RESPONSIBLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP VISION DEVELOPMENT AND ETHICS

Digital social media marketing for entrepreneurs: boosting brand image… 47
keting highly questionable. Even with digital campaign tracking a lot of times it is hard to
say if the increase in sales resulted from a social media marketing campaign or some other
mediums or patterns (Nadaraja, 2013).
Even though there are certain risks associated with social media marketing the benefits
that the companies can gain from it are huge. If social media platforms are used efficiently,
they can increase brand recognition, help the businesses to have competitive advantage, target
particular segments and reduce costs. Finally, social media marketing encourages innovation,
and it is one of the outcomes of technological developments over the past few decades
(Bernoff, 2011). This means that in order to benefit from technological developments, survive
competition and gain market leadership companies and startups should try to find correct
ways of implementing their social media marketing campaigns.
Methodology
As primary research aims, this paper undertook a survey with entrepreneurs and assessed
their views & acceptance on Digital Social Media Marketing in terms of creating innovation
and bossing brand image as well as their willingness and ability to apply these practices in
their organizations. In order to achieve this lead researcher was in charge of conducting a
survey as well as of processing the data for the use of the other co-authors. More specifically,
for preparing the targeted respondents, an information sheet preceded the survey (in
order to present the main questions that will be asked during the survey – as well as the ethical
considerations and guidelines – data storage, data processing, duration of the survey, ability
to quit at any point, acceptance of the data to be stores, acknowledgement that the info
will be used for research purposes only, etc.). Additionally, the respondent was asked to tick
a consent form (based on the information sheet) before proceeding to the survey questions.
The primary data (raw) are stored in a secure location within the department’s secured local
ethics office and will be destroyed after 5 years. The lead researcher analysed, transcribed
and anonymized then the raw data (ensuring that no private data is disclosed on the summary
of the survey which was utilized during this research). The lead researcher undertook ethics
training under the EU & departmental standards. A departmental ethics approval was also
performed on the intended survey questions and procedure (in order to ensure the ethical and
unbiased nature of the content).
In order to create the survey questions, a secondary research was performed towards identifying
valid scientific constructs (mostly based on UTAUT surveys). The secondary research
was based on academic databases (Scopus, EBSCO, Elsevier, Springer, etc.) as well as on
policy and R&D) databases such as the EU CORDIS portal. No access to any personal data
was interfere at this stage. The survey was created online (via Google Forms) and was disseminated
to a probability sample of 55 contacts. A valid response rate of 21 answers has
been recorded (38% success rate). The findings of the surveys as well as the survey structure
are presented in the next section.