The Influence of Social Media Marketing on Consumer Buying Decisions

This research proposal investigates the relationship between social media marketing and consumer buying behavior. It begins with an introduction to consumer behavior and the role of marketing strategies, particularly in the context of luxury versus essential goods. The research aims to determine the influence of social media advertisements on consumer purchasing decisions and to understand the strategies marketing managers should employ. The objectives include identifying factors influencing consumer behavior in response to social media ads and understanding the evolution of purchasing decisions in the digital age. The proposal poses key research questions about consumer reactions to social media ads, the factors influencing buying decisions, and the motivations behind marketing managers' shift to social media. A literature review explores factors like consumer preferences, brand loyalty, and the impact of virtual shops on consumer behavior. The research will employ both qualitative and quantitative analysis, including focus group interviews and the use of SPSS for data analysis. The proposal also includes a Gantt chart outlining the research timeline and references to relevant academic sources.

Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
1
Relation between social media marketing and consumers’ buying decision

RESEARCH PROPOSAL 2
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Research Aim.............................................................................................................................3
Research objective.....................................................................................................................4
Research Questions....................................................................................................................4
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................5
Research Issue............................................................................................................................6
Research Methodology...............................................................................................................7
Gantt chart..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8

RESEARCH PROPOSAL 3
Introduction
Consumer behavior defines the consumption pattern of a consumer. It focuses on
different factors in order to determine the demand of an individual. Consumer behavior is an
important aspect for the marketing managers of an item in order to decide the marketing
strategy they need to employ. In order to understand the consumer behaviors for an item, the
manager needs to understand the product first. If the product is a necessary good, then
enormous advertising or marketing strategy is not required. On the other hand if the item is a
luxury good, then elaborate marketing strategy is required to be implemented in order to
bring a substantial change in its sales.
Marketing managers employ different strategies and tools for advertising the product.
Like in promotion for a movie the latest trend is to offer social media challenges performed
by various celebrities. On the other hand men-products like Old Spice or AXE uses different
strategies for their advertisement. The following paper documents the relationship between
social media marketing and consumers’ buying decision. This paper also explains the reason
for marketing managers to shift their attention from television commercials to social media
advertisements. The paper also reveals the benefits that marketing managers receive through
such strategies
Research Aim
The reach will demonstrate, the degree of influence that social media advertisements
have on the consumers’ decision of buying products. The research will evaluate the relation
and also will provide a fair understanding of the different strategies that marketing managers
should pursue to promote their products through the use of social media.

RESEARCH PROPOSAL 4
Research objective
The primary objective of the research is to illustrate the relation between the social
media advertisements and consumer behavior of individuals.
The secondary objective is:
 To determine the various factors that influence the behavior of the consumers while
addressing to the advertisements that are being uploaded in the social media
 To determine the factors that shape the purchasing decisions’ of consumers and how it
has changed with more use of social media advertisements.
Research Questions
Based upon the aim and objectives of the paper, the primary question associated with the
research would be:
How do people react to the different advertisements published in the social media?
The associated secondary questions are:
1. What individuals look for while deciding to buy any product through the
advertisements in social media?
2. Why marketing managers target social media advertisements more than other forms
of marketing in this modern era?
3. What are the factors according to these marketing managers that make the product
attractive in the eyes of the consumers?
4. What are the information that these managers would share in the advertisement to
increase the growth rate of the product?

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5. The benefits that the marketing managers receive from promoting their products I
social media over other tools of advertisement?
Literature Review
Consumers’ behavior depends on many factors like their taste and preference, price of
the product, the price of the substitute product, etc. Thus there is no single factor that can
manipulate the demand schedule of a consumer (Gómez, Martín‐Consuegra, Díaz & Molina,
2018). Apart from these factors like social culture of the country, reviews from earlier
customers and the position of the firm in the industry are also the factors that can shape one’s
demand (Eisend, Hartmann & Apaolaza, 2018). Moreover brand loyalty is another
influencing factor for the shaping the demand schedule of the consumer. In America no other
cell-phone company has strengthen their hold like Apple (Rodríguez-Priego & Montoro-Ríos,
2018). The Americans are highly loyal to their own brands and this is the reason why
companies like Samsung, HTC cannot penetrate into the market (Kaur & Bhatia, 2018). With
advancement of technology the shoppers have drastically changed their behavior. Earlier
people used to the market and showroom and then buy their product but now due to the
development online shops or virtual shops. People prefer to buy from these stores, as they are
cheap and highly convenient. But this change in shopping habit has also shifted their
demand’s influencing factors (Spence, Stancu, Elliott & Dean, 2018). Earlier reviews were
not so important but in the era of virtual shops this has become an important influencer of
consumer behavior. Moreover after the evolution of these virtual shops there has been a
drastic change in the consumption pattern of the consumers. People have more choices with
less labor, thus the competition of the products have increased manifold. So consumers are
becoming more aware of the products they are using and making their choices accordingly.

RESEARCH PROPOSAL 6
The advancement of technology has also changed the world of advertisements. During
the First World War, print media was the major medium for advertisements or marketing a
product, after the discovery of television the focus shifted from print media to T.V.
commercials (Andersson, Rosenqvist & Grenblad, 2018). In this modern era of internet and
high speed computers, marketing managers have shifted their focus to social media
advertisement. There are various social media platforms available in the internet. These
platforms serve as common discussion ground for the users. Marketing managers use these
platforms as powerful tools for promoting their products (Iankova, Davies, Archer-Brown,
Marder, & Yau, 2018). These social media platforms provide various types of marketing
techniques. The promotion can be designed as a survey, or videos can be posted in these
platforms (Olson, Slater, Hult & Olson, 2018). Great leaders like Elon Must use his twitter
account to draw the attention of the mass and promote his electric cars. Thus social media
platforms are very versatile for the marketing managers to use for the promotion of their
products (Dahl, 2018). As internet has increased the competition among products, this has
forced marketing managers to enforce unique marketing strategy that not only lures
customers but also out ranks the existing products in the market (Macarthy, 2018).
Research Issue
With the advent of internet, marketing managers have shifted their focus from print media
and television commercials to social media advertisements. There is no present literature that
demonstrates the relation between these advertisements and increase in consumer preference.
Moreover, the changes in the determinant factors that determine the demand of an individual
is also not clearly described in the present literatures. Moreover the present researches are not
demonstrating the benefits clearly that marketing managers receive from using social media
platform for promoting their products.

RESEARCH PROPOSAL 7
Research Methodology
The research will employ both qualitative and quantile analysis to evaluate the
relation between the two. The qualitative analysis will bring out the determinants that
influence the strategy of the marketing managers as well as the determinants that shape the
behavior of the consumers. In the quantitative analysis the degree of dependency between
these factors and the decision making process of both the managers and consumers will be
determined. In order to carry out the research a focused group interview will be conducted. In
the focused group there will be around two hundred consumers and fifty marketing managers
belonging to different industries. The questionnaire will consist of questions will be asked for
both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The quantitative data will be analyzed by using the
SPSS. SPSS is software that aids researchers to apply regression model in their researches to
bring out the actual scenario of the issue.
Gantt chart
The Gantt Chart would demonstrates the timeline for conducting the research. It also
gives a sequential description of the tasks that will be taken one after the other in order to
complete this research.
Figure 1:- Gantt chart
items Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Month 4 Month 5 Month 6
proposing research
developing the respective questinnaire
collecting data
conducting qualitative analysis
conductive quantitative analysis
final conclusion

RESEARCH PROPOSAL 8
References
Andersson, P., Rosenqvist, C., & Grenblad, D. (2018). Toward a Conceptual Model for
Analyzing Marketing Reorganization and Transition Processes. London: United
Kingdom: Emerald Publishing Limited.
Dahl, S. (2018). Social media marketing: Theories and applications. London, United
Kingdom: Sage.
Eisend, M., Hartmann, P., & Apaolaza, V. (2018). Who buys counterfeit luxury brands? A
meta-analytic synthesis of consumers in developing and developed markets. Journal
of International Marketing, 35(3), 23-44.
Gómez, M., Martín‐Consuegra, D., Díaz, E., & Molina, A. (2018). Determinants and
outcomes of price premium and loyalty: A food case study. Journal of Consumer
Behaviour, 17(1), 64-74.
Iankova, S., Davies, I., Archer-Brown, C., Marder, B., & Yau, A. (2018). A comparison of
social media marketing between B2B, B2C and mixed business models. Abingdon,
Oxfordshire: Routledge.
Kaur, M., & Bhatia, A. (2018). The impact of Consumer Awareness on buying behavior of
green products. International Journal of Scientific Research and Management, 6(04),
34-50.
Macarthy, A. (2018). 500 Social Media Marketing Tips: Essential Advice, Hints and Strategy
for Business Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn,
and More!. New York, United States: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

RESEARCH PROPOSAL 9
Olson, E. M., Slater, S. F., Hult, G. T. M., & Olson, K. M. (2018). The application of human
resource management policies within the marketing organization: The impact on
business and marketing strategy implementation. Industrial Marketing
Management, 69, 62-73.
Rodríguez-Priego, N., & Montoro-Ríos, F. J. (2018). How Cultural Beliefs and the Response
to Fear Appeals Shape Consumer’s Purchasing Behavior Toward Sustainable
Products. In Sustainability in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 24(5), 47-62.
Spence, M., Stancu, V., Elliott, C. T., & Dean, M. (2018). Exploring consumer purchase
intentions towards traceable minced beef and beef steak using the theory of planned
behavior. Food Control, 91, 138-147.