In any way, no such information will be publicized that can help to identify or recognize the respondent unless the respondent himself ask for publicizing his personal info. Interview Questions

1. How would you describe the current balance of social media vs. traditional advertising and marketing?

2. Are the types of consumers targeted with online vs. traditional advertising different and if so in what way?

3. Have you considered using social media for advertised your business and if so what do you see as some of the benefits?

4. Do you think social media can provide you with additional possibilities for advertisement to new customers and what media you think would provide you the most benefit (Facebook 'likes,' Twitter, etc.

5. What trends do you think will be most important in the industry when it comes to the utilization of social media for advertising?

6. How do you think social networking is changing the way businesses are interacting with customers and the way they are learning about new products?

7. What processes or activities of social media do you think would provide a small business viable strategy for increasing advertising competitiveness with larges business enterprises?

Significance

This study has brought many facts to light that can be of great help for many organizations. It is beneficial in a number of ways. It not only providesoperative marketing techniques for small businesses, but also a credibletechnique for actions and work. Word of mouth marketing basically depends uponthe reputation of the organization. Social mediagives an opportunity to the customers to support their ideas and thoughts, both positive and negative, on the internetwhere global audience can have access to it (Franklin, 1999).Therefore, effective word of mouth tactics will needmoralactivities in order to keep this info about business products and activitiesoptimistic. Social marketing permits customers to back their opinions and ideas, both positive as well as negative. Thus, operative word of mouth tactics will require moral activities in order to keep this unrestricted info about business products and activities optimistic. Furthermore, word of mouth marketing can serve many other benefits as well like making amendments in the marketing strategy according to the views and ideas of the people. All these factors have increased the significance of social media.

Results and Major Findings

The research was conducted with the help of interviews. The present research will target local small businesses. Small business owners were targeted and educated about the research, those who agreed to the terms and conditions of the research were interviewed in person as well as in focus group.

Interviews are a useful method due to multiple reasons examine issues deeply determinethe ideas and perceptions of the respondents about a certain topic

explore the usage, efficacy and helpfulness of specificproblem aid in decision making, tactical planning and resource distribution sensitive topics can be easily discussed in personal interview about which people usually feel uncomfortable in a focus group complement a human dimension to objective data develop understanding and clarify statistical data (Hassan & Thomas, 2006)

Numerousbenefits of interviews can be listed they are of great significance to attaindeep and thoroughknowledgein context of personal approaches, insights and views they give an opportunity for more thorough and comprehensive questions to be asked they typicallyattain anexceptional rate of response respondents personal views are recorded in an interview

imperfect answers can be asked again and made clear exact wording of the respondents can be quoted and exact meaning of questions can be easilyexplained interviewees are not influenced by others in the group like questionnaires

Some interviewees may be less uncomfortable or hesitant to answer in one-to-one situation

The qualitative data obtained from the interviews were coded, categorized, and analyzed according to the precepts of Grounded Theory, in order to arrive at an inductive theory. Grounded theory method (GT) is a well-organized process in the social sciences that forms a link between theory and data analysis.It is basically used in qualitative study, but can be used to get ideal results in quantitative data as well. Grounded theory method is a research method which is completely different and opposite as compared to traditional methods of data analysis. The first and most significant step of Grounded Theory is data collection. Several approaches and methods are used for this purpose.From the data collected, the key points are marked with a series of codes, which...

In order to code the data through open coding, the main idea of each line was summarized. Then, single words or phrases were looked for that would convey the idea of that line in a simplified way. Some lines resulted in only a single word code, while others necessitated phrases. Then, codes were grouped into categories according to their more general properties. For example, codes such as "Facebook" and "Twitter" became part of the category "Social Media Sites." Some categories appeared much more often than others. After categories were created, axial coding was undertaken to identify relationships between the codes, categories, and their dimensions. Axial coding is a method aimed at creating "conceptual connections between a category and its subcategories"(Strauss & Corbin, 1990). For this phase of the data analysis, the following model was applied to identify relationships:
Causal conditions central phenomena context intervening conditions action/interaction strategies consequences

The first question asked was how would you describe the current balance of social media vs. traditional advertising and marketing-Most of the respondents were of the view that social media is a very important resource that can help the advertising competitiveness of small businesses. Despite the prevalence of the impact of social media, many respondents were of the view that equilibrium needs to be attained between social media and traditional advertising. Some favored traditional advertising. They were of the view that advertising via social media seems to grow weekly, but traditional advertising still seems to outweigh social media advertising. it's somewhat hard to judge, though, because several forms of social media advertising are borderline subliminal. In other words, we probably don't really know how often we are receiving advertising through social media outlets. The major reason behind this perception is the age group of the respondents. It is a well-known truth that youngsters are more aware of technology and social media whereas aged people are less comfortable with this evolved technology. Thus older age group favors traditional advertising, whereas youth prefers social media and realizes its significance. The conclusion drawn can be that with increased growth in technology and the popularity gained by social media, it has definitely become a significant measure that help small businesses to gain advertising competitiveness. It is a well-known and experienced phenomenon that evolving with technology is necessary to stay in the market. For instance, the concept of digital photography replaced the system of printing pictures. Only those photographers are in the market that changed the technology. Thus, it's all about the survival of the fittest. Another important aspect of social media is its support for word of mouth marketing (Johnston, 2007). Social marketing permits customers to back their opinions and ideas, both positive as well as negative. Thus, operative word of mouth tactics will require moral activities in order to keep this unrestricted info about business products and activitiesoptimistic. Furthermore, word of mouth marketingcan serve many other benefits as well like making amendments in the marketing strategy according to the views and ideas of the people. All these factors have increased the significance of social media.

The chart above clearly indicated that the millennial use social media the most as compared to generation X, boomers and seniors. Generation Y, also known as the Millennial Generation, is the generation that comes after Generation X the exact dates for the start and end of Generation Y are unknown. Analysts use birth dates from the latter 1970s to the early 1980s to the early 2000s (Patzer, 1996). Generation X refers to the people who were born in 1960s. A baby boomer refers to the generation that was born during the post-World War II era between the years 1946 and 1964 (Somekh, 2006). Lastly, seniors are the oldest people as compared to all other age groups.This show that age of the respondents can be a significant reason that resulted in diverse view as a result of which few people favored traditional advertising; otherwise social media is more effective.

The second open ended question are the types of consumers targeted with online vs. traditional advertising different and if so in what way? Number of reasons is listed that make the traditional…