Impact of Social Media Marketing on Consumer Buying Behavior at Myer

This business research report investigates the influence of social media marketing on consumer buying behaviors, specifically focusing on the Australian retailer Myer. The research explores the rationale behind studying this topic, which includes poor brand exposure and marketing limitations. The study aims to identify the impact of social media marketing, evaluate effective marketing strategies, and examine privacy legislations. The report includes a literature review that connects social media marketing with consumer buying behaviors, along with research methods such as positivism philosophy and descriptive research design. It utilizes a mixed-methods approach, gathering quantitative data through surveys and qualitative data through interviews. The analysis utilizes the SPSS tool to present data in graphs and tables. The report recommends strategies like increasing brand awareness, understanding the target audience, and maintaining an active blog. The conclusion highlights the importance of social media marketing for Myer, emphasizing its role in enhancing brand awareness and influencing consumer purchasing decisions. The report also includes a reflection on teamwork and references.

Running head: BUSINESS RESEARCH
Business research
Name of student
Name of University
Author note

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Executive summary
The research report was presented to highlight the importance of social media marketing in
influencing the consumer buying behaviours considering the business organisation named
Myer in Australia. The research rationale highlighted the problem of research associated with
the poor communication, lack of brand exposure and poor marketing ability to reach to a
wider group of audiences. The objectives were to identify the impact of social media
marketing and to evaluate the approaches undertaken to implement the right social media
marketing strategy and attract more clients. The literature review section provided an insight
and how the dependent and independent variables, i.e., social media marketing and consumer
buying behaviours are linked with each other. The research report also provided an
explanation about the data collection and analysis procedures, which further maintained the
validity and efficiency of the research.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Research Background.............................................................................................................3
Research rationale..................................................................................................................3
Research aim..........................................................................................................................4
Research objectives................................................................................................................4
Research questions.................................................................................................................4
Literature review........................................................................................................................4
Social media marketing..........................................................................................................5
Consumer buying behaviours.................................................................................................5
Impact of social media marketing on the consumer buying behaviours................................5
Research methods.......................................................................................................................6
Recommendations......................................................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
Appendices...............................................................................................................................10
Appendix 1...........................................................................................................................10
Team charter.....................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The research is done for the purpose of assessing the impact of social media
marketing on the way by which the consumers’ buying behaviours are influenced considering
the business organisation named Myer in Australia. With the growing numbers of social
media users, the marketers have also aimed at implementing the right social media marketing
strategies for the purpose of enhancing the marketing communications efficiency as well as
reach out to the wider group of audiences for influencing their purchasing behaviours largely
too (Tauten and Solomon 2017).
Research Background
The social media marketing not only allows for growing the numbers of customers
data by day but also enables using the marketing communication strategies for determining
their needs and preferences quite effectively. The marketing of the products with the
engagement of social media platforms can help to estimate the products, make
recommendations for managing contact with the customers much comprehensively,
furthermore share the information related to the purchases with the help of social media.
Research rationale
The rationale of the research illustrates the research problem, which can be the poor
brand exposure, lack of marketing activities to reach the customers properly and also lesser
sales generation (Ashley and Tauten 2015). To make sure that the marketing activities get a
major boost, Myer needs to implement the social media marketing activities for ensuring that
more customers are reached to and greater brand awareness is created among the customers
for influencing their buying behaviours largely.

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Research aim
The research aims to determine the impact of social media marketing on the influence
of buying behaviours of consumers at Myer, Australia.
Research objectives
 To identify the impact of social media marketing on the consumer buying behaviours
at Myer, Australia
 To evaluate various approaches that are required to ensure that the right social media
marketing strategies are implemented to enhance brand awareness and influence
buying behaviours too
 To examine the legislations adopted by Myers for ensuring that privacy is maintained
in the stored information
Research questions
 What is the probable impact of social media marketing on the influence of consumer
buying behaviours at Myer, Australia?
 How can the various approaches to social media marketing help in enhancing the
brand image and awareness among the customers, thereby, facilitate sales generation
and profit level too?
 What legislative requirements are followed by Myers for preventing the instances of
information leakage?
Literature review
This section sheds light on concepts of social media marketing and its influence on
the consumer buying behaviours by acquiring relevant data from secondary sources including
journals, articles, documents, newspapers and internet websites containing information about
the.

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Social media marketing
According to Felix, Rauschnabel and Hirsch (2017), the social media channels and
platforms have acted as great aspect of market intelligence for the marketers to understand
the buying behaviours of consumers and at the same time, gain insight into their behaviours
and understand the way they feel about doing certain things. This particular concept has
played a vital role in online advertisements, management of online communities and also
managed electronic word of mouth promotions for encouraging brand trust and loyalty
among the customers to influence purchasing behaviours (Constantinides 2014). The quality
of products, brand related features, advertising, promotions and pricing structure have
influenced consumer decision making as well as through assessment of recommendations
made by other people on the social media platforms such as close contacts, friends and family
members who are active on the social networks.
Consumer buying behaviours
The buying behaviours of the consumers are based on the messages and information
transmitted by the organisation through promotions and advertisements with the use of social
networks. As stated by Vinerean et al. (2013), the social media platforms have enabled the
customers to communicate or interact with the brand and even share their prospective
feedbacks, views and opinions regarding the usage of the product. The consumers who make
purchase of products and services online is an entirely booming market, which has helped in
managing globalised level of segmentation on a cross cultural basis (Tiago and Veríssimo
2014).
Impact of social media marketing on the consumer buying behaviours
According to Godey et al. (2016), the social media platforms have developed brand
image and awareness and at the same time, developed brand attitudes that are essential for
encouraging the decision making from the perspectives of the clients. For example, it has

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been found that when a family member or friend of one such customer posts some positive
message about the product that has been purchased by them or shared and recommended on
the social networking site, then it has influenced the customers’ decision making ability and
allowed them to make purchases from the company consistent (Chang et al. 2015). It has
improved the level of communication between the business and its customers and even
strengthened the relationships between them, which requires much lesser effort and expenses
to be incurred during the management of social media marketing activities.
Research methods
The research methods include the various ways of collecting and analysing data along
with the selection of appropriate research and philosophies required to conduct the research
effectively. The positivism philosophy of the research and descriptive research design have
been considered here while conducting the research, which allowed the researcher to
understand how and why the research could be done. Considering the primary research and
inclusion of mixed methods, the quantitative data has to be gathered on the basis of survey
process where the survey questionnaires would be distributed to the respondents while the
qualitative data include the views, opinions and responses of managers who had been
interviewed on the basis of non-probability convenient sampling procedure (Tuten and
Solomon 2017). The analysis of data has been done with the use of SPSS tool for presenting
the data and information in the form of graphs, tables and diagrams for easily understandable
by the researcher.
Recommendations
 It is recommended to create awareness among the clients by converting the loyal
clients of the brand into subscribers, which can facilitate higher community
engagement

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 It is also recommended for the company to look carefully at the industry standards for
building higher level of engagement among the clients
 Gaining a better understanding of the targeted audiences is recommended as well for
fulfilling their needs and desires much comprehensively
 Other than marketing through social media platforms, it is also recommended to
maintain a blog for keeping the website active and keep information up to date to
ensure convenience for the clients to understand about the products and get
encouraged to make purchases
Conclusion
The report was prepared to demonstrate about the importance of social media
marketing considered by Myer, Australia to enhance the brand awareness and outreach to the
market, which has been essential for influencing the buying behaviours of customers. The
messages and information spread over the social media platforms could further raise
awareness among clients and influence their buying behaviours too
Reflection of learning in teamwork
As part of the project team leader, I made sure to guide the project team members
properly also that they are acknowledged about the purpose of conducting the research and
also make sure to understand the research goals and objectives too. This has benefited me in
enhancing my interpersonal skills, furthermore, allowed them to learn the importance of
working in coordination, as a unit, to achieve the research outcomes much effectively. As
part of the research, I managed to understand the importance of communication with teams
and also has been associated with the progress of research related to the collection and
analysis of data and information along with acquisitions of knowledge about the various
research philosophies, design, sampling method and techniques an even the values and ethics

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followed during the research. It has also helped in fostering creativity and learning,
furthermore, has been allowed to promote better ownership and skills to manage conflicts
resolution. This could also benefit me in developing trust among the team members and at the
same i.e., encourage healthy risk tang ability too.

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References
Ashley, C. and Tuten, T., 2015. Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory
study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology & Marketing, 32(1),
pp.15-27. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/mar.20761
Chang, Y.T., Yu, H. and Lu, H.P., 2015. Persuasive messages, popularity cohesion, and
message diffusion in social media marketing. Journal of Business Research, 68(4), pp.777-
782.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0148296314003816
Constantinides, E., 2014. Foundations of social media marketing. Procedia-Social and
behavioral sciences, 148, pp.40-57.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814039202
Felix, R., Rauschnabel, P.A. and Hirsch, C., 2017. Elements of strategic social media
marketing: A holistic framework. Journal of Business Research, 70, pp.118-126.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0148296316302843
Godey, B., Manthiou, A., Pederzoli, D., Rokka, J., Aiello, G., Donvito, R. and Singh, R.,
2016. Social media marketing efforts of luxury brands: Influence on brand equity and
consumer behavior. Journal of business research, 69(12), pp.5833-5841.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0148296316304325
Worldbank.org 2019. The World Bank. Available at: https://www.worldbank.org/ [Accessed
on 14th August 2019]

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Appendices
Appendix 1
Team charter
S.no Students Roles
1. Student 1 Student 1 was assigned the task of introducing the topic, which
comprised of developing aims and objectives; specifying the research
rationale and background.
2. Student 2 Student 2 was entrusted with the responsibility of doing the literature
review. Specifically, he was to establish correlation between social
media marketing and consumer behaviour.
3. Student 3 Student 3 was in charge of proposing the research methodology,
shedding light on the process of data collection on impact of social
media marketing on consumer behaviour. The student was also to
propose recommendations.