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An Analysis of the Rationale behind the Influence of Social Media Marketing on Brands in the
Recent Years
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Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge and appreciate all the people that have supported my journey during
the eventful program. First, I am sincerely grateful for my supportive parents, who never gave up
on me during the program. Apart from catering to my financial needs, my parents
unconditionally supported me by advising and encouraging me during the program.

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Abstract
Courtesy of the increased consumption of social media platforms in the recent, managers and
leaders in modern business enterprises and organizations should optimize the numerous
opportunities in digital and social media platforms. Considering that reduced costs complement
the extensive benefits of social media platforms, contemporary marketers should tap the
competitive advantages, all and sundry. In the second and third decades of the second
millennium, social media has emerged as a significant trend that influences our communication
in professional and personal lives. Many people utilize social media platforms to communicate
and interact with their peers, colleagues, family members, and strangers. Marketers in established
companies and organizations have expressed their prudence by deploying effective social media
advertising campaigns. Social media presents new and disruptive competencies and capabilities
that could help organizations earn competitive edges against their competitors in the industry.
Furthermore, social media advertising not only benefits companies in earning and maintaining
clients but also helps consumers to learn about the available products in the market. Therefore,
social media advertising campaigns are usually successful and effective because brands and
consumers appreciate them. Managers and marketers should use social media platforms to build
their brands.

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Contents
SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 7
1.1

Background ................................................................................................................................... 8

1.2 Scope ................................................................................................................................................. 10
1.3

Research Question ...................................................................................................................... 10

SECTION 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................................... 11
2.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 11
2.2 Social Media Advertising and Brands .............................................................................................. 11
2.3 Types of Social Media Users ............................................................................................................ 13
2.4 Merits of Social Media Advertising to Brands ................................................................................. 14
2.5 Merits of Social Media Advertising to Consumers ........................................................................... 17
2.6 Brand Equity ..................................................................................................................................... 18
2.7 Conceptual Framework ..................................................................................................................... 20
2.8 Literature Gaps.................................................................................................................................. 20
2.9 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 21
SECTION 3: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................... 23
3.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 23
3.2 Data Collection Method .................................................................................................................... 24
3.3 Rationale for Choosing the Research Method .................................................................................. 25
3.4 Data Analysis .................................................................................................................................... 26
3.5 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 26
SECTION 4: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS ............................................................... 28
4.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 28
4.2 Social Media Advertising and Brands .............................................................................................. 30
4.2.1 Findings...................................................................................................................................... 30
4.2.2 Discussions ................................................................................................................................ 32
4.3 Types of Social Media Users ............................................................................................................ 34
4.3.1 Findings...................................................................................................................................... 34
4.3.2 Discussions ................................................................................................................................ 34
4.4 Merits of Social Media Advertising to Brands ................................................................................. 36
4.4.1 Findings...................................................................................................................................... 36
4.4.2 Discussions ................................................................................................................................ 38
4.5 Merits of Social Media Advertising to Consumers ........................................................................... 40

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4.5.1 Findings...................................................................................................................................... 40
4.5.2 Discussions ................................................................................................................................ 42
4.6 Brand Equity ..................................................................................................................................... 42
4.6.1 Findings...................................................................................................................................... 42
4.6.2 Discussions ................................................................................................................................ 43
SECTION 5: CONCLUSION, LIMITATIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS............................................ 45
5.1 Conclusions ....................................................................................................................................... 45
5.2 Limitations ........................................................................................................................................ 45
5.3 Recommendations ............................................................................................................................. 46
REFERENCE LIST .................................................................................................................................... 48
APPENDICES ............................................................................................................................................ 60
Appendix 1 .............................................................................................................................................. 60
Appendix 2 .............................................................................................................................................. 60

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List of Figures
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework……………………………………………………………20
Figure 2: Brand and social media attachment and attitude impacts…………………………30
Figure 3: The proposed dyad social media advertising framework…………………..………31
Figure 4: TikTok Users by age and gender………………………………………..……….….34
Figure 5: Share of users of top ten social media platforms……………………..……………..37
Figure 6: Consumer attitudes on the usefulness of social media advertising activities……..…41
Figure 7: Relationships between brand equity, sales, and buying interests……………………43

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SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION
Inarguably, most managers, administrators, and leaders in our contemporary
organizations, companies, institutions, and business enterprises would associate the COVID-19
pandemic with the innumerable negative impacts it imposed on the global socio-economic
structures. Considering that the pandemic threatened our public health systems, many business
operations were held at a standstill, leading to the indefinite closure of several enterprises in the
private and public sectors (Sachdeva 2022, pp. 89). The pandemic demanded social distancing
mechanisms, thus forcing many governments to stipulate and enforce social distancing,
lockdown, and quarantine policies. The policies functioned to decrease the productivity and
performance of firms, thus necessitating business managers to consider effective solutions that
would enhance sustainability during the pandemic. Considering that both employees and
customers could hardly access business premises, many managers were inclined that technology
capabilities and competencies could offer the best alternative solution for the underlying issue. A
few decades ago, several organizations in developed and developing nations started utilizing
social media platforms for marketing and promotional activities. In recent years, companies have
leveraged social media platforms to reach and engage with customers and stakeholders
(Nwaubeze & Mileski 2018, pp. 13). According to Venciute (2018, pp. 12), social media tools
translate into competencies and capabilities that enable companies to earn competitive
advantages. The authors affirm that social media technological competencies enable companies
to earn new customers and retain old customers through improved interactions and engagement.
Considering that many households and firms have successfully adopted social media
technologies in their day-to-day activities, the platforms would be an effective tool for generating
competitive advantages in competitive and uncertain business environments (Li et al. 2021, pp.

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54). Therefore, contemporary managers, leaders, and administrators should consider leveraging
the merits derived from adopting social media technologies. During the pandemic, companies
and organizations that utilized social media platforms to engage and interact with their
stakeholders and clients were in a better position to promote their products to prospective
customers and clients. Social media marketing enabled companies to reach their customers, who
were restricted from visiting the business's physical premises. Furthermore, the general
consumption of social media platforms increased during the pandemic, thus widening the target
market for contemporary companies in the industry.
This project sought to analyze social media marketing's influence on an organization's
brand in recent years. The project gathered data from a wide range of literature sources regarding
the influence of social media marketing on brand engagements and interactions. The sources
identify the merits and relationships between social media advertising to brand organizations and
consumers—the project collected data from systematic reviews of the relevant and credible
literature sources. Most of the articles used were marketing-related peer-reviewed articles. The
project analyzes the data using inferential and textual analytical methods, thus enabling the
readers to understand the conclusions of the research project.

1.1Background
The advertising industry was among the first exploiters of the Internet and its capabilities
(Wang 2018, pp. 476). According to the authors, the first digital advertisement debuted on
October 27, 1994, by AT&T. At its infancy, shrewd marketers conducted their promotional and
advertisement activities in the form of banners and clicks. For instance, the first advertisement
was a banner in a commercial web magazine, HotWired (Krishen et al. 2021, pp. 184). The
authors affirm that the magazine displayed AT&T’s advert ran as an online clickable web ad for

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three months. According to the authors, the company was charged $30,000 for the three months
runtime. Since the advertisement, many organizations and companies have realized the
competencies and capabilities presented by digital marketing platforms. Considering that the first
social media network, Six Degrees, was created in 1997, marketing proponents had already
started enjoying the benefits of digital media three years earlier (O’reilly et al., 2018, pp. 603).
According to the authors, the platform's discovery widened marketing and engagement
capabilities, thus boosting companies' market shares in the late 1990s and 2000s.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, large organizations have explicitly incorporated
social media platforms in their advertising activities. Whereas some companies rely on a single
social media platform, others integrate multiple social media platforms to reach wider customer
bases (Howard et al., 2019, pp. 2013). According to the authors, consumers are significant
stakeholders in many business enterprises. Therefore, interacting and engaging with customers
play critical roles in developing stronger bonds between brands and their brands. Lee et al.
(2018, pp. 47) affirm that social media engagement helps companies to develop trust and
commitment to their customers, thus, cultivating brand awareness, brand equity, and brand
awareness. The authors also reveal that social media helps companies to develop their brands by
enhancing stakeholders' brand perceptions and values. Customers that want more information
about specific companies; those that want to compliment brands after being satisfied; and those
that want to learn more about other customers' brand experiences have significantly increased
due to the recent surge of social media users in the recent past (Chiang et al. 2019, pp. 115).
Social media advertising is essential for boosting brand awareness and customer engagement
(Arli, 2017, pp. 525). According to the authors, social media advertising and marketing activities
enable companies to develop their brands in their respective markets.

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1.2 Scope
This project seeks to examine the reasons attributed to the influence of social media
marketing. Considering that the project derives its data from secondary data sources, the project
scope is not limited to geographical and transnational boundaries. Therefore, the project scope
covers all companies and organizations that can utilize social media platforms in the recent past.
However, all the secondary sources in the project paper were published recently, with the oldest
one published in 2017. The project utilizes recent sources to ascertain that it identifies and
analyzes the current impacts of social media marketing in developing bonds and connections
between organizations and stakeholders.

1.3Research Question
The entire project sought to address the research question: "How do social media
marketing and advertising affect brands?" The project analyzed the underlying correlations
between social media advertising, user types, the utility of the approach, and brand equity. The
research project hypothesizes that social media advertising affects brands through encouraging
customer contact and interactions with brand insights. Moreover, the study seeks to examine
whether the nature and types of social media users impact the degree of social media advertising
activities’ impacts on the development of brands. Therefore, the research question requires
meticulous research from relevant research articles. The research question should establish
whether companies should deploy social media advertising techniques to improve their
company’s brand awareness, commitment, and loyalty.

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SECTION 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
This section scrutinizes and analyzes data and insights from credible literature sources in
reliable online libraries and databases. The section provides a wide variety of secondary sources
and journal articles that investigate the concept of social media and its significance to the brand
of contemporary companies in the twenty-first century. Most literature sources contain valid and
relevant data because they are peer-reviewed and published in the past five years. The literature
sources in the section seek to thoroughly examine the reasons behind social media marketing's
influence on contemporary brands, specifically before, during, and after the COVID-19
pandemic. The literature review section aims to analyze and summarize the relationship between
social media marketing techniques and brand equity, loyalty, awareness, and association. The
section seeks to analyze how social media advertising and marketing create opportunities for
companies and organizations to interact with prospective customers, thus influencing their initial
and repeat purchase decisions. All the articles employed in the section aim to define the close
relationships between social media marketing and the development of brands.

2.2 Social Media Advertising and Brands
The digitalization of communication brought about by technological breakthroughs has
boosted the usefulness of social media advertising (Ibrahim 2022, pp. 63). The study showed that
social media utilizes computer-mediated communication properties and capabilities that enable
users to engage in social interaction from different geographical places. In a subsequent study by
Lenk et al. (2019, pp. 132), social media facilitates instant messaging and enables users to create
profiles, carry out searches, and sustain social interactions with friends and the local community.
There are numerous social media platforms with unique features and applications designed to

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meet brand needs, despite the lack of a social media structure that all brands can use to advertise
their product portfolios (Yadav & Rahman 2017, pp. 1298). The authors emphasize that social
media advertising impacts brands through enhancing stakeholders' brand recall, recognition,
action, and awareness. According to the study, the value of social media in marketing and
advertising is demonstrated by examining why brands have continued incorporating social media
platforms in their marketing, information, and communication activities. According to McClure
& Stock (2020, pp. 101975), social media advertising allows brands to promote their products
while preserving cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, social media marketing and advertising
provide additional benefits such as: strengthening brand-client connections and building
enduring and reliable partnerships.
Social media advertising impacts brands because it allows companies to identify
customer demands, build relationships, expand their promotional marketing and advertising
reach, track how the market responds to their brand, and take advantage of underlying market
trends (Chiang et al. 2019, pp. 115). Additionally, social media marketing has an impact on
brands by giving people the chance to build brand fan pages where they can connect with the
brand and express their complaints and compliments about products and services (Jamali &
Khan 2018, pp. 114). Creating brand fan pages provides two-way communication between the
brand and the customers and serves as a source for information to both customers and
companies, thus posing positive impacts on organizations' brand sustainability (Arrigo 2018, pp.
658). The authors affirm that social media groups and fan pages create a community for online
member users, which may cultivate loyalty, trust, and commitment to their respective brands.
The authors affirm that social media marketing posits a positive influence on the development of
brand image and awareness in the target markets. Considering that most social media

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applications and platforms allow the creation of groups and fan pages, contemporary marketers
and managers utilize the features to communicate to their specific clients and customers
(Sreejesh et al. 2020, pp. 102155). In essence, group and fan page features enable marketers to
reach specific audiences.
In their recent study, Aji et al. (2020, pp. 95) proposed how social media advertising
influences companies by utilizing the search tool to select between physical goods such as
electronics, accessories, and other items that customers may evaluate before making a purchase.
Furthermore, social media platforms enable consumers to examine and evaluate experience
goods such as food, accommodation, and recreational services. Considering that traditional
advertising and marketing strategies could not facilitate evaluation, contemporary marketers
appreciate the enabling social media advertising techniques. Furthermore, the scholars looked
into how brands utilize social media advertising to control user expectations and encourage
consumers to buy their items. Social media marketing impacts brands by raising awareness and
encouraging user engagement with the brands' goods. These studies offer information that helps
people better understand the primary causes of social media advertising's significant influence on
brands. The studies affirm that social media impacts brands because it facilitates improved
engagements and interactions between the brand, its stakeholders, and customers.

2.3 Types of Social Media Users
In the majority of contemporary organizations, if not all, consumers are the essential
stakeholders. Therefore, many organizations prioritize satisfying consumer needs in their day-today activities. After the extensive social media platforms in the twenty-first century, companies
and organizations align their social media advertising platforms to target several
consumer groups based on their diverse preferences, tastes, and fashions. Chahal et al. (2020, pp.

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4) affirm that premium brands that target certain users to promote brand engagement and reflect
enhanced consumer loyalty and repeat business are more successful with social media
advertising. In another study, Mukherjee (2020, pp. 517) considered the customers' inclinations
toward their favorite social media platforms as significant factors in facilitating their brand
engagements and interactions. The authors argue that social media attracts various users,
including lurkers, socializers, and transactional consumers. Therefore, contemporary managers
and marketers should understand the variety of potential target customers on social media
platforms and thus formulate effective, efficient, and successful social media campaigns. In
essence, the types of users on social media platforms play critical reasons in influencing social
media’s impact on contemporary brands.

2.4 Merits of Social Media Advertising to Brands
Digital technology has been crucial in simplifying operational and production
inefficiencies before, during, and after the COVID-19 epidemic (Vargo et al., 2021, pp. 15).
According to scholars, digital technology would aid in the elimination of the discrepancies that
currently exist in organizations, businesses, corporations, and institutions. For instance, courtesy
of digital technological platforms, different employees can converse and share information with
their coworkers, superiors, and manager...