The Impact of Social Media on Consumer Behaviour

This project explores the influence of social media on consumer behaviour and provides solutions to mitigate negative impacts. Qualitative and secondary research methods are used to collect data on consumer behaviour and the role of social media. The results highlight the need for ethical promotion and awareness of genuine influencers.

The impact of social
media on the behaviour
of consumers
(INTEGRATED PROJECT)

Table of Contents
Introduction to project......................................................................................................................1
Explaining what data is collected....................................................................................................1
How much successfully given problem was solved........................................................................3
The results of the approach and evaluation whether the problem was solved.................................4
References:.......................................................................................................................................6
Books and Journals.................................................................................................................6

Introduction to project
Social media has emerged itself as an important part of communication in today’s era.
People and organisations across the globe are using the social media to connect to multiple
audience at one go. Social media has taken itself to another level in terms of communicating and
expressing the experience (Voramontri and Klieb, 2019). There are several social media
platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube etc. where the people communicate, share
and even now buy and sell products and services. The consumers are tend to share the views,
reviews and experience about the service and products used by them, people share the advice and
warning for the particular products, tips on using the products, health and food advice and much
more. Consumers are always looking for the reviews and recommendations on social media
before buying the product. This completely defines that there is major influence of social media
on the consumer’s behaviour and this is the title of the present project. The report will outline
that consumers have lots of connections over the social media, by which they consume large
volume of information which become a source for the influence on consumer behaviour. The
social media has certainly negative influence on the consumers which create problem for the
organizations. The present report will represent what data will be collected and using which
method for the recognizing the influence of social media on consumers. At last report will
discuss the approach to solve the problem of influence of social media on consumers and how
successful it is to solve the problem (Yadav and Rahman, 2018).
Explaining what data is collected
As a researcher in order to collect the information regarding the consumer behaviour over
the social media channels secondary and qualitative method of research is being used. The
suitable method for collecting the data of larger base is the secondary data collection method in
which the person observes or collects the data from already available and analyzed data from the
other user. Data can be collected through the magazines, articles, books, newspapers, and
journals etc. that are published over the internet on the various websites. Secondary data is useful
and easy way of collecting the data as it is already been converted into an analysed statistical
data by the other researcher which is only required to be collected for the current project. Data
can be accessed from the internal or the external sources for the various organisations. The
secondary data can be in two forms qualitative or quantitative. For the current project the
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researcher has used secondary data collection method in order to collect the information’s related
to the consumer behaviour over the various social media platforms (Gómez, Lopez and Molina,
2019). It will be very useful method for the researcher as it will help the researcher in easy
analysing the customer behaviour that are already been researched by another researcher in its
article or journal's. The secondary data collection method is highly suitable, adequate and
reliable to research about the influence of social media on customer behaviour.
Qualitative method of research is a suitable method in order to analyse the influence of
social media on the consumer behaviour as this approach provides the exploratory reason of the
specific problem for the way in which the system is working. Basically a qualitative data
collection is a method that serves the primary purpose of gathering the written or textual data for
the research and analysis. The qualitative data collection in research methods is useful in getting
the meaning in relationship between the two subjects and also to gain the knowledge about a
specific issue. Qualitative method is useful and impactful method of research for the social
norms which are the demeaning the people or which are causing the impact over the people
attitude and behaviour (Ziyadin and et. al., 2019). In order to analyse the influence of the social
media with the consumer's qualitative method is the most suitable approach to analyse the
problem as well as to find the solutions. The qualitative methods of data collection that are used
for collecting the information related to the consumer behaviour through the social media are
there interviews, surveys and observations.
Using the above research methods following data was collected regarding the influence of
social media on the consumers. Conducting the interviews with the different age and gender of
people it was analysed that the most influenced age group from the social media is 20-35 in both
genders. Some of the answers were found while conducting the interview which suggest what
social media is highly influential over the customers, what kind of purchasing is done social
media, Is social media is helpful in finding the new products, how often the people are checking
the social media which is influencing their buying behaviour, the negative influence on the
customers buying behaviour due to the reviews read and observed over the social media etc. All
this data was collected using the qualitative method of interview which was two ways
communication giving the evidence to problem that social media plays a major role in
influencing the customers buying behaviour as well the other behaviour towards the brands and
their products (Bigne and et. al., 2018).
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According to (Ravikant Balkrishna Sangudre, 2019), Using qualitative method some of the
survey was conducted which included the filling up of the questionnaires from the people.
Questionnaire included various questions like whether the person use social media, for what
purpose social media is used by the person, what type of social media is mainly used by the
person, does the person pay major attention towards the advertisements by the different brands
on the social media, do person trust the reviews and the suggestions posted over the social media,
does social media influence the buying decisions, is social media is a preferred source for
analysing the information about a particular product for their buying decision, how many
products have the purchase currently by influencing from the advertisements over the social
media and at last what role of social media plays in the minds and the life of the consumer. All
the answers of the above question has made the researcher in collecting the massive amount of
data that will be helpful in finding and solving the problem related to the influence of social
media on the consumers.
How much successfully given problem was solved
With the assistance of the above collected data it was analysed that the major problem behind the
influential behaviour of the consumer is the competitive advertisements by the different brands
and the reviews posted by the other people over the social media influence the customer’s
behaviour (Szmigin and Piacentini, 2018). The above data has made a researcher analyse that
social media possess very negative influence over the consumer behaviour as everyone is trying
to harm the reputation of each other’s brand using the different kinds of promotions,
advertisements, blogging and review by which they are distracting the customers and influencing
their decisions to buy a suitable product as per their needs. The above secondary and qualitative
method of research approach was very successful in solving the problem as it made the
researcher analyse the key problem which also provided the solutions to reduce the influence of
the social media on the consumers. The methods to solve this problem are:
Regularly conduct the survey that helps in analysing the problem as well as solutions of them
according the requirements of the customers. To solve the problems of influence of media on the
customers the brands should promote the healthy and ethical way of promoting their products
without handling the reputation of the status of other brand which helps the customers in
understanding the benefits of the products which allow them to make correct decision before
buying the product (Harrigan and et. al., 2021). With various articles and the generals posted on
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the website customers should be made aware about the social media sites and the reviews posted
by the other people without getting influence from such reviews rather they should self utilise
those products in order to decide themselves what feedback should be provided to the industry
regarding the product. Social media is such a big platform where the companies can ethically
promote their products by creating the good influence over the customers which will result in
positive results to the company as well as in the customer behaviour. Using the social media sites
customer should be suggested that they should read the positive feedbacks and do not pursue any
malicious activities in demeaning the customers behaviour. The customer should be made aware
about the genuine influencer’s, bloggers over the social media that are providing the correct
reviews about the products and services that they had been using in their daily lives so that the
customers have a good influence of social media in their buying decisions. Hence the data
collection methods were certainly very successful in finding the solution of the problem by
which social media can have a good and positive impact on consumers (Roelens, Baecke and
Benoit, 2016).
The results of the approach and evaluation whether the problem was solved
Result of selecting the qualitative and secondary method of approach in order to analyse the
problem and to find the solution of the impact of social media on the consumer behaviour was
very successful. This help the researcher in finding the better solutions in by which the social
media can create a positive impact over the minds and the lives of the customers and also
influence their buying decisions for the betterment of the organisations. Media is large platform
which can be helpful in treating and impacting the large number of customers at one click. It has
been analysed from qualitative research approach that more than 50% of the user's browser social
media in order to research about the product before making their buying decisions therefore to
solve the problem of negative impact of social media on consumer behaviour one of the latest
trend over the social media used in marketing campaigns using the concept and example of real
life and ideal people as they have much impact on the consumer behaviour (Raza and et. al.,
2020).
Consumers are always looking for the new products in the market for which the social media
is such a big network as more buyers are over the social media and they are always looking for
the reviews and recommendations therefore every organisation has to make an online presence
over the social media platforms in order to create the positive influence over the customer's
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mind. In order to create a positive impact of social media on the customers their brands and
organisations and the people are required to make the customers aware about the brand and their
offerings along with their benefits. When the customers are filtering their choices for the end
decision to buy the product there, the social media influencers are the most prominent method for
the people to convince the customers towards the better choice. Every account over the social
media that contains a large amount of followers and also regularly update their social media
accounts with various contents should provide the customers with the informative and attractive
than that blew the customer's mind towards the positivity which results in the positive impact of
social media on the consumer’s behaviour. Hence, result of approach was successful and
impactful as it provided the various solutions by which the influence of social media can have a
positive impact on the consumer behaviour such as by building product awareness, providing the
evidence and proofs for the greater force of buying decisions, using social media influencers,
promotion, discounts and deals with the social media by the various organisations.
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References:
Books and Journals
Voramontri, D. and Klieb, L., 2019. Impact of social media on consumer
behaviour. International Journal of Information and Decision Sciences. 11(3). pp.209-233.
Yadav, M. and Rahman, Z., 2018. The influence of social media marketing activities on
customer loyalty: A study of e-commerce industry. Benchmarking: An International Journal.
Gómez, M., Lopez, C. and Molina, A., 2019. An integrated model of social media brand
engagement. Computers in Human Behavior. 96. pp.196-206.
Ziyadin, S and et. al., 2019. The role of social media marketing in consumer behaviour. In E3S
Web of Conferences (Vol. 135, p. 04022). EDP Sciences.
Bigne, E and et. al., 2018. The impact of social media and offline influences on consumer
behaviour. An analysis of the low-cost airline industry. Current Issues in Tourism. 21(9).
pp.1014-1032.
Szmigin, I. and Piacentini, M., 2018. Consumer behaviour. Oxford University Press.
Harrigan, P and et. al., 2021. Identifying influencers on social media. International Journal of
Information Management. 56. p.102246.
Roelens, I., Baecke, P. and Benoit, D.F., 2016. Identifying influencers in a social network: The
value of real referral data. Decision Support Systems. 91. pp.25-36.
Raza, S.A and et. al., 2020. Influence of social networking sites on life satisfaction among
university students: a mediating role of social benefit and social overload. Health Education.
Online
The Impact of Social Media on buying behaviour of Consumer, 2019. [online] Available
through
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aviour_of_consumer/>
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