HI6008 Business Research Project: Methodology Report

This report presents a detailed research methodology aimed at analyzing the effects of social media advertising on buyer behavior, specifically within the Australian tourism industry. The research focuses on understanding how social media marketing influences consumer purchasing decisions, with a particular emphasis on the role of consumer trust and the advertising strategies of companies like Meriton. The study employs a quantitative research approach, utilizing the survey method to collect primary data from a sample of 75-100 respondents. The questionnaire includes both demographic and Likert scale questions to assess consumer attitudes and behaviors related to social media advertising. Data analysis involves descriptive statistics, correlation, regression analysis, and one-sample t-tests to test research hypotheses. The anticipated findings indicate that social media advertising significantly impacts consumer behavior, with consumer trust playing a vital role in holiday apartment rentals. The research also anticipates that social media advertising is an effective method for attracting customers.

Research Methodology
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

Table of Contents
1. Introduction:..............................................................................................................2
The topic of the research:.........................................................................................2
Research questions:.................................................................................................2
2. Research Methodology:............................................................................................2
Research Method:.....................................................................................................3
Research Hypothesis:...............................................................................................3
Data collection:..........................................................................................................4
Sample Size and Sample technique:........................................................................4
Questionnaire Design factors:...................................................................................5
Sample Questions:....................................................................................................5
Data collection method:............................................................................................7
Envisaged analysis and interpretation:.....................................................................7
3. Summary of the findings:..........................................................................................8
4. Conclusion:...............................................................................................................8
References:................................................................................................................10
Who wrote what:.........................................................................................................11

1. Introduction:
At the present time, social media marketing and advertising have become an
important method of promoting a brand or business. From the study of various
researchers, it can be observed that this digital marketing strategy helps companies
to gain profits. Hence, the present research study intends to analyse the effects of
social media advertising on Buyer Behaviour. The topic has been selected to
investigate how companies change their advertising methods from the old-school to
the digital one for gaining competitive advantage.
The topic of the research:
The process of social media marketing and advertising is interesting as well as
entertaining. Thus, from previous researches, it is observed that companies have
positive responses which in turn have helped companies to gain popularity.
However, the failure of social media marketing can force companies to lose their
brand name and hence the process can be said as a complex one. They give
emphasis to the Australian tourism industry. In this context, it is essential to mention
that the industry has a large customer base across the world and hence social media
advertising is an important part of the business. Hence, to understand the issue
more precisely, the researchers form a primary research question for addressing the
aims and objectives of the study.
Research questions:
The researchers try to identify the parameters in social media advertising that can
influence buyer behaviour of a company. To support this question, secondary
research questions are also required to consider and these are as follow:
1. Is the role of consumer trust vital in holiday apartment rentals in Australia (in parts
of Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales)?
2. Do the consumers in the tourism industry have trust in social media advertising?
3. Does the social media advertising of Meriton influence the customer base?
2. Research Methodology:
This section discusses the research methodologies that are used to accomplish the
research aim and objectives. Hence, the main purpose of research methodology is to

define the entire process and technique of the research in a scientific way. The main
objective of adopting the proper research methodology framework is to examine the
impacts of social media advertising on buyer behaviour in the Australian tourism
industry. The methodology will help researchers to select the proper research
design, approach as well as a philosophy for addressing the research objectives
successfully. In addition to this, the section will also give emphasis on the type of
research method, data collection process, sample size and sampling techniques,
questionnaire design factors along with sample questions to predict the desired
outcome (Sharma 2017).
Research Method:
Depending on the requirement of the study, the researcher will select an
experimental type of research design for testing the research hypothesis. In addition
to this, the researcher will also consider deductive research approach along with
positivism research philosophy to obtain the desired outcome by conducting
quantitative analysis.
In research work, the researchers can consider either quantitative or qualitative or
mixed type of research method. In the quantitative research method, the researchers
adopt the deductive approach for determining empirical evidence to support the
research hypothesis. On the other side, researchers conduct an in-depth analysis of
qualitative research. For quantitative research, researchers adopt the survey method
while the interview process is considered for qualitative research. In this context, it is
essential to mention that both types of research methods have some advantages.
For instance, a quantitative research method leads the researchers to collect and
test relevant data by adopting the proper methodology to obtain an accurate
outcome (Richards et al. 2019). On the contrary, qualitative data leads the
researchers to conduct an in-depth analysis. However, for the purpose of this study,
the researcher will adopt the quantitative method. Hence, they will collect data by
conducting a survey for the testing hypothesis with appropriate statistical methods.
According to (Bauer and Scheim 2019), quantitative analysis provides reliable
outcomes compared to the researchers.
Research Hypothesis:
To address the above-mentioned research questions, the researcher considers the
following research hypotheses:

H1: The role of consumer trust is vital in holiday apartment rentals in Australia (in
parts of Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales)
H2: The social media advertising of Meriton influences the customer base
Data collection:
For the purpose of the study, the researcher will consider both primary and
secondary data to cross-check the outcome. To understand the impact of social
media advertising on buying behaviour of consumers, the researchers will consider
the annual report of Meriton to examine the trend of its sales revenue for the last 10
years. In addition to this, the researcher will also gather information from official
websites and business magazines to understand how social media marketing
influence the company (Moser and Korstjens 2018).
The research work will be based on primary quantitative data that will be collected
directly from respondents. For collecting data, the researcher will apply the survey
method and for this survey, a questionnaire will be formed. In this context, it is
essential to mention that the researcher will focus on the main purpose of the study
at the time of making survey questions. The main purpose of selecting primary data
is that it can be collected directly from the first-hand sources to solve a specific
issue. Moreover, the researcher can also control the entire process of data collection
for obtaining the desired outcome. Thus, to collect primary quantitative data, survey
method will be appropriate.
Sample Size and Sample technique:
In research work, researchers apply sampling technique to represent a population
because it is not possible for researchers to collect data from the target population.
Muneer, Shabbir and Khalil (2017) stated that the method of sampling leads
researchers to select sampling respondents from a specified population for
deducting the required information. However, to avoid a biased outcome, the
researchers need to select proper sampling technique.
In this research, the researcher will collect data from the customers of Meriton to
understand how the company’s social media advertising stimulate their purchasing
decisions. For this, the researcher will select 75-100 respondents by applying simple
random sampling without replacement technique.

Questionnaire Design factors:
For conducting a survey, the questionnaire is considered as the most important tool
as it can reduce the possibility of data distortion. For the simplicity of the study, the
researcher considers close-ended questions that will address the main topic of the
research. The questionnaire will consist of 10 questions among which two will be
demographic questions such as age and gender of the respondents. Each question
will have multiple options as per the requirement of the question. The Likert Scale
will be applied to understand the intensity of social media advertising and how it
influences the buying decision of consumers. The Likert Scale will have a different
range of options based on the question (Hill and Alexander 2017). Hence, it will help
respondents to answer properly regarding the impact of digital marketing on their
purchasing decision of consumers. The researcher will form both manual and web-
based questionnaire to collect data from different respondents across the country.
Sample Questions:
Some sample questions that will be incorporated in the main survey questionnaire
are provided below.
1. Age in years:
A. 18 – 27
B. 28 – 37
C. 38 – 47
D. 38 – 57
E. 58 and above
2. Gender:
A. Male
B. Female
3. Frequency of using social media platform:
A. Daily
B. 3 - 4 times a week
C. 1- 2 times a week
D. Once a month
E. When required
4. What type of social media influence you’re buying decisions the most
A. Facebook

B. Twitter
C. Instagram
D. Twitter
E. YouTube
5. Do you agree that social media advertising influence your purchasing behaviour?
A. Strongly Disagree
B. Disagree
C. Neutral
D. Agree
E. Strongly agree
6. Do you rely completely on social media advertisement for purchasing a product or
service?
A. Strongly Disagree
B. Disagree
C. Neutral
D. Agree
E. Strongly agree
7. A customer’s trust on social media platform plays a role when applying for holiday
rentals in Australia.
A. Strongly Disagree
B. Disagree
C. Neutral
D. Agree
E. Strongly agree
8. The social media advertisement technique by Meriton is effective for increasing
customer base.
A. Strongly Disagree
B. Disagree
C. Neutral
D. Agree
E. Strongly agree
9. One’s opinion influences buying behaviours significantly by words of persuasion
like discount offers, purchase now or apply now options.
A. Strongly Disagree

B. Disagree
C. Neutral
D. Agree
E. Strongly agree
10. The social media advertising of Meriton reflects its advertisement on the
homepage where the visibility is good and attractive.
A. Strongly Disagree
B. Disagree
C. Neutral
D. Agree
E. Strongly agree
Data collection method:
The process of collecting data from customers of Meriton through survey method will
depend on time. Researchers will select three consecutive months during the peak
session when the maximum number of international and domestic customers come
to stay in Meriton (Rinderknecht et al. 2017). The researchers select the
questionnaire carefully so that they can collect information close to reality. Moreover,
during the peak sessions, the number of visitors will be increased and consequently,
it will cover a large range of the population. After collecting data, the researcher will
use SPSS software to conduct statistical analysis.
Envisaged analysis and interpretation:
To address the research questions and obtain the desired outcome, the researcher
will select proper statistical methods. Based on the requirement of the research, it
can be said that the researcher will measure descriptive statistics, correlation,
regression equation and one sample t-test. These statistical methods will help the
researcher to test the research hypotheses accurately. Researchers will apply
descriptive statistics to summarise the collected data. Correlation coefficient will help
the researcher to measure the relationship between social media marketing and its
impact on purchasing decisions of consumers. Furthermore, the regression equation
will also help the researcher to how different factors of social media advertising
influence the buying behaviour of consumers. One sample t-test, on the other side,
will be applied to test whether the sample mean is different for some hypothesised

value or not. Hence, each statistical analysis will help the researchers to obtain the
desired outcome by testing the research hypotheses.
3. Summary of the findings:
After conducting statistical analysis, the researcher can observe that the impact of
social media advertising will change the purchasing behaviour of consumers
significantly. For holiday apartment rentals in Australia (in parts of Queensland,
Victoria and New South Wales), maintaining consumer trust is vital as it helps them
to gain more revenue. Social media advertising will be the most effective technique
for gaining a large number of customers. From the analysis, it could be seen that
consumers have trust in social media advertising and hence holiday apartment will
apply this technique to attract a large number of consumers. From the survey, the
researchers can also see that the digital marketing technique of Meriton is attractive
for which many international and domestic customers come to stay here during the
peak tourist season.
The researchers will also consider secondary data and previous literature to support
the findings.
4. Conclusion:
The main purpose of the research is to investigate whether social media advertising
can influence the behaviour of buyers in the tourism industry or not. For this, the
researchers consider Meriton as a case study to collect and analyse data. Here, the
researchers mainly try to find various parameters of social media advertising that can
influence buyer behaviour. For the simplicity of the research, the researchers
consider some secondary questions that focus on consumers’ trust and
advertisement technique of Meriton in social media advertising. To get the desired
outcome, the researchers form research hypotheses and conduct survey method to
collect primary quantitative data. SPSS software is used to analyse primary data with
suitable statistical techniques. In this analysis, the researcher analyses descriptive
statistics, correlation, regression equation and one sample t-test to test research
hypotheses and to obtain the desired outcome. From the analysis, it is expected that
social media advertising will positively influence buyer decision in the tourism

industry. The attractive advertisement and offers of Meriton will attract customers
across the world to purchase their service.

References:
Bauer, G.R. and Scheim, A.I., 2019. Methods for analytic intercategorical
intersectionality in quantitative research: discrimination as a mediator of health
inequalities. Social Science & Medicine, 226, pp.236-245.
Hill, N. and Alexander, J., 2017. The handbook of customer satisfaction and loyalty
measurement. New York: Routledge.
Moser, A. and Korstjens, I., 2018. Series: Practical guidance to qualitative research.
Part 3: Sampling, data collection and analysis. European Journal of General
Practice, 24(1), pp.9-18.
Muneer, S., Shabbir, J. and Khalil, A., 2017. Estimation of finite population mean in
simple random sampling and stratified random sampling using two auxiliary
variables. Communications in Statistics-Theory and Methods, 46(5), pp.2181-2192.
Richards, K.A.R., Killian, C.M., Graber, K.C. and Kern, B.D., 2019. Studying
Recruitment and Retention in PETE: Qualitative and Quantitative Research
Methods. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 38(1), pp.22-36.
Rinderknecht, A.S., Dyas, J.R., Kerrey, B.T., Geis, G.L., Ho, M.H. and Mittiga, M.R.,
2017. Studying the safety and performance of rapid sequence intubation: data
collection method matters. Academic Emergency Medicine, 24(4), pp.411-421.
Sharma, G., 2017. Pros and cons of different sampling techniques. International
journal of applied research, 3(7), pp.749-752.

Who wrote what?
Bibek Bogati has written introduction, research method, research hypothesis and
data collection section.
Dipesh Rana has done sampling technique, questionnaire designs and examples of
questions.
Data collection method, envisages analysis, summary of the findings have been
done by Sadikshya Pariyar.
The conclusion has been contributed by everyone.