A Study On How Important Is Social Media Marketing For Micro, Small And Medium Enterprises (MSME) Business

A Study On How Important Is Social Media Marketing For Micro, Small And
Medium Enterprises (MSME) Business

Submitted By
Simran Sahu
Submitted To
I.I.E.B.M. Pune
Email – simran.s20-22@iiebm.com
Research Proposal
March 31, 2021

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A Study On How Important Is Social Media Marketing For Micro, Small And Medium Enterprises (MSME) Business

Title of the Research

A study on How important is social media marketing for Micro, Small, Medium enterprises
(MSME) Business.

INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, social media has become of the most popular marketing channels and a strategic key
for any business success especially small and medium enterprises. Social media is undoubtedly
an amazing and powerful tool to nurture a development of business branding and enhance a
customer relationship that is evidenced by the fact that consumers rely heavily on social media to
discover, research, and share information about brands and products. MSME are important to all
developing economies in the world. It is an important part of many countries including India as it
shows positive effects on the development of country’s economy. MSME cannot do standard
marketing because of the limitations of resources. The Internet and World Wide Web innovation
have provided opportunities to improve existing business model. This has changed the nature of
users from content consumers to content generators. Social media marketing and networking
websites is a good platform for advertising that attracts many users from different states and
countries. For MSMEs, to use a digital marketing plans/strategy, it is extremely important to
assess the kind of business model a company is. Most MSMEs businesses communicate with
their audience through Televisions, radio, newspapers, as a result interaction level is low and
response time tends to become high. MSME sector contributes the most and have greater
opportunities to garner more visibility. It is important for businesses to make the most of it to
stay at the forefront. Through social media businesses can convey values, goals, and benefits
directly by personal communication. In research I will focus on understanding the usage and
barrier of adopting social media as a marketing tool for MSMEs business and how important it is
to MSME business to improve and growth through this.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
According to Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, defines social media as “a group of internet-based
applications that build on the ideological and technological foundation of Web and allows the
creation and exchange of user- generated content”. Social media is a platform to exchange
information, for people, building relationships and maintaining communication and cooperation.
MSMEs form the pillars of Indian economy, it is difficult for them to become a part of this
globalization and understanding the essence of social media. According to the reports on
Hubspot, 92 percent of the marketing professionals have reported that social media marketing
played a significant role in their businesses. In accordance with the provisions of Micro, Small
and Medium Enterprises (MSME) are classified in two Classes: (I) Manufacturing sector and (b)

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A Study On How Important Is Social Media Marketing For Micro, Small And Medium Enterprises (MSME) Business

service sector. It states that MSME contributes 8 percent of the country’s GDP, 45 percent of the
manufacturing output and 40 percent of the exports.
Social media marketing channel is new to many companies in MSME. It is a process that
encourages companies/ organization to promote their websites, products, or services through
social channels and to introduce and to communicate with, go into a much larger community
which is not the case with old/traditional promotions. In Digital marketing, the MSME sector
tries to implement the most useful marketing strategies like blogging, social media, email
marketing and more. The business under tight burden more often prefers the help of digital
marketing so it is the best way that the MSME’s can get tailor-made strategy planning and
marketing help in the most cost-effective way possible. Another professionally researched fact is
that promoting, and marketing business online does not need a huge investment. Internet
marketing has a grand platform for MSME’s and is likely to be simple and largely effective.
Social media and digital marketing find potential and long-term customers as in internet
whatever is posted remains forever is shows how important it is that MSME’s take help from
Digital world.

RESEARCH PROBLEM
The companies and organizations face many barriers and are slow to adopt innovative
technologies. The barriers they face are lack of training, negative views regarding social media
and digital marketing, unfamiliarity with the specific technology, lack of money, not having
enough knowledge, lack of market study, lack of consumer preferences. They do not take social
media important within the industry, Big investment in terms of investment, thinking that their
competitors do not use social sites so they should also not. These are some of the problems
associated with Micro, small, medium enterprises (MSME).

STATEMENT OF RESEARCH PROBLEM

How important is social media marketing in MSME business and challenges faced by MSME in
adopting social media.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1. To identify the benefits and challenges faced by Micro, Small and Medium enterprises by
social media marketing.
2. Effect of social media marketing in businesses.
3. To observe how Business/organizations use social media marketing to grow their
business
4. To identify by using social media marketing how much MSME will contribute to the
economy.

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A Study On How Important Is Social Media Marketing For Micro, Small And Medium Enterprises (MSME) Business

SCOPE
The major scope of the study is people will be aware and understand the importance of social
media marketing. It will help many businesses owners and managers to gain profit and to sustain
in the market with the advancement of technology. This will help them to adopt the social media
marketing and digital marketing and to get familiarize themselves with social networking sites.

IMPORTANCE OF STUDY
- Having an Understanding social media marketing and digital marketing and how to use
effectively in business.
- What all challenges are there in adoption of digital marketing and how social media will
help the MSME business to sustain in the market and how they can give competition and
how it will help them to grow in future.
- As MSME is the backbone of Indian economy so social media marketing will play a
significant role.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This would be mainly qualitative research. I will be using an exploratory methodology to

understand the topic at this early stage of the research. The quantitative aspect would be based on
what percentage of people are aware and using social media marketing. As per my knowledge, I
would be going through lot of scholar articles, journals, books and ResearchGate for my
secondary research and in my primary research would be connecting with some business owners
and managers to know about their understanding and opinions. The major constraint would be
collecting primary data through surveys and questionnaires as per requirements in which I will
ask number questions to business owners and managers so that their views could be achieved.

RESEARCH GAP
A research gap is the gap in the research or knowledge which requires further investigation and
research to answer the question that has been unanswered yet. There are many researchers who
have talked about the importance of social media in MSME business but there is a gap and some
challenges in the way of adopting social media marketing. So, this gap is the focus which I will
try to bridge through further research and understand in more obvious way ahead. And how other
things will influence on these variables.

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A Study On How Important Is Social Media Marketing For Micro, Small And Medium Enterprises (MSME) Business

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kaplan, A.M & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities
of Social media. Business Horizons Volume 53, Issue 1, January- February 2010.
FICCI, (2013). Integrating MSMEs with the Global Value Chain, Delhi; Grant Thornton, FICCI
https://www.yourstory.com
Https://www.linkedin.com
https://researchleap.com
https://scholarworks.com