Social Media Marketing SEMESTER PRvdsvcOJECT 2012

Semester Project ReportOn

“Brand Promotion throughSOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING”

Undertaken at

Octan Media LtdGurgaon

Prepared By:Samar RajRoll no: BB09B28

Company Guide Faculty Guide:Mr. Kartik Suneja Mr.Rajesh GuptaSr. SEO

Social Media Marketing Page 1 of 90

DECLARATION

This is to certify that I Samar Raj student of BBA 09-12have prepared the report on “Brand Promotion through Social media marketing”.

All theory contained in report is from the authentic sites, articles and industry reports, their links are given in the end, in bibliography.I have not copied it from any report submitted earlieror any other university. This is purely original and authentic, work.

Samar Raj


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

As a part of curriculum at IMSDehradun, the “Semester Project” aims at overall development of the students by providing them an opportunity to gain corporate exposure and space to apply their theoretical knowledge in practice in a mutually beneficial manner. No project can be successful without the support of the people who keep themselves closely involved with the student undergoing the program. The wealth of knowledge and guidance shared and provided to us by these professionals is invaluable.

First of all, I would like to thank my project company guide at Octan Media, Gurgaon, Mr. Kartik Suneja, Senior SEO for his selfless support and encouragement during my entire training program.

My sincere regards to Ms. Shivani Kapur, Director Octan Media, Gurgaon, for allowing me to do this project for this company. I Express my gratitude to my project faculty guide Mr. Rajesh Gupta IMS,Dehradun for his able guidance and unflinching support throughout my project.

I would also like to extend my gratefulness to all the present employees ofOctan Media, Gurgaon, for their patience and co-operation and have made my research a rewarding and meaningful experience.

This project would not have been possible without the untiring support provided by my family and friends. I would like to extend my gratitude to these people.

Samar Raj


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

It has now become more important to not just manage an organization but to achieve corporate excellence simultaneously as the future belongs to learning and performing organizations. As every business concern irrespective of its size, nature, and age needs an adequate level of marketing to carry out business operations and survive.As the Industry is growing, absorbing new technology, the new concept of marketing has emerged ‘online Marketing’ which is trying to establish its foothold in India.

Online marketing can be done through various modes and SMM is one of them.The project report titled “Brand Promotion through SMM” deals with the marketing strategy which is very much different from the traditional marketing strategy based on sales and not on developing relationship with your customer.. The project report deals with the overview of Online marketing (SEO, SMO, and PPC) with special reference to Social Media Marketing.

Social Media starts with the strategy, rooted in the desire to forge better relationship with your customers. Social media is growing around the world; there are approximately 78% of internet users who have created a social networking profile. Through social media marketing 'world of mouth' is created not through friends and family but through the use of networking in 'social bookmarking', 'video and photo sharing websites', 'engagement with blogs', 'use of RSS feeds in the blogosphere' and other social networking sites.

The primary goal of social media marketing is to develop relationship with your target customers, engagement, inform and generate awareness among people, discuss your products/services and feedback management, helps to know where the target audience lies etc. It also helps in generating natural traffic to your websites through search engines, enhanced page ranking and lead generation.

Keeping this background in view, an attempt is made to examine the performance of Social Media marketing with the help of Consumer behavior study. The project contains the procedures for the analysis of performance of SMO and its shortcomings.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction

a. Introduction to the company

b. Project Objective

c. Methodology

d. Plan of the Study

e. Scope and limitations

2. Overview of online marketing

a. Search engine marketing

b. Social media marketing

c. Site information

3. Analysis

a. Detailed analysis of the questionnaire

b. Major findings of the study

c. Suggestions

d. Conclusion

4. References 5. Annexure 1 (questionnaire copy attached)


INTRODUCTION TO THE COMPANY

VISION OF THE COMPANY: To emerge as a premier destination for complete media solutions.

Overview:Octan Media, an entrepreneurial venture started on October 2007 by Ms. Shivani Kapur with a sole aim of bringing IT Services, printing Solutions, Online Marketing and Media under one umbrella. Located on the outskirts of Gurgaon, Octan Media is a part of RICO Group- a world class engineering company supplying a wide range of high precision fully machined aluminum and ferrous components and assemblies to automotive OEMs across the globe.

Octan Media is launched to establish the mark in the Business world. It started its journey by providing Creative and Printing solutions to the marketers, recognizing the pulse that is true to the emerging scope of media communication and consultation, Octan Media is dedicated to strengthen its firm footing in myriad arrays of verticals ranging from printing solutions, crafting creative, content development, website designing, viral marketing to several auxiliary ends of online industry like SEO, SEM, SMO services, carving a niche with its in- house news portal.

HISTORY:Octan Media ltdwas founded in October 2007 by Ms. Shivani Kapur as a small media firm. It is a part of RICO Group- a world class engineering company.Octan media started its journey by providing creative and printing solutions to the marketers. Its focus on customer-first-attitude, ethical and transparent business practices, respect for professionalism, research based value investing, tailor-made services, and implementation of cutting-edge technology has enabled it to blossom into a premier destination for complete media solutions. The USP of Octan media is the capability to handle different domains with ease and that is why it is among the fastest emerging media firms with the ability to make a real difference in your business.

Today it is well diversified media firm offering a range of products and services into Creative’s (Graphic designing and Printing), Online Marketing and Website


designing.Octan media Ltd has a diversified client baseincluding global projects, major firms and also some local Brands.In the time span of 3yrs Octan Media has build a name for itself in the mind of its customers, launched websites like Octanmen.com, Octanwomen.com and Beijingolympicsupdates.com providing relevant and most needed information through its websites. It is also a carving a niche for itself with its in-house news portal.

The firm is in Gurgaon and flourishing day-by-day with increase in number of customers and solutions provided by it.

Customers of the company:The clientele of the company varies widely ranging from multinational firms to the small entrepreneurship ventures providing varied services for different products. It is providing services to the giant brand like PepsiCo as well as to the local domestic detective companies.

Octan media has a global customer base consisting of: Commonwealth games 2010 PepsiCo Maruti Suzuki Hewlett Packard Osram Siemens India bulls ITC Jay Pee Groups Park Plaza Crown Plaza MDLR Airlines Rajdhani RICO Vanessa Beauty Care and Perfumes Conarch India Pvt Ltd Delhi Detectives Parsnath Detectives Aqua Tech Pashupati Enterprises


ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE COMPANY:


BUSINESS HEADS:


Managing Director(RICO Industries): Mr. Arvind Kapur

Executive Director(RICO Industries): Mr. Naresh Sethi

Whole Time director(Octan Media ): Ms. Shivani Kapur

Marketing and Sales Department

Marketing Manager:Mr. Saurabh Badola

Sales Manager:Mr. Luv Dhingra

Operations Department

Production Manager:Mr. Rakesh Das

Senior SEO:Mr. Kartik Suneja


Creative and Designing Department

Creative Head:Ms. Deepshika Yadav

Team Leader:Mr. Alok Kumar

Human Resource Department

Assistant Manager:Ms. Savita Sahani

HR Associate:Ms. Shaily Negi

Finance and Accounting Department:

Account Officer:Mr. Sarvesh Pal

SWOT ANALYSIS OF THE COMPANY:SWOTshows the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of a business. A firm does the SWOT to understand what it is capable of and what it can deliver. A firm has to increase its strength, minimize the weaknesses, grab the opportunities coming its way and keep in check the threats.


STRENGTHS:The company is a one step solution to all the advertising needs.The company has a team of skilled and experienced employees.It is a part of RICO Group which is a brand in itselfThe company works on a realistic approach i.e. delievers quality.It provides customized solutions to its client.

WEAKNESSES:The company being the part of RICO works on its terms and conditions.The company does not own its printing resources and therefore faces difficulty.The company is located at the outskirts of Gurgaon so it is not able to market itself properly.

OPPORTUNITIES:Online Marketing is an upcoming trend with huge potential because it is a cost effective approach.The number of Internet users are growing day-by-day with the growing efficient Internet service providers.To become the official Print sponsor for Commonwealth games 2010.

THREATS:There are many small and big competitors in the business which do not run the business ethically.Lack of belief of end users in Online products.Online services being new and upcoming brings many big and small competitors with it.There is a threat of product cannabilisation i.e. its online services can impose threat to its printing and graphic services.

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES: Octan Media offers tailor-made services in printing, content, Media planning, Link Building, PPC, SEO, SEM, Web design and other web services through on-site and off-site or in combination based on the preference of the client and the nature of the project . It focuses on ROI driven campaigns and initiatives for its clients.The prime focus of the company is to solve clients’ problems and to maximize their return on investment by close co-operation and implementation of the most appropriate solution at the cost effective price.I classified the services provided by the Octan Media into three:

Creative’s Internet marketing Website designing


CREATIVES

Graphic designing printingHoarding designPoster designLogo designBrochure designCatalogue designPrint AdsPackaging designCorporate Identities design

INTERNET MARKETING

Search engine marketingSearch engine optimizationSocial media marketingLocal search engine optimizationOff page optimizationBuilding CampaignE-mail marketingAffiliate marketingPay Per click

WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT

Website designingWebsite re-designingFlash presentations

CREATIVES

Graphic designing and printing:The heart of a successful advertising campaign is the message. The soul is the 'right media choice'. Presenting products and services to potential customers through a well balanced media schedule has become the cornerstone of the business - something Octan feel very passionate about and can execute confidently.Octan Media's media buying service can negotiate rates, coordinate the creation of campaign creative, manage the channel mix, and place your print, broadcast and Internet advertising orders. Octan Media's media planning and buying process involves the following steps:

1. Determining your objectives - The first step they take is to understand the needs of your business and your target audience. This information is the foundation of any media planning program.

2. Strategy development - Based on your objectives, their media planning experts will work with you to plan a course of action. They'll help you determine the best medium or media combination for your marketing message.

3. Research - When it comes to media planning and buying, one size does not fit all. That's why they take great care in analyzing the different content networks and radio, television and print markets and choosing only those that are most relevant to your audience and business.

4. Negotiate and Implement - Once the professionals negotiate the best prices for your program based on your budget, they'll begin executing your campaign.

5. Analysis - Continual analysis and tracking of your campaign's performance is vital. To see what's working, what's not working, and make adjustments accordingly.

Hoarding design:A company's hoarding gives the outside world a glimpse of the organization. It's a hallmark of distinction, prestige and identity. Octan Media ensures that every hoarding design that it crafts grabs utmost attention.Print product range includes:


Baggage tags, Banners, Steel Carving, Menu cards, Brochures, Mouse Pads, Carry bags, Certificates, Coupons, Calendars, Danglers, 3D graphic, First aid box, Folders, Forms, Gift bags, Loyalty cards, Floor graphics, Smart cards, Tourist Guides, etc,.

Poster design:Effectively designed posters aid in captivating the target audience and can help in converting them into customers. Octan Media designs posters that get business and are remembered throughout.

Logo and Corporate Identities design:Logo is the symbol representing a company. It is used while advertising a company to attract more visitors win their trust and build strong brand recognition. Therefore, a logo should be designed as such it should set a prominent picture in people’s mind what services and/or products you provide or sale. Octan Media host designers with creative ideas, conceptual, skilled and technically proficient.Octan Media understands that for getting an instant recognition, your logo must be unique, different from others, based on basic design principles of color, space, consistency, form and clarity and should represent your company/brand appropriately.We provide services like custom logo design, company logo design, and corporate identity.

Brochure design:A brochure is instrumental in building an effective business image. Octan Media strengthens a company brand positioning, business communication and identity by crafting an impressive brochure.

Catalogue design:Octan Media offers unique and influential catalogue designs which have helped companies in presenting their products to prospective buyers in a remarkable manner. A catalogue can help generate revenue when the products are listed aesthetically.


Print Ads:Every company aims towards an augmented growth, which can be achieved by building new patrons. This is where Print Advertisements can help you. However, there are a plethora of advertisements sticking to each other in selected top publications. This increases the chance of your ad getting lost. Octan Mediamake your presence noticed via an interesting synergy of words and illustration.

Product design:Octan Media methodology towards product designing is not only in terms of creative and functional aspects, but business level is also kept at top priority. The strategies are competitive, practical and cost- effective that result in an exceptional product.

Packaging design:A stunning package is vital in building long time brand loyalty between a company and its customers. Octan Media tailor makes the package in such a manner that it adds value and raises top of the mind recall.

INTERNET MARKETING

Search engine marketing:Octan Media is the search engine marketing company providing a foundation for industry growth through building stronger relationships, fostering awareness, providing education, promoting the industry, generating research, and creating a better understanding of search and its role in marketing. The internet can be a crowded, competitive and fast-changing marketplace. So Octan Media has dedicated teams understanding its subtleties and nuances, creating an integrated campaign, tailor-made to fit your requirements, utilizing the right balance from the variety of services we offer.SEM or search engine marketing is a combination of promotional techniques and tactics to improve a website's ranking on the search engines. The two elements delivering effective search engine marketing are SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay per click) advertising.Search engine marketing services have become imperative to the success of online businesses mainly due to the growth and popularity of finding your particular website, products or services by using search engines. This means that


most people use search engines to find their desired information regarding products and services. In fact it is true that 80- 90% of online users are directed through the internet using search engines. There is no limitation as long as the keywords are approved by the various search engine editorials.SEM not only includes search but also banner advertising. It is a great way to create online awareness. It can enhance your search engine visibility and thus help you achieve favorable ROI. Like all other marketing and advertising campaigns, you need to do proper planning and devise an effective strategy for your SEM campaign.

Search engine optimization:Search engine is a software program searching the web pages on the basis of specific keywords and feed searcher with the relevant information as they made searches on net. Among the numerous search engines, sought after search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN and Alta Vista.Website optimization is not a once done and over process. It needs a continuous maintenance and if you go on adding more relevant information, better will be the chances of retaining high search engine ranking in search engine result page.Octan Media is IT Company with a strong hold on SEO. They do professional web site designing, and web programming by using updated technologies like Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, HTML, XHTML, Corel Draw, PHP, MYsql and other scripting languages.

Social media marketing:Any website owner knows how difficult and slow growing your links and traffic can be. But with theSocial Media Campaign services you can jump start your website visibility and create a far greater viral effect in a shorter time frame. Within 24 hours you will witness a flood of readers along with new links and bookmarks pouring in. Permanent inbound links will grow organically over following days so as well as a terrific initial spike in traffic you also get a long-lasting lift in search visibility and referral visitors.

Local Search engine optimization:Ranking amongst the top 5 positions for your most relevant keywords is significant, as it generates copious business opportunities. Octan Media optimizes a series of local keywords to ensure client’s content appears on the top position. When your site is optimized using specific phrases it generates revenue from local


regions. Its local optimization services are customized to meet the requisites of major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. This establishes search engine visibility. In addition, this cost effective advertising approach yields business for a fraction of cost of electronic, print or radio advertising.

Off page Optimization/link building campaign:Off page Optimization encapsulates acquiring relevant links from other sites, link exchange with significant sites, opting for relevant anchor text on different pages of copious sites, etc. OM builds a quality back links that aid in getting targeted traffic and ensuring your brand is unique. Every link is an endorsement to your site and the more endorsements you have there are higher chances of your site being listed. Octan Media with its off page Optimization provides best results for your site that’ll ensure maximum results.

E-mail Marketing:Octan Media specialize in providing email marketing services and Internet marketing services to business-to-business companies, publishers and service providers.Clients rely on us for a multitude of email marketing services:

Email marketing consulting: Email marketing is dynamic. What worked well three years ago probably won't work today. Heck, what worked three weeks ago may not be the best course of action any longer.

Email marketing creative services: Creative services are a big part of what OM does for clients. Whether you're reaching out to businesses, consumers, or both, we speak the language. And your stuff will look great to boot!

Outsourced email marketing services: As you probably know by now, there's more to email marketing than loading up some content and hitting the send button. To do the job right takes a little care, a little time, and a methodical approach

Improved email marketing deliverability: While no email marketing service provider can guarantee 100% delivery, OM take every step imaginable to provide the highest delivery rate.


Email is a truly wonderful tool in the process of converting prospects to customers, and there are many ways other than email to build your list of prospects.

Affiliate marketing:Being a form of online marketing, Affiliate Marketingbasically involves the practice of imparting one or many affiliates for every online visitor/customer, brought by the marketing efforts of the business’s affiliate. Affiliate Marketing clings on to the positives of the crowd sourcing application.The methods which are adopted in the practice of Affiliate Marketing involve scaling up the regular methodologies of advertising. The methods vary from search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing to display advertising. However affiliates on certain grounds also implement conventional ways, for instance publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.The simplest way to stem this tide called Affiliate marketing; we say it is basically using ‘one website to drive traffic to another’.Octan Media knows the pros and cons of Affiliate marketing and is making all the possible efforts to offer our clients such marketing solutions.

Pay per click:Pay per click (PPC), is an Internetadvertising model used on websites, in which payment is made when the ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers normally bid on keyword phrases essential to their target marketplace. Content sites usually charge a set price per click rather than use a bidding system.As Internet has grown in popularity also has increased the practice of advertising ones product on web. Not only is it extremely economical but also increases the chance of business as well as invariably people around the globe comes to know about the product or service that is being advertised and can actually make an online purchase.In short it can be said that an efficient implementation of PPC can lead to the following advantages.

More SALES More ENQUIRIES Higher ROI (Return on Investment) Lower CPA (Cost per Acquisition)


However, in order to gain maximum from such a system as PPC it is imperative that a company which is efficient in managing PPC and using it for the benefit of its clients. Octan Media offers a gamut of PPC services which include PPC Campaign Management, Paid Advertising Services etc.Octan Media PPC services along with its SEO division establish the visibility of any website on leading search engines. It finds out important keywords about the services and products that any company might be willing to advertise online and contribute in improving its rankings on search engines.

WEBSITE DEVELOPMENTOctan Media is a web applicationdevelopment company, well equipped and informed about latest technologies and innovations.The web application developers at Octan Mediaspecialize in web development, designing, E-commerce portals, Logo and Banner ads design, Content Management System, Search Engine Optimization, Internet Technology and Custom Software Development.Octan Media is very flexible about its services and is willing to offer services in any way, open to banner, logo development and designing, website development, website redesigning work separately.

Website designing:Octan Media is an internet website design company, offering full-service website designing solution. Their website projects vary from company presentation with several informative pages to big corporate systems with dynamically generated contents, database-driven online internet stores and e-commerce applications, online communities, b2b, real estate, yellow pages, and others.Attractive website design uses attractive color, fonts, images and layout to capture an emotion and tempt your customers to buy and not to forget easy navigation. Companies often believe that the more stuff there is on a website (noises, animated imagery, chirps, graphics and music) the more eye-catching their site is. In fact, these things can be distracting and cause a customer to get frustrated and leave.

Attractive Graphic Website DesignNavigation is also extremely important to a website. People who search online do not look past the first couple of pages in a website before they decide whether or not that site is useful to them. Your homepage should let visitors know what your


site has to offer. Links to further information should be clearly labeled, organized, and prominent on the page. Your customers should be able to easily find the information they are looking for and be gently guided toward purchasing your products.

Website Re-designing:If all your parameters are duly fulfilled then you can be assure that half of your mission is done but if you feel something has been missed then this would be the right time to opt for redesigning your website.Your website is your identity and it is the medium through which you can win the heart of your clients and customers. Your website design represents your company, your capability and your versatility, so it need to be constantly updated, redesigned to retain and attract more customers by integrating latest innovations to fulfill their needs. Website redesign is also required to meet organizational constantly growing demands and remain flexible to scale all future challenges.So for a perfect website, amalgamation of creativity an ample of technical knowledge is necessary and Octan Media web designing company is one of the exact places to venture out for professional web redesigning. It hosts some of the best industry experts carrying experience, creative technical and SEO knowledge who can focus on your business needs, redesign it accordingly and help your website become visible on the internet and make it customer friendly, so it is able to generate more leads, increase sale of site’s products/services which is the exact reason behind your online business.

Flash presentations:Octan Media has unique combination of talent and professionalism, makes presentation that spell business. Arresting layout, interesting copy lines and valuable experience instill freshness in presentations that creates an impact on the audiences mind.In flash presentations, Octan Media displays information in an eye catching manner employing Flash and Animation. This ensures that the audience connects with the presentation and remembers the information showcased.

Octan Media has also launched Website like Octanmen.com to cater the needs of men on the web.


http://www.octanmedia.com/website_designing.html

Octanmen.com

Octanmen.com website launched by octan media ltd to cater to men on the web, it offers and can easily make out the wants of men all over.The popular sections on octanmen.com are:PoliticsSportsBusinessLifestyle, andEntertainment


INTRODUCTION TO THE PROJECT

This project deals with the one aspect of Online Marketing which is Social Media Marketing. Through this project, an effort towards understanding and throwing more light on some aspects of Online Marketing has been undertaken.

This project will surely help marketers in getting a detailed insight into the concept of Social Media Marketing and help in developing marketing strategy in such a way that most can be reaped from it. Through this project, Social Marketing concept is explored and how it has given new dimensions to the Marketing Strategy of any business.The study has four main parts:

Customer engagement with these sites. The major benefits of Social Media Marketing. The Social sites which are most famous and commonly used by consumer. Demographics of consumer.

The major role of Social Media Marketing is in developing Brand Awarenessand Brand Building. With the help of the primary data and secondary data statistics, this project, will help you to understand the major advantages of Social Media Marketing and, therefore, can suggest marketers to indulge in it, as it is now the need of the business.


OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

“Social Media Marketing” is an engagement with online communities to generate exposure, opportunities and sales. It seems that many marketers see the social media frontier as the next marketing gold rush. Given the low cost of entry, many marketing pros are doing more than just dipping their toes into this gold-laden water.This study set out to understand how marketers are using social media to grow and promote their businesses.Through this study we will examine the consumer behavior towards the social networking sites and how the marketers are using this medium for Brand Awareness and Brand building. It is about engaging customers in a mutually beneficial way.

Consumer behavior and awareness:This project report will analyze the behavior of end users towards social marketing modes and their awareness towards it.

The benefits of social media marketing:This will reveal all the major advantages marketers are achieving with there social media efforts.

Commonly used social media sites:This will reveal the different social media platforms people are using, which is/are most popular and can be used by marketers most.

Social media sites people want to learn about:This will examine the up-&-coming sites that can grab the interest of the marketers.


Methodology of the study

The data which I will collect for my Study is combination of both Primary data and Secondary data.

PRIMARY DATA:It can be defined as study which involves collecting information specifically for the study on hand, from the actual sources such as consumers, dealers or other entities involved in the study.It is possible to collect data from respondents by many different methods.The major method used in this study for data collection is Questionnaire.

SECONDARY DATAIt is any information we may use, but which has not been specifically collected for the current Marketing study. This data will be incorporated to find out the present scenario of the Social networking sites.

Following are some sources:Analytics: Give the traffic statistics of the site.Industry Reports on Social Media marketing.Social sites Information


PLAN OF THE STUDY

This project followed a simple & systematic methodology. I have followed a phase by phase approach to complete this project.

Phase1: Overview of Online Marketing and identifying the problemThe initial step was to gather information about the company and online marketing. I received thorough knowledge about the details of the business and how it is done at Octan Media ltd by Mr. Kartik Suneja.In this stage I studied from different websites to have better understanding of this business. The right understanding of the project topic was also very important. The company guide Mr. Kartik Suneja was a big help to me in determining this step. He explained me the in and out of the business and the services offered by Octan Medialike SEO, SMO and PPC. After having a conversation with my company guide, the Social Media marketingtopicwas finalized.I realized that social sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedInetc enjoy huge traffic and have millions of subscribers over the world. Established Brands like Starbucks, IBM, Pepsi, Coke, Sachin Tendulkar and Amitabh Bacchan etc are part of these sites and successfully maintaining their brand image.My study is set to understand the consumer perception of these social sites, therefore, will help marketers to better understand these social sites and the key approach areas.So I decided there will be four main parts in my study-1. Consumer engagement with these sites.2. The major benefits of Social media marketing.3. The Social sites which are commonly used by consumers.4. Demographics of Consumer.

Phase 2: Extensive literature SurveyAfter deciding the project topic, it was very important to study the literature which has been written on Social media sites. Several Industry reports were studied and some weekly articles about the Social Media sites were studied.Traffic statistics, Search engine rankings and other analytics study was done on different social sites through alexa.com.This all helped me to understand the marketers’ point of view on the social sites and what benefits they are gaining through them.


Diagram: The Process of Identifying Project topic

Phase 3: Developing an approach to the problemOnce the topic for the study was identified, the next was to develop an approach to the problem i.e. defining the objective of the study.


Task InvolvedDiscussion with Mr. Kartik Suneja (Company Guide)

Extensive literature reading through different websites

Understanding the concepts of Online marketing

Step 1: Identifying Project topicSocial Media Marketing

The proper statement of objective was set up which is “To study the Consumer behavior towards Social networking sites”.

Preparing the statement of objective:The objective of the studyis “To study the consumer behavior towards social networking sites and how marketers are using this medium for brand awareness and brand building”.This basically includes:1. Consumer behavior and awareness towards these Social sites.2. The benefits of Social Media marketing.3. Commonly used Social media sites.4. Social media sites people want to learn about.

Phase 4:Project design formulationIt is always best to be very clear as to what has to be done and how it has to be done and this was decided in this step of the project. Design formulation means preparing the conceptual structure or the framework for the study.“Preparing a project design is a set of advance decisions that makes up the master plan specifying the methods and procedures for collecting and analyzing the needed information”.From the understanding of the project I decided to go for a survey research.In this step following decisions were taken:

1. Sampling designThis consists of the sample composition and size.This study will be conducted on the consumers of Delhi/ NCR by administering questionnaires with the help of the E-mail surveys.The questionnaire will help me to understand the trend of Social sites and provide information about the consumer perception towards the promotional activities through these Social sites.

Sample size : Information will be collected from a sample size of 100 respondents, which will include both males and females.Non-Probabilistic Sampling Technique : Probabilistic Sampling Technique has not been used here in arriving at a sample size; it is a convenience sampling suiting our use.


2. Data collection design:It will help us in deciding which data collection tool to use. It is possible to collect data from respondents by many different methods.The major method used in this study for data collection is Questionnaire.Questionnaire design:The purpose of a questionnaire is to collect with ease the data required from the target respondents in the study. The consumer-centric questionnaire has been prepared keeping in mind the objectives of the study.In all 22 questions has been designed, which are simple in language and easy to understand.

Questionnaire is divided into three sections:

Users:Respondents who use Social networking sites.Non- Users:Respondents who do not have any Social site presence, and, Demographics:This section contains questions on the Age, Gender and Occupation/Designation of the respondents.

Field Work Plan:The major decision pertaining to field work is to determine the centres where the field works has to be done, based on the target population.The field work centres in my study will be Metro stations, Delhi university campus area, Commercial buildings, Major market areas, Malls, Schools etc of Delhi/ NCR region.

3. Statistical analysis:Once data has been collected in the form of filled up questionnaires, the next will be to process it.Analysis will be done through -Simple TabulationOn the basis of the analysis major findings and recommendations will be put-forth.

Phase 4: Survey The primary objective of survey research is to provide an insight and an understanding into the details of the study. For this a questionnaire is


administered to the consumers to check the trend of Social site, the survey is basically administered to the consumers of Delhi/NCR region.

Phase 6: Data analysisIn this phase the first job that was done was coding and editing of the data collected, so that it can be analyzed and meaningful results can be drawn from it. Any incomplete form or form with irrelevant information was discarded.Detailed Analysis of each question is done and is documented later in the analysis chapter. The analyzed results are taken into consideration and I tried to present feasible recommendations. All the observations made and analyzed are given in the analysis chapter later in the report.

Phase 7: Report FormationIn the final part of the project recommendations and conclusions were drawn and then the final project was prepared.


Diagram: Flow of the work done for the Project


Step 1Identifying the project topic

Step 2Extensive literature reading

Step 3Developing an approach to the problem

Step 4Preparing the project objective

Step 5Project design formulation

Step 6Designing the questionnaire for survey


Step 7Deciding the field centres for the study

Step 8Preparing the schedule for entire project

Step 9Start with Data collection

Step 10Check and document the Data so collected

Step 11Editing and Tabulating the data

Step 12Detail analysis of collected data


Step 13Recommendations and conclusions were drawn

Step 14Review of the whole project

step 15Prepare the final report and submit it

SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

Overview of Online Marketing:Since the Internet has now become a primary tool for the delivery of information, businesses of all sizes are using Online Marketing to increase awareness of their company’s goods and services. The major advantage of this form of Marketing is that Internet has brought media to a global audience.Through this project I have tried to give the overview of Online Marketing, the common fields which it includes and their advantages and disadvantages.

Concept of Social Media Marketing:Social Media Marketing is an effective way of creating awareness about your product, indulging customers in an interactive discussion, feedback management, building traffic to the Website and etc.Through this project I have tried to put-forth the major advantages people are reaping through social sites. Today 78% of Internet users have social sites account and traffic on these sites is increasing day-by-day.It has the major advantages of globalizing your business.

Penetration of Social Media Sites among the Audience:Business is becoming Social. We all know that customers are present on Social networks. Social Media Marketing taps the power of web to reach the previously unreachable prospects to your Brand message.Study done by Social Media brands measured the social site penetration of around 100,000 business people at the nation’s largest organizations and showed that 43% of employees are on LinkedIn, 11% on Facebook, and 3% use Twitter. The organizations which topped this survey are Microsoft, Apple and Walt Disney.

Socialnomics-It’s a people driven economy:Social Media save billions of hours of productivity, make companies more accountable and efficient, will save millions of dollars when compared to Traditional Marketing. A Senator who was unknown in 2004 used Social media to win the U.S presidential nomination. His you tube videos got 110mn views, estimated to be 14.5mn hours of viewing. Mass media advertising to reach that many viewers would have cost $47mn. At the time of election, he had 5mn fans on Facebook- over 4mn more than his opponent. On Twitter, he had over 100,000 followers and


his opponent had about 5000. And he rode the Social Media train all the way to the White House.

Lack of understanding of the need of Online Marketing:Marketers still believe that they do not need an online presence and many major firms, does not have any online optimization campaign running.Through this project I tried to give Online Marketing overview, the consumer perception towards Social media marketing, its cost effective approach, its reach to the mass, some modes of doing it and the benefits of Social media marketing.


LIMITATIONS OF THE PROJECT

Although the project aims at making an in-depth study but there are some practical limitations regarding the methodology followed & the overall procedure, these can be summed up under the following points –

Non-response bias may be high i.e. some people who do not want to participate in such surveys do not get represented in the sample leading to errors.

This being a convenience sample, theanalysis may not be a true picture of the target population.

Many consumers do not respond properly and do not give out proper information leading to incomplete responses.

It is also possible that some people might have given misleading or false information.

Many people also gave unauthentic information to hide their ignorance. The sample size itself is relatively small. To accurately evaluate Indian

consumers’ perceptions of Social sites, a larger sample size is desirable.


OVERVIEW OF ONLINE MARKETING

With the growing number of companies moving from a “bricks and mortar” frameworkto having an on-line presence; it is vital to have an understanding of how the Internet canbe used in modern business.In its simplest form, the term online marketing refers to using the power of Internet advertising to generate a response from your audience. Good online marketing strategies keep the web user returning to your website. Also known as Internet marketing or web marketing, online marketing is used by companies selling goods and services directly to consumers as well as those who operate on a business-to-business model.

The primary purpose of marketing an online business is the promotion of a good or service. Online marketing makes extensive use of the available tools for getting web users to purchase a product or service from a website.Instead of business as usual (television, radio, print), companies are now adapting their advertising and marketing efforts to embrace a new breed of web-savvy consumers to secure online opportunities. This is due to the fact that traditional consumers have shifted the way they perceive, search and acquire information.Online marketing can secure millions of impressions and reach a targeted audience that converts in a matter of months, instead of spending dollars to launch a new product, with a fraction of the cost using a fair amount of content and strategic positioning one could rival the most competitive national brand.When one considers traditional PR (public relations) the emphasis was on that you reach the largest qualified audience through newspapers, television and publications. The method focused on endorsements from authority columns, TV shows, talk shows or similar mediums.When Google entered the scene in the 90’s, the rules of marketing changed. In 2008, with the advent of bloggers, social media and search engine optimization, you can reach the same prospective users of traditional media (reaching audiences that rival traditional publications) in an environment that is most suitable for conversion (their own computer screen).

In the past when the methods for delivering media were limited to television or an occasional article from a monthly or bi-weekly publication, with RSS feeds,social media sites or Google blog search updates are delivered to your computer, PDA or phone as they occur in Google 24 hours a day.


Online Marketing serves cater to a vital function,reaching a new breed of consumers that are responsible for reshaping the way the market (and those who engage it) respond to an intelligent, informed and user-centric client that possesses vision, know-how and the ability to impact your brand one comment in the right place.Gone are the days of the Yellow Pages, and TV, Radio everyone seems to be jumping on the internet marketing bandwagon lately. The internet can be a powerful tool that can put you on solid footing with bigger companies.Common areas of interest within the field of online marketing include:

Affiliate Marketing: In affiliate marketing, a business recruits associates to promote the company's products or services. The associates receive a commission or other similar rewards for every sale, visitor, subscriber, or customer they bring to the company. Amazon.com Associates Central is an example of an affiliate marketing program that Amazon.com uses to encourage private website owners to bring traffic to its site.

Display Advertising: Display advertising involves the use of web banners or banner ads placed on a third-party website to drive traffic to a company's own website and increase product awareness.

Email Marketing: Companies that use email marketing send promotional emails directly to customers. However, it can often be hard to distinguish between spam and legitimate email marketing messages.

Interactive Advertising: Interactive advertising involves the use of animations and other graphic techniques to create ads that engage the viewer and invite participation.

Search Engine Marketing: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), paid placement, and paid inclusion are search engine marketing techniques that companies can use to increase their visibility in the search engine page results from Google and its competitors.

Social Media Marketing: Social media marketing is a technique in which companies encourage customers to pass along information about their products or services. Company websites that let visitors email interactive games or funny video clips to their friends.


Advantages of Online marketing The biggest advantage is that you are open 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week.

Further your customers are worldwide in reach. It allows even smallest of companies to compete in a global marketplace. Cheapest mode of marketing that is cost of spreading your message is next

to nothing. E-mailing is cheaper and instant when compared to sending a letter

through a mail. Updating your client base, subscribers and prospects can be done almost

instantly. Visitors can get the minute information as they open the website. If one have an information sensitive business, such as a law firm, or online

magazine, one can deliver its products directly to its customers without having to use any mediator.

It is convenient, affordable and provides the opportunities for companies to compete in a global marketplace.

Disadvantages

Online marketing is not free. The cost of software, hardware, wed site design, maintenance of the site, online distribution costs and of course, time, all must be factored into the cost of providing online service or product.

The internet is still regarded as a source of information gathering for the majority of the customers. Of the number of visitors to the site, the vast majority of visitors who are motivated to buy will do so in person. Many people prefer the live interaction when they buy.

Easier to have outdated information on your site, thus timing of updates is critical.

The majority of internet marketers lack customer service and inquiry response programs. As a result, many online visitors to your site will already have painted your site as poor service before they have even contacted you. The majority of websites also have poor navigation, which makes it difficult for your visitor to find what they are looking for.


Security threats, there are many stereotypes about the security of the internet out there. As a result, many of the visitors don’t want to use their credit card to make a purchase. The fear of having their credit card info stolen is a clearand present danger in the minds of the visitors.

There is a lot of competition for a product already out there. By the time the visitor finds you, they have already been clicking many links. Unless they can find what they are looking for quickly, they are gone.

All the disadvantages can be overcome, if the marketers view the customer experience from the eyes of the customer and not as an internet marketer.

In the further chapters I have emphasized more on the search engine marketing and social media marketing.


SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING

Search Engine Marketing is an effective way to generate traffic to your website. It costs you whenever anyone clicks as compare to organic ranking where you need not to pay for the clicks. Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages through the use of search engine optimization, paid placement and paid inclusion.Search engines:Search engine is a program that searches documents for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found.Online marketing industry constitutes different fields like Display advertising, E-mail marketing, search engine marketing and etc of which search engine marketing constitutes approximately about 40% of shares of online marketing.

Search40%

Display20%

Classified17%

Sponsorship9% Rich Media

8%

Referrals2%

Email 2%

Source: ComScore.comDiagram: market share search online marketing

Approximately 80% of website visitors come from the search engines, with enter of Google in 90’s and till date it is the most popular search engine. The market share of Google when compared to other search engines are:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paid_inclusion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_per_click

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_per_click

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

People seeking

information Online ads

Google 64%Yahoo18%

Bing 12%Ask 4%AOL 2%

Source: ComScore April data

Diagram: search engines market share

The major advantage of search advertising is that ads are shown only to people who are interested in the topic. People have a need and advertising at the exact time people indicates interest, creates magic moment in the minds of the consumers.

The two key search engine strategies are: Search engine optimization Pay per click

The two strategies work in the favor of the company and give several benefits to the company-

• Drive high quality customers to their website.


• Increase sales leads from customers looking for their products and services• Build their brand online by communicating marketing messages to their

target audience.• Increase their profile against their competitors.• Target a global audience via international search engines.• ROI tracking.

Search engine optimization:Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic") search results for targeted keywords.About 80% of the search engine users stop browsing search inquiry results on the first page. Search engine optimization optimizes the website so that every time the user search results for targeted keywords, the site appears higher in the natural search results.

Natural Results AdWords


Advantages of SEO:Research shows that some researchers never click on the sponsored listings and others don't realize that these links are paid for. Approximately 80% of clicks are on natural listings and 20% on paid listings.A principal benefit of SEO is its cost-effectiveness as there is no payment to the search engine for being placed within it. This is very important for the 'search head', high volume low intent searches which are expensive in paid search.The cost of SEO is relatively fixed, independent of click volume. After initial optimization costs, the cost per click reduces whilst paid search is essentially a variable cost.Thus there are no media costs although resources are necessary for analysis of key phrases and to complete optimization on the website pages.Together with paid-search it offers a much targeted audience, visitors referred by SEO will only visit your site if they are seeking specific information on your products or related content.

Disadvantages of SEO:The major challenge of SEO is that there are billions of pages in the search engine indexes and therefore, making your pages visible can require specialist knowledge, constant monitoring and the ability to respond. Consequently, the biggest disadvantage of SEO is lack of control. There are other possible issues. Sometimes competitors or affiliates may use less ethical black hat techniques, thereby putting you at a big disadvantage.

In very competitive sectors, it can be hard to get listed in the top few results for competitive phrases and this is when expensive pay-per-click may have to be used.

Search engine advertising:Pay per click: Pay per click (PPC) is an advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, and content websites/blogs, where advertisers only pay when a user actually clicks on an ad to visit the advertiser's website. Advertisers bid on keywords they predict their target market will use as search terms when they are looking for a product or service. When a user types a keyword query matching the advertiser's keyword list, or views a page with relevant content, the advertiser's ad may be shown. These ads are called a "Sponsored link" or "sponsored ads" and


appear next to or above the "natural" or organic results on search engine results pages, or anywhere a webmaster/ blogger chooses on a content page.

Advantages of PPC:

The main advantages of paid search marketing are:

1. Highly targeted. Can reach target audience when they are looking for products, i.e. high purchase intent.2. Predictability. Traffic volumes, ranking, returns and costs tend to more stable and more predictable than SEO. 3. Speed. PPC listings appear much faster, usually in a few hours (or days if editor review is required). SEO has a much longer lead time, particularly important when new sites are created (the Google sandbox effect) or when ads need to be switched on and off for a campaign, promotion or stock changes.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogger

4. Control. Unlike SEO (with sufficient budget and staff or agency with good PPC skills) it is more straightforward to achieve high ranking and direct visitors to the relevant page on your site. 5. High conversion rates. PPC tends to have the higher conversion rates than SEO 6. Branding effect. Tests by the IAB have shown that there is a branding effect with Pay per Click, even if users do not click on the ad this can be useful for generating brand awareness during the launch of products or major campaigns.

Disadvantages of paid search marketing:

Reviewing the disadvantages of pay per click marketing listed will help show some of the challenges of pay per click which need to be managed for success.

1. Competition. Since Pay per Click has become popular due to its effectiveness, it is competitive and because it is based on competitive bids it can get expensive. Some companies may get involved in bidding wars that drive bids up to an unacceptable-level – some phrases such as ‘life insurance’ may exceed £10 per click. 2. Higher costs than other media. If SEO is effective it will almost always deliver a lower CPC. 3. Favors larger brands. For companies with a lower budget or a narrower range of products on which to increase lifetime value it may be not possible to compete. In the past large players have got deals on their media spend through their agencies through, for example, Google Best Practice Funding. 4. Complexity of managing large campaigns. PPC is deceptively simple to setup. But to compete effectively, particularly for a large campaign, requires knowledge of best practice which changes as Google and other engines introduce new facilities 5. Limited reach. Not all searchers will see your ads, since the majority scan and click on the natural listings. Your ad will only reach those who are proactively looking for a product or service, but not those who are unaware of a need. Here display advertising can be used, but the paid search content networks can help here. 6. Click fraud. Common in some sectors.


SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Social media is hot. And for businesses it represents a marketing opportunity that transcends the traditional middleman and connects companies directly with customers.It starts with the strategy, rooted in the desire to forge better relationship with your customers. Social media is growing around the world; there are approximately 78% of internet users who have created a social networking profile. Through social media marketing 'world of mouth' is created not through friends and family but through the use of networking in 'social bookmarking', 'video and photo sharing websites', 'engagement with blogs', 'use of RSS feeds in the blogosphere' and other social networking sites.

The primary goal of social media marketing is to develop relationship with your target customers, engagement, inform and generate awareness among people, discuss your products/services and feedback management, helps to know where the target audience lies etc. It also helps in generating natural traffic to your websites through search engines, enhanced page ranking and lead generation.

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).

Diagram: Social media popularity around the world

Source:SEOmoz

Internet Users in Select Countries Who Have Created a Social Network Profile as of 2009

How Social media works:Social media includes the process of building relationships with qualified prospects before you have their contact information. It will allow you to connect


with unidentified prospects during the early stages of buying process, when the prospects are still gathering information, educating themselves and researching products and services. This is the reason Social media marketing is so important.Lead generation through social media marketing may not mean same as would through other media. It’s about nurturing the qualified prospects in the right way to stay on top of mind. Eventually when they are ready to engage with a sales representative, they will come to you and not to your competitor.Through Social media marketers can provide hassle free content to their prospects when they are in their early buying stage and this can help your company to categorize in their mind as a trustworthy and credible source.

Building relationship with your customers works through Social media:Find your segment:Use Social media to listen to your prospects and gauge the level of interest and buying intent. Segment your message for the appropriate prospects of your business; this will improve the lead nurturing of your marketing campaign.

Try to solve the reader’s problem:Your readers might have problems or specific issues that need solving. Give them valuable information of their interest and also at the right time. The information may be about your products and services or it may help the reader to solve his/her own business problems.Break the information barriers for prospects, positioning your company in a positive light.

Quantity over quality:For building Social media relationship with your readers don’t compromise with the quality of your posts and content. It is not compulsory to post every minute or every hour to be in the mind of the readers.Provide the information needed by your readers or the key topics you observed through feedbacks or discussions with your readers.The idea is to absorb new information, create valuable content from it and pass it on to your users.


SWOT of Social media marketing:Social media has its own relevant pros and cons. I tried to explain it with the help of SWOT analysis.


STRENGTHS:Analyzes what is being said about your company. This produces value for the company.Decoding the noise and chatter of user generated content which is of great relevance to a company and its brand.Encourages direct consumer interactions.Allows companies a real time view on consumer perceptions about their brands.Penetration or market reach .Spy on competitors.Build trust and Disparity.

WEAKNESSES:Limitations of technology, ultimately requires a human touch to it.Huge volumes of data to process from numerous sources and innumerous languages. Difficult to make a one stop technological solution.Not effective social media presence or campaign, meaning goals are not being met. Brand has to take a backstage. one cannot do the television advertisment.Measuring ROI.

OPPORTUNITIES:Potential to become a hygiene factor for every company with more technology improvements making monitoring more effective.Monetization of social media. Many companies have profited from social media and many more to yet to venture. This medium offers immense opportunities.New target or niche markets that are untapped.Creating/joining online presence on sites where the company currently doesn’t exist, i.e. facebook.

THREATS:lack of control over the contentThere are no defined industry standards, will make it difficult to benchmark success and outcomes.Many new entrants/ board room level executives do not really understand the how to take advantage of user generated content.competitor is going after the same space or same audience with similar campaign Brand hijacking.Malwae & Viruses.

Social media sites:There are approximately 101 Social sites listed at SEOmoz which are most popular and effective social media sites for marketing the business. Some of the famous ones in them are explained:Facebook:

With 430,000,000 members (as of February 2011) Facebook is a tremendously popular social networking site. Its massive reach provides compelling opportunities to connect with customers, both current and future, through fan pages, news feeds, groups,applications, online gamingand throughout the site.

Twitter:

With 58,000,000 members, Twitter has quickly become a popular platform for consumers and advertisers alike. For brands looking to communicate with customers in real time, the micro-blogging service is a great way to carry on conversations in 140 or fewer characters.

LinkedIn:

With 35,000,000 members,LinkedIn could be a very effective resource for both you and your company. In addition to setting up a basic profile (with a followed link), you can also utilize groups, events, and answers to connect with a large online network. It is best known as professional network.

Orkut:

Orkut is a social networking website that is owned and operated by Google Inc.[2] The service is designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships. The website is named after its creator, Google employee Orkut Büyükkökten.It is one of the most visited websites in India and Brazil.

Blogger:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkut_B%C3%83%C2%BCy%C3%83%C2%BCkk%C3%83%C2%B6kten

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_service

http://www.facebook.com/home.php

http://twitter.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/

Blogs creates or enters a community of interest where readers are involved in the use and lifestyle of a product or service. Blogging sparks interactive communications using low cost self publishing and syndication of content.

Del.ici.ous:

Using Delicious can be a fairly manual marketing process, but if your product appeals to a younger, techy crowd, the social bookmarking service could be an effective acquisition channel.

Digg:

Appearing on the Digg homepage can lead to massive traffic increases to your web site or blog. And depending on your users, it can sometimes lead to significant increases in sales. Digg can be particularly effective for bloggers who write regularly and make their content easy to Digg.

Reddit:

If you have an interesting article, video, picture, or whatever else, submission to Reddit with an interesting title could lead to significant referral traffic from the Reddit homepage.

StumbleUpon:

Though the effectiveness of the sometimes fickle StumbleUpon traffic varies, experiments with the bookmarking service could expand your reach with a diverse demographic.


http://delicious.com/

http://digg.com/

MySpace:

MySpace is a social networking website . MySpace became the most popular social networking site in the United States in June 2006. MySpace allows users to customize their user profile pages into such areas as "About Me," "I'd Like to Meet," and "Interests." Videos and flash-based content can be included this way. Users also have the option to add music to their profile pages via MySpace Music, a service that allows bands to post songs for use on MySpace. It is now emphasizing on entertainment.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_service

SITE INFORMATION:

I am adding this analytics information of the top four social sites to help marketers to understand, how big the social marketing business is.

FACEBOOK:

Traffic rank : 2Daily visits : 64,228,244 (estimated)Daily page views : 954,431,702Daily ads revenue : $213,880.05

Visitors by Country:

United States 28.2%India5.4%

TWITTER:

Traffic rank : 11 Daily visits : 13,114,790 Daily page views : 84,328,103Daily ads revenue : $43,672.25

Visitors by country:

United State 31.1%India 8.7%

LINKEDIN:

Traffic rank : 28 Daily visits : 4,852,766 Daily page views : 46,246,859 Daily ads revenue : $16,159.71


Visitors by company:

United States 42.5%India 14.1%

ORKUT:

Traffic rank : 64 Daily visits : 13,114,790Daily page views : 6,199,413Daily ads revenue : $13,065.85


Brazil 48.1%India 39.3%

BLOGGER:

Traffic rank : 7 Daily visits : 22,876,502 Daily page views : 119,872,869Daily ads revenue : $76,178.75


United States 21.1%India


ANALYSIS

After the collection of data, the first stage of analysis is called Simple Tabulation. This consists of every question being treated separately.Note: People have selected more than one option in questionnaire thus percentage may add more than 100%.

The detailed analysis of questionnaire:

Q1. Do you have any Social site account?

Yes 90No 11


90%YES

11%NO

Out of the sample size of 101, 90% of respondent has Social site presence i.e. these people are actively involved in the interaction through these social sites. Only 11% of people said that they don’t have any Social site account.This explains that there is a huge potential and opportunities present in the Social media marketing. It can help the marketers to tap the untapped segment or can explore the niche market on the web, segment where effective brand message is not reachable through traditional marketing. This segment will expand as Social media marketing is advancing by leaps and bounds.

Q2. If NO, why it is so?

Time wastage 7Not aware of 2Heard will soon join 2


This question reveals that out of the 11 people from my survey who don’t have any social site account, only 2 respondents are there who are not aware of the trend of social marketing. This explains that there is a huge awareness among people towards Social sites.

Q3. If got interested which site/sites you will prefer?

Social sites No of people who ranked it no 1

Percentages

Facebook 16 16%Twitter 3 3%LinkedIn 8 8%Orkut 14 14%Blogger 2 2%Del.ici.ous 4 4%Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon

3 3%

MySpace 3 3%


There are only 15 respondents who don’t have any social site account. But when asked to mention the sites in which they can show interest in future, Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn topped the presence in the mind of the respondents.

Q4. If YES, tick the sites on which you have an account on?

Social sites No of people present Percentages Facebook 78 77%Twitter 46 46%LinkedIn 43 43%Orkut 71 69%Blogger 31 31%Del.ici.ous 3 3%Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon

0 0%

MySpace 11 11%


faceb

bok

Twitter

Linke

dInOrku

t

Blogger

Del.ici.

ous

Digg, R

eddit,

StumbleU

pon

MySpace

78

46 43

70

31

3 011

no of people present

The huge number of people is present on Facebook, Orkut, Twitter and LinkedIn.Facebook topped the survey with around 77% of respondents have their account on it. Orkut maintained the 2nd lead with 70% of respondents preferred it. Del.ici.ous, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon scored least among the user.

This analysis will help marketers to know where there customers can be. Marketers can now make their strategy according to the site and the population present on it.

Q5. What is your login time per day?

Login time No of peopleLess than 1hr 39Between 1hr-2hr 38Between 2hr-3hr 7Between 3hr-4hr 2More than 4hr 4


As Social media marketing is at its Infancy, average number of respondents spends less than 1hr on these sites, but there are people who spend more than 4hr on these sites, this segment constitutes the 4% of my sample size.

The best option for marketers here could be to segment their prospects and provide the valuable content to them to build the credibility and trust.

Q6. How often do you use your Social account?

Thrice a day 9Once a day 65Rarely 16


72% of respondents use their social site account at least once a day and 10% of respondents thrice a day.This shows that people that people are getting more and more aware about the social sites and its benefits.Marketers can explore bundle of opportunities to spread information and awareness about their brand through these sites.


Q7. How long have you been using any Social site?

Experience No of peopleJust getting started 14Been doing this for few months

39

Been doing this for few years 37


Approximately 43% of respondents are present on social sites since from past few months and 41% of respondents are actively interacting since from past few years. This explains that huge number of qualified prospects and lead generation could be done through Social media marketing. Only the way to do it on the right way has to be explored by the marketers

Q8. Which account do you regularly check-in?

Social sites No of people who ranked it no 1

Facebook 54Twitter 30LinkedIn 25Orkut 29Blogger 23Del.ici.ous 3Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon

3

MySpace 4


53% of respondents check their Facebook account regularly, 30% check Twitter, Orkut and LinkedIn are following them with 29% and 25%.This analysis shows that marketers should concentrate more on the Social sites like Facebook (54%), Twitter (30%), Orkut (29%), LinkedIn (25%), and Blogger (23%), as there is a huge surge of subscribers on it.This will help marketers to understand the most commonly used Social media sites, social media platforms people are using and are most popular among the users and can be used.

Q9. What benefits do you perceive from these sites?

Benefits No of people ranked it no 1.

Personal Social networking 67Professional social networking

50

Online gaming 22Get updates from your subscribed brands

17


66% of respondents are using their social site account for Personal Social networking, 50% for professional networking. Online gaming and updates are chosen by 22% and 17% of respondents as a reason.Marketing through social sites involve different set of principles as compared to traditional marketing. It is about building relationship and generating awareness among the consumers which can later turn into lead generation.This analysis shows that there is a lot f scope for marketers through these sites, either advertising directly through display ads or RSS feeds or by adding personal touch to your marketing campaign through interactive discussions, Blog postings or status updates.

Q10. Do you click on the advertisements which run on these sites?

Yes 45No 45


Approximately 50% of the respondents click on the advertisements on these sites. Marketers can explore this 50% of the population as their prospects and can turn them into qualified leads for their business through social media marketing.Therefore, this analysis also shows that Social sites could also generate qualified leads for the business.

Q11. What attracts you to click on the advertisements?

Image 46Content 54Clipping 11Other 30


54% of respondents click on the advertisements of their interest because of its content and 46% for the animation and how appealing it is.Therefore, it is very necessary for the marketers to balance the ratio of content and image.

Q12. In which kind of application you are most interested when you are on any of these sites?

Applications No of people Follow communities/profile 68Follow brands 40Blog posting 30Interact and participate in discussions

38

Other 12


People are most interested in follow communities/Profile when they are on any of these sites, 67% and 40% of respondents fall into this segment. 38% and 30% of respondents are interested in Forum postings, Blog Postings and comments.This offers immense opportunity for the marketers to build relationship with their customers and can easily give valuable information about their product and services indirectly by solving the problems of their consumers.

Q13. What is the reason and purpose of your interest?

Purpose No of people Awareness 55Information 67Updates 45Other 11


67% of respondents interact on social sites for information, 55% and 45% for Awareness and Updates.This analysis proves that people look for solution for their problems on these social sites.Therefore, this analysis shows that Social sites can generate awareness and exposure for your business.

Q14. Do you get the reliable information about your subscribed stuff through these sites?

Always 17Sometimes 70Never 3


69% of respondents says that they ‘sometimes’ get reliable information through these sites.Marketers have to explore this segment and should shift this population to the segment who ‘always (17%)’ get reliable information through these sites.This can help marketers with improved visibility and increased subscribers to their brand.


Q15. Do you indulge in any of the interaction /postings/feedback or else to gain information and other latest stuff about your subscribed stuff?

Yes 64No 26

64% of respondents look for information on these sites by participating in forum discussions/Interactions and postings.This medium is easily accessible for consumers and marketers both, for consumers it is just a matter of few clicks before getting the desirable information and for marketers it is more effective as through social media marketing they


target their segment directly and pay only for the effective advertising reaching their target audience.Therefore, this analysis shows that Social media marketing is cost-effective and can drastically reduce overall marketing expenses and also advertises your brand at the exact time people indicates interest.

Q16. Does the information you get through these sites help to change your perception towards particular Brand/Product/Service?

Yes 43No 47

43% of respondents said yes that social sites helped change their perception towards any brand.

Q17. Have you ever tried the services/product you got aware about through these Social sites?

Yes 28No 62


Only 28% of respondents tried the product and services about which they got aware through social sites.The above question analysis shows that 43% of users say that these sites helped to change or develop their perception towards some brand;out of it 28% of users have tried the product or services through these sites.This analysis shows that through social media marketing there is a huge potential that it can also help marketers to close their business.

Q18. Do you think it is a good medium to promote anything?


Yes 83No 7

83 of respondents believe that social media sites are good platform to promote anything.It shows that marketers should explore and grab the opportunities.


Q19. Social sites you heard and want to learn?

Social media sites which people heard and want to learn can also be helpful for the marketers.

Demographics:

Q20. What is your age?

Age No of peopleLess than 18yr 4Between 18-25yr 54Between 25-35yr 36Between 35-45yr 7More than 45yr 0


Youth is more involved into these social sites. An analysis to demographic composition proves that people of age group 18-25yr and 25-35yr is more involved in the social sites networks.This age group represents the students and the young working employees or entrepreneurs.

Q21. Gender

Male 64Female 37


Males are more involved into it as compared to females. 64% of respondents to the survey are male.

Q22. Designation/Occupation:

Designation No of peopleStudent 34Engineer 8IT 13Marketing 13Finance 4Lawyer 1Doctor 2Professor 4Housewife 1Other 21


Respondents to the survey belong to varied backgrounds.This shows that people belonging to different professionals are present on these sites as social media marketing has something for everyone.


MAJOR FINDINGS OF THE SURVEY

The primary findings of the survey are:

Social site presence: 90% of respondents in my survey have social site account; this number can draw many small, median and big companies attention towards social media marketing campaign.

Age factor:

AGE RESPONDENTSLess than 18 years 04Between 18 -25 years 52Between 25-35 years 32Between 35-45 years 02More than 45 years 00

less than 18n years

18 - 25 years

25 - 35 years

35 - 45 years

more than 45

years

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Respondents

Respondents

Out of the 90 respondents having social sites account, the maximum of the respondents comes under the age of 18 years to 25 years that shows youth and middle age group are the prime users of social networking sites.

The top social media site: Users are engaged in large number in social media sites.


Survey result shows: Facebook 78% of respondents present Orkut 71% of respondents present Twitter 46% of respondents present LinkedIn 43% of respondents present

Time commitment: Average number of users is spending approximately 1hr-2hr at least once a day on these social sites.

Experience with social sites: Most of the people are using social sites since from past few months or few years. The trend of social sites and how to use it for the benefit is new to both users and marketers.

The benefits of social media marketing: Social media marketing have tremendous opportunities for marketers.Its benefits revealed from the study can be of interest for marketers.

Help marketers to close business. It generates exposure and awareness for the business. Results in new business partnerships. It also generates qualified leads to the business. It is cost effective and has drastically reduced overall marketing expenses

for the business. The most prevalent benefit of social media is improved search engine

ranking, better visibility, increased traffic and subscribers to the website.

Social media sites people want to indulge in:


Use of social sites to promote anything: Whooping 83% of respondents believe that it is a good medium to promote anything.


SUGGESTIONS

The business of Social media marketing is very sophisticated one and the key is customization to the needs of the users.A marketer before indulging into this medium should keep in mind that social media is for building relationship with your users and not for selling your business.

The huge numbers of prospects are present on these sites, which can turn into qualified leads, if the medium is effectively used. Small business owners, entrepreneurs, giant companies, everyone can gain from it.

Marketers can start by investing 1hr-2hr daily on these social sites.

The key to success for marketers on this medium is to segment your customers, build relationship, anticipate and solve their problems by adding personal touch to your marketing message.

Provide valuable content and information to the user. Do the thorough research on your content either by developing a content production team and content calendar.

Marketers can also make their communities/profile to improve their brand visibility and allow user generated content on it.

Use display ads on the most landing pages of the sites. Analytics can help you track the information.

Always prefer “quality over quantity”. Go thorough with it.


CONCLUSION

As to conclude, it will be wise to include my learning’s from my semester prjoect at “Octan Media ltd”. It was overall an enriching learning experience and has done tremendous value addition to me.

“Social media marketing”is a concept of seed nurturing which itself provides huge benefits to the marketers and generate qualified leads for the business. Using this medium can help marketers to have an edge against their competitors. In this tenure I have learned the overview of online marketing and the detailed experience of social media marketing.

I learned that the trend of social media marketing is new for marketers in India and even many brands are not involved into it because they feel they don’t need to. The consumer behavior study which I undertook in this tenure showed that users interact and participate in discussions through this media. Therefore, social media marketing if used properly can be a big platform for marketers to generate awareness among people for its products and services and also for the launch of its new products.For the small business owners and entrepreneurs, it globalizes their business and gives them the chance to fight with their competitors using the same platform, on the same level.

Not only this, I also conducted a survey through well planned questionnaire which helped to understand the consumer behavior and awareness towards these social sites, most commonly used social sites and the benefits of social media marketing. The analysis report can help most of the marketers to understand the concept of social media marketing and what advantages can be reaped using these sites.

Other learning was the day to day working of the company, meeting the guidelines, adapting to the corporate environment, to its rules and regulations. Before starting my project I had to have basic knowledge about the company itself and about all the products and services offered by the company under online marketing. This included search engine marketing, SEO, PPC, affiliate marketing and social media marketing.

I choose the social media marketing as my study topic with the help of my


company guider and respected teacher, who gave me the entire knowledge about it and then allowed me to work on it on my own, handling responsibilities and pressure but also guided me and solved my problems every time.

Henceforth, altogether it was an enriching experience where I got a lot of learning’s .


REFERENCES

Web pages:

www.octanmedia.comwww.comScore.comwww.SEOmoz.comwww.socialmediaexaminer.comwww.marketingprofs.comwww.NetProspex.comwww.alexa.comwww.google.comWikipedia

Books:

Marketing Research by - Rajendra Nargundkar


http://www.google.com/

http://www.alexa.com/

http://www.NetProspex.com/

http://www.marketingprofs.com/

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/

http://www.SEOmoz.com/

http://www.comScore.com/

http://www.octanmedia.com/

Annexure 1: Questionnaire

QUESTIONNAIRE ON SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

DATE: _____________ CENTRE: ______________

Dear Sir/Madam,

This questionnaire is prepared for the project report, which will analyze how aware people are about social sites and to check the behavior of the consumer towards the promotional activities taking place on these sites.

Tick in front of the options or specify where required.

1. Do you have any Social site account-?o Yes -----------o No ------------

2. IF NO, Why it is so?

o Time wastageo Not aware ofo Heard will soon joino Others


3. If got interested, which site/sites you will prefer- (Rank your priority)

Social sites 1 2 3 4 5FacebookTwitterLinkedInOrkutBloggerDeliciousDigg,Reddit,StumbleUponMySpace

4. IF YES, Tick the sites on which you have an account on-

Social sites Tick FacebookTwitterLinkedInOrkutBloggerDeliciousDigg,Reddit,StumbleUponMySpace

5. What is your login time per day-?

o Less than 1hro Between 1hr-2hroBetween 2hr-3hro Between 3hr-4hro More than 4hr


6. How often do you use your social account-?

o Thrice a dayo Once a dayo Rarely

7. How long have you been using any social sites-?

o Just getting startedo Been doing this for a few monthso Been doing this for a few years

8. Which account does you regularly check-in- (Rank your priority)

Social sites 1 2 3 4 5FacebookTwitterLinkedInOrkutBloggerDeliciousDigg,Reddit,StumbleUponMySpace

9. What benefits do you perceive from these sites- (Rank your priority)

Benefits 1 2 3 4Personal networkingProfessional networkingOnline gamingGet updates from your subscribed stuff


10. Do you click on the advertisements, which run on these sites-?

o Noo Yes

11. What attracts you to click on the advertisements-?

o Imageo Contento Clippingso Other

12. In which kind of application you are most interested when you are on any of these site-

o Follow communities/profile-o Follow Brandso Blog postingo Forum postingo Other

13. What is the reason and purpose of your interest-?

o Awarenesso Informationo Updateso Others

14. Do you get the reliable information about your subscribed stuff through these sites-?

o Alwayso Sometimeso Never


15. Do you indulge in any of Interaction/Postings/Feedback or else to gain information, and other latest updates, about your subscribed stuff-

o Yes---------------------------- (specify the Brand/Application name)o No

16. Does the information you get through these sites, help to change your Perception towards particular Brand/Product/Services-

o Yeso No

17. Have you ever tried the product/services you got aware about through these social site-

o Yeso No

18. Do you think it is a good medium to promote anything-?

o Yeso No

19. Other social sites you heard and want to learn- (please mention)

____________________________

DEMOGRAPHICS: Please let us know little about you.

20. How old you are-

o Less than 18 yro Between 18-25o Between 25-35


o Between 35-45o More than 45

21. Gender:

22. Occupation/Designation:

SIGNATURE:


Documents

Social Media Marketing SEMESTER PRvdsvcOJECT 2012