Off cambus division

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<b>DISSERTATION </b>

<b><small>Course/ Programme: BSc (Hons) Business Management Module: </small></b> <small> BAM6001 Dissertation </small>

<b><small>Supervisor: </small></b> <small> Asma Begum </small>

<b><small>Assessment Number: One of Two (75% of final mark) </small></b>

<b><small>Assignment Topic: Study of social media marketing strategies at Leonardo company </small></b>

<b><small>Assignment Length: 12,929 words Student Name: </small></b> <small> Đoàn Mỹ Châu </small>

<b><small>Cohort: 16 ID student : </small></b> <small> 2124801</small>

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<b>ACKNOWLEDGEMENT </b>

This dissertation wouldn't be accomplished without the advice and support of numerous persons who contributed and extended their valued guidance in various ways throughout the study's processing and completion.

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to University of Bolton for providing chances for people to expand their point of view on how the reality in the field of business management appears.

I'd also want express my deepest appreciation my supervisor Phd. Asma Begum and PhD. Pham Thi Tuyet Trinh for the passionate advice and insightful recommendations that supported me in completing my dissertation.

Following that, I'd want to offer my sincerest gratitude to Leonardo company and the CEO, Mr.Dang Van Phu and manager of the marketing department, all the employees, team members in the marketing department, company, who assist me with moral and material needs, as well as sharing their knowledge to support me in my researching.

Sincerely appreciated !

Ho Chi Minh city, May 1st 2023

<b> Doan My Chau </b>

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<b>Declaration: </b>

I declare that the thesis has been composed by myself and that the work has not be submitted for any other degree or professional qualification.

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<b>4.2.2. The assessment of Leonardo SMM strategy: ... 49</b>

<b>4.3. Analyzing interview and survey data: ... 50</b>

<b>5.3.Implication for manager in industry: ... 72</b>

<b>5.4.Suggest for future research: ... 72</b>

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<b>TABLE OF FIRGURES </b>

<b>Fig 2.4: The conceptual framework……….26 Fig 3: Research onion………...27 Fig 4.2: The post of Leonardo in their fan page with clear brand information………….44 Fig 4.3: The post of Leonardo in their fan page with brand identity…………..…………45 Fig 4.4: Respondents Positions………...………46 Fig 4.5: Respondents‟ years of working at Leonardo……….……….46 Fig 4.6: Evaluate Leonardo‟s SMM stratgey in clarifying the segments of target.……..48 Fig 4.7: Evaluate Leonardo‟s SMM strategy in targeting active audiences……….49 Fig 4.8: The evaluation of Leonardo SMM strategy in using the right platform………..50 Fig 4.9: Evaluate Leonardo‟s SMM stratgey in using suitable communication style.…50 Fig 4.10: Evaluate Leonardo‟s SMM strategy in setting objectives align with overall goals and company strategy………51 Fig 4.11: Evaluate Leonardo‟s SMM strategy in setting measurable SMM objectives..52 Fig 4.12: Evaluate Leonardo‟s SMM strategy in setting realistic, achievable SMM </b>

with

customers……….56

<b>Fig 4.17: Evaluate Leonardo‟s SMM strategy in systematically planning to deal with </b>

negative feedbacks……….56

<b>Fig 4.18: Evaluate Leonardo‟s SMM strategy in exploiting effectively the features of </b>

current social media platforms………57

<b>Fig 4.19: Evaluate Leonardo‟s SMM strategy in integrating social media platforms….58 Fig 4.20: Evaluate Leonardo‟s SMM strategy in using suitable evaluation metrics…..59 Fig 4.21: Evaluate Leonardo‟s SMM strategy in clarifying brand identity social………59 Fig 4.22: Respondents‟ answer about factors that need to prioritize when modifying Leonardo's SMM strategy……….60 Fig 4.23: The recommendations of respondents……… .61 </b>

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<b>LIST OF CHART/PHOTO: </b>

<b>Fig 4.2: The post of Leonardo in their fan page with clear brand information…………..44 </b>

identity………45

<b>Fig 1.1: The chart shows the revenue of fashion industry in Vietnam that include </b>

accessories, apparel, footwear sectors from 2017-2022 and predict to 2027………… .93

<b>Fig 4.1: Company permission for using data </b>

<b>Fig 5.1: Popular social media platfroms in Vietnam……….99 </b>

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<b>ABSTRACT </b>

In this research, the author research about the social media marketing strategy developed of Leonardo in Facebook. The objectives of this study are describing the developing of Leonardo‟s social media marketing strategy and determine what factors in this social media marketing strategy were favorable and unfavorable. Then, suggesting appropriate recommendations for them to improve the effectiveness of their social media marketing strategy. secondary data from company‟s online advertisement report also applied to clarify research issue and primary data and from semi-structured interview with marketing department to have a deeper understand when describing Leonardo social media marketing in developing stage. Additionally, survey with 96 respondents that understand and know about this social media marketing strategy from marketing, business, accounting departments to collect their assessments about Leonardo social media marketing strategy. From there, the author will mismatch survey and interview data to validate the finding of favorable and unfavorable factors in their social media marketing strategy. Findings of this research indicated that how they developing social media platforms and setting objectives are the major issues, followed by some of the methods they use to reach goals.

This research contributes in improving the results of Leonardo social media marketing by researching the development of this strategy and provide better understanding of key factors that important in the developing stage of social media marketing.

<b>Keywords: social media marketing strategy, Leonardo company </b>

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<b>1. Introduction: </b>

Social media marketing (SMM) is a modern means to reach enormous potential customers by using online social networks and communities like Facebook, Instagram, etc. (Laudon & Traver, 2020), which can be seen as a revolution from traditional media. Because hardly anyone can deny the increasing popularity of the internet and social media (SM) in recent years. This phenomenon has affected many industries, becomes an effective and convenient ways to connect with customers (Dwivedi et al., 2021), and Vietnamese businesses are also affected by it, especially fashion and accessory companies (Vy, 2020). Consequently, SMM is now essential for many businesses to concentrate on and enhance.

<b>1.1. Problem statement: </b>

The increasing popularity of SMM as analyzed above provide huge opportunities and challenges for Vietnamese companies to develop and enhance their presence widely. Furthermore, Vietnam has lately been identified as an ideal place for the development of SMM due to its modern Internet infrastructure and massive SM users (EU-Vietnam Business Network, 2018). Currently, SMM in Vietnam witnessed the dramatically increased and it is considerably affect the behaviors of Vietnam retailers (Vietnam E-commerce Association, 2021). In relation to Vietnamese fashion and accessories companies, it affect heavily the means for promote products (Vy, 2020), thanks to its efficiency information costs, ubiquity, regardless of distance and time, which approaches potential customers easily, conveniently (Laudon & Traver, 2020). However,

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many firms are struggles to utilize SMM to boost income and reach clients (Harris, 2019), and Leonardo is not an exception.

Recent years, Leonardo has decided to emphasize on SMM instead of traditional, they toward SMM to leverage the brand awareness, which will good for the overall strategy in market development and increase profit to have a solid foundation for growth. However, their SMM not received many effective results, since brand awareness still not increased as expected and the number of potential and new young customers still low, although young people is one of their target and the majority buy group in Vietnam fashion industry (Minh et al., 2022). Additionally, they noticed that the revenue decreased, despite the fact Vietnam fashion and accessories indutsry still have high potential, becasue according to Nielsen report 2019, many Vietnamese spend about 36% of their salary after covering the essential for living for fashion (Vietnam News Agency, 2017) and the revenue of this industry, has increased quickly from 0.57$ billion in 2017 to 1.99$ billion in 2022 (Statista, 2022) (See Appendix 1 Fig 1.1). So, this research aims assess their SMM strategy developemnt based on theoretical, to detect the well-developed and unwell-developed points and recommend some solutions to tackle the issues. Because the strategy development has closes relations with the effectiveness of SMM, which means ineffective SMM performance can be applied to query and criticize the development SMM strategy in order to identify unwell-developed aspects (Gimbert et al., 2010). So, it encourages the revision of the strategy.

<b>1.2. Overview about Research Subject: </b>

Leonardo, established in 2014, a B2C leather fashion and accessories company (See Appendix 1 Fig 1.2 for logo). Their mission is customers will be provided Vietnam

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leather products with high quality standards, various designs with perfect in smallest details at reasonable prices. Additionally, their vision is become one of the most favorite and popular brands in Vietnam fashion and accessories industry in the next ten years. So, the overall goals of Leonardo is enhancing the brand awareness to become popular with many people and build long-term relationship with them and increase revenue to have a solid foundation for growth.

They are retailer in Vietnam leather with four main categories, including shoes, bags, wallets, accessories like clutch, bring elegance, luxury vibes (See Appendix 1 Fig 1.3). They are really confident about high quality standards and give one-year warranty for most of their products. Their headquarters is in Ho Chi Minh city and currently, they using the brick-and-click model to selling products (Laudon & Traver, 2020), with nine physical stores in Hanoi, Vung Tau, Bien Hoa and in company‟s websites, Facebook, in many e-commerce platforms, like Shopee, Lazada, etc. Additionally, they use value-based pricing strategy (Kotler et al., 2018), because they offer reasonable price for high quality products that making from high quality standards leather from Vietnam and good post-purchase service like warranty. Finally, although they have traditional like print posters and digital marketing like search engine (SEO) in Google, their main focus is on SMM.

<b>1.3. Research Scope: </b>

The research scope will be SMM strategy in developing stage, the main marketing media of Leonardo in the current social network in Facebook and picture-sharing, video-sharing. This strategy is in functional-level, which shows how the components of an organization‟s effectively deliver the corporate strategies in term of people, resources,

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procedures. It involves making decisions, activities in functional-level that align to business strategy (Wheelen et al., 2018) and support company to reach overall goals.

<b>1.4. Research Contribution: </b>

This study is essential to support Leonardo in detecting the well and unwell-developed of their SMM strategy, by describing it and evalute it based on the assessment of people understand and know about it. Basing on those findings, Leonardo marketers could have suitable adjustments, modifications to enhance the effectivenes of their SMM strategy. Finally, although there are many researches of this issues in health industry, like Baptista et al. (2020) or in tourism industry (Kou, 2022), there are lack of research about this issue fashion industry for small Vietnamese companies. Thus, this study aims to fill this gap of knowledge and may provide valuable information for many small Vietnamese firms with similar size that may face similar issues.

<b>1.5. Research Ethics: </b>

This research will be compliance with the research regulations, ethics checklists of the university (See Appendix 4) and guarantee that the checklists for reserach ethics is followed. Moreover, the plagiarism issue will be avoided when referencing knowledge of previous studies, and the citation will follow the Havard Refence style.

<b>1.6. Research Structure: </b>

The research is based on academic sources, evidences collected and include five main parts. First is introduction chapter with general information of Leonardo, research problems and brief backgrounds of the research, research objectives, questions, ethic and structure. Second is the literature review to review previous research, studies

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about SMM. Third is methodology, showing the method to conduct this research. Fourthly, this chapter provides keys finding and analysis from data collected. Finally, conclusion for findings, discussion about finding results and suggest some recommendations for better Leonardo‟s SMM strategy

<b>1.7.Research Objectives:</b>

1. To critical review literature of SMM strategy.

2. To describe Leonardo‟s SMM strategy in planning stage.

3. To assess the well-developed and unwell-developed points in Leonardo SMM developed strategy.

4. To recommend solutions to solve the unwell-developed in Leonardo SMM strategy

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<b>2. Literature Reviews: 2.1. SMM: </b>

SMM is using SM as a medium for marketing activities (Li et al., 2020). Similarly, Laudon & Traver (2020) stated that it is based on online community to promote particular products and increase brand awareness. These viewpoints give concise introduction of SMM that SMM involves the use of SM to engage and attract visitors to brands. In Vietnam, SMM is leading in digital marketing for years, with many retail firms, at above 50% (Vietnam E-commerce Association, 2021) (See Appendix 1 Fig 2.1) for the effectiveness in reaching customers, increasing revenue. In the fashion industry, SMM has a vital role in targeting audiences by able to tracking demographic characteristics like age, gender, regions and behaviors through hashtags (Ananda et al., 2015), despite not everyone is using SM. Moreover, the popularity of SM leads to the increased number of fashion bloggers, who have high influence on many of their followers that has common sense by reviewing,

introducing products. They are likely a bridge to connect customers and brands (Ahmad et al., 2015).

SMM has many advantages, one of which is SMM helps firms to reach huge potential customers easily, since the number internet users has significantly grown from 24.35 million 2010 to 72.53 million in 2021 (See Appendix 1 Fig 2.2), accounts for about 86% of Vietnam population (Degenhard, 2021) and Vietnamese youth, who most favorable in fashion and accessory industry (Minh et al., 2022), take about 23% total population (Population Pyramid, 2022) (See Appendix 1Fig 2.3). Additionally, after the pandemic,

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many Vietnamese switch to online purchase (Pham et al., 2020), leads to about 53% Vietnam‟s firms use SMM (Vietnam E-commerce Association, 2021) in 2021 compared to about 30% in 2018 (Vietnam E-commerce Association, 2018), before the pandemic. Thus, SMM shows an important role in communicating with their audiences (Chambhare & Anute, 2022). Besides, SMM is a two-way communication (Taiminen & Karjaluoto, 2015), firms can interact with customers through their comments, which is helpful to improve product features (Falco & Kleinhans, 2018) and contributes to long-term relationship with customers. Moreover, customers can also communicate with their friends to spread brand information through comments, share… (Jacobson et al., 2020), showing merits in e Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) nature of SM (Kuo, 2022).

On the other hand, SMM was criticized for making brand image vulnerable, since news are easy go viral in SM (Arsath, 2018). So, negative comments will also be public to potential customers, making a complaint worse than low-quality products. For instance, in 2012, McDonald utilized a hashtag on Twitter called #McDStories that generated conversations, however they received many negative experiences like customers receiving raw meat, which hurts the brand. Besides, cybercrime may hack firms‟ or customer confidential data (Xia, 2013), which is a demerit when using SMM.

<b>2.2. SMM Tools: </b>

According to Chaffey & Smith (2017), SMM has many platforms, including: sharing, photo-sharing, podcasts, blogging, etc., however, the scope of this research is on social networks, video sharing and picture sharing in Facebook. Regarding social networks, this comprises social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, where firms attend, connect with individuals to establish a relationship, in which they can deepen engage on firm business website (Laudon & Traver, 2020), and in Vietnam

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video-there are 76.95 million SM users (Kemp, 2022). Social networks bring many potentials for easy to wide-spread (Dodson, 2016) thanks to the increased significantly of users. Thus, using it effectively allows firms‟ ads to go viral easily. For example, a Facebook user usually has about 20 friends with mutual communication. If one follower shares firm‟s posts in their feeds, the information can be widespread 20 times faster (Laudon & Traver, 2020), which enhances marketing performance. Furthermore, it is a popular marketing tool. Moreover, information sources of many Vietnamese are from their friends‟ Facebook (Q&Me Vietnam Market Research, 2017). However, it may challenge marketers, because many people usually use it to communicate with friends, family and dislike to be interrupted by advertising (Arsath, 2018). So, marketers should analyze target audiences‟ insights carefully before choosing it.

Concerning photo-sharing and video-sharing, it involves the use of images, videos and other multimedia contents with short captions (Chaffey & Smith, 2017) to build brand and reach audience (Abraham,2022). It is an advantage in spreading firms‟ promotions efficiency, since mostly video-sharing, photo-sharing sites are free or low cost (Laudon & Traver, 2020), which favorable for companies with limited budget. Additionally, visual contents are likely more engaging and entertaining, because the brain process visuals 60,000 times better than text (Vanichvasin, 2020), which boosts SMM effectiveness. Nevertheless, if not designed properly, these contents can be confusing for giving irrelevant messages, which may cause dramatically damage from misunderstanding. After understanding comprehensive about SMM, it is essential to notice that adopting SMM may not guarantee effective performance (Harris, 2019), since effective

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performance align with a well-developed SMM strategy (Thackeray et al., 2012). The following will mention about SMM key elements in planning stage.

<b>2.3. SMM Strategy: </b>

Kenneway & Rapple (2012), defined SMM strategy is a combined plan to reach firm‟s marketing objectives, their target market‟s needs by using SM capabilities. This definition is agreed by many researchers, like Nastišin (2016), Umunna (2021), Ananda et al. (2015) ... maybe because it highlights the essential of target market, firms‟ objectives, combining suitable technology and strategic competencies. As in research scope,

SMM strategy development will be mentioned, it is a crucial stage that can affect the effective of SMM. It refers to how firms plan the forces before actions, which objectives to prioritize, although this stage is primarily intellectual (David & David, 2017). Fashion brands usually need a well-developed SMM strategy to effectively obtain growth in social platforms (Wu et al., 2020), because it helps firms to clarify how they becoming more sustainable, understand changing consumer demands through feedback, comments

and shows products visually. and shows products visually. Additionally, developing a strategy is a thoughtful, planned process to develop companies‟ competitive advantages (Gimbert et al., 2010). So, a well-planned strategy enables firms to spread in a clear direction, leads to effective performance. However, strategically using SMM is complexity (Lockett, 2018), because it involves analyzing the target audiences, develop the strategy

and choose suitable SM platforms to achieve goals, measure its effectiveness. So, the workload may be overwhelming with staff

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<b>4. Key Elements of SMM strategy in Devloping Stage: </b>

Li & Bernoff (2011) identified four key elements their POST framework in planning stage for SMM strategy in various social platforms, including people, objective, strategy, technology. So, the author will base on this model to be able to describe compressively SMM strategy of research subject and understand which element is formulated unfavorably. Moreover, although Effing & Spil (2016) elements of SMM strategies

including target audiences, channel choice, goals, resources, policies, monitoring, content activities, are not chosen, since it is not concise and prioritize the essential of business, which is customers (Gray, 2008). This framework obtained many agreements. Firstly, these elements have been widely used in many studies, books and acknowledged for its effective in organizational results in various SM platforms (Singh, 2013; Chaffey & Smith, 2017; Maarouf-Dafali, 2022), maybe because when prioritize target audiences, firms may dig deeply into their insight to plan suitable contents for them, which may enhance the interaction. Secondly, it is considered to be one of the simplest models

(Perdue, 2010), since these key elements is concisely covered the target customer, goals, strategy and means to achieves it. Thirdly, Thackeray et al. (2012) agreed that it provides great checklists for a well-developed SMM strategy, because these elements considering the important aspect that firms must consider to strategically use SMM, which helps firms to exploit the potential of SMM more effectively. However, there are some disagreements with this model, DiStaso & McCorkindale (2012) claimed that POST model is costly and time consuming, since prioritize target audiences requires deep research to

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understand target audiences‟ insight, like through online market research, click-stream data in SM (Laudon & Traver, 2020), which needs lot of resources and time. Besides, it is also criticized for not comprehensive cover other stakeholders into their strategy

(Chikandiwa et al., 2013), like shareholders or competitors, communities (Wheelen et al., 2018). So, it might risky because stakeholders are who can affect SMM activities. For instance, in SMM, online communities are the important information sources with many people before buying products (Laudon & Traver, 2020) by forming reviews, comparison products (Kotler et al., 2018).

<b>2.4.1. People </b>

For people, it refers to segments of target audiences (Li & Bernoff, 2011). In SMM, the segments likely toward demographic like occupation, gender, income, age for young, middle and psychological like social class, lifestyle,...(Thackeray et al., 2012). Because not everyone uses SM (Maarouf-Dafali, 2022). For example, laggard groups usually include elderly with low SM active that only adopt technology when forced to (Hawkins & Motherbaugh, 2013). So, it is important to determine whether they use SM and clarify them from the beginning to clearer the method to approach, like designing contents, avoid irrelevant contents for unclear targeting or target wrong groups (Muller & Peres, 2019).

Moreover, This affect SMM strategy in deciding which platforms is suitable, based on what target audiences use most (Li & Bernoff, 2011), like in Vietnam, B2C firms usually use Facebook, Instagram and B2B usually toward LinkedIn. Moreover, communication style is also included (Li & Bernoff, 2011), since each group are attracted by unique communication style, like a fun, trendy vibe may fit young people, not for businesses (Singh, 2013). So, developing a proper vibe with target audiences might impact how

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attraction it is with target audiences. In fashion industry, especially with small companies, the target audiences usually their current target markets, they are less likely expand the target audiences. Additionally, the popular target is young and millennials (Quiles-Soler et al., 2023; Samala & Katkam, 2020). In Vietnam, many fashion and accessories target on young audiences through posting about trendy contents, like modify trendy quotes to fit with companies‟ products. Targeting the right audience avoid wasting money (Cook et al., 2021), by emphasizing on that targeted groups rather than wide range in SM,

which increase the efficiency. Moreover, customers‟ data boosts success because managers can focus on specific customer needs, insights (Perdue, 2010), which is helpful in adjusting suitable content, modifying products features. However, it challenges for time

consuming and costly to analyze target audiences‟ insight deeply (Chikandiwa et al., 2013), like through market research, observation, etc. Besides, if adopt wrong social platforms that audiences use, it may affect the irrelevant medium to communicate (Cook et al., 2021).

<b>2.4.2. Objectives: </b>

For objectives, it refers to SMM short-term, long-term goals of what they want to achieve from SMM campaigns (Li & Bernoff, 2011). So, to be well-developed, those goals should be measurable to provide specificalized for staffs (Perdue, 2010). Furthermore, objectives are essential direction of SMM strategy. So, setting SMM goals that do not align with overall goals may lead to ineffective performance (Singh, 2013), because SMM is in functional-level and it must congruence with corporate-level, business-level strategies and overall goals (Johnson et al., 2017). Furthermore, setting

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unrealistic or unachievable or setting too many goals (Wheelen et al., 2018), maybe because firms‟ ambitious

is too high, which may cause ineffective results for not able to handle. For fashion firms‟, since competition are tending to be fierce (Chin et al., 2019), they usually aim to boost consumer engagement and brand recognition (Agnihotri, 2020). Because consumers usually choose well-known businesses and loyal to brands that they follow in SM.

Setting goals brings many advantages, including helping firms formulate clear destinations (Stieger et al., 2012), although it may create pressure if setting with lack of communication between managers and employees. Besides, if it is well-developed, it may motivate employees, because it is likely a way for managers show their expectations with employees (Johnson et al., 2017). Nevertheless, it requires much time and money to set measurable and realistic goals (Laudon & Traver, 2020).

<b>2.4.3. Strategy: </b>

For strategy, it refers to the method to achieve objectives by allocating their resources like money, human, machines, etc. (Thackeray et al., 2012), like the budget for SMM, how many staffs to handle...

Additionally, it refers to what value do firms offer to their target customers (Li & Bernoff, 2011). Specifically, it is about how companies building relation with customers and how they combine promotion tools, like direct marketing, public relations, sales promotions (Kotler et al., 2018). Many Vietnam fashion and accessories companies use promotions and posting customers feedbacks for SMM, some also give exclusive promotions for their top fans or for customers that using their hashtag, check-in their stores to motivate more engagement. Consequently, it reflects the meaningful, reasonable benefits for customers when connect with firms, because this may decide the encourage or

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discourage of customers to engage with firms. Besides, it also refers to how firm react to negative feedbacks (Thackeray et al., 2012), which means to well-developed SMM strategy, it includes planning in advance how to deal with dissatisfactions customers, negative feedbacks. This factor is essential, since it shows how companies treat their customers. Although some Vietnam fashion and accessories companies have planned well for these situations, like asking privately the customers what their issues are and explain what company can do to solve it, some still have lack of strategy for it and easy go viral in negative way for how they treat customers.

Having a well-developed strategy benefit firms in providing a clear vision of what to do first (Wheelen et al., 2018), which is helpful in reaching goals more systematically and strategically. For instance, many fashion stores set SMM goals as increasing brand awareness and revenue generation may utilize eWOM in SM by encouraging audiences to like, share, tag friends, and engage on firms‟ fan pages to receive exclusive promotions, which boosts brand awareness and sales. Moreover, if strategy is formed well, it helps firms to gain a competitive edge, by highlighting how their brand and offerings are better. However, this stage is demerits for likely the general intentions (Gray, 2022), instead of specific like implementation.

<b>2.4.4. Technology: </b>

For technology, firms decide the fits platforms to reflect themselves in all social networks they use by being transparently and informing target audiences of firm‟s identity, like clarifying logo, vision, mission to strengthens brand awareness, customer connection (Thackeray et al., 2012). Moreover, it is important to well-developed suitable measurement metrics (Li & Bernoff, 2011) to avoid looking into wrong metrics, which affects the SMM performance evaluation. For example, Silva et al. (2019) found that

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number of followers, views, sales are most popular metrics with retail firms. Additionally, well-developed this factor by integrating with many SM platforms, may increase the effective for communication because firms‟ ads can reach enormous potential customers expand online presence communicate directly to solve customers‟ queries, dissatisfaction, in-time and using single platform is hard to gain best result, since it limits firm in expanding the reach to potential customers (Weinberg, 2009). Finally, since SM has many features, firms should be aware of its purpose to effectively exploit it. Namely, live-stream, direct message can encourage affect customer engagement (Laudon & Traver, 2020).

Moreover, other features may also helpful, like Facebook have in-stream videos that allows ads appear in-video or ads on reels, SEO, etc. that can wide-spread ads. In Vietnam, many fashion and accessories companies use live-stream, in-video ads to approach customers, while others create online group to impact on customers‟ purchase intend by allowing them to communicate with others, sharing their feedbacks, and control contents as administrator of that groups.

Well-developed SM tactics are merits in spreading brand information, because of the viral, wide-spread and popular of SM (Stieger et al., 2012), which easy to attract audiences with common sense and clarify their vision. Furthermore, planning this factor properly can help firms‟ in researching demands, insight customers‟ easily, like through online

survey, their comments, which enhance the SMM performance. For instance, many fashion companies witnessed sale increase when selling variety product sizes after receiving many comments about customers‟ dissatisfactions when they cannot find a fit

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item, just because they are bigger than normal or a transgender. However, chasing technology may require much effort, since technology changes dramatically (Perdue, 2010), which challenges firms with limited budget. Moreover, since the reliability of customers‟ comments, feedback may hard to define in SM, it challenges firm in researching market, improving products, etc. In fashion industry, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, etc. are the popular medium for SMM and using photo-sharing, video-sharing, live-stream to communicate with customers (Madhura et al., 2022).

However, for this research, because the research scope is on Facebook, so it will be mentioned. Facebook is leading in the popularity of SM in Vietnam, as of 2022, Facebook has 2.93 billion users, included 70.4 million in Vietnam (Kemp, 2022). Facebook offers free and paid promotions. Facebook can suggest, design a suitable ads based on

companies‟ objectives by asking their goals before using Facebook ads (Meta, 2023). Companies can select their audiences‟ segments and placements to run ads, including stories, feed, marketplace, search, reels, ... It also has a button for audiences to contact firms directly via calls, texts, or mail. Finally, Facebook provide analytics for firms to measure SMM performance (Laudon & Traver, 2020), which is helpful for decision-making, understand the trends, ...

<b>2.5. Research Gap: </b>

In the past, many researchers paid attention to how companies develop SMM strategy and assess it. Namely, Öztamurbrahim & Karakadılar (2014) found that in fashion industry, using formal communication results in less attracted contents. Additionally, small and medium with lack of engagement to target audiences, not strategically use SMM

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tools, leads to ineffective to meet business‟ needs. Recently, this aspect has been analyzed deeper by many researchers since SMM is becoming more importance with companies. Specifically, researchers analyze deeper into firms‟ viewpoints about important factors with effective SMM performance, like Faraoni et al. (2017) found that small companies tend to underrate monitoring, content-planning activities than large and medium ones. Moreover, many authors emphasize how companies develop effective SMM strategy. Specifically, Chen (2017) concluded that concentration on brand identity in SMM strategy development relate favorably to SMM strategy performance. Furthermore, Lockett (2018), Jordan (2018), Harris (2019) studied factors affects the effective online marketing, SMM strategy development are target market, suitable technology platforms, control-planning contents activities, which provides insights for companies, while Umunna (2021) found that well-planned in communication with customers, integrating with many SM platforms and have significant budget for SMM strategy are favorable for its successful. Moreover, Agrawal & Trivedi (2021) found that Facebook, YouTube, Twitter are most popular social sites for SMM and people from 18-29, 30-49 using SM most.

Besides, some also research on factors that can be mistaken when developing SMM strategy. Namely, Cook et al. (2021) found that inadequate research, like using inappropriate promotion tools with target audiences, unwell-developed SMM strategy, like setting unclear or too many SMM goals, mismanagement is popular mistake of many

marketers. Moreover, Tien et al. (2020) analyzed deeper by comparing digital marketing strategy, including SMM of GUMAC and HNOSS, Vietnam fashion companies, and

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concluded that frequently posting, promoting on various sites and use many features,… are factors for successful SMM.

After analyzing previous studies, it shows that many SMM strategy are lack of empirical research for small companies in Vietnam, which create a gap for research because SMM strategy developed may be different from firms in other regions.

<b>2.6. Conceptual Framework: </b>

<b>Fig 2.4: The conceptual framework </b>

This conceptual framework is referenced from Li & Bernoff (2011) POST model to review comprehensively how company develop SMM strategy, it illustrates key elements of SMM strategy in planning stage, including detecting the target audiences, objectives for SMM campaigns, method to achieve it and through which SM platforms.

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<b>3. Methodology: </b>

The methodology is essential in a research to research knowledge and research onion is to be more systematically.

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<b>Fig 3: Research onion by Saunders et al. (2012) </b>

Specifically, research onion, introduced by Saunders et al., (2009), demonstrates the steps for research strategy, including six layers: research philosophies, approaches, stratgy, choices, time horizon, techniques and procedure. This is likely a helpful checklist for having a systematically methodology (Melnikovas, 2018), avoid uneventfully cover.

<b>1. Research Philosophies </b>

Research philosophy is a set of beliefs about reality being examined (Saunders et al., 2009) or a knowledge foundation. So choosing the suitable philosophy is the effective ways to achieve goals (Blackwell, 2018) and outlines the guide for research design, data collection, …

Epistemology relates to what forms acceptable knowledge in a discipline (Saunders et al., 2009). Specifically, it is how researchers know truth (Blackwell, 2018). Thus, epistemology concentrates on how researchers discover the knowledge through an awareness, a familiarity of certain aspect and learning how the knowledge is gained or

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the understanding of something. Additionally, it also affects how an author views the world and how they decide right and wrong (Berryman, 2019), which reflects how author knows about the world around them. Epistemology includes positivism, realism and interpretivism (Saunders et al., 2009).

For positivism, in epistemology worldview, positivism concentrates on observable and measurable facts or regularities, like natural sciences, physical to give real knowledge, which collects from quantitative data, towards the reliable and objective data. So, the sample size must be big to have objective assumption. Moreover, by using positivism, researchers usually move toward the law-life generalization, which contributes to the knowledge as causal explanation or predictions (Blackwell, 2018).

This philosophy has the advantage in providing objective reality (Class et al., 2021), because research will rely on theory to test data over a large sample size. Thus, this may make the assumptions more trustworthy and toward scientific. Moreover, it enables authors to make generalization assumptions maybe about the foreseen trends, since it is based on large sample size. However, since positivism requires researchers to describe the factual knowledge they collected and limited to data collection (Irishaidat, 2019), which criticizes for likely toward descriptive data and not having in-depth assumptions of why that happen. For instance, Mason et al., 2021 give factual knowledge about the impact of pandemic on SMM behaviors in India from the observation with 313 Indian consumers, which excludes researchers‟ interpretation of observation results. Besides, incorrect scientific data may occur, since respondents may give meaningless response rather than an honest one (Saunders et al., 2009), which affect results.

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For interpretivism, it is more concerned with context-specific variables and factors (Alharahsheh & Pius, 2020) and from epistemology worldview, human interest might be integrated to the research (Ryba et al., 2022). Consequently, knowledge is depending on beliefs, values and experiences from subjective viewpoints, towards the

interpretations, which suitable with the research objectives is to have the in-depth knowledge of well and unwell-developed points of Leonardo‟s SMM strategy.

This philosophy has advantages in allowing researchers to understand the uniqueness of social contexts, interpersonal dynamics (Saunders et al., 2009), because it appreciates the differences among interviewees, which enhances the details of understanding. Besides, it towards in- depth knowledge (Ryba et al., 2022), since interpretivism is likely prior the qualitative method more than quantitative data about what is the issues and why it happens. For instance, many interpreting studies use qualitative data to understand the reasons from their viewpoints, rather than using the standards to understand the issues. So, it is helpful to comprehensively interpret research problems, deeper than the positivism. Nevertheless, interpretivism has subjective nature (Berryman, 2019), because the data can be affected by personal perspectives and values, which may affect negatively to the reliability of studies. For example, Ponelis (2015) studied the development of conceptual and theoretical model of case study method from the authors‟ experiences.

For critical realism, it involves critical analysis (Ryba et al., 2022), the conclusions are formed from the reality and have evidence that its contents exist.

It has merits in emphasizing reality knowledge (Lawani, 2021), because it has critical approach to data, which means it argues about the reliability in certain situations before

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coming to assumptions, which towards scientific research. Moreover, although this philosophy may lead to misinterpretation for emphasizing immediate reality, it concentrates on explaining reality, contexts, by relying on reality and knowledge (Saunders et al., 2009). For example, Byers et al.,2018 use it to research the impact of the pandemic on sport governance to explain the sports‟ administrator responses and value system.

In sum, although positivism enhance the objectivity to research, it restricted researchers to analyze data deeply, researching results like interpretivism, which provides lack of depth conclusions for research problems, which are the ineffectiveness of SMM in Leonardo company. Moreover, critical realism is not emphasized on interpreting data from

the viewpoints of involved respondents to research subjects like in interpretivism, which may not cover comprehensively for the conclusions. Thus, interpretivism will be chosen from epistemology‟s perspective perceived knowledge and concentrate on stories, perceptions and interpretation (Berryman, 2019), which is helpful to interpretation Leonardo‟s SMM strategy and its well, unwell-developed points.

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Deductive approach has merits by allowing generalization assumptions, since this approach requires data collected on large sample size (Proudfoot, 2022). Additionally, it is objective since it develops assumption based on theory and does not rely on biases or subjective opinion (Saunders et al., 2009). However, it is not effective in finding or exploring new knowledge, because its conclusion relies on existing theory to collect, test data (Woiceshyn & Daellenbach, 2018). Additionally, it may take time to test all the possible hypotheses with large sample size (Proudfoot, 2022).

By contrast, inductive approach from specific authors‟ observation to the reach the general theory (Saunders et al., 2009). Specifically, it develops the authors‟ observations about the specific areas or phenomena to developing theories (Foroni et al., 2022), which is likely more subjective. This approach is useful in discovering new information, since it does not rely on existing knowledge to test theory like deductive (Proudfoot, 2022). Moreover, it is flexible for not following strictly the theory to give conclusion like deductive approach (Janiszewski & Osselaer, 2022). However, because it is developed from authors‟ observation (Eger & Hjerm, 2021). So, if the observation is inaccurate, it leads to incorrect conclusions. Nevertheless, after analyzing, the above approaches may not suitable since the research aims to find the possible interpretations for the favourable and unfavorable of current Leonardo‟s SMM strategy with company‟s employees and survey with people with knowledge about it to gain valuable knowledge. So, it is likely toward abductive approach to understand comprehensively the research problem rather than deductive that based on theory to test data or inductive going from general observation to develop theory.

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Abduction refers to the discovery of surprising facts and then develops a plausible explanation for how this could have occurred (Saunders et al., 2012), which starts from the incomplete observations or suspicion research for evidences to concluded best interpretations. So, the data collection toward the exploration of phenomenon to identify themes and patterns (Rashid et al., 2019).

This approach has many advantages, including the obtain of detailed and rich data, because researchers may go deeper into a research problem, and able to combine new and old data sources to explains (Saunders et al., 2012). Besides, abduction is widely approach among companies and researchers when studying practical problems in case studies (Rashid et al., 2019) because in these studies usually conduct from observation at current time rather than deduction, which may hard to find the theory to base on. However, it may be subjective for depending on intuition and subjective judgment to find possible explains for authors‟ observation. Additionally, since it starts from an incomplete observation of authors and toward explains for that observation, which may hard to find the truth like deduction.

<b>3. Research Strategies: </b>

Although there are many research strategies like experiments, grounded theory, ethnography, action research, survey, case study (Saunders et al., 2009), case study is applied because this research is based on the in-depth data to analyze the favorable and unfavorable of Leonardo SMM strategy. This method is referenced from Tien et al. (2020) researched about factors in online marketing that effective for sales boost, brand promotion using the case study of GUMAC and HNOSS, which is similar to the objective of this research. Although others using survey, like Faraoni et al. (2017) to study fashion

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companies‟ perception toward SMM strategy with 42 Italy companies, which are unsuitable because they likely give generalizations conclusion for fashion industry rather than researched deeper into company‟s cases.

Specifically, case study aims to study about a phenomenon in reality, which means it focuses on single person or group, event (Bell & Warren, 2022), to bring deep knowledge about the situations and helps to give practical solutions. This strategy is helpful in capturing details situations of reality (Kothari, 2004) since it focuses on a single subject, which provides richer, deeper data collection of contexts. Besides, this is useful to detect hypothesis for future studies (Köhler et al., 2022), because it relies on reality to develop theory. However, it may hard to give generalizations conclusions (Kothari, 2004), because it emphasizes on single subject, which hard to find similar cases with similar data. Furthermore, it may be risky in subjective viewpoints, because apart from participants, researchers‟ opinions can also influence the conclusions (Cohen et al., 2007).

<b>4. Research choices: </b>

Although there are three research choices, including mono, mixed, multi methods, this research applies the mixed method to understand an idea in-depth, lowering the subjectivity from data gained through interviews. Namely, mixed methods research uses quantitative and qualitative data to address research issues (Dawadi et al., 2021), which gives a fuller picture than using a single method because it permits authors to overcome the drawbacks of each approach when used alone. The specific method used will be mentioned in the techniques of collecting data. This method brings advantages in combining the competencies of both methods (Cohen et al., 2007), because by utilizing both methods, qualitative data will provide comprehensive and contextualized data, and

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quantitative will reflect externally valid data, which will enhance the understanding of the topic, research problem. Moreover, it improves the flexibility of research since integrating the elements of both methods may enable researchers to combine aspects of various studies to create a research design that produces the most insightful results. Nevertheless, this choice has some demerits, including the complexity for the author (Saunders et al., 2009), since integrating both data sources can produce a great amount of information that needs to be classified, categories data to answer the research questions, which may be difficult to conceive and implement. Furthermore, using mixed

methods require high skills from researchers (Cohen et al., 2007) to learn and be able to apply different methods and approaches and how to mix them, which may lead to conflicting results if used inappropriately.

<b>5. Time Horizon </b>

For research timeframe, there are two major types, including cross sectional and longitudinal (Saunders et al., 2009). For this research, with the research problems toward SMM strategy of Leonardo company, cross-sectional is adopted to study a snapshot of the developed SMM strategy through staffs, managers.

Specifically, cross-sectional is the study of a certain phenomenon at a specific time (Melnikovas, 2018). Thus, it is towards the descriptive research that provide the snapshot time frame for research. Cross-sectional has some advantages, including the ability to gather data rapidly (Setia, 2018), because the time and reach are limited within a planned boundary of time, not an observation over a period like longitudinal. Additionally, since the data is collected within a specific time, it enhances the details,

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descriptions for the data in the points it occurs, which allows researchers to give useful solutions (Saunders et al., 2009). Nevertheless, since this provides the snapshot time frame in a period, it is not ensured to be representative (Setia, 2018), which hard to study and reveals the changes and develops through time, like the shift of many Vietnam companies from traditional to digital marketing.

<b>6. Techniques and procedures: </b>

This consists of choosing the types of data to research and the collection method to collect, which is important since the data is regarded as the core of the research onion framework (Saunders et al., 2009). Typically, it includes four steps. Firstly, defining research goals.

Secondly, choosing data like primary or secondary and data collect method through quantitative or qualitative. In this research, primary data will be used as the main data to research, to have updated, accurate data and ensure the high relevance of information to achieve research goals in term of contents and forms. Moreover, secondary data may be applied if needed. Specifically, primary data is the first-hand information or pure data collected by researchers, not through other authors, which includes interviews that gathered specifically for research plan (Kotler et al., 2018).

This benefit researcher because the data is updated because it not collected or used by other person before, which enhances the validity for data. Additionally, the data will be kept more confidential by the authors (Lowry, 2015), since it has not ever been publicized, which merits for researchers since they have unique data to give unique conclusions and for research subjects in case, they want to keep some data privately. Furthermore, researchers may have more understanding over data (Cohen et al., 2007),

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since the interviews questions can be tailored to reach research goals. However, this takes much time (Saunders et al., 2009), since the researchers have to collect data, contact with respondents, interviewees from raw sources. Moreover, it may costly (Kotler et al., 2018), since the researchers must conduct the data collection process from the beginning.

For secondary data, the author will use company report, market research, etc. to illustrate in the findings. Secondary data refers to the data that already exists somewhere, having been collected for other purposes (Kotler et al., 2018). This data has many values, including the speed (Smith, 2008), which means it is time-effective because it is already collected. Besides, authors may find new gaps by re-analyzing secondary data (Cohen et al., 2007), which helpful to give conclusions. Nevertheless, since secondary data is collected for different purpose, the data forms have not tailored to current research goals (Kalu et al., 2018), which raises questionings about the irrelevance of data. Additionally, it may be questioned for the accuracy and impartial (Kotler et al., 2018), since it is already collected previously.

Thirdly, in data collection planning, to gain knowledge how company developing their SMM strategy and able to describe it, qualitative method will be applied through interviews. Additionally, to be able to assess the well-developed and unwell-developed factors of this SMM strategy, author will survey people in the company, who have deep understanding or know about this strategy. Then, the author will mismatch survey and interview data to validate the findings, which means the interview data will describe SMM strategy and survey data to reflect respondents‟ assessments more clearly and reach research objectives.

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Firstly, about the interview, the author interviews 5 people in Leonardo marketing team, who involving in the developing stage and understanding about their SMM strategy through semi-structured interviews face-to-face and via phone for interviewees in business trip. The interview will be conducted in Vietnamese as their requirements (See 2 Appendix for interview part). Because using semi-structure, the order of questions may change. This method is referenced from Jordan (2018) interviews 5 small firms‟ entrepreneurs to explore their well-developed SMM strategies, which similar this research in gaining insight data, understand deeper the research problems.

Namely, semi-structured interviews allow researchers to ask participants open-ended questions to learn more about the issues (DeJonckheere & Vaughn, 2019). This is a hybrid between structured and unstructured interviews (Saunders et al., 2009), because it allows researchers to use non-standard questions to dig deeper into the knowledge from interviewees viewpoints but follows a list of themes that need to be interviewed to ensure the direction of the interviews and reduce bias that may occur. So, in this case, semi-structured is applied to capture depth data about the Leonardo SMM strategy comprehensively from interviewees experiences, attitude, perceptions to analyze the effectiveness, which aims to deal with second research. This technique benefit researcher from the enrich of qualitative data (DeJonckheere & Vaughn, 2019), because researchers can collect more details data from the perspective of experts, experiences in the industry are collected, which may help researcher understand the issues comprehensively. Moreover, it is likely flexible than structured interviews (Kallio et al., 2016), because it allows interviewees to answers differently for having non-standard questions, which not follows strict orders. Thus, it may motivate interviewees

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to give more valuable data. However, since open-ended questions are involved, it takes time to analyze the answers, because it not follows any standards like structured interviews (Saunders et al., 2009). Besides, the honesty of interviewees may hard to ensure, this affect the accurately of conclusions because the conclusions is captured through interviewees responses (Morgan, 2022).

Secondly, quantitative method will also be applied through survey, aims to deal with the last two research objectives, with sample size N=96 (See Appendix 3 for questionnaires). The population will people from marketing, business, accounting departments that have deep understand or know about Leonardo‟s SMM strategy, to gain valuable evaluation of them about Leonardo SMM strategy. The first two question aims to find background information of respondents. The next sixteen questions go detail into which factors of SMM strategy is well-developed and which are not, by giving statement and asking them to choose agree or disagree in Likert scale. The last two question asking them what is the most challenge factor that need to modify in urgent and give their recommendations.

Specifically, survey is the utilization of standardized questions to collect statistical data on a population's opinions (Taherdoost, 2009). It has many advantages because the questionnaires are simple to answer (South et al., 2022), since Likert technique allows respondents to answer on a scale rather than yes, no or typing their answers. Consequently, it improves response rates, suitable with the respondents in this research because they are mainly business man with limited time. Besides, it brings valuable for descriptive research (Saunders et al., 2009), because it allows researchers to be objective by collecting statistical data from sample size, to reflect the reliability of final

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