Abstract—Consumers nowadays are spending more time on online activities, leading to wider social network and hence more awareness, creating new opportunities and challenges for research. With the innovation of social media platforms like Facebook, Skype, YouTube, Flickr, hi5, Twitter etc., the consumers can now congregate online and share their opinions about the products and services that they use. Moreover, the technology is integrated in the mobile phones also. The brands are interested in identifying what their customers have to express. Online surveys, reviews and live chats have emerged as the new investigative tools in marketing research industry. In this paper, we study of the state of market research using social media, their advantages and disadvantages and its strategies to remain effective specifically for small business to promote their brand, products and services. This paper will guide building of new social media strategies for small businesses.

Index Terms—Customer relationship management, exploratory factor analysis, food and beverage industry, information technology.

Renuka Mahajan is with Amity University, Noida, U.P. India.

Cite: Renuka Mahajan, " Use of Social Media as a New Investigative Tool in Marketing Research for Small Business," International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning vol. 5, no. 3, pp.129-135, 2015.