Volume 2 No. 8, August 2012 ISSN 2223-4985 International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Research ©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved http://www.esjournals.org 627 The Impact of Social Networking to Influence Marketing through Product Reviews Faraz Farooq, Zohaib Jan SZABIST, Karachi ABSTRACT Online Social networking websites are very popular and have become a part of life. These sites have made significant impact in the individual’s life. When analyzing the users’ scope of social networking, it can be concluded that the modern social communities influence in individual’s private life, whereas the traditional networking or social communities is more interrelated to business circle. This change has undoubtedly offered many firms an opportunity to target this new medium for marketing. In Pakistan, marketing on social networks is not taken seriously. There are some companies who have shown interest and have created their presence yet they are not focusing seriously. If this medium is explored intelligently then the social network medium has a potential to provide many new ways to market the audience with the help of registered users indirectly, without knowing them. Social Network (Facebook) has provided many tools for marketing purpose like groups, events, social ads. These all are widely used and entertaining the enterprise organizations by all means; however these all have some limitations. Tagged based marketing on the Facebook is a new concept inspired from the tag facility provided by Facebook. If this strategy is implemented then this would be helpful for organization in terms of targeting audience, developing trust of the product among consumer, increase clientele etc. This paper presents a survey based research from users and organizations for finding their views on the tagged based marketing on the social networking website (Facebook). The survey consists of two questionnaires each for user and organization. this survey helps in understanding the reason why the tagged based marketing is not successfully implanted in Pakistan, what are the barriers and what steps could be taken to make it effective for organizations. Keywords: Marketing on Social Networks, Tagged Based Marketing. 1. INTRODUCTION Online Social networking websites such as Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace etc. have made a significant impact on individuals’ life. This social network has also made large impact on how internet users communicate, share their data, creating and maintaining their profile, and establishing links with their friends. These links or connections among individuals have shown some level of trust among themselves which has helped the online social network to grow very quickly in recent years. People nowadays prefer spending more time in gossiping, playing games, browsing friend’s profiles and chatting with their friends on social networking sites rather than physically meeting. Success of the online social networks with growing trends has allowed organizations to penetrate this new domain for marketing their products. Many social networks allow companies to market their product through different tools provided by them. Facebook is the most successful online social network with more than 5 Million users and the population is increasing every now and then. With this success it has opened a debate for many organizations to how to penetrate the new domain? How companies can offer products to the users through social networking website? How company can target their audience via social networks. Facebook has offered many marketing tools for the companies to target their audience like creating groups, pages, social ads yet in Pakistan the way it can be used for marketing has not be explored by most of the organizations. The basic purpose of this research is to find the reasons of not using Facebook platform for marketing. The research will be conducted from users as well organizations through offline survey. The organization of this paper is as firstly literature review is done. Section 3 describes the platform of study i.e. Facebook containing the reason of choosing Facebook for my study, marketing on Facebook and benefit of using tagged based marketing over other tools. Research Methods is described in Section 4 describing about the survey instruments and participants of survey. Section 5 is the results of the survey conducted from users and organization is described. The findings from the results are described in the conclusion section. Future Implications are described in section 7followed by References, Annexure, List of Figures and Abbreviations. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW The literature review in my study has been categorized in three aspects: 2.1 Influential in Buying Influence of any person close to an individual has some impact on his life and this influence can also be seen in decision making, either it is of choosing any house hold item, selecting a career or anything else. Volume 2 No. 8, August 2012 ISSN 2223-4985 International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Research ©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved http://www.esjournals.org 628 In [19], the researcher has discussed that purchasing decisions are strongly influenced due to trust among people and also if people know each other. Many online shoppers wait for opinions about the product before purchasing anything. E- commerce companies convinces people to give feedback of the products by writing reviews, rating etc. some e-commerce companies have also started to use online social marketing after analyzing the effect on the sales due to this activity. Similarly in [20] the researcher has examined about the influential factor of friends in the user behavior in social networks, by doing the survey research on one of the big social networking website in Korea named “Cyworld”. Further the researcher also examined the impact of this social influence in terms of increase in the sales and revenue Analyzing the user behavior on the internet is one of the most critical factors that help in making the website successful. Nowadays mostly companies are emphasizing on UI and are spending extra effort and time for creating an attractive user interface of the websites. In [12] the researcher has emphasized organization to understand the user behavior when they login to the social networking website. Understanding user behavior would help organization in evaluating the design and performance of the website; this could help in placement of the advertising on the website for better visibility with no annoyance to users. 2.2 Marketing Strategies Every company either its small, medium or large enterprise have their objectives, goals and plans. For achieving their goals, these companies do have to adopt some strategies or techniques. Most successful companies strictly follow their objectives, goals for their survival. In new era internet has become a basic element in individual’s life and many companies are focusing the internet for marketing their products. Some of the optimal strategies are described in the paper [16]. In this paper the researcher has described about the intelligent selling strategies that could be applied on social networks for influential marketing and alsoemphasizes that for increase sales, seller should provide benefits to their potential buyers. [4] Has described how the small and medium sized enterprises in the Indonesia have used the social networking sites for promoting their sales. The researcher also described the major problems of SME in Indonesia. The researcher also suggests that Facebook could be the solution for SMEs for expanding their business. In the paper [14] the researcher has described the effects of Word of mouth marketing in increasing the user growth on the social networking website. Further researcher also describes that WOM are more appealing and provide quick response rather than the traditional advertising marketing. The researcher has also compared the traditional marketing with the WOM over social networking websites by doing empirical research on online internet website. According to the results, WOM is two times more effective than radio marketing, four times more than personal selling and seven times more than print advertising. 2.3 Privacy Issues Privacy concern among internet users is the major barrier in the success of the e-commerce and social networking websites. Though large companies like Amazon, eBay, Facebook have taken measures in making the users information private but somehow they cannot guarantee 100% privacy. In [14] researcher has described about the privacy issues in the online social networking websites. In social networking sites, privacy is the main concern among users. Current social network platforms don’t provide any mechanism to control the information leakage of user’s personal information. The researcher also described that the most needed privacy on the social networking sites are profile privacy, application privacy and newsfeed privacy. The researcher has also proposed the modifications in the existing privacy platforms that help user sharing their information with the third party applications 3. THE PLATFORM IN OUR STUDY This chapter contains the history and features of the Facebook. Further this section also contains the answer of some questions. 3.1 Facebook Facebook is the social networking website founded by Mark Zukerberg with his college and roommates in 2004. In 2012, Facebook is top ranked website with more than 500 Million users worldwide and the population is increasing day by day. Facebook is one of the popular websites in this new era and it is believed that there are hardly any internet users who don’t have a Facebook account. 3.2 Why I choose Facebook as my platform of study? When we talk about the Social networking websites, the first website that comes in our mind is the Facebook. This doesn’t mean that there is no other social networking website in the world. There are several other websites that are also popular, these websites include Orkut, Hi5, Flicker, Bebo, Twitter, Google plus, Linkedin etc. When comparing these websites with Facebook the results stats that Facebook has no real competitor in terms of registered members. In Pakistan, Facebook is growing very rapidly and according to the statistics the number of Facebook users in Pakistan has increased from 6 Million. This figure assures that Facebook is very much popular in Pakistan. It is observed that most of the people do use or open Facebook while doing busiest work on internet.This was the major reason for choosing the Facebook as my platform of study. Volume 2 No. 8, August 2012 ISSN 2223-4985 International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Research ©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved http://www.esjournals.org 629 3.3 Why to choose Facebook for product’s marketing? Nowadays competition among the organizations has increased so much that they are looking for every opportunity to survive their existence in the global world. Few years back, concept of internet marketing was not common among enterprises, but today even small sized companies do have their own website. Internet marketing has explored many new techniques of marketing their products. Marketing on social networking is also one of them. With the increase use of social networking website (Facebook) in Pakistan, it has opened a path for the organizations to use and explore the new domain for the products. Marketing on social networking website (Facebook) is different from the internet marketing. With the discussion above it can be concluded that the Facebook is the new era domain that is very popular among people. Mostly individuals spend their most of time using Facebook and have created their own social world. Soif the client oriented organizations need to grow and increase clientele they have to penetrate into this new domain. This could help the company in establishing trust of their brands in consumers and is less costly than other traditional marketing techniques.With the increase growth of member on social media Facebook, if it could be said that future marketing would be social network marketing then itwon’t be wrong. 3.4 Why Tagged based Marketing instead of other marketing tools? Facebook has provided many tools for the small and medium sized enterprise organizations for marketing their products and increase clientele using Facebook as a domain. Just like creating groups, events, Profile pages etc. yet they all have certain limitations. i) Profile Page For penetrating any domain, the basic thing is to establish your existence. Profile pages are the entry point for any organization to show their presence on Facebook. The profile page is just a page containing your information. On profile page the organization can share the promo picture, videos, introduce new brands to target the audience ii) Groups Groups are the most simplest and the oldest way for marketing your company or any brand on Facebook. Groups allow the organization to create a place for customers and friends so that they can participate in the discussions on the Facebook. Groups are mostly used for viral marketing. There are some limitations in using groups • Groups are just like private chat rooms, only the persons added to the group can participate in the activities. • Group does not support large number of members. • Groups doesn’t allow the integration with other Facebook Application iii) Events Facebook events is the application mostly used by organization to promote their events, product launches etc. when you create an event that means you are creating a page which is similar to the groups in which you can start discussions, share photos, videos and links. iv) Facebook Pages Facebook pages are a way for the many organizations to create their presence on Facebook. Facebook pages are like groups with some differences • Facebook pages allow organizations to integrate their page with other applications to extend their functionality and analyze the user presence. • Facebook pages also support the News Feed, which indirectly invites Friends of your page fan, to become the member. Tagged based Marketing Tagged based marketing is the extension of the Facebook pages. This strategy will be helpful for the company to market their product, brand. Tagged based marketing allows the organization to tag the feedback of the product to their customer. Once the tag has been done then this tag will then be visible to the Friend List of the customer in the News Feed. The benefit of the tag based marketing is: Suppose an organization take feedback of any product from the consumer and with his/her permission the feedback is tagged on the consumer profile. This tag will now be visible in the News Feed of the Friend List of the consumer, which helps in the influential marketing; trust of the product will be increased in the consumer circle by consumer’s influence. This is the indirect marketing that the organization would be doing with low cost as compared to the other marketing domain. The major benefit of this marketing is the trust of the product which is very important in today competitive market. 4. RESEARCH METHODS This paper focuses on the product review of customers on social networking website to promote marketing and uses quantitative research methodology. To help understand the users and organizations behavior, a survey is being conducted from social network users and organizations. The survey consists of separate questionnaires for users and the organization. Users’ survey consists of questionnaire focusing on the views about the sharing of their purchase information, Volume 2 No. 8, August 2012 International Journal of Information and Commun privacy concerns, the influence of others on their purchasing decision and views about the marketing on the social network websites. Organization survey consists of questionnaires focusing on the view about the marketing on the Facebook, customers’ feedback for the products, advantage and barriers for this domain. 4.1 Survey Instrument Our survey instrument is derived from the thorough study of the research papers related to social network, word of mouth marketing , internet marketing. The questions are related with influential factor in purchasing, internet marketing, using social network for marketing domai n, sharing purchase information on the internet. We did an offline survey, because offline survey helps in getting the reliable response from the members. 4.2 Participants In our survey we have two types of participants, users and organizations. Therefore our survey consist questionnaire. Both questionnaires contains small ratio of the similar questions and majority of the questions in the survey are different. The age group of participants of both the surveys is in between 20 to 40. 4.2.1 Survey for User In this survey we gathered the information from the students of SZABIST Karachi, Bahria University Karachi and other professionals working in industry. The sample size of the participants of this survey is hundred (100).Out of 100, 60% are male and 40% are Female. 4.2.2 Survey for Organization In this survey we gathered the information from the organizations representatives. The sample size of the participants of this survey is twenty (20). 5. RESULTS In this section we will discuss the survey results response got from the participants: 5.1 User 1. Before purchasing a product what would you prefer for product’s review? The purpose of this question is to know the user opinions about the trustful medium for knowing the feedback of the products before purchasing. International Journal of Information and Commun ication Technology Research ©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved http://www.esjournals.org privacy concerns, the influence of others on their purchasing on the social network Organization survey consists of questionnaires focusing on the view about the marketing on the Facebook, customers’ feedback for the products, advantage and barriers is derived from the thorough study of the research papers related to social network, word of mouth marketing , internet marketing. The questions are related with influential factor in purchasing, internet marketing, using social n, sharing purchase information on the internet. We did an offline survey, because offline survey helps in getting the reliable response from the members. In our survey we have two types of participants, users and our survey consist two types of questionnaire. Both questionnaires contains small ratio of the similar questions and majority of the questions in the survey are different. The age group of participants of both the surveys is in In this survey we gathered the information from the students of SZABIST Karachi, Bahria University Karachi and other professionals working in industry. The sample size of the participants of this survey is hundred (100).Out of 100, 60% are In this survey we gathered the information from the organizations representatives. The sample size of the In this section we will discuss the survey results against the Before purchasing a product what would you prefer for The purpose of this question is to know the user opinions about the trustful medium for knowing the feedback of the products Figure 1: Preference for product’s review (U 2. For a product to buy, whom feedback will have greater influential factor? This question was asked from users in order to get their opinion about which relation has the better influential individual life before purchasing any product. Figure 2: Influential factor 3. Do you notice the social Ads displayed on social networking site? The purpose of this question is to ask user whether they notice the different social advertisement of the companies when they login to the OSN websites. Social Ads are extensively used by the organizations nowadays to target their customer. Figure 3: Noticing Social Ads (U 4. Are you influenced of products bought by The idea of asking this question was to know whether people are influenced with the product purchased with the friends. 13% 34% 43% 10% 73 8 0 20 40 60 80 20% 23% 18% 29% 10% ISSN 2223-4985 ication Technology Research ©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved 630 Figure 1: Preference for product’s review (U -Q2) For a product to buy, whom feedback will have greater This question was asked from users in order to get their opinion about which relation has the better influential factor on the individual life before purchasing any product. Figure 2: Influential factor in buying a product(U-Q3) Do you notice the social Ads displayed on social The purpose of this question is to ask user whether they notice different social advertisement of the companies when they login to the OSN websites. Social Ads are extensively used by the organizations nowadays to target their customer. Figure 3: Noticing Social Ads (U -Q4) Are you influenced of products bought by your friends? The idea of asking this question was to know whether people are influenced with the product purchased with the friends. Seach Engine WOM Both None 4 11 4 23% Always Most likely Likely Less Likely Never Volume 2 No. 8, August 2012 International Journal of Information and Commun Figure 4: Influenced by friends (U 5. Do you feel concerned when organization asks your private information like email addresses, cell phone number for products feedback? Figure 5: Feel concern when org: ask your personal information (U-Q8) 6. For which type of product, tagged based marketing on social networking sites will be effective? Figure 6: Product Type suitable for T agged based (U-Q9) In question 7 and 8 we asked user about whether they allow the organization to use and share information for the marketing campaign or revealing their purchase information on Facebook. the response we got we re for Q6 are 39% peoples responded with the option “depends on the product we buy”, 32% people responded with the “Never”, 13% responded with “Often”, 10% with “Rarely” and 6% with “Always”. For Q7 the response we got were 40% people responded that the sh aring of the purchase information will depends on the type of item we buy, 24% responded with “Rarely”, 19% responded 14% 21% 40% 20% 5% Always Most likely Likely Less Likely Never 19 19 33 14 15 Always Most likely Likely Less Likely Never 23% 28% 43% 6% Tangible Intangible Both None International Journal of Information and Commun ication Technology Research ©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved http://www.esjournals.org Figure 4: Influenced by friends (U -Q5) Do you feel concerned when organization asks your email addresses, cell phone Figure 5: Feel concern when org: ask your personal information For which type of product, tagged based marketing on social networking sites will be effective? agged based Marketing In question 7 and 8 we asked user about whether they allow the organization to use and share information for the marketing campaign or revealing their purchase information on re for Q6 are 39% peoples responded with the option “depends on the product we buy”, 32% people responded with the “Never”, 13% responded with “Often”, 10% with “Rarely” and 6% with “Always”. For Q7 the response we got were 40% people responded that the aring of the purchase information will depends on the type of item we buy, 24% responded with “Rarely”, 19% responded with “Never”, 13% responded with “Often” and 4% responded with “Always”. Figure 7: Allow using personal data for marketing (U 9. For which one of following reasons you generally untaggedany activity on social network? The reason of asking this question was to be familiar with the user concerns about un- tagging any photos on Facebook. 40% responded that they don’t like tagging becaus current location. 34% don’t like because of their social image. 23% don’t like because it display their activities to their friends. Figure 1 : Reasons for untag (U The purpose of asking Q11 and 12 was to view about providing their feedback to the organizations for tagging and will they allow their friends to view their purchase information. the responses for Q11 we got were; 32% responded with “Often”, 31% responded with the “Depends on the pro duct purchased”, 18% responded with “Rarely”, “14%” responded with “Always” and “5% responded with “Never”. The response of Q17 we got from users were; 28% responded with the option “Depends on the product Always Most likely Likely Less Likely Never Most likely Less Likely Tangible Intangible 6 13 39 4 13 40 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 Always often Depends Will you allow organization use and share your personal information for marketing campaign of the products? Will you allow sharing (revealing) your purchase information on social networking website? 0 Because it reveals … Because it reveals … To protect my social … Other ISSN 2223-4985 ication Technology Research ©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved 631 with “Never”, 13% responded with “Often” and 4% responded Figure 7: Allow using personal data for marketing (U -Q6, 7) For which one of following reasons you generally untaggedany activity on social network? reason of asking this question was to be familiar with the tagging any photos on Facebook. 40% like tagging becaus e it exposes their current location. 34% don’t like because of their social image. 23% don’t like because it display their activities to their : Reasons for untag (U -Q10) The purpose of asking Q11 and 12 was to know their view about providing their feedback to the organizations for tagging and will they allow their friends to view their purchase information. the responses for Q11 we got were; 32% responded with “Often”, 31% responded with the “Depends on duct purchased”, 18% responded with “Rarely”, “14%” responded with “Always” and “5% responded with “Never”. The response of Q17 we got from users were; 28% responded with the option “Depends on the product 10 32 40 24 40 Depends rarely never Will you allow organization use and share your personal information for marketing campaign of the Will you allow sharing (revealing) your purchase information on social networking website? 40 23 34 3 10 20 30 40 50 Volume 2 No. 8, August 2012 International Journal of Information and Commun purchased”, 24% responded with “Often”, “20% respo with “Never” and 18% responded with “Rarely”. Figure 2 : Providing feedback to organization (U The purpose of asking question 13 and 14 is to know the user’s view about recommending the tagged based marketing for organizations and will it beneficial than other marketing strategies. The responses we got for Q13 were, 51% users agreedon recommending tagged based marketing to organization, 33% responded negatively, 16% responded with “don’t know”. The response of Q14 is 54% people agreed that Tagged based marketing will be more beneficial that other internet marketing strategies. Figure 3 : recommending tagged based marketing to Org: (U 14) 14 32 31 18 5 10 24 28 18 20 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 Will you provide feedback If organization asks you to provide feedback of the product for tagging on the social networking website? Do you allow your social network friends to view your purchase information via tagging? 51 33 16 54 28 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Yes No Don't know Do you recommend organizations to use tagged based marketing on social networks? If tagged based marketing is implemented than will it be more beneficial than other internet marketing strategies for viewing the products review? International Journal of Information and Commun ication Technology Research ©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved http://www.esjournals.org purchased”, 24% responded with “Often”, “20% respo nded with “Never” and 18% responded with “Rarely”. : Providing feedback to organization (U -Q 11, 12) The purpose of asking question 13 and 14 is to know the user’s view about recommending the tagged based marketing for organizations and will it beneficial than other marketing The responses we got for Q13 were, 51% users agreedon recommending tagged based marketing to organization, 33% responded negatively, 16% responded with “don’t know”. Q14 is 54% people agreed that Tagged based marketing will be more beneficial that other internet : recommending tagged based marketing to Org: (U -Q13, 5.2 Organization 1. Company existence on social networking websites? The purpose of this question is to ask organization whether they have any fan page or any group in OSN that could be used for marketing purposes. Figure 4 : company existence on social network In Q2, 3 and 4 we asked organizations if they have their presence on social networking websites, are they using it for marketing purpose or they have just created for their existence, do they take feedback of products and the response of co nsumers while asking for feedback. For Q2, the response for using social networking websites for marketing their products are 30% responded with “Likely”, 20% responded with the “Always”, “Less Likely” and “Never” each whereas 10% selected the “Never” opti For Q3, the participants responded for question about taking feedback from their customer, 35% responded with the “Always”, 20% responded with the “Most likely” and “Likely” each, 15% responded with the “Less likely” and 10% responded with the “Often”. For Question 4, the response is: 42% responded with “Most likely”, 32% responded with the “Likely”, 16% responded with the “Less likely”, 11% responded with the “Always”. Figure 5 : combined figure of O feedback of the product for tagging on the social networking website? Do you allow your social network 18 Don't know Do you recommend organizations to use tagged If tagged based marketing is implemented than will it be more beneficial than other internet marketing strategies for viewing the products 25 0 0 20 Yes No Don’t know 20 0 0 10 0 0 30 0 0 20 0 0 20 0 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 ISSN 2223-4985 ication Technology Research ©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved 632 social networking websites? The purpose of this question is to ask organization whether they have any fan page or any group in OSN that could be used for : company existence on social network website (O-Q1) In Q2, 3 and 4 we asked organizations if they have their presence on social networking websites, are they using it for marketing purpose or they have just created for their existence, do they take feedback of products and the response of nsumers while asking for feedback. For Q2, the response for using social networking websites for marketing their products are 30% responded with “Likely”, 20% responded with the “Always”, “Less Likely” and “Never” each whereas 10% selected the “Never” opti on. For Q3, the participants responded for question about taking feedback from their customer, 35% responded with the “Always”, 20% responded with the “Most likely” and “Likely” each, 15% responded with the “Less likely” and 10% For Question 4, the response is: 42% responded with “Most likely”, 32% responded with the “Likely”, 16% responded with the “Less likely”, 11% responded with the : combined figure of O -Q 2, 3 4) 75 40 60 80 0 35 0 0 11 0 20 0 0 42 0 20 0 0 32 0 15 0 0 16 0 10 0 0 0 Never Less Likely Likely Most likely Always Volume 2 No. 8, August 2012 International Journal of Information and Commun 5. If you use social networking websites for your product marketing, what positive things you feel about this new marketing dimension? Select all that apply. The purpose of this question is to ask the organizations if they are using the OSN website for marketing, what they have seen terms of sales, profit etc. 31% organization responded that the marketing has help in analyzing target audience, 27% responded with it helps in receiving quick response, 16% responded with increased clientele, 9% responded with inc rease profit, 8% responded with minimum cost. Figure 6: Positive Things about Social Network 6. If you haven’t used social networking websites for marketing, what are the reasons behind that? Select all that apply. Figure 7 : Purpose of not using social network marketing (O Q6) 7. For reviewing a product to buy, whom feedback will have greater influential factor? 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 8 9 27 31 16 20% 0% 15% 65% Increase resources cost Waste of time Mostly don’t receive authentic user Other International Journal of Information and Commun ication Technology Research ©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved http://www.esjournals.org social networking websites for your product marketing, what positive things you feel about this new marketing dimension? Select all that apply. The purpose of this question is to ask the organizations if they are using the OSN website for marketing, what benefits they have seen terms of sales, profit etc. 31% organization responded that the marketing has help in analyzing target audience, 27% responded with it helps in receiving quick response, 16% responded with increased clientele, 9% rease profit, 8% responded with minimum Marketing (O-Q5) If you haven’t used social networking websites for marketing, what are the reasons behind that? Select all : Purpose of not using social network marketing (O - For reviewing a product to buy, whom feedback will Figure 8 : Influential Factor (O 8. Will your organization is ready for offering benefits for convincing consumers to give feedback of products? Figure 9 : Benefits to customer (O 9. Do tagged based marketing on social networks is beneficial for organizations? Figure 10 : Tagged based Marketing for org: (U 10. Should tagged based marketing be implemented by organizations in Pakistan? Figure 11 : Implementation of TBM in Pakistan (U 11. Marketing on social networking will increase overheads of the organization including (changes in your existence 16 8 Mostly don’t receive authentic user 0 20 Friends colleagu … business … stranger other 17 17 0 33% 17% 22% 11% 17% 25 25 0 20 40 Always Most likely 0 Yes No Don’t know ISSN 2223-4985 ication Technology Research ©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved 633 : Influential Factor (O -Q7) Will your organization is ready for offering benefits for convincing consumers to give feedback of products? : Benefits to customer (O -Q8) Do tagged based marketing on social networks is beneficial for organizations? : Tagged based Marketing for org: (U -Q9) Should tagged based marketing be implemented by organizations in Pakistan? : Implementation of TBM in Pakistan (U -Q10) networking will increase overheads of the organization including (changes in your existence 40 60 25 42 Always Most likely Likely Less Likely Never 35 15 0 Likely Less Likely Never 50 100 75 10 15 Volume 2 No. 8, August 2012 International Journal of Information and Commun database, hiring new resources etc.) Is your organization ready for this? The purpose of asking this question from organization is to know whether the organizatio n is serious in taking the penetrating this domain and if that cost extra overhead, will the organization is ready for it. Figure 12 : Overheads for Organization (U 12. Does tagged based marketing on social networks will affect the organization’s profit? Figure 13 : TBS in comparison to traditional marketing (U 13. How you quantify social influence in terms of organization sales? Figure 14: Social Influence for org: (U 14. Why tagged based marketing can be beneficial rather than traditional marketing? 0 20 40 Yes No Not Yet 0 65% 10% 25% Increase Profit Decrease Profit No effect 11% 73% 11% 5% Increase sales drastically Increase sales gradually No effect Decrease sales rapidly Not good for company International Journal of Information and Commun ication Technology Research ©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved http://www.esjournals.org database, hiring new resources etc.) Is your The purpose of asking this question from organization is to n is serious in taking the penetrating this domain and if that cost extra overhead, will the : Overheads for Organization (U -Q11) Does tagged based marketing on social networks will : TBS in comparison to traditional marketing (U -Q12) How you quantify social influence in terms of org: (U -Q13) Why tagged based marketing can be beneficial rather Figure 15: TBM Advantages over traditional marketing (U 15. In order to implement social network marketing if your organization is required to purchase a marketing tool provided by social networking website, will your organization will be ready to buy? Figure 16 5: Purchasing Marketing Tool (U 16. For which type of product tagged based social networking sites will be effective? Figure 17 : product type beneficial for TBS (U 17. What could be barriers in Pakistan which the organizations have to face while m that apply? Figure 18 6: Barriers in Pakistan (U 18. Which goals you think will be achieved by marketing on social networks?Select all that apply? 60 50 50 No effect Increase sales Increase sales Decrease sales rapidly Not good for company 14 48 0 20 40 60 Increase clientele influential marketing 0 50 100 Yes 68 30 0 20 40 60 Tangible Intangible 17% 34% 21% 28%0% Trust among people and organization Privacy concerns among peoples Lack of social network usage Lack of awareness in the people ISSN 2223-4985 ication Technology Research ©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved 634 over traditional marketing (U -Q14) In order to implement social network marketing if organization is required to purchase a marketing tool provided by social networking website, will your organization will be ready to buy? 5: Purchasing Marketing Tool (U -Q16) For which type of product tagged based marketing on social networking sites will be effective? : product type beneficial for TBS (U -Q18) What could be barriers in Pakistan which the organizations have to face while m arketing? Select all 6: Barriers in Pakistan (U -Q15) Which goals you think will be achieved by marketing networks?Select all that apply? 38 0 influential Minimum cost Other No Depends 11 21 10 55 5 Intangible Both None Trust among people and organization Privacy concerns among peoples Lack of social network usage Lack of awareness in the people Volume 2 No. 8, August 2012 International Journal of Information and Commun Figure 19: Goal Achieved by TBS (U- Q17) 6. CONCLUSION The study reflects that with the increasing growth of Social Networking websites, people opt to share more and more information and this growth has open a way for the organization to penetrate the new domain. The research finding consists of two phases: us er and organization. While conducting survey from users, we found that most of the people support marketing on Facebook, and more than 70% people agreed that the friends have much influence in purchasing (Refer Fig: 29). 51% people recommend organizations tagged based marketing on Facebook and large population has suggested it’s beneficial for organizations (Refer Fig: 30). For tagged based marketing, providing feedback is very critical and from the stats it can be seen that majority of the populati already providing feedback to organizations, but most of them are concerned about the revealing of their personal information to others. The research finding from the organization suggests that approx. 75% of the organization have their presence on t Facebook (Refer Fig: 31) but only 20% of them are seriously using it for marketing(Refer Fig: 32).The finding further suggests that currently around 35% organization take feedback from their consumers (Refer Fig: 32),with reference of the findings, the major reason behind this is mostly people don’t provide feedback, and the large number of organizations are thinking of providing some benefits to consumer to get feedback. most organizations that are doing marketing on Facebook,defends their existence by describing that it’s helps In influential marketing, helps analyzing target audience, increases the trust of the product among consumers and also increase the sales and profit. Tagged based marketing is supported by majority of organization and large popul suggested that it should be implemented in Pakistan. Around 50% of organization has also agreed to manage the overheads but also suggest that privacy concern and trust among in between the organization and users are some big barriers in successfu l implementation of the tagged based marketing in Pakistan. 29 20 6 6 0 10 20 30 Increase sales growth brand awareness Increase customer … Customer loyalty Other International Journal of Information and Commun ication Technology Research ©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved http://www.esjournals.org Q17) The study reflects that with the increasing growth of Social Networking websites, people opt to share more and more information and this growth has open a way for the organization to penetrate the new domain. The research finding er and organization. While conducting survey from users, we found that most of the people support marketing on Facebook, and more than 70% people agreed that the friends have much influence in purchasing (Refer Fig: 29). 51% people recommend organizations to use tagged based marketing on Facebook and large population has suggested it’s beneficial for organizations (Refer Fig: 30). For tagged based marketing, providing feedback is very critical and from the stats it can be seen that majority of the populati on is already providing feedback to organizations, but most of them are concerned about the revealing of their personal information The research finding from the organization suggests that approx. 75% of the organization have their presence on t he Facebook (Refer Fig: 31) but only 20% of them are seriously using it for marketing(Refer Fig: 32).The finding further suggests that currently around 35% organization take feedback from their consumers (Refer Fig: 32),with reference of the major reason behind this is mostly people don’t provide feedback, and the large number of organizations are thinking of providing some benefits to consumer to get feedback. most organizations that are doing marketing on describing that it’s helps In influential marketing, helps analyzing target audience, increases the trust of the product among consumers and also increase the sales and profit. Tagged based marketing is supported by majority of organization and large popul ation has suggested that it should be implemented in Pakistan. Around 50% of organization has also agreed to manage the overheads but also suggest that privacy concern and trust among in between the organization and users are some big barriers in l implementation of the tagged based marketing in Figure 20: Users’ R esponse for Figure 21: Organization R esponse on their Figure 22: Organizations R Figure 23: Organization R esponse for TBM and its 7. FUTURE IMPLICATIONS Since there are some limitations in the successful implementation of the tagged based marketing which we have discussed above, due to this we can propose a future implication. A further study can be carried out in detail by 40 30 40 50 73 8 0 50 100 25 0 0 20 Yes No Don’t know 0 20 40 Always Most … Likely Less Likely 20 10 30 20 35 20 20 15 51 33 16 54 28 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Yes No Don't know ISSN 2223-4985 ication Technology Research ©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved 635 esponse for Influence in Purchasing esponse on their Existence on SN R esponse on taking Feedback esponse for TBM and its Benefits FUTURE IMPLICATIONS Since there are some limitations in the successful implementation of the tagged based marketing which we have discussed above, due to this we can propose a future implication. A further study can be carried out in detail by 4 11 4 75 40 60 80 Less Likely Never 20 20 15 10 Use social networking websites for marketing? Do you take feedback of products from consumers? 16 18 Don't know Recommend organizations to use TBM on social networks? Will it be beneficial to use TBS for product review Volume 2 No. 8, August 2012 ISSN 2223-4985 International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Research ©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved http://www.esjournals.org 636 increasing the sample size of users and the organizations. Furthermore we can conduct an online survey and collect data from people relating to different professions, age, demographic locations which would help in collecting analyzing the data more accurately. The data analysis can also be performed by different statistical processes. In near future growth of internet users and especially social network users will increase and everything will be on social networks. So we can conduct another survey to identify the user views on removing the heterogeneity of the social networks which will be helpful for recruitment, surveillance, Medical or law and informant agencies systems. Furthermore a tool could be developed that could integrate the Facebook application to generate statistical results for the organizations. REFERENCES [1] P. Linna, “Social networking is coming – are we ready?” Published in: MIPRO, 2011 Proceedings of the 34th International Convention, 2011 [2] J. Surma, “Data mining in on-line social network for marketing response analysis”, Published in: Privacy, Security, Risk and Trust (PASSAT), 2011 IEEE Third International Conference on and 2011 IEEE Third International Conference on Social Computing (SocialCom), 2011, IEEE [3] J. Ahmed, “Privacy Issues in Social Networking Platforms”, Published in: Computer Networks and Information Technology (ICCNIT), 2011 International Conference, 2011 [4] P. W. Handayani, “Impact Analysis on Free Online Marketing Using Social Network Facebook”, Published in: Advanced Computer Science and Information System (ICACSIS), 2011 International Conference, 2011, IEEE [5] C. 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Strater, “Strategies and Struggles with Privacy in an Online Social Networking Community”, Published in: 22nd British HCI Group Annual Conference on People and [...]...Volume 2 No 8, August 2012 ISSN 2223-4985 International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Research ©2012 ICT Journal All rights reserved http://www.esjournals.org Computers: Culture, Creativity, Interaction - Volume 1, British Computer Society Swinton, ACM, UK, 2008 [20] Y.A Kim, "Impact of Social Influence in E-Commerce Decision Making”, Published in: ninth international... Social Influence in E-Commerce Decision Making”, Published in: ninth international conference on Electronic commerce, ACM New York, NY, USA, 2007 [21] J Leskovec, The Dynamics of Viral Marketing , Published in: Journal, ACM Transactions on the Web (TWEB) TWEB Homepage archive, Volume 1 Issue 1, May 2007, ACM New York, USA, 2007 637 . helpful for the company to market their product, brand. Tagged based marketing allows the organization to tag the feedback of the product to their customer Once the tag has been done then this tag will then be visible to the Friend List of the customer in the News Feed. The benefit of the tag based marketing