Web 2.0: An Evaluation of Social Media Networking Sites

Abstract

Purpose of This Paper: This research was conducted to understand the socio-economic conditions of the peoples in the Chennai city. To examine the preference of employed youth with respect to social media networking sites and to categorise the selected social media networking sites based on the Importance cum Performance perception analysis of customers in Chennai city of Tamil Nadu. The empirical and exploratory research design was adopted by employing survey method to collect responses from target population through convenient non-probability sampling method. The primary data collected were subjected to analysis using SPSS version 23.0 and the statistical tools such as, percentage analysis, descriptive statistics, reversed weighed average mean ranking and Multi-Dimensional Scale Approach was adopted to draw meaningful answers to research objectives. The employed youth were classified into two categories based on the social media usage namely, highest users and high users. The Elucidean scaling map reveals the relative positions of the different social media networking sites in different quadrants and it was categorised namely, Excellent Performance / Extremely Important, Excellent Performance/Slightly Important, Extremely Important/Fair Performance and Slightly Important/Fair Performance. This study concluded that digital marketers are advised to market their products and services in the Whatsapp, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram social media networking sites. Since, these sites are highly preferred by the employed youth in the study area for the purpose devising the effective social media marketing strategies. Snapchat and Pinterest are the two least preferred social media networking sites among the employed youth. Finally, the employed youth are suggested to use the social media networking sites actively, intelligently and efficiently rather, burning their valuable time of routine life. This research paper aimed to explore the usage and preference of employed youth towards selected social media networking sites. The Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS) approach was adopted to find the relative positions of the different social media networking sites in different quadrants.