The Impact of Social Media Marketing on Consumer Behavior in the Retail Industry

This report analyzes the impact of social media marketing on consumer behavior in the retail industry. It discusses the role of social media in shaping consumer perception, the importance of two-way communication between businesses and consumers, and the competitive landscape in the retail industry. The report also examines the stages of the consumer decision-making process and how social media influences each stage. The case study of Tesco highlights the company's use of social media tools to enhance communication with stakeholders.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The aim of this report is to discuss how contemporary society marketing has become a big phenomenon
in the retail industry because it opens a direction of communication and feedback between consumers and
retailer. Social media enable competition among retailers so as to understand the thought and ideas among
consumers through reviews comments and opinions. As this is reflecting on the market-consumer trends
for the retailer to apply better consumer oriented strategy, given that technology advancement in our
society and we can easily control and assimilate a lot of things within the reach of our fingerprints all the
time, it is no surprise that social media usage has been astronomical in recent years.
Consumer lifestyle has been evolving in recent years due to more concentration on social media as this
has been changing consumer perception about brands and how well each brand is closer to its community
of buyers. Since people are now spending more time on social media more than before it is pertinent for
brands to relate more with their customers through this medium.
Introduction
People are ever evolving, the significant change in consumer lifestyle usually influence the perception
and buying behavior on any particular brand. Social media marketing has emerged as the most influential
marketing tools of this contemporary era. The growth of social media is increasing every month as new
users sign up on different platforms and these users turned consumers tends to relate more with the brand
with more visibility on the platform they spend most times on. So this report will analyse consumer
behaviour using cognitive theories and the need for aggressive social media marketing.
Business Environment (tesco pdf)
According to (Fatricia,2017) business environment is the atmosphere that company operates in, so as to
guarantee profitability and maintain top position the global market. Tesco employees focus on all
necessary requirements and preference of consumers and provide satisfaction on an queries, the unique
work culture in the company has been a great necessity ( Guo and Wang, 2019). Reliable investors will be
more happy to invest in Tesco Plc based on unique brand image, quality of products and position among
retailers in the world ranking. SWOT analysis can be used to examine the business operations in Tesco
Plc with more understanding on the negative and positive business environment. Consumer-retailer
partnership has greatly helped the business environment in Tesco, with the rise of retail business in UK
Tesco position as the number one brand remain unchanged ( Soegoto, 2021). However different
challenges may arise like increase in price of raw materials, environmental disaster, economic recession
etc. Which can force Tesco Plc to increase price of products and this would lead to draw back in
consumer buying behaviour of the company products and services ( Aiello et al. , 2020).
Consumer trends and social media
Social media has now become ubiquitous of consumers’ lives, with many consumers joining these
platforms every day. Up to 61.67 million social media users in the UK, popular platforms continued to
take the lead in new users’ number, with almost three quarters of the country using messaging app
(Statista, 2022). The UK total population of social media users has shown how infused it has become into

the majority of the population everyday lives. 25 to 34 years age group comprised of the one quarter of all
social media users (Statista, 2022). At the start of 2022 internet usage in UK was at 98% of the total
population, this platform have not only played a great role in changing how human interaction has
evolved, but also created the ideas of business strategies adopted by companies to strengthen the
producer-consumer type of relationship (The global statistic, 2022). Social media continues to grow at
high speed with over 42.34 million using Facebook and up to 25.98 million on twitter and this can be
difficult for a retail company like Tesco Plc to market their product without difficulty in applying the
necessary strategies (The global statistic, 2022).
Consumers expect a two-way communication from the business they support and with the necessary
strategies organization of any size can rise to the challenges. Consumers feel that a company is no more
faceless that they can only learn about through Google searches and by looking at brands network
consumer can interact with businesses in different ways, from liking post and following their accounts for
contents and promo (Sridhar, 2021).
Competitors Activities
According to (Guo and Wang, 2019) Tesco is facing many competitors in the world retail industry like
Walmart, Amazon, Costo etc. However, Tesco has been able to stay on top of the UK retail industry,
Tesco has been able to attained 27% of the market share while ASDA has 14%, Sainsbury holds 15%
shares. However, the competition among these companies still going at high pace. Tesco position at the
top continues to get threatened by other competitors but Tesco pricing strategies and quality products and
services helps the company to continue gaining competitive advantage among consumers ( Guo and
Wang, 2019). With the opportunities provided by social media it is now easier for retail industry to appeal
to the perception of different consumers through advertisement and targeted Ads, these companies are
now investing in social media influencers and marketing strategies to drive sales and attract new
customers. Aldi and Amazon are trying to price-match Tesco in other to grow their market share in the
industry (Forbes, 2022).
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR AND THE NEED FOR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
2.3: Social media and Social Media Marketing (impact of SM on purchase decision pdf)
1//Social media marketing can be defined as usage of social media platforms for consumer outreach to
help gain new customers, inform existing customers about products and services available and provide
answers and feedback to any inquiries (Alkaya & Taşkın, 2017). Social media marketing means ensuring
the promotion of brands to consumers so that consumers can be informed about available products and
services (Guesalaga, 2016). Researcher like (Hanayasha, 2017) has cited that social media marketing is
now the new approach to reach consumers because different people from walk of life has now integrated
social media into their everyday lives, which has opened path for companies to communicate and
influence consumers behaviour. (Lee 2016) discussed that social media has created the medium of
reaching potential consumers and existing customers with good marketing strategies to help company get
desired outcome.

Social media is now a great medium of disseminating information and providing business opportunities
for retailers so as to connect with consumers and created advertisement to influence, attract and retain
these consumers (Manchanda, Packard & Pattabhiramaiah, 2015). Social media has given retailers a huge
platform for specific purpose to relate with consumers and get ahead of competitors in the ever growing
retail industry (Noreen & Han, 2015).
2.5 The classical or traditional purchase model (Impact of social media marketing pdf)
The five stages of the classical model of consumer behaviour are described in the following paragraphs.
Stage 1 – need recognition
Need recognition or problem recognition stage drive buyer decision through stimuli and this can be
external stimuli like advertisements or adminiration, while hunger and thirst in aspect of internal stimuli.
This create a difference in consumers mind about their current stage and desired stage (Kotler and
Armstrong, 2014). With advertisement from Tesco through social media and consumer hunger, this will
trigger the consumer mind to start a purchase decision process, and this will lead to other consumer stage
information search.
Stage 2 – information search
The search for information on social media network is increasing every day as consumers now turning
into social media during decision making process. Social media influencers are now a big player in
marketing of brands and providing information to consumers (Nielsen, 2012). The consumer initiate
information search in the memory after realiasing the need for recognition to examine the available
options to be considered. Comparatives would be made between external and internal knowledge and if
internal knowledge could not provide desired search result, external knowledge is required to complement
existing foundational knowledge. External search sources include public media sources (e.g., newspapers,
magazines, television, and internet), personal sources (friends and family), commercial sources (e.g.,
advertisements and salespeople).
Companies can now search and gather information about consumers on how they rate their products and
services, encourage interaction and provide insight. (Nielsen 2012) found out that consumers now search
for information on social media about particular products and brands they wish to patronize. Basically
now people spend more time on social media than the past decades, consumers tends to go to social media
for complete and reliable product assessment of retailers so as to gathered sufficient information through
reviews and comments of other consumers (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). Low availability of information
can hinder decision making and plenty information can also limit good decision.
Stage 3 – evaluation of alternatives
The consumer evaluate and process alternative product choices after information has been stored. The
consumer float around the information search stage and alternative evaluation stage because of how the
two are interconnected. In this stage the consumer will determine the available choices through
comparative criteria and the alternative are eliminated by preference then final decision would be made.

4 Purchasing decision (not pharaphrased)
The purchase of products and services via the Internet could be considered by consumers as risky
alternative due to the absence of personal contact, the inability to have physical product evaluation, and in
some cases the lack of secure transactions. The efforts towards increasing the fundamental factor of trust
in consumer behaviour could be supported with the use of social media channels, such as Facebook,
YouTube, Twitter, and corporate blogs as they enhance the feeling of social presence (Karimov and
Brengman, 2011). In addition, consumers could use social media as a communication tool which will help
them decide what to buy. The latest addition to the capabilities of social media is the integration of
applications (apps) which enable the users to conduct transactions within the social media platforms. This
enables the brands to reach sales, which is the ultimate objective of the communication, much faster since
the customer does not need to click or type the web address to a web browser and start from the beginning
the product search.
Stage 5 – post-purchase behaviour
In the post-purchase stage, consumers evaluate the product’s performance based on expectations, and
reach a state of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The expectation confirmation theory (Oliver, 1977)
explains post-purchase satisfaction as a function of expectations, perceived performance, and
confirmation (or disconfirmation) of beliefs.
In this stage according to (Oliver, 1977) expectation confirmation theory consumers will evaluate the
products and services received based on expectations, and this will result to a state of dissatisfaction if the
expectations are not achieved and satisfaction state if expectations are achieved. The situation is
subjective as outcomes are compared base on the state of expectations. Consumers who spent alot of time
and money to get a product may experience cognitive dissonance on whether right decisions was made
throug the search for information to support or delegate the dissonance towards confirmation of the
decision made or concluding it was a wrong choice (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). In this situation
consumer go on social media to expresses their feelings about the product and services they received and

these reviews and comments are seen by other potential consumers which will later shape their buying
behaviour towards the brand either positively or negatively based on the information processed.
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
2.5: Characteristic of social media marketing(impact of social media marketing on con purchase
decision pdf)
According to research by Mayfield (2008), there are five characteristics of social media such as
participation, openness, conversation, community and connectedness. On the other hand, Taprial and
Kanwar (2012) also identified five features of social media that makes it distinct from traditional media
such accessibility, speed, interactivity, longevity and reached. However, based on previous literature the
dominant features of social media marketing are it is community-based, promotes connectedness,
motivate openness; ensure speed, accessibility, participation and conversation. According to Mishra,
Narendra Kumar & Sharma (2012) community in social media information is shared with the similar
online social community which helped to ensure connectedness among communities. In case of business
community such as retail industry retail company share information about product features, offer and new
product etc. to social media fan page. Supporting this Ahn, Ryu & Han (2007) stated that social media
enables retail companies to stay closer to target consumers with updated products, services, offer etc.
According to Mayfield (2008), social media is free for its users. The users of social media need to interest
access through a smartphone or other electronic devices. So, motivates its target customer to share
information about the brand name to other consumers or community.
It has been found that social media marketing has a higher spread than traditional marketing such as word
of mount marketing. In case of social media, online WOM spreads consistently where traditional WOM
disappear into thin of air. Taprial and Kanwar (2012) information published social media is available to
its network and instantaneous as soon as it published. So, accessibility by individual users is easy in social
media than traditional media. Another feature of social media is participation. Individual user of social
media can comment on the advertisement published. It enables to get feedback from the company
directly. It is two-way communication systems. Thus it is more effective to provide feedback to
consumers’ instantly which is not possible on traditional media. Supporting this Pehlivan, Sarican &
Berthon (2011) argued that social media is based on user-generated content where everyone can generate
information. Thus social media marketing is very effective to spread information among target consumer
more effectively and efficiently within a short span of time.
2.5.1 Tesco and social media
Tesco emphasis to their staff to understand the values offered by Tesco try to be authentic and respect
other peoples. The use of social media tools by Tesco it is the clear adoption new era approach. While
using the social media tools which include Facebook, Twitter. Pinterest, Google plus etc (Econsultancy,
2017). Tesco try enable enhance the overall communication approach related to the target stake holders.
This is on considering the facts and figures of TESCO regarding the use of various social media tools, it
has been found that TESCO is possessing a separate page for the promotion of its clothing range where it
has also gained nearly 238, 000 number of fans (Moth, 2013). Apart from this, they have togbether
introduced a new app that demonstrates an interactive fitting room that permit the users to form their own
3D digital versions after trying cloths and uploading a photograph, etc. TESCO also has a strong

networking account in Twitter with more than 50, 000 followers. Also, its Pinterest account has shown a
drastic increment of fans from only 32 to 655 in just 6 months of time where TESCO is also active on
Google+ with nearly 2, 500 fans.
2.4 Effectiveness of social media tools for conducting marketing activities ( I need to use Theory of
reasoned action)
Vinerean, Cetina, Dumitrescu and Tichindelean (2013) state that social media is a widely-known
phrase that is a unified term composed of two distinct terms namely social and media. On the one
hand, the foremost term “social” refers to the act of interacting with one another either by
sharing some sort of data with them or by obtaining any kind of data from them. On the other
hand, the next term ‘media’ is hereby referred to be any device by which the communication
among two individuals takes place (Vinerean, Cetina, Dumitrescu and Tichindelean, 2013).
Tsitsi Chikandiwa, Contogiannis and Jembere (2013) suggest that social media marketing
consists of varied effective features with a foremost benefit of an augmented brand recognition.
It is where social media implication in advertising exists with enormous scope of improving the
content written over there in the sites as advertisements that in turn enhances the visibility of the
consumers with a valuable outlook towards the same.
Ngai, Tao and Moon (2015) with a distinct consent towards the above conferred statement have
referred to another effective existence of social media in the marketing activities of the
companies where it gives them yet another prudent chance of acquiring a reinforced brand
loyalty.
Social media platform is also envisioned to provide more opportunities of conversion who
support the fact that every post shared by the organisations gives a prompt chance to the
consumers to convert their views into practical purchasing of goods and services (Thurau, Hofacker and
Bloching 2013). It therefore signifies the conversion of leads into profitable
outcomes. It is with a fundamental scope of responding to the shared post that in turn reflects
another possibility of acknowledging the status of the services provisioned by the entities
(Hennig-Thurau, Hofacker and Bloching, 2013). It is however with an amalgamated outcome of
acquiring both good and bad comments as reactions on the post where the positive remarks are

referred to be the most likely conversions. Also, it is due to another discerning fact where the
responses are mostly obtained from all set of customers that involves new, old and existent ones.
However, Zimmerman and Ng (2015) state that only the positive remarks can make higher the
conversion rate. It is where any negative comment together has a chance of conversion with a
due responsibility of the marketers to find out the reason of any such negative remark and work
upon its prompt elimination. This can be done by having a positive outlook towards the same to
seek out any such deterrent issue concerning the customers (Zimmerman and Ng, 2015). After
which, they can also refer to convert such pessimistic clients to provide their affirmative
reaction. This is not only specified to be a mere conversion of positive into negative but it is also
envisioned to give a prior assurance to the companies to sustain their optimistic positioning for a
longer time.
Beside this, Hudson, Roth, Madden and Hudson (2015) suggest that a correspondent outlook
have together referred the social media act of marketing to higher the overall conversion rates of
the ventures by applying the element of humanization in it. It is where the brands are more likely
to become a part of improvement that never lets them down and indeed takes them to a higher
level of potentiality (Hudson, Roth, Madden and Hudson, 2015). It is thus with a 100% chance of
conversion where social media being the most interactive tool of marketing is evident to amend
the credibility of the brands with an improved level of trust in the consumers. Also, being one of
the most effective tool of marketing, it is always referred to give more number of followers with
an improved transition rate of audience.
REFERENCES

Nielsen (2012) State of The Media: Social Media Report 2012 Retrieved from
https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2012/state-of-the-media-the-social-media-report-2012/ (accessed
November 12, 2022)
Karimov, F.P. and Brengman, M. (2011), “Adoption of social media by online retailers:assessment of
current practices and future directions”, Interna tional Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Vol.
2 No. 1, pp. 26-45 (accessed Nov 12, 2022)
APPENDIX

Customer wrote feedback on Facebook about the product bought from Tesco.