RESEARCH REPORT

Submitted to- Prof R.N. Subudhi and Dr. Sasmita Mishra.

SUBMITTED BY:- NITISH KUMAR SINGH (10202054)VISHAL SINGH (10202028)SHREY SAURABH (10202047)JAGRITI BHAGAT (10202049)

DECLARATION

We hereby declare that all the work presented in the project report entitled

“Impact of Social Networking Sites on the Business” of the subject

Business Research Methods at KSOM, KIIT UNIVERSITY, Bhubaneswar is

an authentic record of our own work carried out under the guidance of Prof

R.N. Subudhi and Dr. Sasmita Mishra.

Date: Nitish kumar Singh

(10202054)

Vishal singh

(10202028)

Shrey Saurabh

(10202047)

Jagriti bhagat

(10202049)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We express our deep gratitude to Prof R.N. Subudhi and Dr. Sasmita Mishra

of KSOM, KIIT University , Bhubaneswar for their constant support, guidance and motivation which helped us immensely in completing this project. The project provided us with an opportunity to understand the fundamentals of research methods in a better manner and apply them. The insistence on taking up a relevant topic like the impact of social networking sites on business to understand the psychology of the people using these sites better and correlate the research to human behavioral aspect and their impact on Business and marketing.

We also would like to thank our respondents for giving us their valuable time and providing us with the information needed to carry out the research successfully

ContentsDECLARATION........................................................................................................................................2

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY....................................................................................................................4

OBJECTIVE OF STUDY...........................................................................................................................5

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE:.............................................................................................................................5

RESEARCH ISSUES:...................................................................................................................................5

HYPOTHESIS:............................................................................................................................................5

SCOPE OF STUDY.................................................................................................................................6

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...............................................................................................................6

Data Collection method:……………………………………………………………………………….7

QUESTIONAIRE DESIGN:..................................................................................................................7

SAMPLING:...........................................................................................................................................8

DATA ANALYSIS..................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................................9

Business applications.........................................................................................................................10

SOCIAL NETWORK SITES (SNS): A DEFINITION......................................................................10

Industry analysis.................................................................................................................................13

EXAMPLES OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES.......................................................................13

LITERATURE REVIEW..................................................................................................................................16

SNS IN INDIA:....................................................................................................................................16

ARTICLE-1..........................................................................................................................................16

ARTICLE-2..........................................................................................................................................18

ARTICLE-3..........................................................................................................................................20

ARTICLE-4..........................................................................................................................................21

ARTICLE-5..........................................................................................................................................23

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION...................................................................................................24

MAIN FINDINGS:.......................................................................................................................................33

CONCLUSION:............................................................................................................................................33

SUGGESTIONS:.................................................................................................................................33

LIMITATION:..............................................................................................................................................34

REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................................36

WEBLIOGRAPHY...............................................................................................................................36

BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................................................................................37

APPENDIX -1 / QUSENTIONNAIRE................................................................................................39

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The social networking sites are gaining a lot of popularity these days with

almost all of the educated youth using one or the other such site. These have

played a crucial role in bridging boundaries and crossing the seas and

enabling them to communicate on a common platform. It has become a

popular and a potential mean for them to stay friends with the existing ones

and to grow up their social circle at least in terms of acquaintances.

The question regarding the safety, privacy and the legal issues have been

cropping up all this time. Through this research we try to find out the impact

of these networking sites on the Business. It is a very subjective question to

answer and is very opinion based and the same is reflected in the research

methodology adopted by us.

The report is initiated with the definition of the objective followed with the

research methodology used along with the research design, sample size,

methods used for the purpose of conducting survey. It also incorporates the

sampling frame and the data collection procedure.

Subsequent to this is the Introduction to the networking sites along with a

brief description of the most popular sites. Then the issues of concern which

have come up along the way in all these years since these sites gained

popularity are discussed. The various issues and concerns of the respondents

are also incorporated there. The next part of the research has the literature

surveys which are the articles we took up from the published reports. We

then analyzed and interpreted the data at length. The last part deals with the

suggestions and recommendations that the group has come up with after

carefully analyzing and incorporating the opinion of all concerned.

OBJECTIVE OF STUDYIn this age of globalization, the world has become too small a place thanks to

the electronic media and portals. Communication has become effective as

never before thanks to the advent of internet. The social networking sites

have also played a crucial role in bridging boundaries and crossing the seas

and bringing all people at a common platform where they can meet like

minded people or find old friends and communicate with them. It has

become a potential mean to relation building and staying in touch with all

known.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE:The objective that we wanted to achieve through our research is to:

To understand the Impact of social Networking sites on the Business Which site related to social networking is more popular?

RESEARCH ISSUES: Do social networking sites play a role in daily works? Do social networking sites display substantial number of advertisements

for male and female?

HYPOTHESIS:1. There is no need of sns in carrying out daily works.2. There is no reason to clickon an advertisement.3. There is no difference in the number of advertisement displayed for male

and female.4. There is no difference in opinion in displaying their relationship to the

college or university at their sns profile.

SCOPE OF STUDYT his study that the social networking sites play an impotant role in the life of students at university and college .The advertisements displayed on social networking sites have a great impact in the lives of students as the advertisements help them information about various job opportunities available.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGYA considerable amount of work has been done in this field and several articles are

available on the internet and magazines about the social networking sites. So first we

carried out a literature survey of the available data for collection of secondary

information. We followed it by a descriptive research design in order to understand the

problem and carry out the research in a lucid manner.

Sampling Technique: Convenient SamplingSample Unit: students of ksom and kiit universitySample Frame: SNS users and non users in KSOM, BhubaneswarSample Size: 50

Data Collection method: After secondary data collection through data collection over the internet, a primary research was carried out through a questionnaire. The questionnaire was well structured and the responses were sought from the respondents. The nature of the questions was such that it avoided ambiguous responses from the respondents and it also helped in quick analysis of the data collected.

Two methods of questioning were used for the data collection:

1). Person Assisted: The responses were collected by personal questioning. The

responses were taken from the students in the KSOM & KIIT University. this form of

questioning helped the respondent to understand the questions better and answer

accordingly.

2). Web enabled: The questionnaire was e-mailed to respondents who filled it and then

mailed it back to us. A flaw that we realized here was that some of the respondents did

not understand the questions and hence could not answer them to the best of their

capability, unlike the other method employed where the questions could be explained if

required.

3). Questionnaire: Structured questionnaire is made and responses were sought from

the respondents.

Secondary Research

A secondary literature revive will be done to study the reasons behind the growing usage of such sites and what are the various impact on Business.

QUESTIONAIRE DESIGN:Questionnaire was divided into five major heads:

General information Time spent on sites Activities Use of social sites for business Their analysis of sites

SAMPLING:Sampling Design: The target population for our research was defined as the students

who form the major chunk of users of these social networking sites. This was done to

have a better insight into the research as the target population was one which is the

most avid user of these sites and could provide good responses. Even the

understanding of the questionnaire was easy to them as they were familiar with the sites

and quite clear about the reasons they use it for and the various problems that they

face. The extent of the survey was limited to the KSOM AND Kiit university students,

Bhubaneswar. However, through online survey some regions outside Bhubaneswar

were also reached to validate the information collected from Bhubaneswar.

Sampling frame can be defined as all the users of social networking sites in the

vicinity. Once the sampling frame was decided, simple random sampling method was

used to select the respondents. In the person assisted survey, almost everyone in the

sampling frame had an equal chance of being selected and we got the responses filled

through those people who were readily and willingly accepting to fill it.

To some extent judgment sampling was also used, especially in the online survey,

where the questionnaires were sent only to our acquaintances in the other B-schools

outside Delhi.

DATA ANALYSISWe had 50 filled up questionnaire. The data from these questionnaire was analyzed through following techniques.

CLUSTER ANALYSIS : Cluster analysis or clustering is the assignment of a set of observations into subsets (called clusters) so that observations in the same cluster are similar in some sense. Depepdnng upon the various motivating factors and the styles of usage hierchical clustering techniques was applied. There was no need felt for factor analysis as only few variables emerged from the study.

INTRODUCTION

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES:

At the most basic level social networking sites are sites which allow users to set up online profiles or personal homepages, and develop an online social network. The profile page functions as the user’s own webpage and includes profile information ranging from their date of birth, gender, religion, politics and hometown, to their favorite films, books quotes and what they like doing in their spare time. In addition to profile information, users can design the appearance of their page, and add content such as photos, video clips and music files.Users are able to build a network of connections that they can display as a list of friends. These friends may be offline actual friends or acquaintances, or people they only know or have met online, and with whom they have no other link. It is important to note that the term ‘friend’, as used on a social networking site, is different from the traditional meaning given to the term in the offline world. In this report we will use the term as it is used on a social networking site: anyone who has invited, or been invited by, another user, to be their ‘friend’.

In a more collaborative and peer-to-peer manner

Users communicate and collaborate while at the same time contribute and participate

Is shaping the way you work and interact with information on the web

Mindset change towards collaborative participation

Shifts the focus to the user of the information

User can search, choose, consume and modify the relevant content

Business applications

The use of social network services in an enterprise context presents the potential of having a major impact on the world of business and work (Fraser & Dutta 2008).

Social networks connect people at low cost; this can be beneficial for entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to expand their contact bases. These networks often act as a customer relationship management tool for companies selling products and services. Companies can also use social networks for advertising in the form of banners and text ads. Since businesses operate globally, social networks can make it easier to keep in touch with contacts around the world.

One example of social networking being used for business purposes is LinkedIn.com, which aims to interconnect professionals. LinkedIn has over 40 million users in over 200 countries

Company now using social networking sites as marketing channel to promote its product, also called as viral marketing

SOCIAL NETWORK SITES (SNS): A DEFINITION

We define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to: (1) Construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system,

(2) Articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and

(3) View and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site.While we use the term "social network site" to describe this phenomenon, the term "social networking sites" also appears in public discourse, and the two

terms are often used interchangeably. "Networking" emphasizes relationship initiation, often between strangers. While networking is possible on these sites, it is not the primary practice on many of them, nor is it what differentiates them from other forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC).What makes social network sites unique is not that they allow individuals to meet strangers, but rather that they enable users to articulate and make visible their social networks. This can result in connections between individuals that would not otherwise be made, but that is often not the goal, and these meetings are frequently between "latent ties" (Haythornthwaite, 2005) who share some offline connection. On many of the large SNSs, participants are not necessarily "networking" or looking to meet new people; instead, they are primarily communicating with people who are already a part of their extended social network. To emphasize this articulated social network as a critical organizing feature of these sites, we label them "social network sites."

HOW DOES ‘SNS’ WORKWhile SNSs have implemented a wide variety of technical features, their backbone consists of visible profiles that display an articulated list of Friends who are also users of the system. Profiles are unique pages where one can type oneself into being. After joining an SNS, an individual is asked to fill out forms containing a series of questions. The profile is generated using the answers to these questions, which typically include descriptors such as age, location, interests, and an "about me" section. Most sites also encourage users to upload a profile photo. Some sites allow users to enhance their profiles by adding multimedia content or modifying their profile's look and feel. Others, such as Facebook, allow users to add modules ("Applications") that enhance their profile.The visibility of a profile varies by site and according to user discretion. By default, profiles on Orkut or hi5.com are crawled by search engines, making them visible to anyone, regardless of whether or not the viewer has an account. Alternatively, sites like MySpace allow users to choose whether they want their profile to be public or "Friends only." Facebook takes a different approach—by default, users who are part of the same "network" can view each other's profiles, unless a profile owner has decided to deny permission to those in their network. Structural variations around visibility and access are one of the primary ways that SNSs differentiate themselves from each other.After joining a social network site, users are prompted to identify others in the system with whom they have a relationship. The label for these relationships differs depending on the site popular terms include "Friends," "Contacts," and "Fans." Most SNSs require bi-directional confirmation for Friendship, but some do not. These one-directional ties are sometimes labelled as "Fans" or "Followers," but many sites call these Friends as well. The term "Friends" can be

misleading, because the connection does not necessarily mean friendship in the everyday vernacular sense, and the reasons people connect are varied (Boyd, 2006).The public display of connections is a crucial component of SNSs. The Friends list contains links to each Friend's profile, enabling viewers to traverse the network graph by clicking through the Friends lists. On most sites, the list of Friends is visible to anyone who is permitted to view the profile, although there are exceptions. Most SNSs also provide a mechanism for users to leave messages on their Friends' profiles. This feature typically involves leaving "comments," although sites employ various labels for this feature. In addition, SNSs often have a private messaging feature similar to webmail. While both private messages and comments are popular on most of the major SNSs, they are not universally available.Beyond profiles, Friends, comments, and private messaging, SNSs vary greatly in their features and user base. Some have photo-sharing or video-sharing capabilities; others have built-in blogging and instant messaging technology. There

are mobile-specific SNSs (e.g., Dodgeball), but some web-based SNSs also support limited mobile interactions (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, and Cyworld). Many SNSs target people from specific geographical regions or linguistic groups, although this does not always determine the site's constituency. Orkut, for

example, was launched in the United States with an English-only interface, but Portuguese-speaking Brazilians quickly became the dominant user group. Some sites are designed with specific ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, political, or other identity-driven categories in mind.

Industry analysisThe number of social networking sites is exploding throughout the world. On the basis of content there are their types of sites:

1. Widget or component based: Provides software applications and components.2. Aggregation/combination of information: collection of information e.g.

Download.com3. Content sharing and business : users share and discuss personal and

professional contents. eg orkut and facebook4. Collaborative filtering: Data is filtered to have a focused content Eg last.fm,

in.fm

EXAMPLES OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITESORKUT.COM

Orkut is an Internet social network service run by Google and named after its creator, Google employee Orkut Büyükkökten. It claims to be designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships. Similar to Facebook, Friendster and MySpace, Orkut goes a step further by permitting the creation of easy-to-set-up simple forums (called "communities") of users. Since October 2006, Orkut has permitted users to create accounts without an invitation.

Orkut is the most visited website in Brazil, being more visited than Google Brazil, number 2 on the list. In total visits, Google is probably still more popular since it appears as the second (the Brazilian version) and seventh most visited site (the international version).

FACEBOOK.COM

Facebook is another example of social networking site. Developed by sophomore Mark Zuckerberg of Harvard University in 2004, Hosting the most members for a college based social networking site, Facebook.com is also the number one site for uploading pictures, boasting several million uploads daily. Since its inception, Facebook.com has now been opened to anyone with a valid email address and offers its members options of joining the millions of networks of people with similar interests. It is said that 80% of Facebook.com users check their account daily and

that 93% of Facebook.com users check their account at least monthly (Facebook, 2007) Facebook.com generates its revenue from advertisement since it boasts a huge number of registered users.

MYSPACE.COM

MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos internationally.

HI5.COM hi5 is a social networking website, which, throughout 2007, was one of the 25 most visited sites on the web. In hi5, users create an online profile in order to show information such as interests, age and hometown and upload user pictures where users can post comments.

- The above mentioned companies are successfully using their social site to generate revenue and also new customer acquisition.

LITERATURE REVIEW

SNS IN INDIA:

In all the social networking phenomenon in India is small compared to the US (Indian social networking websites today claim a user base of around 3 million registered users) while MySpace, which has 106 million users and Orkut which has 67 million have far greater numbers.

Clearly, Indian firms have a lot of work ahead of them in order to catch up. However, Siddhartha Roy, CEO, BigAdda, says optimistically: “We are early on the curve.” Alok Mittal, MD, Canaan Partners, a venture capital firm, says: “When you put that in context, Indian social networking websites are in their infancy. The break-even point is longer, but once they attain a critical mass of 40 million users, then VC firms will start investing in them.”

Navin Mittal, CEO, fropper.com, says: “With the Indian Internet user-base negligible compared to the US or China, these are very early days.” The owner of the blog Trak.in does a great job of explaining the benefits of social networking for India and what it means for consumers and businesses.

ARTICLE-1

Social networking sites, which allow users to build or be part of online communities, account for 44% of the country’s Internet traffic

Social networking sites, which allow users to build or be part of online communities, account for 44% of the country’s Internet traffic, according to a report by consulting firm JuxtConsult Research and Consulting Pvt. Ltd. The space is dominated by global

players such as Orkut, MySpace, Facebook and Hi5. Google Inc.’s Orkut, launched in 2004, isthe most popular social networking site among Indians with more than seven million users, but advertising is something the site has only recently dabbled with.

“Nobody has made money on social networking so far,” Ajit Balakrishnan, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), Rediff.com India Ltd, the company behind rediff.com, one of the earliest Indian dot-coms, had previously said. “But when 10 million people congregate, somewhere down the line the company will make money, and it will be advertiser-related, he had added. Rediff.com launched iShare, a video sharing platform, in July, and plans to add a social networking tool to it in the coming weeks.

Indian firms and entrepreneurs entering the social networking space are convinced that they need to build up a critical mass of users first, and then worry about advertising.

BigAdda.com, started by the Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group’s Reliance Entertainment three months ago, has about 700,000 users but no advertiser yet.

Similarly, one-year-old social networking site for students Minglebox.com has a user base that exceeds one million but no advertisers.

“On the Internet, consumer is king. They decide where they want to spend their time and advertisers recognize that,” said Siddhartha Roy, chief operating officer, Big-Adda.com. “You want to first create a strong user base and give them an uninterrupted experience.”

Kavita Iyer, CEO, Minglebox, agrees: “...In this business, users fluctuate from one site to another and it is important to first reach a certain level of stability and maturity before getting advertisers on board.”

But some experts say that those scrambling to enter the social networking space have left it too late, and that plain vanilla social networking will, by itself, not work any longer.

According to Balakrishnan, social networking has to become more than just a communication platform. “Social networking will have to be morphed into every online initiative,” he had said. “It has a tendency to pick up fast but loses momentum just as fast. This is why we are integrating iShare with social networking.”

That’s a strategy similar to the one adopted by Yahoo Inc. “We want to make Yahoo mail more social by combining properties such as SMS,instant messenger and emails together. It’s too early to tell what we’re planning on social networking, but it will be a convergence of communication channels,” John Kremer, vice-president, Yahoo Mail, had previously said.

Others are trying this as well. Ibibo Web Pvt. Ltd’s Ibibo.com is a multi-platform social interactive site with applications such as networking, blogging and gaming as some of its applications. “We’ve been around for seven months in India but I can tell you that it takes about two to three years of good consumer traction to drive revenues,” said Ashish Kashyap, CEO, Ibibo group. “It is important to create a picnic effect before we can get to advertisers,” he added.

Advertisers themselves seem content with the picnic effect itself. PepsiCo India Holdings Pvt. Ltd has not yet bought into social networking from the advertising point of view, but it has bought into the concept. “Pepsi has not advertised on social networking sites so far but we have got what we wanted by users themselves creating discussion groups about the brand,” said a spokesperson for PepsiCo India.

According to one expert, that may well indicate what social networking sites need to do to start earning revenues.

“For advertisers, social networking sites are slow in generating revenues directly but they are good in influencing decisions,” said Gulrez Alam, group head, paid search, Communicate2, a paid-search marketing company. “Social media sites will soon have alternative revenue generating tactics that will help influence the user without intruding on the experience, that’s the way ahead.” 

Almost half the Internet traffic generated in India is on account of social networking, and while this has not translated into advertising revenue so far, a pioneer in the country’s Internet space expects the situation to change.

ARTICLE-2

Business Standard, January 25 '07

Thursday, 25 January 2007

Business Standard, Riding the networking wave

Priyanka Joshi / New Delhi January 24, 2007

TECHNOLOGY: Want to get seen? Advertise on social networking sites. This, incidentally, is the new mantra of online advertisers.

About 93 per cent of the 28 million Indians online belong to the age group 18-45 years — a target audience that has the maximum buying power.

Ten million of these are hooked on to some form of online social media, be it personal, career or business networking, matrimonial sites, discussion rooms, virtual activity platforms, instant

messenger, podcasts, RSS feeds and blogs. The mix of social media sites being a hot favourite among this bunch of young Indians, it presents a perfect milieu for online advertisers.

Content-specific advertisements have become a rage on networking sites like Orkut, TechTribe, LinkedIn, Ryze, Flickr, MSN Live Spaces, Blogger, Fropper and Facebook, which are a compelling buy for advertisers seeking to target the active lifestyle set the sites cater to.

In short, content-specific networks are riding a wave of popularity and newer networks seem to be springing up every day.

Rajnish, head (digital marketing revenue and strategic business), MSN India, explains why marketers want to be seen on social networking sites: “In Asia, email and instant messaging take 40-50 per cent of the time we spend online. Blogosphere is doubling in size every six months and an average Indian user spends anywhere between 40-60 minutes daily on social media sites. Little wonder, banks, automobile companies, FMCGs, and even IT firms want a virtual advert that’s both engaging and innovative.”

Social media advertising has been taking the online advertising industry by storm. The total marketing spend on social media is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 106.1 per cent from 2005 to 2010, reaching $757 million in 2010, according to a report from PQ Media.

Some social-networking communities focus on vertical markets with a narrowly-defined audience, such as business-relationship sites like LinkedIn and TechTribe. Their ad revenue exceeded $20 million in 2006.

“There has been a recent ‘change of guard’ online with social networks — from being a ‘push’ medium to a ‘pull’ medium,” remarks Rajnish, “MSN is using people’s attention to engage users with advertisers through contextual advertising and desktop television.”

The audiences, in return, generate revenues each time they click on a banner, keyword or a floating advertisement on a webpage. While online rate cards are not exactly cheap, averaging between Rs 50,000 and Rs 2 lakh, the prices are expected to get spiked by another 20-25 per cent by the end of 2007.

Social-networking sites entice users to spend considerable time and view many page views, and many sites are seeing those numbers increase.

Nielsen/Net Ratings reports that users’ visits to YouTube grew in duration from about 17 minutes to 28 minutes (64 per cent) over the first six months of 2006. Page views grew 515 per cent during the same period. Members of communities spend hours looking up friends’ profiles and following paths of interconnected relationships. These long visits and high page views directly correlate to ad revenue.

Blog advertising, worldwide, totalled $25 million in 2006, which includes blogs, podcasts and RSS advertising.

“By the tail-end of 2007, even Indian bloggers (the well known ones) would be making money out of advertising on their blogs, podcasts, videos, personal web pages and other forms of user generated content,” claims a media buyer.

Anil Kaul, CEO, Absolute Data, a research and analytics firm, has helped websites and advertisers look beyond popular targeting options like geography and demography “using complex targeting options on networks, like behavioural and contextual and domain-level targeting. We have shown clients how to get the most from an online advert.”

ARTICLE-3

BY BRIAN DEAGON

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 12/26/2007

UTILIZATION IN BUSINESS

There are many ways that business’ can use social networking web sites to their advantage but we are going to focus on three. 1.) The first aspect of a business that could use a social networking website for would be the hiring of employees. Such sites as Monster.com actually help many people searching for jobs and many companies looking for employees to find each other. It’s as simple as creating your own resume and putting it out there. Monster.com then takes your resume and compares it to the needs and wants that companies have posted on the web site and connects the company with people who meet or exceed their posted standards. This a lot faster and involves a more broad spectrum of resources for which a company can use to find the perfect employee.

2.)Another aspect of business affected by social networking websites is marketing. With the millions of people that use social networking web sites, what better way to market your product then by buying space on those web sites? Whether it’s through banners or links millions of people will view your ads should they be placed on a social networking website. An example is that of 1up.com. Through its great reputation to gamers many gaming companies are willing to spend thousands of dollars for advertising space since they know that gamers who view the web site will most likely learn about their product. Not only is online advertising more effective than commercial advertising such as TV ads and magazines, it’s also more cost effective and reaches far more people than other forms of advertising. An example of the effectiveness of internet advertising is YouTube.com in which experts have

estimated that “Given its traffic levels, video streams and page views, some have calculated that YouTube's potential revenues could be in the millions per month.” (YouTube, 2007)

3.)A third aspect of business that is affected by social networking websites is that of fair pricing. With so many businesses’ out there creating virtually the same product it’s easy for one to get lost in the broad spectrum of products. With social networking websites people can get advice from experts, gain knowledge of product through others who have used it, and get reviews on nearly anything that is mass produced today. This in turn is also great for businesses. With all this information out there concerning products it’s easy for a company to look through it and see what customers want and for how much. This in turn leads to better products being made to suit the customers’ needs and wants.

ARTICLE-4

Social networking on the generation next

Author- Nair, Neh Vivek

SCMS Journal of Indian Management

Jul2009, Vol. 6 Issue

The definition of social networking was given by ProfessorJ.A . Barnes who says it is a group size of more than 100people. There are many definitions of social networkingsuch as: Social networking1 is the grouping of individuals into specific groups like small communities or a neighborhood sub-division. The rise of social networking has made many ways possible for people to communicate with one and other.There are many social networking sites which have become extremely popular of late. My Space andFacebook2 are popular in Nor th America, Bebo, Facebook, Tagged, and Hi5 in Canada, Orkut, Friendster and Cyworld in Asia and Pacific islands. The origin of social networking sites started with the globe.com, geocities and tripod. These sites mainlyfocused on bringing people together through the concept of chat rooms, and giving out information by giving a personalized homepage. Then came some other communities which would give linking facility by email addresses. Sites3 such as classmates.com focused on former school colleagues, sixdegrees.com also had a focus on indirect ties. There were other two models of social networking which were developed on the concept of trust.

But it was between 2002 and 2004 that saw the bir th of three social networking sites which became extremely popular namely Friendster, 4 My Space andFacebook. The main advantage which social networks have is that they provide many advantages at low cost. The important benefits can be reaped out using social networking site by merging them with different tools like customer relationship management5 which can help companies in selling their products and services all around the world. Many companies are known to make use of the social networking sites for recruitment6 purpose, customer relationship, getting knowledge and facilitating meeting. It has been already predicted that in the long run only those organizations that have the ability to integrate the social networking in their daily business operations andideas, will be able to survive the heat. One good example of social networking site used for business related activities is linkedin.com. The site claims to have morethan 20 million registered users. Most of the social networks provide a choice for peopleto communicate and exchange personal information for7 dating purposes. This is very similar to the online dating services which are already available. In this case some ofthe personal information such as name, age, gender, interests and photo has to be made available. This allows the user to be listed in some sort t of searching criteria. The only difference with the online dating services is that social networking sites give you free service whereas8 online dating services are paid ones. Of late social networking has seen a place in pharmacy and healthcare sector also. It is being used by healthcareprofessionals to highlight institutions, physicians, maintain peer to peer knowledge and the biggest advantage of using a social networking site is that all the members are screened against the state licensing board list of practitioners.9 The role of social networks is interesting to the pharmaceutical companies so that they can nowmake attempts to influence the opinion leaders of social networks. Just like the above concern many social networking websites have been tapped into the powerof the social good cause for the society upliftment. Sober Circle helps in bringing out the communication gaps of alcoholics and addicts so that they have a commonplatform to share their views and concerns regarding the rehabilitation process. There are many social networking sites which actually work on the charity roles.

ARTICLE-5 Face to face with social networking

Author- Brockett James

People Management; October 2007, Vol. 13 Issue 16

Summary:-

• Man is a social animal and hence he is interested in interacting and being with people who have common things to share such network is called social networking. (group of more than 100 people- a/c to prof. J.A.Barnes)

• These websites can help a lot in earning additional income for any business.

• Social network also used as a benchmark for the popularity & social relevance of product, services and business.

• These sites play host to several comments both good and bad about the company and the services

• Social networking offers small business owners an inexpensive and effective way to connect with their customer.

Methodology:-

survey conducted on small business enterprises.

Findings:- It gives idea to the managers that where they went wrong or where they went right with the product

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATIONDEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

TABLE:1

Your Age

Frequency Percent Valid PercentCumulative

PercentValid 18-22 15 30.0 30.0 30.0

22-26 22 44.0 44.0 74.026-30 12 24.0 24.0 98.0MORE THAN 30 1 2.0 2.0 100.0Total 50 100.0 100.0

MORE THAN 30

26-3022-2618-22

Your Age

Your gender

Frequency Percent Valid PercentCumulative

PercentValid MALE 34 68.0 68.0 68.0

FEMALE 16 32.0 32.0 100.0Total 50 100.0 100.0

Table 1 shows:

Amongst our sample of 50, maximum respondents were in the age group of 22-26 were males and 16 were females

Males accounted for 68% in total while the females accounted for 32%.

TABLE- 2

USAGE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES IN DAILY LIFE

INTERPRETATION:

16% of the total sample donot need sns in work while 26% and 58% use sns regularly or as and when required respectively.

People who use sns regularly in daily life works as and when required fall in the age group of 22-26.

Cramer value of .3 shows a weak relationship between age and usage of sns in daily works.

TABLE:3

REASON FOR CLICKING ON AN AD

The above table shows that 42% people click only on advertisements they are aware of. Hence it can be said that they click on links they are aware of and adopt a secured strategy. They are aware of cyber crimes and its after effects.

42% people click on advertisements by companies they are aware of.

6% people get carried by a celebrity on an advertisement.

INTERPRETATION

Females (50%) are more brand aware than men(38.2%) and they prefer to click on sites they are aware of.

Cramer’s v of .1 shows a weak relationship between gender and reason to click on an advertisement.

Table -4

Frequency of display of advertisement on sns

INTERPRETATION:

86% Of The sample Found Advertisements On Their Pofiles On Sns. 82.3% of males and 93.8% of females found advertisements on the sns. 17.6% males and 6.3% females did not find any advertisements in their accounts on

sns. Low cramer’s value of .1 shows a weak relationship between the gender and availability

of advertisements in their accounts on social networking sites.

TABLE-5

INTERPRETATION86% respondents display education details on sns.7% respondents donot trust the sites and donot display any such information.Low cramer’s v value of o.2 shows a weak relationship between the variables.MAIN FINDINGS:

58% of the respondents use social networking sites as and when required. These respondents belong to the age group of 22-26 yrs.

42% of the respondents click on a link of a brand or company which they are aware of. Here females accounted for the majority of the share than their counterparts.

86% 0f the respondents noticed advertisements in their accounts on sns in last 3 weeks. Males noticed more advertisements than the females.

86% of the respondents trust the social networking sites and display their education information on them. Here again males accounted for major accountability than females.

Low cramer’s v value showed weak relationship between the variables taken.

CONCLUSION: There is a need of social networking sites in the modern era.

Individuals in the age group of 22-26 use these sites as and when required for there purposes which may be educative or for general purpose.

The females are more driven by the brands than men and hence account for 50% clicks on advertisements displaying their known brands or companies.

People use these networking sites for their purposes and thus we can see that they (86%) of the respondents keep a track of the advertisements displayed on these sites.

They are also quite aware of the cyber crimes and issues related and thus prefer to remain safe by clicking on the sites known to them.

91.2% of the males prefer displaying their educative information on these sites while 8.8% refrain themselves from displaying their personal information.

SUGGESTIONS:

There should be proper training given with the use of internet and different social networking sites so that people can use them for their as well as society’s growth.

In this internet era, use and misuse of the technology can happen so more stringent rules should be formulated to deal with any issues related to it.

Some ideas for future research for social networking websites would be personal contact offices to register on these sites to determine the legitimacy of the person who is trying to register. Although this would most likely end up a great hassle, it would provide the best security out there for people who are trying to have safe fun and connect with people that share similar interests and ideas.

Another future tool social networking websites could use would be a licensing agreement with certain parties to prevent copyright infringement from happening on the Internet.

LIMITATION:

1 The sample size was small and confined to KIIT.2 Results could have been more substantial if respondents were

from different sectors of the economy.3 Tests to check the validity of results were constricted as all

questions were in nominal scale.

4 The sample size that we have taken is 50 which we are assuming that it is homogeneous and enough to carry out the research.

5 Most of the sample population consists of students and hence our research mainly focuses on students using social networking sites.

6 The analysis done is mainly judgmental in nature.

7 The concept of social networking sites is not very old in India thus not much of research has been done in regards to its effects.

8. The expertise of the questionnaire design is limited

REFERENCES

WEBLIOGRAPHYwww.facebook.com

www.orkut.com

www.twitter.com

www.resourceshelf.com

www.indiastudychannel.com

ebusinesswins.blogspot.com

ezinearticles.com

www.libraryclips.blogsome.com

www.google.com

www.wikipedia.com

www.economicstimes.com

www.ebsco.com

BIBLIOGRAPHYBarnes, S. (2006) A privacy paradox: Social networking

in the United States

Becta (2006) Emergent technologies for

Learning

boyd, d.m. (2006) Social networking sites: my definition.

apophenia :: making connections where none previously

existed.

Green, H. & Hannon, C. (2007) Their space: Education for

a digital generation

Gross, R. & Acquisti, A. (2005). Information revelation

and privacy in online social networks.

Kann, M. E., Berry, J., Gany, C. & Zager, P. (2006) The

Internet and youth political participation

Nair, Neh, Vivek , Social networking on generation nextSCMS Journal of Indian Management; Jul2009, Vol. 6 Issue

Facing the facebook nation

Author(s): Mclaughlin,Shane

Type- Public Relations Strategist; Spring2010, Vol. 15 Issue 2

Face to face with social networkingAuthor – Brockett, james ,People Management; 8/9/2007, Vol. 13 Issue 16

Social networking is changing the way we find information technology

Author- carr , Nicholas, TECHNOLOGY REVIEW, MAY/JUNE 2010, Vol.113 issue 3,

Social network enter recruiters toolkit

Source- Point for Credit Union Research & Advice; 10/1/2008

APPENDIX -1 / QUSENTIONNAIRE

QUSENTIONNAIRE

IMPACT OF SOCIAL NETWOKING SITE ON BUSINESS

1. Your gender:

Male

Female

2. Your Age

18-22

22-26

26-30

More than 30

3. How long have you been using social networking sites?

Facebook

Orkut

Twitter

My Space

Hi5

Blogger.com

Others

4. How long have you been using social networking sites?

less than a month

1 - 6 months

6 months to a year

1 - 2 years

More than 2 years

5. Please state your tool to use social network (you can choose more than one choice)

PC Laptop

Smart Phones

6. Did the information you get about the product on various social-networking sites persuade you to buy

the product?

Yes

No

Can’t Say

7. Would you like the companies making the use of Blogs to mention in details about the various features associated with the product?

Yes

No

Can't Say

8. To what extent you make use of social-media tools in your daily work?

I don’t need it in my work

Regularly

As and when need arises

9. In the last three visits, did you notice any advertising on social networking websites?

Yes

No

10. If you answered NO to the previous question - What is the primary reason(s) you skip the ads messages? (please skip this question if you answered YES to the above one)

It is not always clear the message is an ad

It is in the same colour as non-ads messages

It is not in a visible part of the screen on my profile

I’m so used to it I no longer look at the place where it is always placed I use a paid account to avoid ads

11. Can you consider ads that you see on your profile relevant to your interests? Yes, most of the time

Occasionally No, never

12. How often do you click on the ads you see on your profile?

Often

Rarely

Occasionally Almost Never

13. What is the main reason that makes you click an ad?

It is relevant to what I want/interested in

I’m intrigued by a hint in a promotion

I can get anything FREE

I recognize the brand/company/product I’m attracted by a celebrity on an ad

14. Do you trust information you obtain via social networking websites? Yes

Yes if it comes from my friends/connections Yes if it comes from professional communities

Yes if it comes from company official profiles/pages No, I’m always critical to such kind of information and check other sources

15. According to you, which industry mostly prefers ads in Social Networking Sites.

FMCG

IT

Institutions/ Universities

Entertainment Industry

Electronics Industry

Others

16. What is the key reason(s) for which companies are joining social networking sites?Viral Marketing :A technique aiming at reproducing "word of mouth", usually on the internet by e-mail or . Social networking sites. Viral Marketing

Branding

Niche Marketing

Competing with other brands

17. Would you like to highlight your relationship to your college/university at your SN profile (s)? Yes, I list my college/university as a place where I am studying/studied

No, I’m not highlighting my place of studies

18. What are the other sources which made you aware about the product?

Television

Newspaper

Banner Magazines

Others