The Impact of Social Networking to Influence Marketing through Product Reviews pot

Volume 2 No. 8, August 2012 ISSN 2223-4985


International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Research
©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved




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.
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©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved




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.
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©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved




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,
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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


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%

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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
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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



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

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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
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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


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

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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
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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


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


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



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

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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




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.

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©2012 ICT Journal. All rights reserved




637
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