The Impact of Social Media on Consumer Purchasing Behavior Report

This report investigates the significant influence of social media on consumer purchasing behavior, exploring how platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube shape consumer decisions. The research project examines the role of social media in modern marketing strategies, analyzing both positive and negative impacts on consumer purchases. It begins with an introduction outlining the research's objectives, rationale, and a comprehensive literature review, addressing existing gaps in understanding and providing context for the study. The methodology section details the use of quantitative research, employing online surveys with a sample of 100 social media users to gather primary data. The analysis includes confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to assess the reliability and validity of the findings. The report concludes with an executive summary, findings, discussion, research evaluation, conclusions, and recommendations, offering insights into how companies can leverage social media effectively and how consumers make purchasing decisions in the digital age. The report emphasizes the dynamic relationship between consumers, businesses, and the ever-evolving technological landscape.

Research Project

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Contents
Task 1..........................................................................................................................................................2
1.1. Introduction.....................................................................................................................................2
1.2. Rationale..........................................................................................................................................3
1.3. Literature review..............................................................................................................................4
1.4. Methodology....................................................................................................................................7
1.5. Timeline...........................................................................................................................................9
Task 2........................................................................................................................................................11
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................................11
Introduction...............................................................................................................................................12
Research Methodology..............................................................................................................................13
Findings.....................................................................................................................................................17
Discussion.................................................................................................................................................24
Research Evaluation..................................................................................................................................25
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................27
Recommendations.....................................................................................................................................28
Appendix...................................................................................................................................................29
References.................................................................................................................................................32
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Task 1
1.1. Introduction
Does social media affect the consumer purchasing behavior? Social media becomes the most
significant tool or platform that helps the people to connect with the people and organizations.
Social media is used by the various people or organizations to share their experiences,
information, reviews and data. It becomes easy to analyze the behavior of the consumers through
social media platforms. There are various studies that evaluate the importance of social media
information for the people for their future purchases or future planning. This research Project is
of great use as it helps to analyze the role of technical revolution on the traditional marketing
approaches. There are many marketers are using the social media as its advertising strategies and
take full advantage in order to attract the more customers for the business. Social media and
consumer purchasing behavior are the two different concepts and they both are influencing each
other to a great extent.
Consumers and businesses have been more connected because of the presence of internet and
technologically revolution. Therefore, the whole research revolves around the positive as well as
negative influences of social media platforms on the consumer purchases. Social media is very
effective tool which keeps going every day and it is estimated at around 500 million connecting
with social media such as Facebook, Instagram, twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. The goal of this
research report is to ascertain influence of social media on consumer purchases through the
review of selected literature on social media and also by conducting some quantitative research.
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Objectives of the research
The main objective of this research is to gather, analyze and conclude all the necessary data and
findings related to the influence of social media on consumer purchases and narrow down the
focus on decision making processes of the consumers associated with the social media. Because
of the technological revolution and increasing use of internet, consumer behavior and social
media becomes a relatively challenging and broad topic. Looking at the previous records and
studies, it is estimated that Facebook has more than 600 million daily active users.
Approximately 30 million pieces of content has been Shared on Facebook on monthly basis
whereas 500 million tweets per day has been sent on the twitter. Moreover, the Global average
time spent on social networking sites is 6.9 hours by a single person. Therefore, the use of social
media sites by the marketer becomes the most important aspect of the consumer purchases.
Acknowledging all these key aspects of consumer behavior, the objective of this study is to
explain when, why and how social media has influenced the consumer purchases. Besides, the
research will also focus upon the positive as well as negative influences on the companies and
customers in the new marketing era (Maryanne, 2017).
1.2. Rationale
Selecting and conducting this project from the perspective of consumers would be suitable
approach with regard to the objective and this research project selection will help in both ways
like academically as well as professionally. It is analyzed that there are many studies and reports
to help the companies to gain better understanding in social media marketing but not to help the
people or consumers to identify the benefits of social media in purchasing decision making. The
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reason behind choosing this topic is to build up the important ideas in order to determine the
social media influence on the consumer buying behavior and suggesting some ideas to
organizations to make effective marketing strategy. Individuals are more active on the social
media sites these days because of the rapid growth of the internet users. Also, the business
promotions and the communication with the large number of people are connected with the
social media approaches as well as the consumer behavior. Moreover, I found this topic very
interesting because this research will help in the future also to analyze the changing nature, tastes
and preferences of the consumers. This research project aims to serve as an indicator and
guideline to all the potential companies to determine the taste and preferences of the consumers
via social media sites and also highlights the various factors such as Technology, Cultural values
and norms that affect the consumer purchases. Social media and its impact on the consumer
purchases is no longer a new aspect because it is still considered as a developing an evolving
topic. The information shared on the social media websites is a very helpful source because it
influences the consumer decision making behavior. This topic is very broad and challenging
because of the involvement of various social and technological factors (Fotis, 2015).
1.3. Literature review
There are many studies already conducted in the previous years on the consumer behavior and
how they are influenced by the social media. Consumers are the ones who purchase the products
and services offered by them. According to the scholars, consumers are the most important part
for any business activity and business would not exist without the consumers.
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According to the viewpoints of the various economists, consumer behavior is defined as the
attitude or style of the consumers when they try to buy some products or services. Consumer
behavior is basically a process of taking decisions, especially when thinking about the purchase
of a product. Consumer behavior is different for different products and brands. Consumer
behavior is the reaction of the people towards the particular product or the number of
alternatives. The behavior of every consumer is different from one another and has a different
perspective or criteria to take their buying decisions (Anoche, 2017).
The traditional ways used by the business are the Radio, TV and the print media for the
advertisement and these ads incurs high cost. On the other hands, the social media are the cost
effective strategy as the posting of the business ads on the Facebook and other channels of social
does not include high costs. The need of the further research arises because of the confusing and
mixed views found in the previous studies and because of the gaps in the studies, this research
report is carried out to find out the role of the social media in the buying behavior of the
consumers. In the previous studies, there are many authors who gave their viewpoints in the
favor of the social media and some of them are against these platforms. The conflicting views of
the researchers forced to carry the further research. In the context of trust and intentions of
people, the authors like Ba and Pavlou (2002) said that there are two dimensions of the trust that
is benevolence and creditability. Benevolence means consumers want to trust on the same users
of the product and credibility means sharing of the relevant information through the social media
platforms and people can trust on these online user reviews and good reviews always useful for
the organizations (Chen, 2014).
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According to the previous researches, there were many traditional ways to attract the customers
for their products which includes the advertising campaigns, magazines, newsletters, etc. but
people use the online marketing nowadays. As per the social media networks reports, Facebook
is the most used social platform which influences the decision making of the customers (Duggan
& Brenner, 2013). In May 2012 year, Facebook has over 900 million users. This platform is used
to share the photos, information, videos with friends and can search many people from their
name or mail id. The main motive of these social network platforms is to give power to the
people to share their information and make the world connected and open.
According to the research of Kaplan and Nick, they analyzed that there are many several social
media networks which are used by the various businesses because of its unique advantages
(Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). However, the recent trends show that all the social media networks
become the main source of information for the various customers. According to Nick Hafele,
business can generate brand awareness s among the people by sharing the information with the
customers through blogs and by updating the new products of the company through online mode
(Adilova, 2017). According to him, there is a still need to diversify the social media to ensure
that information that is being shared with people is going to the appropriate audiences (Al-
Dhuhli, Mukhaini, & Ismael, 2015).
Contribution of own research questions
After analyzing the previous literature, it is clear that the main focus was given on the better
understanding of the social media marketing instead of analyzing the effect of the social media
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on the consumer purchases. There are many gaps has been found and this research project may
contribute to fix all the research gaps. However, the research questions are given below on which
this research project is based upon.
1. What are the factors influencing the buying behavior of the consumers during the
purchase through social media?
2. How all the customers or people collect, analyze and select the information on social
media before any purchase.
3. What are the different changes social media has brought to consumers in different stages
of their decision making?
4. How the companies use social media platforms to build the cost effective strategies as a
marketing tool?
1.4. Methodology
Research methodology is the word that is used for the method of conducting the research in an
appropriate way with the help of various tools and techniques. The purpose of this research
methodology is to determine the influence of the social media on the consumer behavior and also
focuses on the important factors that help in changing the attitudes, behavior of the customers.
Research techniques
In order to understand the project, we followed the exploratory approach on the social media role
in changing the buying behavior of the customers. In this study, the primary data was collected
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with the help of the online survey by distributing the questionnaire. A sample of the 100
respondents out of 500 has been taken who answered the questionnaire and this sample was
drawn on the basis of the age, gender and tastes and preferences of the respondents. All the
respondents were social media users. We have used the quantitative research design
methodology in order to determine the best results of the research project (Lee, 2013).
Data collection procedures
The quantitative research methodology is used for the collection of information from various
primary sources. The best way to collect the primary data is questionnaire and interviews. The
primary data is collected by doing survey with customers who purchases product through online.
The use of the social media while purchasing the products was measured by asking the multiple
choice questions from the social media users. The respondents were asked to indicate how, when
and why social media sites used before any purchases. The questionnaire consists of multiple
questions related to the actual purchasing experiences of the consumers. Moreover, the
information gained through the survey must be kept private and confidential. The authenticity
and validity of the results can be calculated and measured by the test of the reliability. If the
collected data are valid and reliable, then there is also a possibility that the results will be valid
and accurate (Ioanas & Stoica, 2014).
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Analytical techniques
The validity and the reliability of the results were assessed by a CFA (Confirmatory factor
analysis which was used to test the most likelihood approaches. This analytical approach simply
provides the information and various factors that that need to be considered while collecting the
data. This is basically a statistical tool which is used to confirm or reject the various assumptions
and the measurement theories (Hajli, 2015).
1.5. Timeline
This research project involved numerous activities such as the review of literature, collection of
data, preparation of the questionnaires, and analysis of the data in order to reach the final
conclusion. The below Gant chart depicts the various activities with the time:
Activities 1st
wee
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2nd
week
3rd
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4th
week
5th
week
6th
week
7th
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8th
week
9th
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10th
weekWeeks
Introduction
Literature Review
Research Design
and Methodology
Questionnaire
Preparation
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Distribution of
Questionnaire
Analysis of Data
Findings
Conclusion
Also, it is required to consider all the ethical issues while doing some research on the topic.
Some of the issues faced by the researcher can be related to the collection of the data as it is very
difficult to convince all the participants to take part in the questionnaire survey. There are many
steps that we can take to avoid the issues before starting up the research work. Under the data
protection act 1998, it is necessary to maintain the confidentiality of the data.
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