Social Media & Business Productivity

Social media marketing has proved to be an emerging concept that has helped to focus on the effective development of business firms, even while operating remotely. The recent Covid-19 Pandemic has also enhanced the emergence of social media usage for marketing, to support the remote existence and communication of the brands with their customers. As mentioned by Kingsnorth (2019), the exponential growth of the circulation of user-generated content is changing the influencing patterns of online methods. Along with the emergence of social media usage and interactions, marketing communications has also got transformed to match the current trends and needs. This study is revolving around the concept of social media marketing while considering its impact on business performance. Considering the case study of Marks & Spencer's, the impact of several social media marketing approaches would be analysed in this case.

b. Research Question

The key research question that the study would be answering is – “How can social media marketing approaches and practices impact business productivity of Marks & Spencer, UK?”.

c. Research Aims and Objectives

The main aim of the study is to evaluate and understand the impact of social media marketing on business growth and productivity within the workplace of Marks & Spencer UK.

Some of the key objectives for reaching conclusion and answering the research question would be:

To understand the concept of social media marketing for the growth and success of business firms
To identify their impact on the mindset and working pattern of the employees of M&S
To assess the several goods and bad impacts of social media on the productivity of employees in M&S
To recommend strategies for productivity enhancement of M&S to make good use of social media platforms

d. Research Rationale

Employee productivity is the key to the brand's success as the performance of the employees justify the success or failure of the brands. In order to enhance the attractiveness of the business firms while promoting their brand products and services, they are using social media marketing approaches. However, the major issue of concern is to understand the impact of such approaches on business firms. As Statista (2021), almost 154 Billion USD has been spent by social media marketers worldwide in 2020. Moreover, in the UK almost 77.9% of the population of UK are active in social media platforms and takes part in social campaigns.

Figure 1: Social media marketing worldwide

(Source: Statista, 2021)

This has been identified to be generating benefits for the firms. However, the firms that have not monitored the effectiveness of social media usage in workplaces have also witnessed a high rate of challenges in terms of workplace productivity. In the case of M&S, since 2019, the online sales of the brand can be witnessed to be up by almost 60.8% (McDonald, 2021). This is mainly due to the active social media promotion of the brand and the involvement of the employees within the remote process of promotion. This study is focused on analysing this research problem to identify the impact of social media practices on the productivity of the employees while analysing their implications on the business.

2. Literature Review

a. Concept of Social media marketing

The idea of Social Media Marketing (SMM) is referred to the usage of social media for the enhancement of the social networks of a brand through its products and services. As per Dewindaru et al. (2022), it is something that provides the companies with an opportunity to get engaged with existing customers, at the same time reaching out to the new ones with the full potential of using the online platforms. Considering the increased usage of social media in the last few decades, companies are opting for social media promotion of their brands and products. This has ensured reaching more customers at the same time (Heggde and Shainesh, 2018; McGruer, 2020).

The enhanced accessibility of consumers to social media channels ensure the brand’s success in reaching out to customers and engaging them. Contrastingly, Mehboob and Khan (2021) stated that marketing functions when performed with social media drives the majority of the benefits, as it generates scope for interaction. Social media platforms enable instant interaction between the brands and the consumers to influence the purchase decisions. Any other marketing channels lack the instant interaction features of the business brands, which has made the usage of social media marketing approaches more efficient in terms of business communication.

b. Impact of social media usage for marketing on business productivity

Social media is the buzzing area for marketing that entails businesses, firms and brands which assist in the creation of connections and followers. Companies used social media to improve their organisational performance so that they could accomplish their business objectives. The usage of social media in marketing benefits the companies in facilitating communication between a company and the stakeholders (Wushe and Shenje, 2019). Businesses of today can choose multiple social networking sites. multiple firms promote their company by providing advertisements on social media in order to attract users and customers. In these ways, the customer could connect with the brand and interact with them on a personal level by the usage of social media. In fact, social help the existing brands to develop awareness and provide the business with a voice. With the application of social media, a strategy company could develop an organisational strategy that will be used to gain a competitive advantage in the market (Chatterjee and Kar, 2020). With the positive impact of social media marketing comes to the negative ones too. Any bad review on the brand could spoil the reputation of the firm. The slightest error in the marketing strategy could cost the revenue generation and the productivity of the firm.

c. Implications of unrestricted and unplanned usage of social media on employees

Social media may be the most effective tool when it comes to employer branding and effective marketing tool but unrestricted usage has its own negative impact on the productivity of the employee. As per recent studies, about 32 per cent of the time spent by employees on social media is for their personal work which implies a huge loss in terms of productivity and resources (Sun et al., 2021). Further, in any case, the data stored by the employee during the usage of social media get hampers. In other words bridge of data also takes place if the employees do not store the data proper manner. The overall productivity tends to decrease if the data usage is not planned or restricted. the company need to have a data monitoring system that will track the time spent by the employees on social during office hours on social media. From the perspective of mental health, too much time spent on social media will eventually lead to anxiety and depression in the employees (Karim et al., 2020). In any case, the system of the company is vulnerable to virus excessive and unrestricted usage of data will put the company's system into a threat.

d. Conceptual Framework

Shape1

Figure 1: Conceptual Framework

e. Literature Gap

There has been a clear gap in the literature showing a minor decrease in the quality of the study. It can be observed that some of the most relevant and high-quality studies could not be sources due to their limited access. On the other hand, the study has reviewed literature based on both advantages and disadvantages of social media usage in the workplace. However, the specific marketing patterns using social media have not been discussed in this study. Thus, this has generated a minor gap in the literature which would be systematically and strategically met in further research study.

3. Methodology

a. Research Onion

Figure 2: Research Onion

(Source: As influenced by Saunders et al., 2015))

b. Research Philosophy

Research philosophy is stated as the belief regarding the way the data about the concerning topic will be collected, analysed and used in the study. In this regards interpretivism will be undertaken as the research philosophy that will interpret the elements to present within the study. With the application of interpretivism, the action of the humans in relation to the study will be understood and people's subjective experience could be taken into account (Ryan, 2018). The advantage of using this philosophy is that different complex experiences will be taken into factor and analyse the same objective reality.

c. Research Approach

The research approach is the action taken by the research to undertake the study regarding the impact of social media marking on the productivity of the business. For this study, a deductive research approach will be undertaken that will allow the researcher to make logical analyses and rational decisions in terms of the study (Azungah, 2018). It is very reliable in nature it entails theories that are vital to social media usage and the productivity of the business. The usage of the deductive approach will provide elaborative results and will determine the positive influence on the company.

d. Research Strategy

The research work is based on the case study, qualitative interview and quantitative survey. The case study research strategy has been chosen for the purpose of analysis of the secondary data where the survey strategy will give first-hand data from the employees of M&S. On the other hand, interviewing the managers of M&S will provide an depth understanding of the impact of social media on marketing and its influence on the business productivity

e. Methodology & Tools

The selected methodology will be both qualitative and quantitative research methodology and the usage of both will give a comprehending understanding of the impact of social media on the business productivity of M'&S. Followed by both primary and secondary data analysis will be undertaken. The primary data analysis will help in gathering information from the employees of M&S and hence it will be reliable data. on the other hand, the secondary data will evaluate the perception of other authors in the same context of the study (Rutberg and Bouikidis,2018). In regards to the primary data, the survey will be done and employees of M&S will participate in the process. Whereas for the interview process marketing manager and operation manager will take part. In regards to secondary data thematic analysis will be done and themes will associate with the same topic which will be extracted from Google Scholar in the form of journal articles and more. The data will be collected by MS Excel with the use of close-ended questions and for an interview, the open-ended question will be provided. Further for the analysis of data graphs and charts will be used to analyse the numeric data.

f. Sampling Approach

The sampling approach will be non-probability sampling where the sample will be selected based on subjective judgement rather randomly (Lamm and Lamm., 2019). More specifically snowball sampling where almost all the member of the population has the chance of participating in the study. The total sample size will be 20 out of which 18 will participate in the survey and 2 will be taking the interview.

g. Ethical Considerations

The whole research will be carried out in an ethical manner that will follow the basic guideline. The information provided by the M&S employees will be stored in a secured way and no third party will have access to it. The study will follow the guideline of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the names of the participants will keep anonymous (legislation.gov.uk, 2022).

h. Research Timeline

4. Conclusion

a. Limitations of Proposed Approach

The research would be conducted to identify the real-life facts and at the same time assess the theoretical concepts relevant to the research topic. It has been observed that the research phenomenon portrays clear importance in the current scenario as it highly reflects the current trends. However, some of the limitations that the researcher might witness and that can negatively impact the quality of the study are time constraints, budget constraints and the constraint of research samples. The inclusion of a multi-type data collection method cannot just make the study complex but can also give rise to time constraints. Apart from those, limitations in terms of research samples can also be observed.

b. Expected Research Outcomes

The key responsibility of the research would be to inform the readers about the research phenomenon to enhance their awareness about the same. Thus, the research is expected to be delivering an adequate amount of information about the social media marketing practices of M&S, while involving only authentic data in the study. Apart from that, the research is expected to be delivering the most relevant information about the several impacts of social media approaches on the performance and productivity of M&S, to clear out the understanding about the right kind of usage of social media marketing. Additionally, the research outcomes are expected to be mitigating the previous literature gaps through the inclusion of both primary and secondary research based on the topic.

Reference List

Azungah, T., 2018. Qualitative research: deductive and inductive approaches to data analysis. Qualitative research journal.

Chatterjee, S. and Kar, A.K., 2020. Why do small and medium enterprises use social media marketing and what is the impact: Empirical insights from India. International Journal of Information Management, 53, p.102103.

Dewindaru, D., Syukri, A., Maryono, R.A. and Yunus, U., 2022. Millennial customer response on social-media marketing effort, brand image, and brand awareness of a conventional bank in Indonesia. Linguistics and Culture Review, 6, pp.397-412.

Heggde, G. and Shainesh, G. eds., 2018. Social media marketing: Emerging concepts and applications. Singapore: palgrave macmillan.

Karim, F., Oyewande, A.A., Abdalla, L.F., Ehsanullah, R.C. and Khan, S., 2020. Social media use and its connection to mental health: a systematic review. Cureus, 12(6).

Kingsnorth, S., 2019. Digital marketing strategy: an integrated approach to online marketing. Kogan Page Publishers.

Lamm, A.J. and Lamm, K.W., 2019. Using non-probability sampling methods in agricultural and extension education research. Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education, 26(1), pp.52-59.

legislation.gov.uk, 2022. Data protection Act 2018 [Online]Available at :https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/contents/enacted [ Accessed 16 march 2022]

McDonald, C., 2021. Online sales now account for 34.4% of M&S clothing and home goods [Online] Available at: <https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252509376/Online-sales-now-account-for-344-of-MS-clothing-and-home-goods#:~:text=When%20compared%20with%20the%2026,of%20clothing%20and%20home%20goods.> [Accessed on 16 March 2022]

McGruer, D., 2020. Dynamic digital marketing: Master the world of online and social media marketing to grow your business. John Wiley & Sons.

Mehboob, I. and Khan, M.M., 2021. Understanding the Concept of Social Media Marketing: The Role of Marketing Dimensions Influencing Consumer Brand Loyalty. Journal of Public Value and Administrative Insight, 4(4), pp.436-454.

Rutberg, S. and Bouikidis, C.D., 2018. Focusing on the fundamentals: A simplistic differentiation between qualitative and quantitative research. Nephrology Nursing Journal, 45(2), pp.209-213.

Ryan, G., 2018. Introduction to positivism, interpretivism and critical theory. Nurse researcher, 25(4), pp.41-49.

Saunders, M.N., Lewis, P., Thornhill, A. and Bristow, A., 2015. Understanding research philosophy and approaches to theory development.

Statista, 2021. Social media marketing worldwide - statistics & facts [Online] Available at: <https://www.statista.com/topics/1538/social-media-marketing/#dossierKeyfigures> [Accessed on 16 March 2022]

Sun, Y., Liu, Y., Zhang, J.Z., Fu, J., Hu, F., Xiang, Y. and Sun, Q., 2021. Dark side of enterprise social media usage: A literature review from the conflict-based perspective. International Journal of Information Management, 61, p.102393.

Wushe, T. and Shenje, J., 2019. The relationship between social media usage in the workplace and employee productivity in the public sector: Case study of government departments in Harare. SA Journal of Human Resource Management, 17(1), pp.1-10.

Appendices

Appendix 1 – Ethics Form

Research Ethics Checklist Form RE1

This checklist should be completed for every research project which involves human participants. It is used to identify whether a full application for ethics approval needs to be submitted.

Before completing this form, please refer to the University Code of Practice on Ethical Standards for Research Involving Human Participants. The principal investigator and, where the principal investigator is a student, the supervisor, is responsible for exercising appropriate professional judgment in this review.

This checklist must be completed before potential participants are approached to take part in any research.

Section I: Applicant Details

1. Name of Researcher (applicant):
2. Status (please click to select):	Active
3. Email Address:
4a. Contact Address:
4b. Telephone Number:

Section II: Project Details

5. Project Title:

Impact of social media marketing on business productivity: A case study of Marks & Spencer, UK

Section III: For Students Only:

6. Course title and module name and number where appropriate School/Centre:	BSc (Hons) Business Management BMP6001 Dissertation Regent College London
7. Supervisor’s or module leader’s name:
8. Email address:
9. Telephone extension:

Declaration by Researcher (Please tick the appropriate boxes)

	I have read the University’s Code of Practice
	The topic merits further research
	I have the skills to carry out the research
	The participant information sheet, if needed, is appropriate
	The procedures for recruitment and obtaining informed consent, if needed, are appropriate
	The research is exempt from further ethics review according to current University guidelines
	Where relevant, I have read the ethical guidelines of the regulatory body that is relevant to my discipline and verify that the research adheres to these guidelines

Comments from Researcher, and/or from Supervisor if Researcher is Undergraduate or Taught Postgraduate student:

This project meets the standard set by UoB policy named “Code of Practice for Research Students and Supervisors 2019-20”.

This project also confirms with “UoB Research Ethics Framework”.

Section IV: Research Checklist

Please answer each question by ticking the appropriate box:

	YES	NO
1. Will the study involve participants who are particularly vulnerable or who may be unable to give informed consent (e.g. children, people with learning disabilities, emotional difficulties, problems with understanding and/or communication, your own students)?		No
2. Will the study require the co-operation of a gatekeeper for initial access to the groups or individuals to be recruited (e.g. students at school, members of self-help group, residents of nursing home)?		No
3. Will deception be necessary, i.e. will participants take part without knowing the true purpose of the study or without their knowledge/consent at the time (e.g. covert observation of people in non-public places)?		No
4. Will the study involve discussion of topics which the participants may find sensitive (e.g. sexual activity, own drug use)?		No
5. Will drugs, placebos or other substances (e.g. food substances, alcohol, nicotine, vitamins) be administered to or ingested by participants or will the study involve invasive, intrusive or potentially harmful procedures of any kind?		No
6. Will blood or tissues samples be obtained from participants?		No
7. Will pain or more than mild discomfort be likely to result from the study?
8. Could the study induce psychological stress or anxiety or cause harm or negative consequences beyond the risks encountered in normal life?		No
9. Will the study involve prolonged or repetitive testing?		No
10. Will financial inducements (other than reasonable expenses and compensation for time) be offered to participants?		No
11. Will participants’ right to withdraw from the study at any time be withheld or not made explicit?		No
12. Will participants’ anonymity be compromised or their right to anonymity be withheld or information they give be identifiable as theirs?		No
13. Might permission for the study need to be sought from the researcher’s or from participants’ employer?		No
14. Will the study involve recruitment of patients or staff through the NHS?		No

If ALL items in the Declaration are ticked AND if you have answered NO to ALL questions in Section IV, send the completed and signed Form RE1 to your School/Centre Research Ethics Officer for information. You may proceed with the research but should follow any subsequent guidance or requests from the School/Centre Research Ethics Officer or your supervisor/module leader where appropriate. Undergraduate and taught postgraduate students should retain a copy of this form and submit it with their research report or dissertation (bound in at the beginning). MPhil/PhD students should submit a copy to the Board of Studies for Research Degrees with their application for Registration (R1). Work which is submitted without the appropriate ethics form will be returned unassessed.

If ANY of the items in the Declaration are not ticked AND / OR if you have answered YES to ANY of the questions in Section IV, you will need to describe more fully in Section V of the form below how you plan to deal with the ethical issues raised by your research. This does not mean that you cannot do the research, only that your proposal will need to be approved by the School/Centre Research Ethics Officer or School/Centre Research Ethics Committee or Sub-committee. When submitting the form as described in the above paragraph you should substitute the original Section V with the version authorized by the School/Centre Research Ethics officer.

If you answered YES to question 14, you will also have to submit an application to the appropriate external health authority ethics committee, after you have received approval from the School/Centre Research Ethics Officer/Committee and, where appropriate, the University Research Ethics Committee.

Section V: Addressing Ethical Problems

If you have answered YES to any of questions 1-12 please complete below and submit the form to your School/Centre Research Ethics Officer.

Project Title

Impact of social media marketing on business productivity: A case study of Marks & Spencer, UK

Principal Investigator/Researcher/Student

?????

Supervisor

?????

Summary of issues and action to be taken to address the ethics problem(s)

Some of the issues can be given rise due to the involvement of the human samples in the study. However, such issues regarding data protection, confidentiality and anoniity would be controlled with the usage of Data protection act 2018 and privacy policies under the UK legislation.

Please note that it is your responsibility to follow the University’s Code of Practice on Ethical Standards and any relevant academic or professional guidelines in the conduct of your study. This includes providing appropriate information sheets and consent forms, and ensuring confidentiality in the storage and use of data. Any significant change to the design or conduct of the research should be notified to the School/Centre Research Ethics Officer and may require a new application for ethics approval.

Signed: Principal Investigator/Researcher

Approved: Supervisor or module leader (where appropriate)

Date:

For use by School/Centre Research Ethics Officer:

No ethical problems are raised by this proposed study - Retain this form on record

Retain this form on record and return a copy of section V to Researcher

ppropriate action taken to maintain ethical standards

The research protocol should be revised to eliminate the

ethical concerns or reduce them to an acceptable level,

using the attached suggestions

Please submit School/Centre Application for Ethics Approval

(Form RE2(D))

Please submit University Application for Ethics Approval

(Form RE2(U))

Signed: