Exploring the Impact of Social Media on Generation Y Consumers

The research design for this paper will employ a mixed-methods approach, combining both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods to investigate the topic of Generation Y consumers' usage of social media. The positivist philosophy will be adopted in tandem with interpretivism, considering both the reliability and validity aspects of the research. Non-probability sampling using convenience sampling will be used to collect data from 100 respondents through closed-ended questionnaires. Data analysis will be conducted using SPSS 16.0, involving correlation and descriptive statistics. The researcher aims to ensure ethical considerations by ensuring privacy and non-harmful responses. A pilot test of the questionnaire will also be conducted to improve its reliability.

Research Proposal
Title: To understand the impact of social media on Generation Y consumers
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Abstract
The current paper is a research proposal to understand the impact of social media on
Generation Y consumers. The use of social media has increased substantially in the past
decade and it has brought major changes in the way companies and consumers used to
interact. The paper will try to understand whether the social media has impacted the way
Generation Y is consuming products or making purchase decisions. A thorough research will
be conducted to understand the literatures written in relation to the research topic.
Furthermore, primary data will be collected to prove or disprove the research hypotheses that
will be developed after the literature review.

Table of Contents
Abstract......................................................................................................................................1
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Research Topic.......................................................................................................................4
Research Questions................................................................................................................4
Research Objectives...............................................................................................................4
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................4
Method.......................................................................................................................................7
Research Design.....................................................................................................................8
Research Philosophy..........................................................................................................8
Research Approach............................................................................................................9
Research Strategy...............................................................................................................9
Data Collection.......................................................................................................................9
Data Analysis.......................................................................................................................10
Ethics Consideration............................................................................................................10
Validity and Reliability Issues.............................................................................................10
Resource Requirements........................................................................................................10
Time Plan.............................................................................................................................11
References................................................................................................................................11

Introduction
The advancement in the technologies in the last decade has led to the proliferation of various
internet service and facilities that have brought most of the world population on the internet.
The internet has become the driver for growth for the businesses around the world. Along
with that, it has influenced the life styles of millions of people around the world. The
increment in the availability of the internet and the cheaper technological devices has helped
internet reach numerous households around the world. With the proliferation of internet
facility, the new services have cropped and one of them is social media. Social media refers
to an online platform where people from all walk of life come together to interact, make
friends, share, and spend their quality time. Some of the examples of social media are
Facebook, LinkedIn, and others (Hudson and Thal, 2013).
The current research paper is concerned with understanding the impact of social media on the
Generation Y consumers. The Generation Y refers to the individuals who born during the
1980s and early 1990s. The focus of the paper is to understand the impact and the result is
likely to add value to the businesses that are willing to market their product and services
using the social media channels (Lewis, 2010). The development in the technology has
significantly impacted the level of competition among the companies operating in various
sectors. The customers and companies have come closest than before and the competition to
acquire customers has become more challenging, particularly with their increased awareness.
The current paper will provide value to the businesses as they will be able to understand the
way social media is impacting the Generation Y consumers. This will help them devise right
strategy to target this consumer segment using the social media platforms. Moreover, the
company will be able to bring product and offers that are more appealing to this segment.

Research Topic
The topic of the research is to understand the impact of social media on Generation Y
consumers.
Research Questions
Given below are the research questions that are expected to be answered by the end of the
research:
- What are the factors associated with social media that have impacted Generation Y
consumers?
- Why social media can be the key driver to attract Generation Y consumers?
Research Objectives
The research objectives have been derived for the current research paper. The research
objectives will guide the research in moving ahead. They are:
- To understand the key aspects of social media
- To understand the engagement of Generation Y consumers with social medi
- To understand the relationship between purchase decision of Generation Y consumers
with the use of Social Media
- To understand the future orientation of Generation Y consumers towards Social
Media usage.
Literature Review
The internet has significant impact on the way consumers are transforming their methods of
purchase or decision making. The internet has paved way to the virtual communities and
allowed the individuals access to the information that were not available pre-social-media

age. The level of communication has significantly enhanced (Kucuk and Krishnamurthy,
2007). The social networks are the form of websites that allows the users from similar
interests interact together and share their opinion and interests. There are various mediums
being used that come in the category of the social network such as the Blogs, Facebook,
LinkedIn, YouTube, and others (Sin, et al, 2012). There are various formats being used by the
users to engage in the communication such as podcasts, wikis, and others. The range of
interaction provided by these platforms is huge. A research conducted by Kozinets (2002) has
found that the consumers have reflected some change in their purchase behaviour after
reading the comments and reviews regarding their intended product online.
The social media is a unique concept and proliferated in the recent years to a significant level.
It has almost changed the way consumers used to make purchases and the way companies
used to promote and advertise their products and services (Hanna et al, 2011). The research
conducted by Mangold and Faulds (2009) has identified that consumers deflect their
behaviour to purchase particular product after interacting with social media information on
that product. Moreover, they are found to be posting dissatisfaction statements in the online
space post-purchase. The previous one decade can witness improved growth in the way
companies have adopted the online networks to interact with the consumers. The social media
channels acts as the platform of opportunity for the companies in increasing the engagement
of their target consumers with their brands. It helps build intimate relationship with the brand
(Mersey, et al, 2010).
Moise (2011) asserts that the organizations have a new opportunity to differentiate their
brand and company by communicating effectively with the consumers directly. It has also
been identified that there are marketers who are of the opinion that one advantage of the
product can be introduced to the consumers who are in the online space and can be reinforced
further to make it memorisable and attract the consumers. Kaplan and Haenlin (2010) assert

that the social media is comparatively more efficient in comparison to other form of channels
of communication to the consumers. They suggest companies to actively participate on the
social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and others so that they can connect faster with
their target consumers and get ahead of the competition. The interaction with the consumers
directly will allow the companies to improve their strategies faster after understanding their
preferences. The social media provides deep insight into the target consumers mind
(Williams and Williams, 2008).
The Generation Y (1981) has seen the presence of social media since their time, however the
usage proliferated after 2003 (Boyd and Ellison, 2008). The level of usage and the behaviour
around the social media is changing with fast pace. The Gen Y is from the years when
computers were developed and most of them mastered the usage of these to ease most areas
of their lives. The Generation Y has mostly entered into the workforce by now and they are
also considered as having good know-how with the technologies. The Generation Y uses
social media because they felt the need to interact with other individuals from remote
locations such as their friends, colleagues, and families (Palfrey and Gasser, 2008). It has
been found that the Generation Y respect the opinions of others on the social media and
importantly, they feel important whenever they send any feedback to the brands that are
active in that space (eMarketer, 2011).
In general, it has been agreed by the researchers that the Generation Y is frequent visitors of
the social media platforms and their high intensity users. Study conducted by Dye (2007) has
found that the Gen Y proactively shares contents and also engages in creation of creative
contents such as mashed up contents (combination of two or more contents). Rawlin et al
(2008) asserts that the Gen Y willingly stay connected with their known and also engage in
multitasking through the various facilities available due to the technological improvements.

A brief theoretical framework has been developed based on the literature review conducted
above. The detailed framework will be shown in the final report after further literature
reviews. The current framework is given below:
Method
The current chapter discusses the research methodology that has been adopted to conduct the
research. Basically, there are two research types, primary research and the secondary research
(Glass, 1976). The primary research is conducted to collect primary data directly from the
respondents and analyse those data to reach fruitful results. On the other hand, the secondary
research is concerned with collecting data and information from the secondary sources such
as past research studies, public and private research agencies, journals and articles, and
others. One of the demerits of the secondary research is that it does not allow the researcher
to have freedom in the data collection and the merit is that it is cost effective method and can
be conducted from a computer. Therefore, it is also called desk-based research. The primary
research, on the other hand, allows the researcher to collect the data as per the requirement,
however it is time consuming and requires some monetary investment.

The current research paper will use the hybrid of both the research method. The secondary
research methods will be used to collect and assess what has been done regarding the
research area of this paper. This will help in further building upon the study. In addition, the
primary research will be conducted to assess certain number of respondents to fulfil the
requirements of this research and reach a conclusive opinion.
Research Design
The research design is concerned with the overall strategy to be adopted to conduct the
research. The next three sections brief on three aspects of the research design, namely,
research philosophy, research approach, and research strategy.
Research Philosophy
The research philosophy considered here for comparison between positivism and
interpretivism and the suitable one will be selected as the research philosophy for this paper.
The positivism has the orientation that the actions of the individuals can be understood by
conducting quantitative research with the use of questionnaire. It requires that the research is
valid and there is the presence of reliability. On the other hand, the interpretivism is of the
view that the individuals cannot be understood by confining them to certain numbers and
therefore the qualitative method should be adopted. The interpretivism engages in
observation, and unstructured interviews (Weber, 2004). This philosophy can willingly
sacrifice the reliability aspect of the research if more validity is being witnessed. Both the
aspects are appropriate in their respective context. The current research paper will consider
positivism and interpretivism philosophy in tandem due to the lack of ample time to conduct
unstructured interview and observation.

Research Approach
The research approach can be either inductive or it can be deductive. The inductive research
approach begins with broadly generalizing the research aspects and then certain hypotheses
are formed by drilling down. The hypotheses are then further proved or disproved based on
the collected data analysis (Kokinov, 1992). On the other hand, the deductive approach helps
the researcher in the application of the theories or hypothesis to the particular situation. The
current research paper will consider the inductive approach. Varied research studies from the
past will be reviewed to reach certain hypotheses which will be further assessed based on the
analysis of the collected data.
Research Strategy
The research will consider the use of qualitative and quantitative data which will be collected
from the respondents. The questionnaire will be closed end and will preferably use Likert’s
scale.
Data Collection
The collection of the data will be from the target respondents. In the current research paper,
the target respondents are the Generation Y consumers who are active on the social media in
the past few years. The non-probability sampling method will be considered for the data
collection. In the non-probability sampling, convenience sampling will be used. The
convenience sampling will allow the researcher freedom to choose respondents from whom
the responses will be gained (Baltar and Brunet, 2012). One of the important things to note
here is that that convenience sampling leaves ample opportunity for the researcher bias which
has to be monitored. The total number of responses collected will be 100. Hundred
questionnaires will be distributed and based on the responses received, further steps will be
considered.

Data Analysis
After the collection of data from the target respondents, the data analysis will be conducted.
The use of SPSS 16.0 will be facilitated to conduct various statistical tools and techniques.
The statistical tools to be used in the current research with the help of SPSS 16.0 are
correlation and descriptive statistics. The descriptive statics will help in understanding the
various data sets in brief and the correlation will help understand the relationship between the
variables.
Ethics Consideration
The current research paper will be based on ethical and moral codes. It will be ensured that
the current research study does not bring any form of harm to stakeholders associated. In
addition, the privacy of respondents will also be ensured.
Validity and Reliability Issues
The validity and the reliability of the research data will be ensured by conducting pilot test of
the questionnaire at ten respondents. The questionnaire will be further improved after the
pilot test, and then complete data collection will be facilitated.
Resource Requirements
The resources required for the conduction of the current research is access to the internet
which will be handled by the researcher. The collection of data will be facilitated using the
colleagues, fiends, and other individuals who are present on the social media network of the
researcher.

Time Plan
The research will be conducted as per the timeline shown in the image below. The below plan
has been developed using the MS Project software which is used to schedule projects whether
it is large or small:

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