Impact of Social Networking Sites on Business

RESEARCH REPORT2011IMPACT OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES ON BUSINESSSubmitted to- Prof R.N. Subudhi and Dr. Sasmita Mishra. KSOM, KIIT UNIVERSITYSUBMITTED BY:- NITISH KUMAR SINGH (10202054)VISHAL SINGH (10202028)SHREY SAURABH (10202047)JAGRITI BHAGAT (10202049)AQUALITATIVE RESEARCH DECLARATION We hereby declare that all the work presented in the project report entitled “Impact of Social Networking Sites on the Business” of the subject Business Research Methods at KSOM, KIIT UNIVERSITY, Bhubaneswar is an authentic record of our own work carried out under the guidance of Prof R.N. Subudhi and Dr. Sasmita Mishra. Date: Nitish kumar Singh (10202054) Vishal singh (10202028) Shrey Saurabh (10202047) Jagriti bhagat (10202049) ACKNOWLEDGEMENT We express our deep gratitude to Prof R.N. Subudhi and Dr. Sasmita Mishra of KSOM, KIIT University , Bhubaneswar for their constant support, guidance and motivation which helped us immensely in completing this project. The project provided us with an opportunity to understand the fundamentals of research methods in a better manner and apply them. The insistence on taking up a relevant topic like the impact of social networking sites on business to understand the psychology of the people using these sites better and correlate the research to human behavioral aspect and their impact on Business and marketing. We also would like to thank our respondents for giving us their valuable time and providing us with the information needed to carry out the research successfully Contents TOC quot;
1-3quot;
DECLARATION PAGEREF _Toc291498015 2EXECUTIVE SUMMARY PAGEREF _Toc291498016 4OBJECTIVE OF STUDY PAGEREF _Toc291498017 5RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: PAGEREF _Toc291498018 5RESEARCH ISSUES: PAGEREF _Toc291498019 5HYPOTHESIS: PAGEREF _Toc291498020 5SCOPE OF STUDY PAGEREF _Toc291498021 6RESEARCH METHODOLOGY PAGEREF _Toc291498022 6Data Collection method:………………………………………………………………………………. PAGEREF _Toc291498023 7QUESTIONAIRE DESIGN: PAGEREF _Toc291498024 7SAMPLING: PAGEREF _Toc291498025 8DATA ANALYSIS PAGEREF _Toc291498026 8INTRODUCTION PAGEREF _Toc291498027 9Business applications PAGEREF _Toc291498028 10SOCIAL NETWORK SITES (SNS): A DEFINITION PAGEREF _Toc291498029 10Industry analysis PAGEREF _Toc291498030 13EXAMPLES OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES PAGEREF _Toc291498031 13LITERATURE REVIEW PAGEREF _Toc291498032 16SNS IN INDIA: PAGEREF _Toc291498033 16ARTICLE-1 PAGEREF _Toc291498034 16ARTICLE-2 PAGEREF _Toc291498035 18ARTICLE-3 PAGEREF _Toc291498036 20ARTICLE-4 PAGEREF _Toc291498038 21ARTICLE-5 PAGEREF _Toc291498039 23ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION PAGEREF _Toc291498040 24MAIN FINDINGS: PAGEREF _Toc291498041 33CONCLUSION: PAGEREF _Toc291498042 33SUGGESTIONS: PAGEREF _Toc291498043 33LIMITATION: PAGEREF _Toc291498044 34REFERENCES PAGEREF _Toc291498045 36WEBLIOGRAPHY PAGEREF _Toc291498046 36BIBLIOGRAPHY PAGEREF _Toc291498047 37APPENDIX -1 / QUSENTIONNAIRE PAGEREF _Toc291498048 39 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The social networking sites are gaining a lot of popularity these days with almost all of the educated youth using one or the other such site. These have played a crucial role in bridging boundaries and crossing the seas and enabling them to communicate on a common platform. It has become a popular and a potential mean for them to stay friends with the existing ones and to grow up their social circle at least in terms of acquaintances. The question regarding the safety, privacy and the legal issues have been cropping up all this time. Through this research we try to find out the impact of these networking sites on the Business. It is a very subjective question to answer and is very opinion based and the same is reflected in the research methodology adopted by us. The report is initiated with the definition of the objective followed with the research methodology used along with the research design, sample size, methods used for the purpose of conducting survey. It also incorporates the sampling frame and the data collection procedure. Subsequent to this is the Introduction to the networking sites along with a brief description of the most popular sites. Then the issues of concern which have come up along the way in all these years since these sites gained popularity are discussed. The various issues and concerns of the respondents are also incorporated there. The next part of the research has the literature surveys which are the articles we took up from the published reports. We then analyzed and interpreted the data at length. The last part deals with the suggestions and recommendations that the group has come up with after carefully analyzing and incorporating the opinion of all concerned. OBJECTIVE OF STUDY In this age of globalization, the world has become too small a place thanks to the electronic media and portals. Communication has become effective as never before thanks to the advent of internet. The social networking sites have also played a crucial role in bridging boundaries and crossing the seas and bringing all people at a common platform where they can meet like minded people or find old friends and communicate with them. It has become a potential mean to relation building and staying in touch with all known. RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The objective that we wanted to achieve through our research is to: ,[object Object]

Which site related to social networking is more popular?RESEARCH ISSUES: ,[object Object]

Do social networking sites display substantial number of advertisements for male and female?HYPOTHESIS: ,[object Object]

There is no reason to clickon an advertisement.

There is no difference in the number of advertisement displayed for male and female.

There is no difference in opinion in displaying their relationship to the college or university at their sns profile.SCOPE OF STUDY T his study that the social networking sites play an impotant role in the life of students at university and college .The advertisements displayed on social networking sites have a great impact in the lives of students as the advertisements help them information about various job opportunities available. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY A considerable amount of work has been done in this field and several articles are available on the internet and magazines about the social networking sites. So first we carried out a literature survey of the available data for collection of secondary information. We followed it by a descriptive research design in order to understand the problem and carry out the research in a lucid manner. ,[object Object]

Sample Unit: students of ksom and kiit university

Sample Frame: SNS users and non users in KSOM, Bhubaneswar

Sample Size: 50Data Collection method: After secondary data collection through data collection over the internet, a primary research was carried out through a questionnaire. The questionnaire was well structured and the responses were sought from the respondents. The nature of the questions was such that it avoided ambiguous responses from the respondents and it also helped in quick analysis of the data collected. Two methods of questioning were used for the data collection: 1). Person Assisted: The responses were collected by personal questioning. The responses were taken from the students in the KSOM & KIIT University. this form of questioning helped the respondent to understand the questions better and answer accordingly. 2). Web enabled: The questionnaire was e-mailed to respondents who filled it and then mailed it back to us. A flaw that we realized here was that some of the respondents did not understand the questions and hence could not answer them to the best of their capability, unlike the other method employed where the questions could be explained if required. 3). Questionnaire: Structured questionnaire is made and responses were sought from the respondents. Secondary Research ,[object Object],QUESTIONAIRE DESIGN: Questionnaire was divided into five major heads: ,[object Object]

Use of social sites for business

Their analysis of sitesSAMPLING: Sampling Design: The target population for our research was defined as the students who form the major chunk of users of these social networking sites. This was done to have a better insight into the research as the target population was one which is the most avid user of these sites and could provide good responses. Even the understanding of the questionnaire was easy to them as they were familiar with the sites and quite clear about the reasons they use it for and the various problems that they face. The extent of the survey was limited to the KSOM AND Kiit university students, Bhubaneswar. However, through online survey some regions outside Bhubaneswar were also reached to validate the information collected from Bhubaneswar. Sampling frame can be defined as all the users of social networking sites in the vicinity. Once the sampling frame was decided, simple random sampling method was used to select the respondents. In the person assisted survey, almost everyone in the sampling frame had an equal chance of being selected and we got the responses filled through those people who were readily and willingly accepting to fill it. To some extent judgment sampling was also used, especially in the online survey, where the questionnaires were sent only to our acquaintances in the other B-schools outside Delhi. DATA ANALYSIS We had 50 filled up questionnaire. The data from these questionnaire was analyzed through following techniques. CLUSTER ANALYSIS : Cluster analysis or clustering is the assignment of a set of observations into subsets (called clusters) so that observations in the same cluster are similar in some sense. Depepdnng upon the various motivating factors and the styles of usage hierchical clustering techniques was applied. There was no need felt for factor analysis as only few variables emerged from the study. INTRODUCTION SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES: At the most basic level social networking sites are sites which allow users to set up online profiles or personal homepages, and develop an online social network. The profile page functions as the user’s own webpage and includes profile information ranging from their date of birth, gender, religion, politics and hometown, to their favorite films, books quotes and what they like doing in their spare time. In addition to profile information, users can design the appearance of their page, and add content such as photos, video clips and music files. Users are able to build a network of connections that they can display as a list of friends. These friends may be offline actual friends or acquaintances, or people they only know or have met online, and with whom they have no other link. It is important to note that the term ‘friend’, as used on a social networking site, is different from the traditional meaning given to the term in the offline world. In this report we will use the term as it is used on a social networking site: anyone who has invited, or been invited by, another user, to be their ‘friend’.  In a more collaborative and peer-to-peer manner  Users communicate and collaborate while at the same time contribute and participate  Is shaping the way you work and interact with information on the web  Mindset change towards collaborative participation  Shifts the focus to the user of the information  User can search, choose, consume and modify the relevant content Business applications The use of social network services in an enterprise context presents the potential of having a major impact on the world of business and work (Fraser & Dutta 2008). Social networks connect people at low cost; this can be beneficial for entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to expand their contact bases. These networks often act as a customer relationship management tool for companies selling products and services. Companies can also use social networks for advertising in the form of banners and text ads. Since businesses operate globally, social networks can make it easier to keep in touch with contacts around the world. One example of social networking being used for business purposes is LinkedIn.com, which aims to interconnect professionals. LinkedIn has over 40 million users in over 200 countries Company now using social networking sites as marketing channel to promote its product, also called as viral marketing ,[object Object]

We define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to:

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

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

(3) View and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site.

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

What makes social network sites unique is not that they allow individuals to meet strangers, but rather that they enable users to articulate and make visible their social networks. This can result in connections between individuals that would not otherwise be made, but that is often not the goal, and these meetings are frequently between "latent ties" (Haythornthwaite, 2005) who share some offline connection. On many of the large SNSs, participants are not necessarily "networking" or looking to meet new people; instead, they are primarily communicating with people who are already a part of their extended social network. To emphasize this articulated social network as a critical organizing feature of these sites, we label them "social network sites."

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

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

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

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

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

Beyond profiles, Friends, comments, and private messaging, SNSs vary greatly in their features and user base. Some have photo-sharing or video-sharing capabilities; others have built-in blogging and instant messaging technology. There

are mobile-specific SNSs (e.g., Dodgeball), but some web-based SNSs also support limited mobile interactions (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, and Cyworld). Many SNSs target people from specific geographical regions or linguistic groups, although this does not always determine the site's constituency. Orkut, for

example, was launched in the United States with an English-only interface, but Portuguese-speaking Brazilians quickly became the dominant user group. Some sites are designed with specific ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, political, or other identity-driven categories in mind. Industry analysis The number of social networking sites is exploding throughout the world. On the basis of content there are their types of sites: ,[object Object]

Aggregation/combination of information: collection of information e.g. Download.com

Content sharing and business : users share and discuss personal and professional contents. eg orkut and facebook

Collaborative filtering: Data is filtered to have a focused content Eg last.fm, in.fmEXAMPLES OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES ORKUT.COM Orkut is an Internet social network service run by Google and named after its creator, Google employee Orkut Büyükkökten. It claims to be designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships. Similar to Facebook, Friendster and MySpace, Orkut goes a step further by permitting the creation of easy-to-set-up simple forums (called quot;
communitiesquot;
) of users. Since October 2006, Orkut has permitted users to create accounts without an invitation. Orkut is the most visited website in Brazil, being more visited than Google Brazil, number 2 on the list. In total visits, Google is probably still more popular since it appears as the second (the Brazilian version) and seventh most visited site (the international version). FACEBOOK.COM Facebook is another example of social networking site. Developed by sophomore Mark Zuckerberg of Harvard University in 2004, Hosting the most members for a college based social networking site, Facebook.com is also the number one site for uploading pictures, boasting several million uploads daily. Since its inception, Facebook.com has now been opened to anyone with a valid email address and offers its members options of joining the millions of networks of people with similar interests. It is said that 80% of Facebook.com users check their account daily and that 93% of Facebook.com users check their account at least monthly (Facebook, 2007) Facebook.com generates its revenue from advertisement since it boasts a huge number of registered users. MYSPACE.COM MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos internationally. HI5.COM hi5 is a social networking website, which, throughout 2007, was one of the 25 most visited sites on the web. In hi5, users create an online profile in order to show information such as interests, age and hometown and upload user pictures where users can post comments. ,[object Object]

LITERATURE REVIEW SNS IN INDIA: In all the social networking phenomenon in India is small compared to the US (Indian social networking websites today claim a user base of around 3 million registered users) while MySpace, which has 106 million users and Orkut which has 67 million have far greater numbers. Clearly, Indian firms have a lot of work ahead of them in order to catch up. However, Siddhartha Roy, CEO, BigAdda, says optimistically: “We are early on the curve.” Alok Mittal, MD, Canaan Partners, a venture capital firm, says: “When you put that in context, Indian social networking websites are in their infancy. The break-even point is longer, but once they attain a critical mass of 40 million users, then VC firms will start investing in them.” Navin Mittal, CEO, fropper.com, says: “With the Indian Internet user-base negligible compared to the US or China, these are very early days.” The owner of the blog Trak.in does a great job of explaining the benefits of social networking for India and what it means for consumers and businesses. ARTICLE-1 Social networking sites, which allow users to build or be part of online communities, account for 44% of the country’s Internet traffic Social networking sites, which allow users to build or be part of online communities, account for 44% of the country’s Internet traffic, according to a report by consulting firm JuxtConsult Research and Consulting Pvt. Ltd. The space is dominated by global players such as Orkut, MySpace, Facebook and Hi5. Google Inc.’s Orkut, launched in 2004, isthe most popular social networking site among Indians with more than seven million users, but advertising is something the site has only recently dabbled with. “Nobody has made money on social networking so far,” Ajit Balakrishnan, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), Rediff.com India Ltd, the company behind rediff.com, one of the earliest Indian dot-coms, had previously said. “But when 10 million people congregate, somewhere down the line the company will make money, and it will be advertiser-related, he had added. Rediff.com launched iShare, a video sharing platform, in July, and plans to add a social networking tool to it in the coming weeks. Indian firms and entrepreneurs entering the social networking space are convinced that they need to build up a critical mass of users first, and then worry about advertising. BigAdda.com, started by the Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group’s Reliance Entertainment three months ago, has about 700,000 users but no advertiser yet. Similarly, one-year-old social networking site for students Minglebox.com has a user base that exceeds one million but no advertisers. “On the Internet, consumer is king. They decide where they want to spend their time and advertisers recognize that,” said Siddhartha Roy, chief operating officer, Big-Adda.com. “You want to first create a strong user base and give them an uninterrupted experience.” Kavita Iyer, CEO, Minglebox, agrees: “...In this business, users fluctuate from one site to another and it is important to first reach a certain level of stability and maturity before getting advertisers on board.” But some experts say that those scrambling to enter the social networking space have left it too late, and that plain vanilla social networking will, by itself, not work any longer. According to Balakrishnan, social networking has to become more than just a communication platform. “Social networking will have to be morphed into every online initiative,” he had said. “It has a tendency to pick up fast but loses momentum just as fast. This is why we are integrating iShare with social networking.” That’s a strategy similar to the one adopted by Yahoo Inc. “We want to make Yahoo mail more social by combining properties such as SMS,instant messenger and emails together. It’s too early to tell what we’re planning on social networking, but it will be a convergence of communication channels,” John Kremer, vice-president, Yahoo Mail, had previously said. Others are trying this as well. Ibibo Web Pvt. Ltd’s Ibibo.com is a multi-platform social interactive site with applications such as networking, blogging and gaming as some of its applications. “We’ve been around for seven months in India but I can tell you that it takes about two to three years of good consumer traction to drive revenues,” said Ashish Kashyap, CEO, Ibibo group. “It is important to create a picnic effect before we can get to advertisers,” he added. Advertisers themselves seem content with the picnic effect itself. PepsiCo India Holdings Pvt. Ltd has not yet bought into social networking from the advertising point of view, but it has bought into the concept. “Pepsi has not advertised on social networking sites so far but we have got what we wanted by users themselves creating discussion groups about the brand,” said a spokesperson for PepsiCo India. According to one expert, that may well indicate what social networking sites need to do to start earning revenues. “For advertisers, social networking sites are slow in generating revenues directly but they are good in influencing decisions,” said Gulrez Alam, group head, paid search, Communicate2, a paid-search marketing company. “Social media sites will soon have alternative revenue generating tactics that will help influence the user without intruding on the experience, that’s the way ahead.” Almost half the Internet traffic generated in India is on account of social networking, and while this has not translated into advertising revenue so far, a pioneer in the country’s Internet space expects the situation to change. ARTICLE-2 Business Standard, January 25 '07 Thursday, 25 January 2007 Business Standard, Riding the networking wave Priyanka Joshi / New Delhi January 24, 2007 TECHNOLOGY: Want to get seen? Advertise on social networking sites. This, incidentally, is the new mantra of online advertisers. About 93 per cent of the 28 million Indians online belong to the age group 18-45 years — a target audience that has the maximum buying power. Ten million of these are hooked on to some form of online social media, be it personal, career or business networking, matrimonial sites, discussion rooms, virtual activity platforms, instant messenger, podcasts, RSS feeds and blogs. The mix of social media sites being a hot favourite among this bunch of young Indians, it presents a perfect milieu for online advertisers. Content-specific advertisements have become a rage on networking sites like Orkut, TechTribe, LinkedIn, Ryze, Flickr, MSN Live Spaces, Blogger, Fropper and Facebook, which are a compelling buy for advertisers seeking to target the active lifestyle set the sites cater to. In short, content-specific networks are riding a wave of popularity and newer networks seem to be springing up every day. Rajnish, head (digital marketing revenue and strategic business), MSN India, explains why marketers want to be seen on social networking sites: “In Asia, email and instant messaging take 40-50 per cent of the time we spend online. Blogosphere is doubling in size every six months and an average Indian user spends anywhere between 40-60 minutes daily on social media sites. Little wonder, banks, automobile companies, FMCGs, and even IT firms want a virtual advert that’s both engaging and innovative.” Social media advertising has been taking the online advertising industry by storm. The total marketing spend on social media is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 106.1 per cent from 2005 to 2010, reaching $757 million in 2010, according to a report from PQ Media. Some social-networking communities focus on vertical markets with a narrowly-defined audience, such as business-relationship sites like LinkedIn and TechTribe. Their ad revenue exceeded $20 million in 2006. “There has been a recent ‘change of guard’ online with social networks — from being a ‘push’ medium to a ‘pull’ medium,” remarks Rajnish, “MSN is using people’s attention to engage users with advertisers through contextual advertising and desktop television.” The audiences, in return, generate revenues each time they click on a banner, keyword or a floating advertisement on a webpage. While online rate cards are not exactly cheap, averaging between Rs 50,000 and Rs 2 lakh, the prices are expected to get spiked by another 20-25 per cent by the end of 2007. Social-networking sites entice users to spend considerable time and view many page views, and many sites are seeing those numbers increase. Nielsen/Net Ratings reports that users’ visits to YouTube grew in duration from about 17 minutes to 28 minutes (64 per cent) over the first six months of 2006. Page views grew 515 per cent during the same period. Members of communities spend hours looking up friends’ profiles and following paths of interconnected relationships. These long visits and high page views directly correlate to ad revenue. Blog advertising, worldwide, totalled $25 million in 2006, which includes blogs, podcasts and RSS advertising. “By the tail-end of 2007, even Indian bloggers (the well known ones) would be making money out of advertising on their blogs, podcasts, videos, personal web pages and other forms of user generated content,” claims a media buyer. Anil Kaul, CEO, Absolute Data, a research and analytics firm, has helped websites and advertisers look beyond popular targeting options like geography and demography “using complex targeting options on networks, like behavioural and contextual and domain-level targeting. We have shown clients how to get the most from an online advert.” ARTICLE-3 BY BRIAN DEAGON INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted 12/26/2007 UTILIZATION IN BUSINESS There are many ways that business’ can use social networking web sites to their advantage but we are going to focus on three. 1.) The first aspect of a business that could use a social networking website for would be the hiring of employees. Such sites as Monster.com actually help many people searching for jobs and many companies looking for employees to find each other. It’s as simple as creating your own resume and putting it out there. Monster.com then takes your resume and compares it to the needs and wants that companies have posted on the web site and connects the company with people who meet or exceed their posted standards. This a lot faster and involves a more broad spectrum of resources for which a company can use to find the perfect employee. 2.)Another aspect of business affected by social networking websites is marketing. With the millions of people that use social networking web sites, what better way to market your product then by buying space on those web sites? Whether it’s through banners or links millions of people will view your ads should they be placed on a social networking website. An example is that of 1up.com. Through its great reputation to gamers many gaming companies are willing to spend thousands of dollars for advertising space since they know that gamers who view the web site will most likely learn about their product. Not only is online advertising more effective than commercial advertising such as TV ads and magazines, it’s also more cost effective and reaches far more people than other forms of advertising. An example of the effectiveness of internet advertising is YouTube.com in which experts have estimated that “Given its traffic levels, video streams and page views, some have calculated that YouTube's potential revenues could be in the millions per month.” (YouTube, 2007) 3.)A third aspect of business that is affected by social networking websites is that of fair pricing. With so many businesses’ out there creating virtually the same product it’s easy for one to get lost in the broad spectrum of products. With social networking websites people can get advice from experts, gain knowledge of product through others who have used it, and get reviews on nearly anything that is mass produced today. This in turn is also great for businesses. With all this information out there concerning products it’s easy for a company to look through it and see what customers want and for how much. This in turn leads to better products being made to suit the customers’ needs and wants. ARTICLE-4 Social networking on the generation next Author- Nair, Neh Vivek SCMS Journal of Indian Management Jul2009, Vol. 6 Issue The definition of social networking was given by ProfessorJ.A . Barnes who says it is a group size of more than 100people. There are many definitions of social networking such as: Social networking1 is the grouping of individuals into specific groups like small communities or a neighborhood sub-division. The rise of social networking has made many ways possible for people to communicate with one and other.There are many social networking sites which have become extremely popular of late. My Space and Facebook2 are popular in Nor th America, Bebo, Facebook, Tagged, and Hi5 in Canada, Orkut, Friendster and Cyworld in Asia and Pacific islands. The origin of social networking sites started with the globe.com, geocities and tripod. These sites mainly focused on bringing people together through the concept of chat rooms, and giving out information by giving a personalized homepage. Then came some other communities which would give linking facility by email addresses. Sites3 such as classmates.com focused on former school colleagues, sixdegrees.com also had a focus on indirect ties. There were other two models of social networking which were developed on the concept of trust. But it was between 2002 and 2004 that saw the bir th of three social networking sites which became extremely popular namely Friendster, 4 My Space and Facebook. The main advantage which social networks have is that they provide many advantages at low cost. The important benefits can be reaped out using social networking site by merging them with different tools like customer relationship management5 which can help companies in selling their products and services all around the world. Many companies are known to make use of the social networking sites for recruitment6 purpose, customer relationship, getting knowledge and facilitating meeting. It has been already predicted that in the long run only those organizations that have the ability to integrate the social networking in their daily business operations and ideas, will be able to survive the heat. One good example of social networking site used for business related activities is linkedin.com. The site claims to have more than 20 million registered users. Most of the social networks provide a choice for people to communicate and exchange personal information for7 dating purposes. This is very similar to the online dating services which are already available. In this case some of the personal information such as name, age, gender, interests and photo has to be made available. This allows the user to be listed in some sort t of searching criteria. The only difference with the online dating services is that social networking sites give you free service whereas8 online dating services are paid ones. Of late social networking has seen a place in pharmacy and healthcare sector also. It is being used by healthcare professionals to highlight institutions, physicians, maintain peer to peer knowledge and the biggest advantage of using a social networking site is that all the members are screened against the state licensing board list of practitioners.9 The role of social networks is interesting to the pharmaceutical companies so that they can now make attempts to influence the opinion leaders of social networks. Just like the above concern many social networking websites have been tapped into the power of the social good cause for the society upliftment. Sober Circle helps in bringing out the communication gaps of alcoholics and addicts so that they have a common platform to share their views and concerns regarding the rehabilitation process. There are many social networking sites which actually work on the charity roles. ARTICLE-5 Face to face with social networking Author- Brockett James People Management; October 2007, Vol. 13 Issue 16 Summary:- Man is a social animal and hence he is interested in interacting and being with people who have common things to share such network is called social networking. (group of more than 100 people- a/c to prof. J.A.Barnes) These websites can help a lot in earning additional income for any business. Social network also used as a benchmark for the popularity & social relevance of product, services and business. These sites play host to several comments both good and bad about the company and the services Social networking offers small business owners an inexpensive and effective way to connect with their customer. Methodology:- survey conducted on small business enterprises. Findings:- It gives idea to the managers that where they went wrong or where they went right with the product ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION TABLE:1 Your Age FrequencyPercentValid PercentCumulative PercentValid18-221530.030.030.0 22-262244.044.074.0 26-301224.024.098.0 MORE THAN 3012.02.0100.0 Total50100.0100.0 Your gender FrequencyPercentValid PercentCumulative PercentValidMALE3468.068.068.0 FEMALE1632.032.0100.0 Total50100.0100.0 Table 1 shows: ,[object Object]

Males accounted for 68% in total while the females accounted for 32%.TABLE- 2 USAGE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES IN DAILY LIFE INTERPRETATION: ,[object Object]

People who use sns regularly in daily life works as and when required fall in the age group of 22-26.

Cramer value of .3 shows a weak relationship between age and usage of sns in daily works.TABLE:3 REASON FOR CLICKING ON AN AD The above table shows that 42% people click only on advertisements they are aware of. Hence it can be said that they click on links they are aware of and adopt a secured strategy. They are aware of cyber crimes and its after effects. 42% people click on advertisements by companies they are aware of. 6% people get carried by a celebrity on an advertisement. INTERPRETATION ,[object Object]

Cramer’s v of .1 shows a weak relationship between gender and reason to click on an advertisement.

Table -4Frequency of display of advertisement on sns INTERPRETATION: ,[object Object]

82.3% of males and 93.8% of females found advertisements on the sns.

17.6% males and 6.3% females did not find any advertisements in their accounts on sns.

Low cramer’s value of .1 shows a weak relationship between the gender and availability of advertisements in their accounts on social networking sites.

86% respondents display education details on sns.

7% respondents donot trust the sites and donot display any such information.

Impact of Social Networking Sites on Business

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (9)

Similar to Impact of Social Networking Sites on Business

Similar to Impact of Social Networking Sites on Business (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Impact of Social Networking Sites on Business