The Level of Interest within Generation Y towards Social network Marketing - Essay Example

?Running Head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL Research Proposal [The of the will appear here] [The of the will appear here] [The of the Professor] [Course] Research Objectives and Aims The level of interest within Generation Y towards social network marketing The objective of this research is to uncover whether social network marketing is more captivating to Generation Y consumers than other forms of marketing. Why are Generation Y consumers addicted to social networking sites? Why are marketers considering social network marketing in comparison with traditional marketing mediums? Why is Generation Y cynical towards traditional advertising? Why is social network marketing more suitable for Generation Y? Background of Research Questions Social Network Marketing has gained prominence in the last decade as more and more companies are marketing primarily through social networking sites. The main purpose of social networking sites is to connect users with one another. As the internet age blooms with every passing year, social networking has become the most widely used communication tool by users around the world. ‘Compete.com (2008), a Web traffic analysis company, reported that the largest online social networking site (as of November 2008) was MySpace, with 56 million unique visitors per month, closely followed by Facebook, with 49 million unique visitors’ (Trusov, Bucklin and Pauwels, 2009). This addiction towards social networking presents marketers with a good opportunity of reaching towards consumers. Through social networks, brands develop a personality and provide a forum for the users to interact with the brand, thus making way for a more informal form of marketing. With the saturation in market that most industries are now facing, it becomes increasing hard to capture the attention of the consumers who have become cynical towards advertising and marketing in general. Social networking sites allow consumers to share their opinions, ideas and reviews about products and services. On account of this, social networking sites support word-of-mouth, which is the most effective form of advertising and specifically for the younger generation. With advertisers taking full use of their creative license, consumers have become wary of products advertising impossibility shiny long hair and a perfect social life. They simply do not believe these advertisements. This research will aim to uncover the connection that Generation Y has with social networking sites. With the advertising world changing at a very fast pace, it is important that marketers are able to connect with the Generation Y through their preferred platform. This research provides a way forward to marketers. Literature Review ‘Today’s Generation Y, encompassing individuals born between 1980 and 1995, represents an era of teens and young adults who grew up with technology and are among the most avid users of social networking’ (Rutledge, 2008) . Social Networking sites have become part of the life of Generation Y. As important as it is to have residential addresses, Generation Y considers it equally important to have a social networking address. Given the popularity of social networking sites among Generation Y, organizations have begun exploring advertising on these sites. ‘Social Networking is just one of the many consumer technologies, including blogs, wikis and virtual worlds, to cross over to the corporate world’ (Smith and Salvendy, 2009). But the advertising content must differ since Generation Y has become used to the traditional advertising techniques. They tend to tune out the advertising of women falling around men with just one spray of a perfume. To reach Generation Y, organizations have to more honest and direct in their advertising techniques (Garland, 2007). Generation Y is more of a rebel and has shaped their opinions and views around the opinions of views of their own peers. Parents have not been the guiding figures in the lives of Generation Y since they were raised in a time when both parents worked for a living. Therefore, the opinions and views of the peer matter most to this generation. This is one reason Generation Y wants to remain connected with their peers and depend on them to guide them towards the best choice. Word-of-mouth or rather word-of-sms is thus the most effective form of advertising for this generation (Sheahan, 2005). Hypothesis 1. Social Network Marketing is more effective than traditional advertising 2. Generation Y has more access to social networks than any other generation 3. Generation Y has accounts in those social networking sites where they friends already are 4. Generation Y relies more on word-of-mouth advertising, that is supported by social networking sites. Research Methodology Before we initiate the research, it is imperative to have background knowledge of the topic. For this reason, a literature review will be conducted where literature written on this specific topic will be consulted. The next part of the research would be to lay down the method of conducting the research. Since this research concerns social networking sites and its users, the most obvious choice would be users from popular social networking sites. Popular social networking sites include Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. Users will be selected randomly from such sites and equal number of users would represent each social networking sites. The users selected from the social networking sites would be interviewed. They could be interviewed face-to-face. The purpose of using interview as a research method is to set the mood for the interview and prevent users from not filling out questionnaire forms properly. The interview will begin will general questions and using the answers from these questions, the interviewee will then move on to the main purpose of the research. The interviewee will prevent forcing his own opinions in the research by putting open-end questions to the interviewer. Instead of asking whether they believe social network advertising is more effective than traditional advertising, the interviewee would ask which medium of advertising is most effective according to them. The interviewee may provide examples of advertising mediums such as television, radio, internet, social networking sites, outdoor advertising etc. Using the data collected from the qualitative interviews, the next step would be to analyze the data. The data will analyzed by dividing the research under a number of key questions. The data from each user would be used to answer these key questions. Once the key questions are answered, the analyst will move towards finding a pattern in the answers. This pattern would form the results of the main hypothesis, proving it or either disproving it (Taylor-Powell and Renner, 2003). Bibliography Garland, E. (2007) Future, Inc: how businesses can anticipate and profit from what's next, New York: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn, 2007  Rutledge, P. (2008) The Truth about Profiting from Social Networking, New Jersey: FT Press Sheahan, P. (2005) Generation Y: Surviving (and Thriving) with Generation Y at Work, Australia: Hardie Grant Publishing, 2005 - Smith, M. J. and Salvendy, G. (2009) Human Interface and the Management of Information: Designing Information Environments,Indiana: Springer Publications Taylor-Powell, E. and Renner, M. (2003) Analyzing Qualitative Data, Program Development and Evaluation Retrieved from http://learningstore.uwex.edu/assets/pdfs/g3658-12.pdf Trusov, M., Bucklin, R. E. and Pauwels, K. (2009) Effects of Word-of-Mouth Versus Traditional Marketing: Findings from an Internet Social Networking Site, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 73 Read More