MARKETING RESEARCH ON THE EFFICIENCY OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN SHAPING AN ENTERPRISE BRAND

Abstract

The article is devoted to marketing research on the efficiency of social media as a strategic tool for shaping the brand of a modern enterprise. The rapid digitalisation of marketing communications drives the relevance of the topic, the growing penetration of social media, and the shift of brand and consumer interaction channels into the digital environment. The purpose of the article is the theoretical substantiation and conduct of comprehensive marketing research on the efficiency of using social media in the process of shaping and developing an enterprise brand. The study applies a set of methods: systemic analysis and synthesis to generalise theoretical approaches; comparative analysis to juxtapose the capabilities of social media platforms; desk research to analyse secondary data; field marketing research using a questionnaire survey of higher education students, namely bachelor students of the first, second, third and fourth years, master students and postgraduate students, with a sample size of 384 respondents and a marginal error not exceeding five percent at a confidence level of ninety five percent; analysis of platform digital analytics metrics; statistical and graphical methods to process and visualise empirical data; and the before and after comparison method to evaluate the effectiveness of a social media marketing strategy. As a result of the study, the levels of brand formation in social media from awareness to advocacy were systematised, a system of key performance indicators was substantiated, and the positive impact of implementing a structured strategy on brand metrics was empirically confirmed: brand awareness increased by 68.4 per cent, the engagement rate by 157.1 per cent, and the loyalty index by 104.8 per cent. The scientific novelty lies in improving the methodological approach to comprehensive marketing research on the efficiency of social media in brand formation by combining a multilevel model, an integrated system of metrics, and survey data from the student audience. The practical significance of the obtained results lies in the possibility of their use by enterprises for developing well-grounded strategies, optimising the allocation of the marketing budget among platforms, and increasing the effectiveness of branding in the digital environment.