Investigate The Role Of Social Media In Enhancing Customer Engagement

Question: Discuss about the Investigate The Role Of Social Media In Enhancing Customer Engagement In The Banking Sector- The Case Study Of HSBC (UK). Answer: Problem Statement The financial service industry has gone through drastic transformation due to increasing globalisation and rapid technological changes. Social media has taken a central position in this industry especially the banking sector, considering its ability to enable the banks to interact with their customers and engaging them with their brand(s). However, it has been revealed that a sharp decline in positive customer experience has been witnessed by the banking corporations and HSBC (UK) is one of them majorly due to the demands of the growing tech savvy customers (Marous, 2014). It has been identified that like counts for some of the social media posts of HSBC are above 1000 while 7-8 like for others (Ahluwalia, 2015). Understanding customers likings is still an ongoing project of the company. This demonstrates that customer engagement of HSBC fluctuates in spite of undertaking huge investment in social media promotion. Research Aim This research aims to analyse the way social media enables the organisations operating in the banking sector to elevate the level of customer engagement with key focus on HSBC in the UK. Research Objectives To analyse the significance of social media in the current business scenario To explore the merits and limitations of using social media in the UK banking sector To investigate the effectiveness of social media usage by HSBC (UK) in the context of customer engagement To identify the ways to enhance the effectiveness of social media strategies for elevating customer engagement Research Methodology: Methodology Type: This research requires certain numerical facts and figures such as the number of repeat customers of HSBC before and after the use of social media, number of social media posts of HSBC that has received maximum and minimum likes and number of social media followers of the company. This would enable the researcher to gain an insight to the current situation of the organisation with respect to the effectiveness of its social media strategies in enhancing customer engagement. At the same time, analysing the ideas and beliefs in this would be equally important. This would be helpful in identifying if the customers are actually getting engaged to the HSBC in the real life scenario due to its social strategies while identifying their niche requirements. Thus, mixed method (combination of qualitative and quantitative) would be used in this research (Bryman, 2012). Study Type: This research study requires analysing the research issue based on how and why parameters, which is commonly used in analytical study. In other words, this research involved analysing how social media is helpful in enhancing as well as developing customer engagement and why the banking corporations like HSBC are using social media. Therefore, analytical study would be undertaken for this research. Exploratory study would not be suitable for this research as it involves hypothesis testing (Daniel Sam, 2011). This research does not have a scope for hypothesis testing as it is more concerned about analysing the extent to which social media enables HSBC to enhance customer engagement rather than testing whether it elevate customer engagement or not. The focus of this research is on the current situation i.e. how effectively HSBC is currently using social media for enhancing the level of its customer engagement rather than predicting the chances of enhancing customer engagement in future . Thus, predictive study would not be suitable as it gives key emphasis on the future occurrence of a phenomenon (Gill Johnson, 2010). Sampling: Random sampling would be used for selecting 100 HSBC (UK) customers through social media page of the company. 2 social media marketing managers of HSBC (UK) would be selected through purposive random sampling as they need to have experience and knowledge social media strategies of the company, considering social media one of the key variables of this research. Data Collection: Primary data would be collected through online questionnaire survey of the 100 customers and telephonic interview of the 2 social media marketing managers of HSBC (UK). Secondary data would be collected from online journals and reports accessed from JSTOR, Google Scholar and Emerald Insight etc. and official website and social media page of HSBC. Data Analysis: MS Excel would be used for quantitative data analysis and its statistical presentation in the form of bar diagram and pie chart. Thematic analysis would be undertaken based on the facts and evidences presented in the literature review aligned with the responses of the managers. References Ahluwalia, L. (2015, August 18). Social Media in the Financial Industry. Retrieved March 02, 2017, from https://www.hallaminternet.com/social-media-in-the-financial-industry/ Bryman, A. (2012). Social Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Daniel, P., Sam, A. (2011). Research Methodology. New York: Gyan Publishing House. Gill, J., Johnson, P. (2010). Research Methods for Managers. SAGE: London. Marous, J. (2014, May 5). Minding The Gap in Social Banking Expectations. Retrieved March 02, 2017, from https://thefinancialbrand.com/39352/2014-capgemini-social-media-banking-research-study/ Chua, A. Y., Banerjee, S. (2013).Customer knowledge management via social media: the case of Starbucks. 17(2), . Journal of KnowledgeManagement , 237-249. Dijkmans, C., Kerkhof, P., Beukeboom, C. J. (2015). A stage to engage: Social media use and corporate reputation. .Tourism Management , 58-67. Gummerus, J., Liljander, V., Weman, E., Pihlstrm, M. (2012). Customer engagement in a Facebook brand community. Management Research Review , 35 (9), 857-877. Heller Baird, C., Parasnis, G. (2011). From social media to socialcustomer relationship management. . Strategy leadership , 30-37. Malthouse, E. C., Haenlein, M., Skiera, B., Wege, E., Zhang, M. (2013). Managing customer relationships in the social media era: introducing the social CRM house. . Journal of Interactive Marketing , 270-280. Mitic, M., Kapoulas, A. (2012). Understanding the role of social media in bank marketing. . Marketing Intelligence Planning , 30 (7), 668-686.