A Quantitative Study of the Impact of

Social Media Reviews on Brand Perception

in Grade 8 Pascal Students

 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Social media has grown beyond its original purpose of connecting people all over the

globe. Today, the ease of interacting with millions of social media users in a cost

effective and real-time manner has given rise to the creation of highly engaging online

content by users from diverse professional and personal backgrounds. An all-

encompassing definition of social media is “Social Media is a group of Internet-based

applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and

that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content”. Successful social

media platforms today are structured to incorporate a fast and cost-effective message

delivery system that is globally accessible. Popular social media websites can be

characterized by an ever-growing network of participants that interact through highly

engaging content. Because of this ability to host persuasive content, social media

platforms have become a powerful tool for brand managers to reach their target

audience.

Recent advancements in technology, arts, and economics have greatly improved the

usability and reach of social media platforms. For instance, a report by 2015 Pew

Research informs that there was a 7% rise in the usage of social media from 2005 to

2015. The report informs that 65% adults use social media (Perrin, 2015). As social

media evolves into a more sophisticated tool for interaction and global reach, many

individuals and companies are leveraging their influence using it to their benefit. As a

consequence, the field of social media provides a viable career option for content

creators who talk, sell, promote, and respond to audience effectively.

Significance of the Study

Teachers

Teacher will be affected by our study because if their students are not present on their

respective classes and they will know that it’s because of Social Media they can now

have an idea on how to guide their students.

Parents

Parents will be affected by our study because it can definitely help them to discipline

their child who are too addict on Social Media.

Students

Students will be affected by our study because if they are too addict on Social Media

they can possibly not focus on their studies.

Scope And Delimitation

Keeping the competitive landscape in mind, the social media platforms are being

leveraged not only by the content creators to maximize their reach to the target

audience, but also by the companies selling the product being reviewed. To capture the

interest of such a vast audience, a brand manager must measure the effectiveness of

the channels that divulge brand information to that audience. In this thesis, we propose

a formal technique to measure the effectiveness of these channels in conveying the

brand message to their audience by using relevant user-relevant metrics.

Social media primarily attracts the attention of the millennial generation. According to

the 2010 Pew Research report, the millennial is defined as having been born between

1977 and 1992. The reviewers of the millennial generation have a high power of

influence on the audience that thinks and acts like them. For the millennial generation,

various social media channels have become inseparable part of every phase of their

lives. Table 1 provides a broad classification of social media platforms (arranged in no

particular order or feature preference).

TABLE 1

CATEGORIES AND THEIR EXAMPLES OF SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

Type of Platforms Examples

Text interaction and review WhatsApp, Snapchat.com

Text interaction and review Facebook, Twitter

Audio and video YouTube.com

Photography Instagram

Shopping Amazon.com

Special topics Interactive games, dating websites

Statement of the Problem

These platforms have enabled the Grade 8 Pascal and others to become a part of their

most personal interests and opinions. In this thesis, we specifically focus on two social

media platforms used by the Grade 8 Pascal YouTube and Facebook.

The Grade 8 Pascal Students were largely engaged in creating and viewing video

content on popular video hosting websites such as YouTube and Facebook.

Many reasons justify this growth in the total time spend on YouTube and Facebook.

One of the most crucial reasons is the advancement of YouTube and Facebook.

According to Oxford dictionary, a vlog is “A blog in which the postings are primarily in

video form” (Oxford Dictionary). An individual using these vlogs are called vloggers.

Vloggers belong mostly to the Millennial Generation and Generation Z strive to attract

maximum number of followers to their YouTube channels. Vloggers start their online

presence as ordinary people. But, with the progression of time, some of them succeed
in attracting a large number of views from the audience who can relate to the content in

the videos over mutual interests. YouTube and Facebook has helped ordinary people to

turn into online celebrities in a short time.

Because of the way these vloggers have a powerful influence on altering the opinions of

their followers, marketers can no longer ignore the possibility of employing these

channels for brand promotion and reach. There is a professional aspect to vlogging that

has evolved into a serious career choice for many of these vloggers that belong to the

millennial generation. Because YouTube and Facebook are so popular and provides a

way to earn through creating and posting viral content, there is an opportunity to make a

career as a video content creator.

For this thesis, we focus specifically on the smartphone reviews. The smartphone

industry is a cluttered market with overwhelming information for potential buyers. Most

buyers want their daily drivers. to have the best performance and style while being

budget friendly. It is common place that smartphone companies launch new products or

update their old products often, which is overly confusing for potential buyers when

choosing a smartphone that fits their requirements. Smartphone buyers almost always

rely on an advice from someone who has used their desired phone. Technology

reviewers on YouTube and Facebook offer their opinions about the features that the

audience can relate to.

Because the users of technology products must be convinced about the effectiveness of

features before making a buying decision, brand managers of technology companies

must reach the most influential reviewers to convey the brand message of their product
to their target audience. Empirically, research has been conducted on the impact of

online content on the total number of views, subscription, and comments in isolation.

While these studies succeeded in measuring the impact of online content on websites

like YouTube and Facebook, they were limited in measuring the impact of content

creators on YouTube and Facebook on the audience in their full potential.

Background of Study

The purpose of this study was to quantitatively examine the impact of social media

reviews contributed primarily by the Grade 8 Pascal on reaction of the audience to the

commodities or services being reviewed. Specifically, this research quantified the way in

which brand managers working for smartphone companies can leverage the services of

highly influential YouTube and Facebook content creators to reach a large set of online

audience. Another key contribution of this work was a statistical model that predicts the

impact of social media content, which can be beneficial to the communication team of a

company. We described the usefulness of the statistical model in analyzing the

interaction between a brand and its audience effectively for any industry other than

smartphone.
Today, it is common to find companies using social media marketing as their primary

strategy. One of the most impactful ways to communicate online is through audio-video

messaging.

According to a report in The Guardian, “Nielsen claims 64% of marketers expect video

to dominate their strategies in the near future” (Trimble, 2015). Companies focused on

communication have social media experts (individual or group of professionals) who

come together to plan, implement, and evaluate the social media initiatives in a time-

sensitive manner.

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW
Understanding the impact of social media platforms in influencing opinions of the users

has been an active area of research in the intersection of the fields of Computer

Science and Marketing/Brand Management. This research was primarily focused on

understanding how brand managers can leverage the knowledge of attributes of social

media reviews to predict the popularity of their brand.

For YouTube, previous research was focused on modeling views, comments, and

subscription to examine the popularity of video content in specific categories using

sophisticated data mining tools.

 CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

This research used hypothesis testing to collect data that signified a relationship

between dependent and independent variables. The type of investigation used was the

correlation method. We used the interval scale within a linear regression model. An

interval scale allows researchers to “perform certain arithmetic operations on the data

collected from the respondent (Mir p.16)”. We use this interval scale to measure the

distance between two points on the scale.

The rest of this chapter is organized as follows. First, we explain our method to gather

review attributes on YouTube.com and Facebook. Second, we present our method to

visually understand the correlation and interaction between various interesting attributes

of reviews. Some interesting interactions between review attributes that arise in this

step suggest potential for trivial as well as non-trivial correlations. Third, we present our

attempt to formally quantify these correlations using the well-known method of Linear

Regression. Finally, we present our method for applying the same method to quantify

the performance of reviews on Facebook.

Dependent and Independent Variables

A variable is any given data series that is considered to be a component for statistical

measurement. An independent variable is an attribute that describes the fundamental

characteristic of the entity being described. On the other hand, a dependent variable is

any variable that is influenced by the independent variable due to causality relationship.

At this point, the change in the dependent variable is observed and recorded.

For example, in this thesis the dependent variable of views on YouTube can potentially

change (increase or decrease) with the change in the independent variable duration of

the video, as we explore later. Independent variables are exclusively controlled by the

reviewer. In formal scientific methods, independent variables are changed or controlled

in the mathematical/scientific experiment to measure how they affect the dependent.

 CHAPTER IV

PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA

This chapter discussed the presentation and analysis of the data gathered. The

researcher sought to answer the specific problem.

SOCIAL MEDIA 1-2 Hours 2-4 Hours 4-6 Hours

PLATFORMS
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube
Snapchat
Twitter
Tiktok
Google
Wattpad
DOTA
Point Blank
Mobile Legends
The result of our research topic, 7 out of 14 (46.7%)students said that they spending 1-
2 hours using Facebook, 3 out of 14 (20%) students said that they spend 2-4 hours
using Facebook, 4 out of 14 (26.7%) students said that they spend 4-6 hours using
Facebook, 5 out 14 (44.3%) students said that they spend 1-2 hours using Twitter,4 out
of 14 (20%) said that they spend 1-2 hours, using Instagram 1 out of 14 (13.3%)
students 1-2 hours, 2 out of 14 (6.7%) students said that the spend 4-6 hours, using
YouTube,6out of 14 (40%) said that they spend 2-4 hours using YouTube,3 out of 14
(20%) students said that they spend 4-6 hours using YouTube, 3 out of 14 (20%) said
that they spend 1-2 hours using Google,5out of 14 (26.7%) said that they spend 2-4
hours using Google,1 out of 14 (6.7%) said that they spend 1-2 hours using Mobile
Legends ,5 out of 14 (33.3%) said that they spend 1-2 hours using Tiktok,1out of 14
(6.7%) said that they spend 1-2 hours using Dota,1 out of 14 (6.7%) said that they
spend 5-6 hours using Dota , 2 out of 14 (13.3 %) students said that that spend 1-2
hours using Wattpad, 6 out of 14 (40%) students said that they spend 4-6 hours using
Wattpad, 2 out of 14 (13.3%) students said that they spend 1-2 hours using Point Blank,
1 out of 14 (6.7%) students said that they spend 2-4 hours using Point Blank and 2 out
of 14 (13.3%) said that they spend 4-6 hours using Point Blank.