Marketing With Social Media: Increasing Brand Awareness - Dissertation Example

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to discuss the importance of social media in marketing certain brands of companies that increase brand awareness to current and future customers. Different discussion concepts related to social media and branding are discussed. The first chapter introduces the concepts of social media, brand image, and brand awareness. It explains how social media has been adopted by many companies for use in marketing and outlines the objectives of the research, the background of the study, research questions, and the rationale of the study. The second chapter is a literature review of past investigations performed by various authors over the years. The literature review forms a basis for the research and discussion of the topic and how it can be researched further to reach different objectives of the study. The third chapter of the dissertation is the methodology which explains the quantitative research method used in the research. Questionnaires were used to collect data from the population. The section also discusses the ethical considerations in the display of information offered by the participants and the limitations that the study faced in the collection of data. The fourth chapter outlines the results acquired from the questionnaires, which are used to formulate the discussion and contributions.

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Introduction

This chapter makes an introduction to the topic and how it can be useful in promoting brand awareness as well as ensuring that the products marketed using social media receive more demand than before the marketing strategy is adopted. This chapter also outlines the aims, research questions, and the scope of the research.

Background of the Study

Brand awareness is defined as the extent to which customers are familiar with different images and qualities of certain brands of services or goods. Social media refers to various applications and websites that are designed in such a way that they allow people to quickly and efficiently share real-time information. Marketing using social media is one of the best strategies to ensure that brand awareness is achieved with new and return customers increasing daily. The current generation is privileged to have access to computers, smartphones, tablets, and the internet, which enables them to quickly reach different social media platforms and review different products posted there. Companies should, therefore, take that opportunity to market their goods and services in the various social media platforms and expect many people to view their products hence increased sales and orders.

Marketing managers and business owners should realize the importance of using social media to promote their brands as it helps to know who their customers are and can take advantage of the increasing ease of technology access and how it can act to their advantage. A robust online presence mostly influences social media marketing as it plays a significant role in keeping businesses relevant in the current world. Those companies that already know the importance of using social media to market their products and increase brand awareness have had a history of putting a lot of resources in different strategies for branding so that they can build substantial brand equity. A significant contributor to increased sales and brand awareness in the use of social media marketing is the increasing consumption of goods and services using online platforms. Online sales are on the rise, with more marketing activities being expected to move from the standard marketing strategies to the use of online strategies such as social media to create more awareness about the services and products provided.

Rationale of the Study

This study was motivated by a need for investigations on the impacts of social media use on brand awareness. Business competition is getting tougher through the years, and this has caused a need for social media to be used to ensure that brand awareness is easily seen and its effects are realized. Research about social media as a new trend of companies marketing their services and goods is essential in the in-depth exploration of how customers can achieve awareness concerning many companies, most of which they would not be able to know of before they were posted on social media platforms.

This research produced maximum contributions to companies' decisions of the way they can use social media to provide maximum sales and ensure that the contributions realized are positive in increasing brand awareness in a specific period. All communications realized in social media marketing show that marketing variables of communication influence different products that are developed in a company.

Aims and Objectives

• To research how social media creates brand awareness.
• To determine the impacts of social media on brand imaging.

Research Questions

• How is social media used for brand awareness by companies and businesses?
• What are the considerations for the use of social media for branding?
• What impacts do social media have on brand images?

Literature Review

The main of this section is to review critically any literature that is related to the importance of social media in marketing and the creation of brand awareness. The literature review in this context is meant to develop a theoretical framework for this particular study (Jokinen, 2016, pp. 9-59). Social media is an essential tool in the creation of brand awareness and marketing. It is viewed as a vital aspect in most marketing strategies about the marketing mix and revolution, focusing on the interaction between the customers and the companies. Various new research fields have revealed how social media has become effective in the world of marketing and brand awareness creation, demising most types of traditional means of advertising.

The scientific research gives satisfying evidence on how social media is more effective than the conventional media about brand management perspectives. Social media has become a popular tool over the past years, making various traditional forms of media to decline in both popularity and media channels (Odhiambo and Adhiambo, 2012, pp. 11-70). Media channels that are known to be the mainstream have faced various challenges resulting in low profits levels. When one correlates the rise of social media in brand management and marketing to that of the traditional channels, there is much big difference. The stiff economic environment has led to most of the companies using the online channels in their budget advertisements. The advertisement's priorities are profoundly shifted to make them align with today's buyers since they are mainly social media and tech-savvy maniacs.

The proliferation of the services related to the social media network in marketing and brand awareness has brought most people to the attention of the importance of social media networks. In the past few years, there have emerged different types of social media services for networking (Zetterberg, Davidsson, and Johansson, 2015, pp.10-76). In the current world, social media has become very common in connecting people through the use of social media channels. The most commonly used social media network sites include Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Face book, among others. YouTube is highly used by various companies in their marketing strategies and the creation of brand awareness online (ElAydi, 2018, p.1). Social media tool is also highly used in marketing and creating brand awareness by engaging the customers directly, especially the roadshows advertisements.

Companies highly use LinkedIn to establish good relationships professionally, and it is well known as the B2B channel when compared to any other networking channels like Face book. For this particular study, a review of the most popular social media networking services that are important in creating brand awareness and marketing will be done (Savulescu and Mihalcea, 2013, pp. 39-53). Internet marketing uses digital technologies and the internet to achieve marketing objectives. Several marketing objectives are mainly realized by using social media networks, which are known as a subset of the internet application. Social media platforms are great tools used by many marketers. For instance, social media platforms such as Twitter, Face book, among others, are mainly used in accomplishing marketing strategies through internet application.

Therefore, all the marketers must find out the best social media platforms that would suit their marketing objectives. Marketing objectives that are good help the marketers to get new customers through ensuring that there is full customer satisfaction (Bruhn, Schoenmueller and Schafer, 2012, pp. 770-790). There are various means of how the internet can be used in marketing and creating brand awareness, and this can only be achieved through a specific procedure. In the first place, the marketer is expected to identify the internet that can be used in marketing and creating brand awareness and find out how it can be used in finding out the wants and needs of the customers (As' ad and Alhadid, 2014, p. 315). Anticipate any online contribution of revenue, and the final process is finding out customer satisfaction through the electronic channel based on the site usability, standard services, and adequate performance.

Social media tools help the customer's access information fast, and since it has no boundaries, customers can connect with from all over the world marking marketing easier and affordable. The marketers have the opportunity of conducting research based on new suppliers through the use of the internet, making marketing very useful (Karamian, Nadoushan M. and Nadoushan A., 2015, pp. 362-365). The customers are also capable of pointing out any mistake they find with the marketing strategy or the business being conducted facilitating marketing. Any weaknesses that online marketing faces are more comfortable to identify and rectify through the use of the internet. For instance, cultural and language barrier is a significant problem faced by social media marketing hence requires to be remedied due to the effective gathering of information that takes place across the national boundaries.

In the year 2004, Facebook was created, and it acted as a social media platform that influenced the world with significant effects that were labeled The Facebook Effect. Results from a previous study show that marketing communications play a vital role in attracting social media users' attention, mainly the corporate marketing divisions (DiMauro and Bulmer, 2014, pp. 1-13). The part that these marketing communications play in social media affects the know...