Impact of social media on the marketing of event management 1

Impact of social media on the marketing of event management

 Impact of social media on the marketing of event management 2

Introduction
Background of the research
The use of social media has been increasing considerably in the marketing of events. It is due to
the fact that the customers of today's world are more active on social media as compared to the
traditional media. Moreover, it is also convenient for the marketer to reach the customers with
the help of social media platform. Social media marketing has proven to be a great tool in
enhancing the customer base of the organization and facilitate the success of the company in the
cutthroat competition of today's world. The social media platforms that are widely used in the
marketing of events include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Whatsapp, Pinterest and
LinkedIn (Hudson & Hudson, 2013). Thus, connectivity and networking play a great role in the
marketing of events through social media. The dispersion of information related to the event is
also easy by using these platforms.

Research aim
The aim of the research is to analyze the impact of social media on the marketing of event
management.
Research objective
The objectives of the research are as follows:
 To understand the types of event that gets affected through social media
 To analyze the social media platforms that have an impact on the marketing of event
management
 To evaluate how social media can impact the marketing of events

Research question
 Describe the types of events that get impacted due to social media?
 What are the social media platforms that have an impact on the marketing of event
management?
 How social media can significantly impact the marketing of event management?
 Impact of social media on the marketing of event management 3

Rationale of the research

It is evident that the use of social media by both organizations and customers is increasing day
by day (Page & Connell, 2014). Therefore, the research is of great significance as it will help to
analyze how customers are getting influenced through this platform. Moreover, the kinds of
event in which this platform is used will also be analyzed in the research. The research work will
prove to be helpful for all those stakeholders who are involved in event marketing and event
management. It will provide a rationale for the use of social media by event marketers.

Literature Review
In the words of Alalwan, Rana, Dwivedi, & Algharabat (2017), the trend of social media
marketing platforms is increasing consistently for business purpose and other purposes. The aim
of the study is to understand the use of social media marketing by analyzing existing literature.
The work is found to be relevant for the research study as it sheds light on a crucial aspect which
is social media marketing platforms. In order to identify and evaluate the main themes of the
topic, approximately 144 articles have been studied and evaluated. In the study, social media is
defined as a platform that can be used to broadcast the information to more and more people and
influence them according to the requirements. It has also been identified that social media
platforms are quite influential for electronic word of mouth. Almost 92 per cent studies have
reported that electronic word of mouth through social media is more influential as compared to
the traditional word of mouth process. Organizations in the worldwide scenario have also
considered social media platforms as more effective for better customer experience and customer
relationship management. 93 per cent of studies has also shown that brand awareness increases
with the help of these platforms. However, customers' perception and behavior for the utilization
of social media tools in the marketing of brands is still in question and needs to be studied in
further studies.

A similar research work provided by Filo, Lock, & Karg (2015), studies the impact of social
media on the marketing of sports event. However, the paper is more specific as compared to the
other paper in terms of understanding the impact on a particular sector. 70 articles have been
examined in this respect. Three categories of using social media platforms have been identified
which are operational, strategic and user-focused. The findings of the report show that social
 Impact of social media on the marketing of event management 4

media plays a significant role in cultivating a good relationship between brands and individuals.
Moreover, alignment with sports activities also increased with the help of this platform. Social
media platforms help to improve interaction and engagement which in turn helps to enhance the
impact of marketing. The two limitations that are identified for this research work include the use
of only those articles which are published in English language only and filtering only those
papers which study about sports events. The paper provides future direction for further studies in
regards to the integration of traditional communication media with social media marketing and
the use of strategic social media marketing. The rationale behind using this paper is its capability
to help finding the answers to the research.

A supporting study given by Adamopoulos & Todri (2015), state that social media platform has
proven to be quite effective for the marketing of different types of events. The work is, however,
somehow different from the other paper as it does not focus on a single event and gives
comprehensive findings for various types of events. A real-world data set and promising research
have been conducted for this work. It is found that promotional events on social media leverage
explicit and implicit advocacy for the promotional brands and shows significantly abnormal
returns in terms of increased fan base and promotion. Moreover, it has also been analyzed that
the combination of social media marketing strategies with featured enabling implicit and explicit
advocacy proves to be quite effective in the addition of new followers for the respective brands.
Brands with already large customer base have more advantages for the use of social media
platforms. The study shows the significance of Twitter for promotion of events. The limitation of
the work can be understood in terms of selection of a narrow window of events and consideration
of only Twitter as the social media platform for marketing.

A contrasting paper provided by Batrinca & Treleaven (2015), shows the social media platforms,
tools and techniques that are used in the modern times for the purpose of marketing. It is found
that Twitter, Facebook, chat services, my space, corporate websites and blogs are of great help
for the marketing of business and events. The paper is of great importance of the research work
because it answers the research question regarding the type of social media platforms that can be
used for the marketing of events. The keywords that are used in the paper are social media,
software platforms, opinion mining, toolkits and scrapping.
 Impact of social media on the marketing of event management 5

The paper given by Zeng & Gerritsen (2014), reflects the impact of use of social media in
tourism sector. It has been found that social media plays a great role in understanding the
decision-making behavior of people in the tourism sector. It has proven to be an effective
strategy to leverage social media for the marketing of the products in the tourism sector. The aim
of the work is to study the papers that throw light on the use of social media platforms in
marketing of tourism events. A comprehensive literature review has been conducted for this
purpose. It is found that social media has fundamentally changed the way travellers and
stakeholders search information for tourism industry. It is also found research work on the
impact of social media in this sector is still in its infancy.

Research Methodology and data analysis

Introduction
Research methodology gives an overview of the direction in which the overall research work will
move. It shows how the research work will be conducted and the different methods that will be
adopted. A short description regarding the research philosophy, research design, data collection
method, sample size, sampling technique, research instrument, data analysis strategies and
ethical considerations will be provided (Walliman, 2017).

Research philosophy
Research philosophy is a belief that shows how the research work will proceed and what are the
steps that will be undertaken in this direction. The main focus of this concept lies with the
determination of data collection and data analysis methods and techniques. Research philosophy
helps in the alignment of the entire research work and thus, it is considered as the foundation of
the process. The main three types of research philosophy include positivism, realism and
interpretivism. Positivism philosophy will be used for this research as it will be helpful to suffice
the requirements of quantitative data collection and analysis (Edson, Henning, & Sankaran,
2016). Whenever quantitative methods are used in the research work, positivism philosophy
proves to be of great help.
 Impact of social media on the marketing of event management 6

Research approach
The selection of the research approach is based on the type of research philosophy which will be
considered in the study. Research approach is a more detailed plan and process which provides
considerable insight into the important steps of the work. Research approach is categorized into
two different types which include approach for data collection part and approach for data
analysis part. The three significant research approaches involve inductive, deductive and
abductive research approaches. Each type of research approach is considered in different kinds of
research. This research work will inculcate the use of deductive approach for data collection and
data analysis. Deductive approach is chosen when the data will be taken from a general point of
view to a specific point of view (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016). This approach is most suitable here
depending on the data collection and data analysis strategies.

Research design
Research design sheds light on the set of processes and methods that will be followed in the
study for different purposes like data collection and data analysis. It is considered to be an
agenda that includes the techniques and approaches which are important to combine various
components of the work in a logical manner. Thus, it is of great significance to achieve the
objectives of the study in a successful and efficient manner. It acts as a framework that can be
used while conducting the market research which will also be helpful in the further steps of the
work. The significant research designs include exploratory research, descriptive research and
experimental or casual research. Descriptive research design will be the most suitable research
design for this work as it involves data collection in the form of a survey questionnaire (Sekaran
& Bougie, 2016). As the work will comprise primary data collection, this method will be
noteworthy to provide a positive perception of the work.

Data collection
Two types of data collection methods are used popularly which include primary data collection
method and secondary data collection method. Mixed data collection method is also used
sometimes in which data can be collected with the help of both primary and secondary data
collection method. This work will involve primary data collection method. The research requires
collection of fresh and first-hand data and thus, this method will prove to be the most appropriate
 Impact of social media on the marketing of event management 7

data collection method (Edson, Henning, & Sankaran, 2016). This method is assumed to be more
costly and time-consuming as compared to the secondary data collection method.

Research instrument
Research instrument is the tool which is used for the purpose of data collection. The several tools
that are involved for primary data collection method are survey questionnaire, interview,
brainstorming, focus group, observation and so on. The term instrument here signifies a device
which is used to collect and measure data. Survey questionnaire is the research instrument which
will be used in the study. It will involve online survey forms that will be provided to the target
population through e-mail or any other suitable mode (Walliman, 2017). It will include ten
questions related to the topic so that the answers for the research questions can be gained
effectively.

Sample size and technique

Sample size is the number of people whom we include in our study out of the entire available
population. In the ideal condition, sample acts as a representation of the population’s
characteristics. The sample size that will be considered sufficient for data collection purpose is
100 in which event management companies and event planners will be involved. Furthermore,
there is a variety of sampling techniques that can be used for the research work but the selection
of the most appropriate technique depends on the requirement of the study. The two common
types of sampling technique are probability sampling and non-probability sampling (Meyers,
Gamst, & Guarino, 2016). This work would involve non-probability sampling technique.
Further, convenience sampling technique will be utilized as it is one of the most efficient
methods for the selection of participants of the work. The willingness and availability of the
research participants are the major focus of this type of technique.

Data Analysis strategies

Data analysis is the most significant step to draw findings from the collected data. This step
involves analysis of the data which is collected for the purpose of fulfilling the research aim and
objectives. It is a process which is used to describe, condense, collect and evaluate the pieces of
data that have been collected. It has been found that the type of data analysis technique chosen
 Impact of social media on the marketing of event management 8

for the research work describes the pattern of information and direction of the findings. Data
analysis is considered as a qualitative tool that generates the output in statistical manner. A
number of problems need to be combatted for this purpose which involves missing data and
information, inappropriate manner to present the data, lack of clearly defined data and so on.
This study will involve the use of SPSS analysis so that the data can be analyzed in the most
effective and efficient manner. SPSS is statistical package for social sciences which will be done
through software (Meyers, Gamst, & Guarino, 2016). This technique will be of great help to
obtain an overall impression and pattern of the data.

Ethical consideration
The ethical considerations for the research work would involve no disclosure of personal
information of the participants, no one will be forced to participate and adoption of ethical
measures. Moreover, data will not be copied from other sources and thus, proof for the
originality of the data will also be provided in the form of Turnitin report. Moreover, the aim and
objectives of the work will be kept in mind while proceeding for the research work.
 Impact of social media on the marketing of event management 9

Timeline
Timeline will be represented with the help of the Gantt chart:

Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Problem
statement

Literature
review

Data collection

Data analysis

Description

The above Gantt chart represents the time which will be needed for the completion of the entire
research proposal (Sull, Homkes, & Sull, 2015). Thus, it depicts the overall timeline for the
operation of the research proposal. Gantt chart is commonly used to depict the time which is
required for the completion of the work and it is illustrated as a bar chart. It also shows the
dependency of variables and the inter-relation which they possess. The five steps of the entire
process will be completed in 9 weeks in which each step will take a different time period to get
accomplished. Literature review, data collection and data analysis are the most significant and
time-consuming section as represented by the timeline.
 Impact of social media on the marketing of event management 10

References
Adamopoulos, P., & Todri, V. (2015, August). The effectiveness of marketing strategies in social
media: Evidence from promotional events. In Proceedings of the 21th ACM SIGKDD
International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (pp. 1641-1650). ACM.
Alalwan, A. A., Rana, N. P., Dwivedi, Y. K., & Algharabat, R. (2017). Social media in
marketing: A review and analysis of the existing literature. Telematics and Informatics, 34(7),
1177-1190.
Batrinca, B., & Treleaven, P. C. (2015). Social media analytics: a survey of techniques, tools and
platforms. Ai & Society, 30(1), 89-116.
Edson, M. C., Henning, P. B., & Sankaran, S. (Eds.). (2016). A guide to systems research:
Philosophy, processes and practice (Vol. 10). New York: Springer.
Filo, K., Lock, D., & Karg, A. (2015). Sport and social media research: A review. Sport
management review, 18(2), 166-181.
Hudson, S., & Hudson, R. (2013). Engaging with consumers using social media: a case study of
music festivals. International Journal of Event and Festival Management, 4(3), 206-223.
Meyers, L. S., Gamst, G., & Guarino, A. J. (2016). Applied multivariate research: Design and
interpretation. California: Sage publications.
Meyers, L. S., Gamst, G., and Guarino, A. J. 2016. Applied multivariate research: Design and
interpretation. California: Sage publications.
Page, S., & Connell, J. (Eds.). (2014). The Routledge handbook of events. London: Routledge.
Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R. (2016). Research methods for business: A skill building approach.
New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
Sull, D., Homkes, R., & Sull, C. (2015). Why strategy execution unravels—and what to do about
it. Harvard Business Review, 93(3), 57-66.
Walliman, N. (2017). Research methods: The basics. London: Routledge.
Zeng, B., & Gerritsen, R. (2014). What do we know about social media in tourism? A
review. Tourism management perspectives, 10, 27-36.