2.0, the
internet provides a set of tools that allow people to build social and business
connections, share information and collaborate on projects online.

Social media marketing programs usually centre on efforts to create content that attracts
attention and encourages readers to share it with their social networks. A corporate
message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it is coming from
a trusted, third-party source, as opposed to the brand or company itself.

Social media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with internet
access. Increased communication for organizations fosters brand awareness and often,
improved customer service. Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive
platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns. With emergence of
channels like Twitter, the barrier to entry in social media is greatly reduced.

Social media marketing is known as SMO or Social Media Optimization and benefits
organizations and individuals by providing an additional channel for customer support, a
means to gain customer and competitive insight, recruitment and retention of new
customers/business partners, and a method of managing reputation online. Key factors
that ensure its success are its relevance to the customer, the value it provides them with
and the strength of the foundation on which it is built. A strong foundation serves as a
platform in which the organization can centralize its information and direct customers on
its recent developments via other social media channels, such as article and press
release publications. Oftentimes, corporate social media platforms are used to offer
unique incentives to customers who are willing to engage (i.e. "like" a Facebook Page).

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Social Networking Sites:

Social network sites can be defined as web-based services that allow individuals to:

1. Construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system,

2. Articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and

3. View and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the
system.

The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site. While we
use the term "social network site" to describe this phenomenon, the term "social
networking sites" also appears in public discourse, and the two terms are often used
interchangeably. "Networking" emphasizes relationship initiation, often between
strangers. While networking is possible on these sites, it is not the primary practice on
many of them, nor is it what differentiates them from other forms of computer-mediated
communication (CMC).

What makes social network sites unique is not that they allow individuals to meet
strangers, but rather that they enable users to articulate and make visible their social
networks. This can result in connections between individuals that would not otherwise be
made, but that is often not the goal, and these meetings are frequently between "latent
ties" who share some offline connection. On many of the large SNSs, participants are not
necessarily "networking" or looking to meet new people; instead, they are primarily
communicating with people who are already a part of their extended social network. To
emphasize this articulated social network as a critical organizing feature of these sites, I
label them "social network sites (SNS)."

While we use the term "social network site" to describe this phenomenon, the term
"social networking sites" also appears in public discourse, and the two terms are often
used interchangeably. We chose not to employ the term "networking" for two reasons:
emphasis and scope. "Networking" emphasizes relationship initiation, often between
strangers. While networking is possible on these sites, it is not the primary practice on
many of them, nor is it what differentiates them from other forms of computer-mediated
communication (CMC).

What makes social network sites unique is not that they allow individuals to meet
strangers, but rather that they enable users to articulate and make visible their social
networks. This can result in connections between individuals that would not otherwise be
made, but that is often not the goal, and these meetings are frequently between "latent
ties" (Haythornthwaite, 2005) who share some offline connection. On many of the large

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SNSs, participants are not necessarily "networking" or looking to meet new people;
instead, they are primarily communicating with people who are already a part of their
extended social network. To emphasize this articulated social network as a critical
organizing feature of these sites, we label them "social network sites."

While SNSs have implemented a wide variety of technical features, their backbone
consists of visible profiles that display an articulated list of Friends 1 who are also users of
the system. Profiles are unique pages where one can "type oneself into being" (Sundén,
2003, p. 3). After joining an SNS, an individual is asked to fill out forms containing a
series of questions. The profile is generated using the answers to these questions, which
typically include descriptors such as age, location, interests, and an "about me" section.
Most sites also encourage users to upload a profile photo. Some sites allow users to
enhance their profiles by adding multimedia content or modifying their profile's look and
feel. Others, such as Facebook, allow users to add modules ("Applications") that enhance
their profile.

The visibility of a profile varies by site and according to user discretion. By default,
profiles on Friendster and Tribe.net are crawled by search engines, making them visible
to anyone, regardless of whether or not the viewer has an account. Alternatively,
LinkedIn controls what a viewer may see based on whether she or he has a paid
account. Sites like MySpace allow users to choose whether they want their profile to be
public or "Friends only." Facebook takes a different approach—by default, users who are
part of the same "network" can view each other's profiles, unless a profile owner has
decided to deny permission to those in their network. Structural variations around
visibility and access are one of the primary ways that SNSs differentiate themselves from
each other.

After joining a social network site, users are prompted to identify others in the system
with whom they have a relationship. The label for these relationships differs depending
on the site—popular terms include "Friends," "Contacts," and "Fans." Most SNSs require
bi-directional confirmation for Friendship, but some do not. These one-directional ties are
sometimes labeled as "Fans" or "Followers," but many sites call these Friends as well.
The term "Friends" can be misleading, because the connection does not necessarily
mean friendship in the everyday vernacular sense, and the reasons people connect are
varied (boyd, 2006a).

The public display of connections is a crucial component of SNSs. The Friends list
contains links to each Friend's profile, enabling viewers to traverse the network graph by
clicking through the Friends lists. On most sites, the list of Friends is visible to anyone
who is permitted to view the profile, although there are exceptions. For instance, some

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MySpace users have hacked their profiles to hide the Friends display, and LinkedIn
allows users to opt out of displaying their network.

Most SNSs also provide a mechanism for users to leave messages on their Friends'
profiles. This feature typically involves leaving "comments," although sites employ
various labels for this feature. In addition, SNSs often have a private messaging feature
similar to webmail. While both private messages and comments are popular on most of
the major SNSs, they are not universally available.

Not all social network sites began as such. QQ started as a Chinese instant messaging
service, LunarStorm as a community site, Cyworld as a Korean discussion forum tool,
and Skyrock (formerly Skyblog) was a French blogging service before adding SNS
features. Classmates.com, a directory of school affiliates launched in 1995, began
supporting articulated lists of Friends after SNSs became popular. AsianAvenue,
MiGente, and BlackPlanet were early popular ethnic community sites with limited Friends
functionality before re-launching in 2005-2006 with SNS features and structure.

Beyond profiles, Friends, comments, and private messaging, SNSs vary greatly in their
features and user base. Some have photo-sharing or video-sharing capabilities; others
have built-in blogging and instant messaging technology. There are mobile-specific SNSs
(e.g., Dodgeball), but some web-based SNSs also support limited mobile interactions
(e.g., Facebook, MySpace, and Cyworld). Many SNSs target people from specific
geographical regions or linguistic groups, although this does not always determine the
site's constituency. Orkut, for example, was launched in the United States with an
English-only interface, but Portuguese-speaking Brazilians quickly became the dominant
user group (Kopytoff, 2004). Some sites are designed with specific ethnic, religious,
sexual orientation, political, or other identity-driven categories in mind. There are even
SNSs for dogs (Dogster) and cats (Catster), although their owners must manage their
profiles.

While SNSs are often designed to be widely accessible, many attract homogeneous
populations initially, so it is not uncommon to find groups using sites to segregate
themselves by nationality, age, educational level, or other factors that typically segment
society (Hargittai, this issue), even if that was not the intention of the designers.

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A History of Social Network Sites

The Early Years

According to the definition above, the first recognizable social network site launched in
1997. SixDegrees.com allowed users to create profiles, list their Friends and, beginning
in 1998, surf the Friends lists. Each of these features existed in some form before
SixDegrees, of course. Profiles existed on most major dating sites and many community
sites. AIM and ICQ buddy lists supported lists of Friends, although those Friends were
not visible to others. Classmates.com allowed people to affiliate with their high school or
college and surf the network for others who were also affiliated, but users could not
create profiles or list Friends until years later. SixDegrees was the first to combine these
features.

SixDegrees promoted itself as a tool to help people connect with and send messages to
others. While SixDegrees attracted millions of users, it failed to become a sustainable
business and, in 2000, the service closed. Looking back, its founder believes that
SixDegrees was simply ahead of its time (A. Weinreich, personal communication, July
11, 2007). While people were already flocking to the Internet, most did not have
extended networks of friends who were online. Early adopters complained that there was
little to do after accepting Friend requests, and most users were not interested in
meeting strangers.

From 1997 to 2001, a number of community tools began supporting various
combinations of profiles and publicly articulated Friends. AsianAvenue, BlackPlanet, and
MiGente allowed users to create personal, professional, and dating profiles—users could
identify Friends on their personal profiles without seeking approval for those connections
(O. Wasow, personal communication, August 16, 2007). Likewise, shortly after its launch
in 1999, LiveJournal listed one-directional connections on user pages. LiveJournal's
creator suspects that he fashioned these Friends after instant messaging buddy lists (B.
Fitzpatrick, personal communication, June 15, 2007)—on LiveJournal, people mark
others as Friends to follow their journals and manage privacy settings. The Korean
virtual worlds site Cyworld was started in 1999 and added SNS features in 2001,
independent of these other sites (see Kim & Yun, this issue). Likewise, when the Swedish
web community LunarStorm refashioned itself as an SNS in 2000, it contained Friends
lists, guestbooks, and diary pages (D. Skog, personal communication, September 24,
2007).

The next wave of SNSs began when Ryze.com was launched in 2001 to help people
leverage their business networks. Ryze's founder reports that he first introduced the site
to his friends—primarily members of the San Francisco business and technology

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community, including the entrepreneurs and investors behind many future SNSs (A.
Scott, personal communication, June 14, 2007). In particular, the people behind Ryze,
Tribe.net, LinkedIn, and Friendster were tightly entwined personally and professionally.
They believed that they could support each other without competing (Festa, 2003). In
the end, Ryze never acquired mass popularity, Tribe.net grew to attract a passionate
niche user base, LinkedIn became a powerful business service, and Friendster became
the most significant, if only as "one of the biggest disappointments in Internet history"
(Chafkin, 2007, p. 1).

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Figure 1: Timeline of the launch dates of many major SNSs and dates when community
sites re-launched with SNS features

Like any brief history of a major phenomenon, ours is necessarily incomplete. In the
following section we discuss Friendster, MySpace, and Facebook, three key SNSs that
shaped the business, cultural, and research landscape.

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Why Social Networking?

Through social networking, people can use networks of online friends and group
memberships to keep in touch with current friends, reconnect with old friends or create
real–life friendships through similar interests or groups. Besides establishing important
social relationships, social networking members can share their interests with other like–
minded members by joining groups and forums. Some networking can also help
members find a job or establish business contacts.

Most social networking websites also offer additional features. In addition to blogs and
forums, members can express themselves by designing their profile page to reflect their
personality. The most popular extra features include music and video sections. Members
can read bios of their favourite music artists from the artist's profile page as well as
listen to their favourite songs and watch music videos. The video section can include
everything from member–generated videos from hundreds of subjects to TV clips and
movie trailers.

What to Look for in Social Networking?

The phenomenon of online social networking—made extremely popular by MySpace.com,
as evolved to include more than the teenage stereotype looking to expand his/her
network of online friends. People of all ages and backgrounds have discovered that they
can enrich their lives through the contacts they make on a social networking website.
Below are the criteria TopTenREVIEWS used to evaluate Social Networking websites.

Profiles

The heart and soul of social networking sites are user’s personal profiles. It’s like their
own Internet sanctuary, a place where they can express their thoughts and feelings,
post photographs and show off their network of friends. The most popular social network
websites put a strong emphasis on the user’s profile, making it easy to use yet still
reflective of the user’s personality.

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Security

The Internet can be a dangerous place to post personal information. All social networks
should provide the ability to set profiles to private in some way or another. Additionally
they should have the ability to report and block users.

Networking Features

A good social network goes above and beyond just allowing users to post profiles and
update pictures. Additional features should include music sections, video uploads, groups
and more.

Search

The object of a social network is to find friends and expand relationships. Top social
networking websites allows members to search for other members in a safe and easy to
use environment. Common search functions include search by name, city, school and
email address.

Help/Support

Most social network sites are self-explanatory. However, in the off-chance a user needs
help there needs to be some way to contact the webmaster or answers in an FAQs
section.

Legitimate Friend Focus

The growing trend for social networks is to communicate and keep in touch with people
you already know. No one wants to be inundated with unsolicited spam friend requests.
The best social network sites keep profiles and search options private enough that the
only people that can find you are the ones actually looking for users in their own school
or neighbourhood networks. Even with a completely public profile, users shouldn’t be
bothered with more than a couple of unsolicited comments or messages.

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HOW DOES ‘SNS’ WORK

While SNSs have implemented a wide variety of technical features, their backbone
consists of visible profiles that display an articulated list of Friends who are also users of
the system. Profiles are unique pages where one can type oneself into being. After
joining an SNS, an individual is asked to fill out forms containing a series of questions.
The profile is generated using the answers to these questions, which typically include
descriptors such as age, location, interests, and an "about me" section. Most sites also
encourage users to upload a profile photo. Some sites allow users to enhance their
profiles by adding multimedia content or modifying their profile's look and feel. Others,
such as Face book, allow users to add modules ("Applications") that enhance their
profile.

The visibility of a profile varies by site and according to user discretion. By default,
profiles on Orkut or hi5.com are crawled by search engines, making them visible to
anyone, regardless of whether or not the viewer has an account. Alternatively, sites like
MySpace allow users to choose whether they want their profile to be public or "Friends
only." Face book takes a different approach—by default, users who are part of the same
"network" can view each other's profiles, unless a profile owner has decided to deny
permission to those in their network. Structural variations around visibility and access
are one of the primary ways that SNSs differentiate themselves from each other.

After joining a social network site, users are prompted to identify others in the system
with whom they have a relationship. The label for these relationships differs depending
on the site popular terms include "Friends," "Contacts," and "Fans." Most SNSs require
bi-directional confirmation for Friendship, but some do not. These one-directional ties are
sometimes labelled as "Fans" or "Followers," but many sites call these Friends as well.
The term "Friends" can be misleading, because the connection does not necessarily
mean friendship in the everyday vernacular sense, and the reasons people connect are
varied.

The public display of connections is a crucial component of SNSs. The Friends list
contains links to each Friend's profile, enabling viewers to traverse the network graph by
clicking through the Friends lists. On most sites, the list of Friends is visible to anyone
who is permitted to view the profile, although there are exceptions.

Most SNSs also provide a mechanism for users to leave messages on their Friends'
profiles. This feature typically involves leaving "comments," although sites employ
various labels for this feature. In addition, SNSs often have a private messaging feature
similar to webmail. While both private messages and comments are popular on most of
the major SNSs, they are not universally available.

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Beyond profiles, Friends, comments, and private messaging, SNSs vary greatly in their
features and user base. Some have photo-sharing or video-sharing capabilities; others
have built-in blogging and instant messaging technology. There are mobile-specific SNSs
(e.g., Dodgeball), but some web-based SNSs also support limited mobile interactions
(e.g., Face book, MySpace, and Orkut). Many SNSs target people from specific
geographical regions or linguistic groups, although this does not always determine the
site's constituency. Orkut, for example, was launched in the United States with an
English-only interface, but Portuguese-speaking Brazilians quickly became the dominant
user group. Some sites are designed with specific ethnic, religious, sexual orientation,
political, or other identity-driven categories in mind. There are even SNSs for dogs
(Dogster) and cats (Catster), although their owners must manage their profiles.

While SNSs are often designed to be widely accessible, many attract homogeneous
populations initially, so it is not uncommon to find groups using sites to segregate
themselves by nationality, age, educational level, or other factors that typically segment
society, even if that was not the intention of the designers.

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Utilization in Business

There are many ways that business’ can use social networking web sites to their
advantage but we are going to focus on three. The first aspect of a business that could
use a social networking website for would be the hiring of employees. Such sites as
Monster.com actually help many people searching for jobs and many companies looking
for employees to find each other. It’s as simple as creating your own resume and putting
it out there. Monster.com then takes your resume and compares it to the needs and
wants that companies have posted on the web site and connects the company with
people who meet or exceed their posted standards. This a lot faster and involves a more
broad spectrum of resources for which a company can use to find the perfect employee.

Another aspect of business affected by social networking websites is marketing. With the
millions of people that use social networking web sites, what better way to market your
product then by buying space on those web sites? Whether it’s through banners or links
millions of people will view your ads should they be placed on a social networking
website. An example is that of 1up.com. Through its great reputation to gamers many
gaming companies are willing to spend thousands of dollars for advertising space since
they know that gamers who view the web site will most likely learn about their product.
Not only is online advertising more effective than commercial advertising such as TV ads
and magazines, it’s also more cost effective and reaches far more people than other
forms of advertising. An example of the effectiveness of internet advertising is
YouTube.com in which experts have estimated that “Given its traffic levels, video
streams and page views, some have calculated that YouTube's potential revenues could
be in the millions per month.” (YouTube, 2007)

A third aspect of business that is affected by social networking websites is that of fair
pricing. With so many businesses’ out there creating virtually the same product it’s easy
for one to get lost in the broad spectrum of products. With social networking websites
people can get advice from experts, gain knowledge of product through others who have
used it, and get reviews on nearly anything that is mass produced today. This in turn is
also great for businesses. With all this information out there concerning products it’s
easy for a company to look through it and see what customers want and for how much.
This in turn leads to better products being made to suit the customers’ needs and wants.

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Social Media Optimization

Social Media Optimization (or SMO or Social SEO) is the methodisation of social media
activity with the intent of attracting unique visitors to website content. SMO is one of
many online methods of website optimization. One of the many other methods is search
engine optimization or SEO.

There are two categories of SMO/Social SEO methods:

(a) Social media features added to the content itself, including: RSS feeds, social news
and sharing buttons, user rating and polling tools, and incorporating third-party
community functionalities like images and videos

(b) Promotional activities in social media aside from the content being promoted,
including: blogging, commenting on other blogs, participating in discussion groups, and
posting status updates on social networking profiles.

Social Media Optimization is related to search engine marketing, but differs in several
ways, primarily the focus on driving traffic from sources other than search engines,
though improved search ranking is also a benefit of successful Social Media Optimization.
Social Media Optimization (SMO) is not limited to marketing and brand building.
Increasingly smart businesses are integrating social media participation as part of their
knowledge management strategy (i.e. product/service development, recruiting,
employee engagement and turnover, brand building, customer satisfaction and relations,
business development and more). Additionally, Social Media Optimization is often at
times implemented to foster a community of the associated site, allowing for a healthy
business to consumer relationship.

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Social media marketing

Social media marketing is a addition to personal, small business, corporate, and non-
profit organizations’ integrated marketing communications plans. Integrated marketing
communications is a multifaceted, orchestrated marketing and advertising practice
organizations follow to connect with their target markets. Integrated marketing
communications coordinates promotional elements: advertising, personal selling, public
relations, publicity, direct marketing and sales promotion. Increasingly, viral marketing
campaigns are also grouped into integrated marketing communications. In the
traditional marketing communications model, the content, frequency, timing, and
medium of communications by the organization is in collaboration with an external
agent, i.e. advertising agencies, marketing research firms and public relations firms.
However, the growth of social media has impacted the way organizations communicate.
With the emergence of Web 2.0, the internet provides a set of tools that allow people to
build social and business connections, share information and collaborate on projects
online.

Social media marketing programs usually centre on efforts to create content that attracts
attention and encourages readers to share it with their social networks. A corporate
message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it is coming from
a trusted, third-party source, as opposed to the brand or company itself.

Social media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with internet
access. Increased communication for organizations fosters brand awareness and often,
improved customer service. Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive
platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns. With emergence of
channels like Twitter, the barrier to entry in social media is greatly reduced.

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Software tools

Several companies are now providing specialized tools and platform for social media
marketing. Tools can be used for a variety of different things such as:

• Social Media Monitoring

• Social Aggregation

• Social Book Marking and Tagging

• Social Analytics and Reporting

• Automation

• Social Media

• Blog Marketing

• Validation

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Major Social Networking sites and description about them

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004,
operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. As of January 2011, Facebook has more
than 600 million active users. Users may create a personal profile, add other users as
friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update
their profile. Facebook users must register before using the site. Additionally, users may
join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other
characteristics. The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book
given to students at the start of the academic year by university administrations in the
United States to help students get to know each other better. Facebook allows any users
who declare themselves to be at least 13 years old to become registered users of the
website.

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow
computer science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The
website's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was
expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University.
It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to
high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over, but based on
ConsumersReports.org on May 2011, there are 7.5 million children under 13 with
accounts, violating the site's terms.

A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social
networking service by worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace.
Entertainment Weekly included the site on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, saying,
"How on earth did we stalk our exes, remember our co-workers' birthdays, bug our
friends, and play a rousing game of Scrabulous before Facebook?" Quantcast estimates
Facebook has 138.9 million monthly unique U.S. visitors in May 2011. According to
Social Media Today, in April 2010 an estimated 41.6% of the U.S. population had a
Facebook account. Nevertheless, facebook's market growth started to stall in some
regions, with the site losing 7 million active users in the United States and Canada in
May 2011.

Facebook has affected the social life and activity of people in various ways. It can reunite
lost family members and friends. One such reunion was between John Watson and the
daughter he had been searching for 20 years. They met after Watson found her
Facebook profile. Another father-daughter reunion was between Tony McNaughton and
Frances Simpson, who had not seen each other for nearly 48 years.

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Some studies have named Facebook as a source of problems in relationships. Several
news stories have suggested that using Facebook causes divorce and infidelity, but the
claims have been questioned and refuted by other commentators.

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Twitter

Twitter is a website, owned and operated by Twitter Inc., which offers a social
networking and micro blogging service, enabling its users to send and read messages
called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the
user's profile page.

The website is based in San Francisco. Twitter also has servers and offices in San
Antonio and Boston. Twitter, Inc. was originally incorporated in California, but as of 2011
is incorporated in Delaware.

Twitter was produced in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched in July. Since then
Twitter has gained popularity worldwide and is estimated to have 200 million users,
generating 190 million tweets a day and handling over 1.6 billion search queries per day.
It is sometimes described as the "SMS of the Internet".

The company experienced rapid growth. It had 400,000 tweets posted per quarter in
2007. This grew to 100 million tweets posted per quarter in 2008. In February 2010,
Twitter users were sending 50 million tweets per day. By March 2010, the company
recorded over 70,000 registered applications. As of June 2010, about 65 million tweets
were posted each day, equalling about 750 tweets sent each second, according to
Twitter. As noted on Compete.com, Twitter moved up to the third-highest-ranking social
networking site in January 2009 from its previous rank of twenty-second.

Twitter's usage spikes during prominent events. For example, a record was set during
the 2010 FIFA World Cup when fans wrote 2,940 tweets per second in the thirty-second
period after Japan scored against Cameroon on June 14, 2010. The record was broken
again when 3,085 tweets per second were posted after the Los Angeles Lakers' victory in
the 2010 NBA Finals on June 17, 2010, and then again at the close of Japan's victory
over Denmark in the World Cup when users published 3,283 tweets per second. When
American singer Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009, company servers crashed after
users were updating their status to include the words "Michael Jackson" at a rate of
100,000 tweets per hour.

Twitter acquired application developer Atebits on April 11, 2010. Atebits had developed
the Apple Design Award-winning Twitter client Tweetie for the Mac and iPhone. The
application, now called "Twitter" and distributed free of charge, is the official Twitter
client for the iPhone, iPad and Mac.

From September through October 2010, the company began rolling out "New Twitter",
an entirely revamped edition of twitter.com. Changes included the ability to see pictures
and videos without leaving Twitter itself by clicking on individual tweets which contain

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links to images and clips from a variety of supported websites including YouTube, Flickr,
as well as a complete overhaul of the interface, which shifted links such as '@mentions'
and 'Retweets' above the Twitter stream, while 'Messages and 'Log Out' became
accessible via a black bar at the very top of twitter.com. As of November 1, 2010, the
company confirmed that the "New Twitter experience" had been rolled out to all users.

On April 5, 2011, Twitter tested a new homepage, as well as phasing out the "Old
Twitter." However, a glitch came about after the page was launched, so the previous
"retro" homepage was still in use until the issues were resolved. On April 20, 2011, the
new homepage was reintroduced, though the "Switch to Old Twitter" option is still
available to users.

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LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and
launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. As of 22 March
2011, LinkedIn reports more than 100 million registered users, spanning more than 200
countries and territories worldwide. The site is available in English, French, German,
Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, Russian and Turkish. Quantcast reports
LinkedIn has 21.4 million monthly unique U.S. visitors and 47.6 million globally.

LinkedIn filed for an initial public offering in January 2011 and traded its first shares on
May 19, 2011, under the NYSE symbol "LNKD".

One purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of
people with whom they have some level of relationship, called Connections. Users can
invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection. However, if the
recipient of an invitation selects "I don't know", this counts against the person inviting
them, and after five such "IDKs" a member cannot invite another to connect without first
supplying their recipient mail address.

This list of connections can then be used in a number of ways:

• A contact network is built up consisting of their direct connections, the
connections of each of their connections (termed second-degree connections) and
also the connections of second-degree connections (termed third-degree
connections). This can be used to gain an introduction to someone a person
wishes to know through a mutual contact.

• It can then be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended
by someone in one's contact network.

• Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.

• Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their
existing contacts can introduce them.

• Users can post their own photos and view photos of others to aid in identification.

• Users can now follow different companies and can get notification about the new
joining and offers available.

• Users can save (i.e. bookmark) jobs which they would like to apply for.

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The "gated-access approach" (where contact with any professional requires either a pre-
existing relationship, or the intervention of a contact of theirs) is intended to build trust
among the service's users. LinkedIn participates in the EU's International Safe Harbour
Privacy Principles.

LinkedIn also allows users to research companies with which they may be interested in
working. When typing the name of a given company in the search box, statistics about
the company are provided. These may include the ratio of female to male employees,
the percentage of the most common titles/positions held within the company, the
location of the company's headquarters and offices, or a list of present and former
employees.

The feature LinkedIn Answers, similar to Yahoo! Answers, allows users to ask questions
for the community to answer. This feature is free and the main difference from the latter
is that questions are potentially more business-oriented, and the identity of the people
asking and answering questions is known.

Another LinkedIn feature is LinkedIn Polls.

A mobile version of the site was launched in February 2008 which gives access to a
reduced feature set over a mobile phone. The mobile service is available in six
languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish.

In mid-2008, LinkedIn launched LinkedIn DirectAds as a form of sponsored advertising.

In October, 2008, LinkedIn revealed plans to opening its social network of 30 million
professionals globally as a potential sample for business-to-business research. It is
testing a potential social-network revenue model-research that to some appears more
promising than advertising.

In October, 2008, LinkedIn enabled an "applications platform" that allows other online
services to be embedded within a member's profile page. Among the initial applications
were an Amazon Reading List that allows LinkedIn members to display books they are
reading, a connection to Tripit, and a Six Apart, WordPress and TypePad application that
allows members to display their latest blog postings within their LinkedIn profile.

In November, 2010, LinkedIn allowed businesses to list products and services on
company profile pages; it also permitted LinkedIn members to "recommend" products
and services and write reviews.

In January 2011, LinkedIn acquired CardMunch, a mobile app maker that scans business
cards and converts into contacts. LinkedIn plans to integrate this functionality into their
services in the near future.
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LinkedIn also supports the formation of interest groups, and as of March 24, 2011 there
are 870,612 such groups whose membership varies from 1 to 377,000. The majority of
the largest groups are employment related, although a very wide range of topics are
covered mainly around professional and career issues, and there are currently 128,000
groups for both academic and corporate alumni.

Groups support a limited form of discussion area, moderated by the group owners and
managers. Since groups offer the ability to reach a wide audience without so easily
falling foul of anti-spam solutions, there is a constant stream of spam postings, and
there now exist a range of firms who offer a spamming service for this very purpose.
LinkedIn has devised a few mechanisms to reduce the volume of spam, but recently took
the decision to remove the ability of group owners to inspect the email address of new
members in order to determine if they were spammers.

Groups may be private, accessible to members only or may be open to Internet users in
general to read, though they must join in order to post messages.

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MySpace

MySpace is a social networking website. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California
where it shares an office building with its immediate owner, News Corp. Digital Media,
owned by News Corporation.

MySpace became the most popular social networking site in the United States in June
2006, a position that it held throughout 2007 until 2008. However by April 2008,
according to comScore, MySpace was overtaken internationally by its main competitor,
Facebook, based on monthly unique visitors. MySpace employs 1,000 employees, after
laying off 30% of its workforce in June 2009; the company does not disclose revenues or
profits separately from News Corporation. Quantcast estimates MySpace's monthly U.S.
unique visitors at 19.7 million as of May 2011.

Profiles contain two standard "blurbs": "About Me" and "Who I'd Like to Meet" sections.
Profiles also contain an "Interests" section and a "Details" section. In the "Details"
section, "Status" and "Zodiac Sign" fields will always display. However, fields in these
sections will not be displayed if members do not fill them in. Profiles also contain a blog
with standard fields for content, emotion, and media. MySpace also supports uploading
images. One of the images can be chosen to be the "default image", the image that will
be seen on the profile's main page, search page, and as the image that will appear to
the side of the user's name on comments, messages, etc. A photo editor powered by
Fotoflexer is available which can not only crop images and adjust contrast but also
convert the image to a cartoon or a line drawing made with neon lights, or put the user's
face in a photo of a $100 bill. Flash, such as on MySpace's video service, can be
embedded. Blogging features are also available. These features could be hidden on a
profile by using the module customizer or using HTML/CSS codes. Photos could be
displayed on the MySpace profile instead of a link that it was used in previous years.
Photos can be made into a slide show.

Bulletins are posts that are posted on to a "bulletin board" for everyone on a MySpace
user's friends list to see. Bulletins can be useful for contacting an entire friends list
without resorting to messaging users individually. They have also become the primary
attack point for phishing. Bulletins are deleted after ten days.

MySpace had a Groups feature that allowed a group of users to share a common page
and message board. Groups could be created by anybody, and the moderator of the
group could choose for anyone to join, or to approve or deny requests to join. In
November 2010, the group feature was turned off; a user clicking on the "Groups" link in
the features menu was led to a page that announced that groups were being revamped,
and the user could sign up to be informed of when groups would come back. A similar

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message has been posted repeatedly in the Help page. No date for the reappearance of
the group has been mentioned.

In early 2006, MySpace introduced MySpaceIM, an instant messenger that uses one's
MySpace account as a screen name. A MySpace user logs in to the client using the same
e-mail associated with his or her MySpace account. Unlike other parts of MySpace,
MySpaceIM is stand-alone software for Microsoft Windows. Users who use MySpaceIM
get instant notification of new MySpace messages, friend requests, and comments.
MySpaceIM was added as an default feature of MySpace by the end of 2009.

In early 2007, MySpace introduced MySpaceTV, a service similar to the YouTube video
sharing website. MySpace has been showing videos as early as 2006, but it has changed
it name to MySpaceTV for a while. In 2009, MySpaceTV reverted back to MySpace Video
once again. MySpace Video continues to be not as popular as other video sharing sites
such as YouTube, but many sites had partnered with MySpace such as Hulu to promote
their media to the MySpace community.

In 2008, MySpace introduced an API with which users could create applications for other
users to post on their profiles. The applications are similar to the Facebook applications.
In May 2008, MySpace had added some security options regarding interaction with
photos and other media. Many applications that are popular on MySpace had spin off
versions on Facebook. The MySpace app Mafia Wars has become a Facebook sensation
as well. On the other hand, Facebook applications such as Bumper Stickers and Farmville
have been used in MySpace and were popular as well. Many application partnerships
such as Zygna and Slide has been responsible from creating third party apps for use on
both MySpace and Facebook, along with for use in the iTunes app store.

There are a variety of environments in which users can access MySpace content on their
mobile phone. American mobile phone provider Helio released a series of mobile phones
in early 2006 that can utilize a service known as MySpace Mobile to access and edit
one's profile and communicate with, and view the profiles of other members.
Additionally, UIEvolution and MySpace developed a mobile version of MySpace for a
wider range of carriers, including AT&T, Vodafone and Rogers Wireless.

In April 2007, MySpace launched a news service called MySpace News which displays
news from RSS feeds that users submit. It also allows users to rank each news story by
voting for it. The more votes a story gets, the higher the story moves up the page.

Full service classifieds listing offered beginning in August 2006. It has grown by 33
percent in one year since inception. MySpace Classifieds was launched right at the same
time the site appeared on the internet.

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Launched April 29, 2008, ksolo.myspace.com is a combination of MySpace and kSolo,
which allows users to upload audio recordings of themselves singing onto their profile
page. Users' friends are able to rate the performances. A video feature is not yet
available, but Tom Anderson, MySpace co-founder and president, states that it is in the
works.

MySpace Polls is a feature on MySpace that was brought back in 2008 to enable users to
post polls on their profile and share them with other users.

MySpace uses an implementation of Telligent Community for its forum system.

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United States of America

The United States of America (also referred to as the United States, the U.S., the USA,
or America) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal
district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight
contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and
Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of
Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the
west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific.
The country also possesses several territories in the Caribbean and Pacific.

At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km2) and with over 310 million people, the
United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest
both by land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and
multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The
U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2010 GDP of
$14.780 trillion (23% of nominal global GDP and 20% of global GDP at purchasing power
parity).

Indigenous peoples of Asian origin have inhabited what is now the mainland United
States for many thousands of years. This Native American population was greatly
reduced by disease and warfare after European contact. The United States was founded
by thirteen British colonies located along the Atlantic seaboard. On July 4, 1776, they
issued the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their right to self-
determination and their establishment of a cooperative union. The rebellious states
defeated the British Empire in the American Revolution, the first successful colonial war
of independence. The current United States Constitution was adopted on September 17,
1787; its ratification the following year made the states part of a single republic with a
strong federal government. The Bill of Rights, comprising ten constitutional amendments
guaranteeing many fundamental civil rights and freedoms, was ratified in 1791.

Through the 19th century, the United States displaced native tribes, acquired land from
France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Russia, and annexed the Republic of
Texas and the Republic of Hawaii. Disputes between the agrarian South and industrial
North over the expansion of the institution of slavery and states' rights provoked the
American Civil War of the 1860s. The North's victory prevented a permanent split of the
country and led to the end of legal slavery in the United States. By the 1870s, the
national economy was the world's largest. The Spanish–American War and World War I
confirmed the country's status as a military power. It emerged from World War II as the
first country with nuclear weapons and a permanent member of the United Nations
Security Council. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union left the
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United States as the sole superpower. The country accounts for 43% of global military
spending and is a leading economic, political, and cultural force in the world.

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Economy of USA

The United States has a capitalist mixed economy, which is fueled by abundant natural
resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity. According to the
International Monetary Fund, the U.S. GDP of $14.780 trillion constitutes 23% of the
gross world product at market exchange rates and over 20% of the gross world product
at purchasing power parity (PPP). It has the largest national GDP in the world, though it
is about 5% less than the GDP of the European Union at PPP in 2008. The country ranks
ninth in the world in nominal GDP per capita and sixth in GDP per capita at PPP.

The United States is the largest importer of goods and third largest exporter, though
exports per capita are relatively low. In 2008, the total U.S. trade deficit was $696
billion. Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, and Germany are its top trading partners. In
2007, vehicles constituted both the leading import and leading export commodity. Japan
is the largest foreign holder of U.S. public debt, having surpassed China in early 2010.
The United States ranks second in the Global Competitiveness Report.

In 2009, the private sector was estimated to constitute 55.3% of the economy, with
federal government activity accounting for 24.1% and state and local government
activity (including federal transfers) the remaining 20.6%. The economy is post-
industrial, with the service sector contributing 67.8% of GDP, though the United States
remains an industrial power. The leading business field by gross business receipts is
wholesale and retail trade; by net income it is manufacturing. Chemical products are the
leading manufacturing field. The United States is the third largest producer of oil in the
world, as well as its largest importer. It is the world's number one producer of electrical
and nuclear energy, as well as liquid natural gas, sulfur, phosphates, and salt. While
agriculture accounts for just under 1% of GDP, the United States is the world's top
producer of corn and soybeans. The New York Stock Exchange is the world's largest by
dollar volume. Coca-Cola and McDonald's are the two most recognized brands in the
world.

In August 2010, the American labour force comprised 154.1 million people. With 21.2
million people, government is the leading field of employment. The largest private
employment sector is health care and social assistance, with 16.4 million people. About
12% of workers are unionized, compared to 30% in Western Europe. The World Bank
ranks the United States first in the ease of hiring and firing workers. In 2009, the United
States had the third highest labor productivity per person in the world, behind
Luxembourg and Norway. It was fourth in productivity per hour, behind those two
countries and the Netherlands. Compared to Europe, U.S. property and corporate income
tax rates are generally higher, while labor and, particularly, consumption tax rates are
lower.

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Demographics of USA

As of June 23, 2011, the United States has a total resident population of 311,610,000,
making it the third most populous country in the world. It is a very urbanized population,
with 82% residing in cities and suburbs as of 2008 (the worldwide urban rate is 50.5%).
This leaves vast expanses of the country nearly uninhabited. California and Texas are
the most populous states, as the mean center of United States population has
consistently shifted westward and southward. New York City is the most populous city in
the United States.

The total fertility rate in the United States estimated for 2009 is 2.01 children per
woman, which is below the sub-replacement fertility threshold of 2.1. However, U.S.
population growth is among the highest in industrialized countries, since the vast
majority of these have below-replacement fertility rates and the U.S. has higher levels of
immigration. The United States Census Bureau shows population increases ranging
between 0.85% and 0.89% for the twelve-month periods ending in 2009. Nonetheless,
though high by industrialized country standards, this is below the world average annual
rate of 1.19%.

There were 155.6 million females in the United States in 2009. The number of males was
151.4 million. At age 85 and older, there were more than twice as many women as men.
People under 20 years of age made up over a quarter of the U.S. population (27.3%),
and people age 65 and over made up one-eighth (12.8%) in 2009. The national median
age was 36.8 years. Racially, the U.S. has a White American majority.

The American population more than tripled during the 20th century—at a growth rate of
about 1.3% a year—from about 76 million in 1900 to 281 million in 2000. It reached the
200 million mark in 1967, and the 300 million mark on October 17, 2006. Currently,
population growth is fastest among minorities as a whole, and according to the Census
Bureau's estimation for 2005, 45% of American children under the age of 5 belonged to
minority groups.

Hispanic and Latino Americans accounted for almost half (1.4 million) of the national
population growth of 2.9 million between July 1, 2005, and July 1, 2006. Immigrants
and their U.S.-born descendants are expected to provide most of the U.S. population
gains in the decades ahead.

The Census Bureau projects a U.S. population of 439 million in 2050, which is a 46%
increase from 2007 (301.3 million). However, the United Nations projects a U.S.
population of 402 million in 2050, an increase of 32% from 2007 (the UN projects a gain
of 38% for the world at large). In either case, such growth is unlike most European

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countries, especially Germany, Russia, Italy, and Greece, or Asian countries such as
Japan or South Korea, whose populations are slowly declining, and whose fertility rates
are below replacement.

The United States has dozens of major cities, including 8 of the 60 "global cities" of all
types, with three in the "alpha" group of global cities: New York City, Los Angeles and
Chicago. As of 2008, the United States had 52 metropolitan areas with a population of
over 1,000,000 people each.

As of 2011, about 250 million Americans live in or around urban areas. That means more
than three-quarters of the U.S. population shares just about three percent of the U.S.
land area.

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The following table shows the populations of the top ten cities and their metropolitan
areas, as of July 1, 2008.

Rank Core City Population Metro Metro area Region
rank pop.

1 New York City, 8,363,710 1 19,006,798 Northeast
New York

2 Los Angeles, 3,833,995 2 12,872,808 West
California

3 Chicago, Illinois 2,853,114 3 9,569,624 Midwest

4 Houston, Texas 2,242,193 6 5,728,143 South

5 Phoenix, Arizona 1,567,924 12 4,281,899 West

6 Philadelphia, 1,447,395 5 5,838,471 Northeast
Pennsylvania

7 San Antonio, 1,351,305 28 2,031,445 South
Texas

8 Dallas, Texas 1,279,910 4 6,300,006 South

9 San Diego, 1,279,329 17 3,001,072 West
California

10 San Jose, 948,279 31 1,819,198 West
California

2008 U.S. Census Bureau estimates

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Leveraging Social Networking Sites to Generate Business

It wasn’t until 1997, that the World Wide Web reached 50 million users throughout the
United States. Facebook has gained over 100 million users in the US, since January,
2009, marking a 145% growth within a year. If you’re a business owner and you still
haven’t embraced the boon of a social networking website, you’re perhaps lagging
behind. Business organizations can easily boost their profits by marketing their product
through a social networking website and stay away from debt. Though the business debt
consolidation options are there to assist you in managing your surging commercial debts,
you must always take the needed steps to leave behind debt and stay financially fit.

The financial health of your business can easily be determined by perusing the balance
sheet where there is a clear comparison of the revenue and the investment. Though few
years ago, a social networking website was primarily used for networking and friendship,
yet nowadays, most businesses are leveraging the most famous social networking
websites to generate more revenue within their business organizations. Such steps are
being taken to make ends meet amidst the tough economic conditions in the US. Have a
look at the significant ways in which you can build your business organization by
effective socialization in the social networking websites.

• Builds brand awareness – Targeting the brand-conscious people

The online social networking websites are the best platform for building and reinforcing
a brand or an image that can be done easily. You just need to create a commercial
profile in the most famous networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and
place an image or a logo of your company as the display picture. This not only boosts
the visibility, but also creates brand awareness among the visitors. However, you also
need to maintain a consistency in your words and actions in order to further develop and
enhance your identity as the business owner.

• Being with your customers – Targeting the right audience for your business

This effect of the social networking websites is unavoidable. Such websites entirely rely
on the regular presence of the millions of users. There are a huge number of people who
spend their whole day browsing through different profiles in the social networking
websites, irrespective of their age. Thus, if you can create a niche in such a website, you
can well understand the effect that you may create online.

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• Level of acceptability – Using the popularity of the websites to your benefit

You must be well aware of the fact that the social networking websites are becoming
increasingly popular with time. A large number of users are resorting to such sites for
creating their personal business network and boosting the traffic to their company. One
of the biggest benefits of leveraging the social networking sites is to boost the
acceptability of your company website. As the networking websites are extremely
acceptable by the people, any company that has a profile in such a site is also
automatically accepted by the people.

• Cost effective method – Enhancing profits in a relatively cheap way

While a business organization comes into operation, there are multiple things that need
to be considered by the owner. The business costs are one of the most important points
to be taken into consideration by the lenders. Boosting your business profits through a
social networking website is a relatively cheap method as there is no such cost involved.
You just have to create a profile in a site to continue with your efforts.

Before opening an account and becoming active on a particular social networking
website, it is crucial to consider what each site offers to its visitors and how you may
benefit from their resources. Take some time to realize your personal social media
marketing strategy and create a fully developed plan to enhance your business goals.
Augment the returns and use the proceeds in creating an emergency fund so that you
need not run to business debt consolidation companies during a financial urgency.

It is a golden rule of networking that people do business with people that they know,
like, trust and respect. Networking meetings are facilitated at all times, breakfast,
brunch, lunch, evenings, dinners, events etc all over the country enabling people to
network face to face on a regular basis in order to build up those relationships.

You need to present yourself to the outside world in a way that attracts interest. Not just
a very brief note of who you are and a list of the things you do but a personal statement
that brings your personality to life and makes people want to know more about you and
what you do. Photographs are important because research shows that people are far
more likely to respond to someone they can "see".

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Benefits of promoting your business and expertise within a network

You gain credibility and visibility. You gain and dispense knowledge and expertise. You
help others and are helped by others. You can market, promote, advertise and sell your
products or services online. You can use a social network as a marketing database to
find customers or clients through key word searches. You can conduct market research
through polls. You can look at what your competition is doing. You can define your target
market and address them. It is a low cost route to market.

People do business with people that they know, like, trust and respect. You can "meet"
online and then arrange face to face meetings. Online networks are a great filter. They
bring together people with mutual wants and needs and with like minds. They find you
suppliers and clients. They find you partners, they find you staff and consultants. They
match supply and demand. The community may be purely business, purely social or
increasingly somewhere in between because "people are people".

Utilising personal networks and the internet to find new contacts

Online networks and clubs bring together people with similar interests. Search facilities
allow you to find people, people to find you and people to find each other. Visibility today
does not mean what you know or who you know but who knows YOU

Building your business through referrals and collaboration

Once you have established visibility and credibility you will start to get testimonials and
people will advocate and recommend you and you will quickly find you have a regular
supply of referrals being passed to you based upon your reputation and expertise.
Others will approach you and ask you to collaborate with them or work in partnership
and together you may be able to win contracts that you would not win as a sole trader.

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1.1 Background of the problem

Social media use is increasing and with that, more companies are investing time and
money to market via social networks. Is the use of social media by companies
influencing purchasing decisions?

In this age of globalization, the world has become too small a place thanks to the
electronic media and portals. Communication has become effective as never before
thanks to the advent of internet. The social networking sites have also played a
crucial role in bridging boundaries and crossing the seas and bringing all people at a
common platform where they can meet like minded people or find old friends and
communicate with them. It has become a potential mean to relation building and
staying in touch with all known.

Hence the objective that I wanted to achieve through my research is to:

Find out the influence of social networking sites on the purchasing decision of the
people- how it affects the business, what are its uses for each individuals and how
have they been influenced by these sites.

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1.2 Introduction to the Company

iSource Solutions IT Enabled Pvt Ltd

iSource Solutions Inc., is one of the largest BPO Company in North America. iSource
helped hundreds of small and medium enterprises in North America and Europe by
their impressive cost savings and unassailable delivery turnaround time. iSource is
one of the largest transcription companies in North America. They bring with them a
truck load of transcriptioning experience, serving big ticket companies, media
powerhouses, medical behemoths, technology blue chips, law firms etc. as well as
independent media content providers, podcasters, market research groups, elite
institutes, government departments, insurance companies, NGOs etc.

TranscriptionStar is a flagship division of iSource Solutions Inc., which has been
providing business process outsourcing needs for small and medium enterprises in
North America and Europe since its inception in 2004.

Headquartered in Pomona, California, with branch offices in New York, Texas, Florida,
New Jersey and having its offshore delivery facility in different parts of India, iSource
is a technology-driven company that has a rich client base in UK and US. A customer-
oriented approach, acquired from years of experience in handling diverse clients, has
led us to innovate with flexible and client specific programs designed to conform to
the requirements of even the most fastidious customer.

Their prodigious work in the field of general transcriptions has led the name of
TranscriptionStar to be synonymous with Quality Voice to Text services. iSource
guarantee superior customer service and our transparent, cost-efficient pricing has
made their services highly favourable with small business units and individual clients.
The iSource management teams ensure seamless interaction between our project
management, business development and administrative teams in US with the
production teams in India. Leveraging the advantages of experienced, industry
professionals and an extensive, highly skilled human resource pool, iSource provides
high quality, cost-effective service for our extensive client base.

Coupling quality product with quality customer service, they are successfully
supporting more than 100 customers from the different domains of business,
academia, media, legal, finance, marketing and healthcare.

iSource Data Division has handled large size Data Processing and Conversion Projects
for Corporate (US & Europe) from varied industries like Finance, Insurance, Legal
Healthcare, & Publishing.

Page 40


Hiring Virtual Assistants is global trend and it is saving thousands of dollars every
year for Small and Medium Businesses. Their Virtual Assistants are enabling
entrepreneurs to enjoy the luxury of hiring at the fraction of cost and not having to
keep office overheads. Today's Blackberry age gives comfort to stay in touch with
Virtual Assistant. At iSource, their Virtual Assistants are armed and equipped with
state-of- the-art collaborative tools, which enable Virtual Office. With Web based work
flow tools, Working together got easier like never before. Industry leading Virtual
office tool such as WebEx Web Office offers key functions like Sharing documents,
calendars, databases and holding web meetings. “Real-time and anytime collaboration
is buzz word, Keep everyone connected, Keep their clients office open 24 hours a day,
with Zero hardware, zero software, and zero IT”.

Page 41


1.3 Brief introduction to the Research Methodology

1.3.1 Objective of the study:

 To find out the influence of social networking sites on the purchasing decision of
the people

 To find out how Social Networking sites helps the marketers

 To Understand the various advantage of using Social networking sites

 To find out whether the users believe in online marketers

1.3.2 Methodology and Sample selection:

The methodology of the study is as follows,

Data Collection method:

After secondary data collection through data collection over the internet, a primary
research was carried out through a questionnaire. The questionnaire was well
structured and the responses were sought from the respondents. The nature of the
questions was such that it avoided ambiguous responses from the respondents and
it also helped in quick analysis of the data collected.

Two methods of questioning were used for the data collection:

a). Person Assisted: The responses were collected by telephonic personal
questioning. The responses were taken from the clients of iSource Solutions Inc.
This form of questioning helped the respondent to understand the questions better
and answer accordingly.

b). Wed enabled: The questionnaire was e-mailed to respondents who filled it and
then mailed it back. A flaw that I realized there was that some of the respondents
did not understand the questions and hence could not answer them to the best of
their capability, unlike the other method employed where the questions could be
explained if required.

Sample Size:

In this study, 100 clients of iSource IT Enabled Service Pvt Ltd are selected as
sample

1.3.3 Research Design:

Page 42


Research: Descriptive research

Data Source: Primary and Secondary

Research Instrument: Questionnaire

Type of Questionnaire: Structured non-disguised

Type of questions: Closed ended questions

Sample unit: Clients of iSource IT Enabled Service Pvt Ltd

Sample unit: 100 qualified users

Sampling procedure: Simple random procedure

Contact method: In personal via telephone and online

Mode of collecting data: the respondent will be chosen randomly and requested to
grand interviews. The questions then will be asked in a firm.

Determined sequence: The secondary data will be collected from various books,
journals, report – both published and unpublished.

Page 43


1.3.4 Period of Study:

The period of study was from 20-4-2011 to 31-5-2011.

1.3.5 Tools of data Collection:

A questionnaire is developed to collect data from respondents.

The primary data are analysed and interpretation of the results was made done with
the help of pictorial representation

1.3.6 Statistical Analysis:

Statistical tools are for used for analyzing and for interpreting the data with the help
of pictorial representation.

1. Percentage analysis

2. Chi-Square analysis

3. Binomial Distribution Fitting

4. Median

Page 44


Percentage analysis

Percentage refers to a special kind of ratio. Percentages are used in making comparison
between two or more series of data. Percentages are used to describe relationships.
Percentages are also be used to compare the relative terms, the distribution of two or
more series of data.

% of respondent = No: of Respondents X 100

Total Respondent

Chi square test

The Chi square test is one of the simplest and most used non-parameter tests in
statistical work. The quantity chi square describes the magnitude of the discrepancy
between theory and observation.

The steps involved in Chi square tests are as follows.

1. Observed frequencies O are tabulated.

2. Expected frequencies E are tabulated.

Expected frequency for any cell can be calculated using the formula,

E = (RT * CT) / N

Where

E → Expected frequency

RT → The row total for the row containing the cell

CT → The column total for the column containing the cell

N → The total number of observation

3. The difference between the observed and expected frequencies are obtained
and squares of these differences are tabulated (O – E )2

4. The values of (O – E )2 obtained in step 3 are divided by the respective
expected frequency and total Σ (O – E )2 / E is obtained.

5. The calculated value of X2 is compared with the table value of X 2 for a given
degree of freedom at a certain level of significance (generally 5% level is

Page 45


selected).

By degrees of freedom we mean the number of classes to which the values can be
assigned arbitrarily if at the 5% level of significance, the calculated value of X2 is more
than the table value of X2, the difference between theory and observation is considered
to be significant.

On the other hand, the calculated value of X2 is not considered as significant, i.e. it is
regarded as due to fluctuations of sampling and hence ignored. The degree of freedom
can be calculated by using v = (c-1) (r-1) where c refers to column and r refers to rows.

Binomial distribution

In probability theory and statistics, the binomial distribution is the discrete probability
distribution of the number of successes in a sequence of n independent yes/no
experiments, each of which yields success with probability p. Such a success/failure
experiment is also called a Bernoulli experiment or Bernoulli trial; when n = 1, the
binomial distribution is a Bernoulli distribution. The Binomial distribution is an n times
repeated Bernoulli trial. The binomial distribution is the basis for the popular binomial
test of statistical significance.

The binomial distribution is frequently used to model the number of successes in a
sample of size n drawn with replacement from a population of size N. If the sampling is
carried out without replacement, the draws are not independent and so the resulting
distribution is a hyper geometric distribution, not a binomial one. However, for N much
larger than n, the binomial distribution is a good approximation, and widely used.

Median

In probability theory and statistics, a median is described as the numerical value
separating the higher half of a sample, a population, or a probability distribution, from
the lower half. The median of a finite list of numbers can be found by arranging all the
observations from lowest value to highest value and picking the middle one. If there is
an even number of observations, then there is no single middle value; the median is
then usually defined to be the mean of the two middle values.

In a sample of data, or a finite population, there may be no member of the sample
whose value is identical to the median (in the case of an even sample size), and, if there
is such a member, there may be more than one so that the median may not uniquely
identify a sample member. Nonetheless, the value of the median is uniquely determined
with the usual definition. A related concept, in which the outcome is forced to correspond
to a member of the sample, is the medoid.

Page 46


At most, half the population have values less than the median, and, at most, half have
values greater than the median. If both groups contain less than half the population,
then some of the population is exactly equal to the median. For example, if a < b < c,
then the median of the list {a, b, c} is b, and, if a < b < c < d, then the median of the
list {a, b, c, d} is the mean of b and c; i.e., it is (b + c)/2.

The median can be used as a measure of location when a distribution is skewed, when
end-values are not known, or when one requires reduced importance to be attached to
outliers, e.g., because they may be measurement errors. A disadvantage of the median
is the difficulty of handling it theoretically.

Page 47


Charts used in the project

Column Chart:

A column chart, also known as a bar chart, is a chart with rectangular bars of lengths
usually proportional to the magnitudes or frequencies of what they represent. The bars
can be horizontally or vertically oriented. The column chart is vertically oriented bars.

Column charts are useful for showing data changes over a period of time or for
illustrating comparisons among items. In column charts, categories are typically
organized along the horizontal axis and values along the vertical axis.

Line Chart:

A line chart or line graph is a type of graph, which displays information as a series of
data points connected by straight line segments. It is a basic type of chart common in
many fields. It is an extension of a scatter graph, and is created by connecting a series
of points that represent individual measurements with line segments. A line chart is
often used to visualize a trend in data over intervals of time – a time series – thus the
line is often drawn chronologically.

Pie Chart:

A pie chart (or a circle graph) is a circular chart divided into sectors, illustrating
proportion. In a pie chart, the arc length of each sector (and consequently its central
angle and area), is proportional to the quantity it represents. When angles are measured
with 1 turn as unit then a number of percent is identified with the same number of
centiturns. Together, the sectors create a full disk. It is named for its resemblance to a
pie which has been sliced. The earliest known pie chart is generally credited to William
Playfair's Statistical Breviary of 1801.

The pie chart is perhaps the most ubiquitous statistical chart in the business world and
the mass media. However, it has been criticized, and some recommend avoiding it,
pointing out in particular that it is difficult to compare different sections of a given pie
chart, or to compare data across different pie charts. Pie charts can be an effective way
of displaying information in some cases, in particular if the intent is to compare the size
of a slice with the whole pie, rather than comparing the slices among them. Pie charts
work particularly well when the slices represent 25 to 50% of the data, but in general,
other plots such as the bar chart or the dot plot, or non-graphical methods such as
tables, may be more adapted for representing certain information. It also shows the
frequency within certain groups of information.

Bar Chart:
Page 48


A bar chart or bar graph is a chart with rectangular bars with lengths proportional to the
values that they represent. The bars can be plotted vertically or horizontally. Bar charts
are used for plotting discrete (or 'discontinuous') data which has discrete values and is
not continuous. Some examples of discontinuous data include 'shoe size' or 'eye colour',
for which you would use a bar chart. In contrast, some examples of continuous data
would be 'height' or 'weight'. A bar chart is very useful if you are trying to record certain
information whether it is continuous or not continuous data. Bar charts also look a lot
like a histogram. They are often mistaken for each other.

Scatter Plot chart:

A scatter plot or scatter graph is a type of mathematical diagram using Cartesian
coordinates to display values for two variables for a set of data. The data is displayed as
a collection of points, each having the value of one variable determining the position on
the horizontal axis and the value of the other variable determining the position on the
vertical axis. This kind of plot is also called a scatter chart, scatter gram, scatter diagram
or scatter graph. A scatter plot is used when a variable exists that is under the control of
the experimenter. If a parameter exists that is systematically incremented and/or
decremented by the other, it is called the control parameter or independent variable and
is customarily plotted along the horizontal axis. The measured or dependent variable is
customarily plotted along the vertical axis. If no dependent variable exists, either type of
variable can be plotted on either axis or a scatter plot will illustrate only the degree of
correlation (not causation) between two variables.

Doughnut chart

A doughnut chart (also spelled donut) is functionally identical to a pie chart (or circle
graph) with the exception of a blank center and the ability to support multiple statistics
as one. A simple pie chart is typically used to show the proportion of data within a single
category. Rather than using a doughnut chart to increase the number of categories that
can be displayed in a single chart, a doughnut chart may be used to show greater levels
of detail across a single category of information.

A doughnut chart is one of the 11 types of basic charts that are possible to create in
Microsoft Excel, although Excel lists the doughnut chart as a distinct category of its own,
rather than as a type of pie chart.

Bubble Chart:

Page 49

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