Social Media Advertising and Buyer Behavior: A Research Report

This report investigates the impact of social media advertising on buyer behavior. It begins with an introduction highlighting the benefits of social media marketing for businesses, including cost-effectiveness and the ability to influence customer purchasing decisions. The literature review explores the significance of marketing, social media marketing strategies, and customer buying behavior, emphasizing the influence of various factors such as brand image and reviews. The report identifies a research problem related to uncertainty in marketing campaigns and the challenges of reaching customers. The research questions address the benefits of social media marketing, its effectiveness compared to traditional methods, and strategies for influencing customer behavior. The report concludes with a list of references to support the analysis and findings.

Running head: SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING AND BUYER BEHAVIOR
EFFECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING ON BUYER BEHAVIOR
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

1SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING AND BUYER BEHAVIOR
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction..................................................................................................................2
2.0 Literature Review.........................................................................................................2
2.1 Marketing and its significance..................................................................................2
2.2 Social Media Marketing............................................................................................3
2.3 Customer Buying Behavior......................................................................................3
2.4 Impact of Social Media Marketing on Customer Buying Behavior..........................4
3.0 Research Problem.......................................................................................................4
4.0 Research Questions....................................................................................................5
5.0 References..................................................................................................................6

2SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING AND BUYER BEHAVIOR
1.0 Introduction
As opined by Tucker (2016), the use of the disruptive technology, that is, social
media for marketing provides various benefits to business corporations which are not
provided by the traditional marketing strategies or practices. Baack et al. (2016) have
noted that the process of social media marketing is not only cost effective, timely in
nature, affords the opportunity to corporations to reach out to numerous customers and
others. More importantly, recent researchers have found that the use of social media
marketing offers the option to the business corporations to effectively influence the
buying or the purchasing behavior of the customers and this in turn is one of the major
reasons why the majority of the corporations are presently using the same (Xu-Priour,
Cliquet and Palmer 2017). It is in the light of these aspects, the researcher intends to
conduct this particular research work.
2.0 Literature Review
2.1 Marketing and its significance
Diba, Vella and Abratt (2019) are of the viewpoint that the entity of marketing
helps the business corporations to effectively promote the services or products to their
target market. As discussed by Alhaddad (2015), the effective promotion or the
advertisement of the commodities is important since it helps the business corporations
to cascade the much needed information to the customers regarding the same. This is
important since the customers are not likely to purchase the commodities offered by a
corporation if they do not have the required information regarding the corporation or for
that matter the products or services offered by it (Fang et al. 2015). Thus, marketing is
an integral construct for the various business corporations and the success or for that
matter the profitability earned by them is being greatly determined by the effectiveness
of marketing strategies used by the business corporations. More importantly, it had
been seen that the marketing strategies used by the business corporations can be
broadly categorized into genres, namely, the traditional marketing strategies and digital
marketing strategies (Shareef et al. 2019).

3SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING AND BUYER BEHAVIOR
2.2 Social Media Marketing
According to Lamberton and Stephen (2016), the business corporations over the
years had been using traditional marketing strategies and thereby relied on ‘word of
mouth’ promotion, television, newspaper, radio and other media platforms for
advertising or marketing the commodities offered by the corporations. However, as
noted by Hajli et al. (2017), these measures were not only costly in nature but at the
same time had very limited membership and this in return had significantly narrowed
their business scope or business prospects. Thus, it had been seen that the business
corporations presently in order to overcome the shortcomings or the limitations of
traditional marketing strategies used by them over the years are turning towards the
social media marketing.
Diba, Vella and Abratt (2019) have noted that the usage of the process of social
media marketing demands or for that matter requires the business corporations to take
the help of various social media platforms like Facebook and others for promoting or for
that matter advertising the commodities offered by them. This is usually done by the
business corporations through the creation of brand pages over the different social
media which in turn offers adequate information to the customers not only regarding the
products or services offered by the corporations but also regarding the corporations
itself (Lee and Hong 2016). More importantly, the usage of social media marketing also
offers the opportunity to the business corporations to offer information to the customers
regarding the commodities that would be launched by them in future. This is usually
done by the business corporations to build anticipation among the customers regarding
the commodities that would be launching by them in future and thereby capitalize on the
same for the sale of the concerned commodities (Baack et al. 2016).
2.3 Customer Buying Behavior
According to Shareef et al. (2019), customer buying behavior can be defined as
the conglomeration of the customer’s attitude, preferences, gratifications and others
which are associated with the process that determine whether the concerned customer
would purchase a particular product or service or not. Fang et al. (2015) are of the
viewpoint that there are numerous factors that influence the entity of customer buying

4SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING AND BUYER BEHAVIOR
behavior like the value proposition of commodities offered by the business corporations,
its cost, the brand image of the business corporations and others. In this relation, the
usage of the construct of social media by the business corporations has helped in the
improvement of their brand in a substantial manner. This is usually done by the
business corporations by posting regularly the positive reviews regarding their
corporation, the notable achievements made by them, the corporate social responsibility
(CSR) activities undertaken by them and others (Xu-Priour, Cliquet and Palmer 2017).
Furthermore, the customers even have the opportunity to read the reviews or for that
matter the comments of the past customers regarding the quality or the nature of the
commodities offered by a particular corporation (Lamberton and Stephen 2016). These
aspects in turn had helped the corporations to influence the buying behavior of the
customers in a substantial manner and thereby attain the desired level of growth or
profitability.
2.4 Impact of Social Media Marketing on Customer Buying Behavior
Hajli et al. (2017) have noted that the adequate usage of the construct of social
media marketing had helped the business corporations to positively influence the buying
behavior of the customers. On the one hand, it had helped the business corporations to
cascade the required product or service related information to the customers and on the
other hand improved the brand image of the corporations substantially (Lee and Hong
2016). More importantly, the reviews left by the past customers regarding the services
or products had also helped in influencing the buying behavior of the customers in a
significant manner.
3.0 Research Problem
The major problem related to the usage of social media marketing that the
majority of the business corporations faces can be attributed to the fact that the
corporations are not sure which kind of marketing campaigns or advertisements are
likely to appeal to the customers (Shareef et al. 2019). More importantly, it had been
seen that there are many customers who even in the present times do not opt for the
usage of the different social media platforms and thus the business corporations using

5SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING AND BUYER BEHAVIOR
social media marketing practices are not being able to promote the services or products
offered by them to these customers (Tucker 2016). Lastly, the negative reviews left by
the customers rather than positively influencing the buying behavior of the customers
adversely affect the same.
4.0 Research Questions
On the basis of the literature review, the research questions that the researcher
had formulated for the research are listed below-
1. What are the benefits offered by the usage of social media marketing to the
business corporations?
2. How social media marketing is more effective in nature in comparison to the
traditional media strategies used by the business corporations?
3. How the business corporations can influence the buying behavior of the
customers through the usage of social media marketing?
4. What are the ways through which the business corporations can effectively use
social media for marketing or promoting the commodities offered by them?

6SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING AND BUYER BEHAVIOR
5.0 References
Alhaddad, A.A., 2015. The effect of advertising awareness on brand equity in social
media. International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-
Learning, 5(2), p.73.
Baack, D.W., Wilson, R.T., van Dessel, M.M. and Patti, C.H., 2016. Advertising to
businesses: Does creativity matter?. Industrial Marketing Management, 55, pp.169-177.
Diba, H., Vella, J.M. and Abratt, R., 2019. Social media influence on the B2B buying
process. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing.
Fang, E., Li, X., Huang, M. and Palmatier, R.W., 2015. Direct and indirect effects of
buyers and sellers on search advertising revenues in business-to-business electronic
platforms. Journal of Marketing Research, 52(3), pp.407-422.
Hajli, N., Sims, J., Zadeh, A.H. and Richard, M.O., 2017. A social commerce
investigation of the role of trust in a social networking site on purchase
intentions. Journal of Business Research, 71, pp.133-141.
Lamberton, C. and Stephen, A.T., 2016. A thematic exploration of digital, social media,
and mobile marketing: Research evolution from 2000 to 2015 and an agenda for future
inquiry. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), pp.146-172.
Lee, J. and Hong, I.B., 2016. Predicting positive user responses to social media
advertising: The roles of emotional appeal, informativeness, and creativity. International
Journal of Information Management, 36(3), pp.360-373.
Shareef, M.A., Mukerji, B., Dwivedi, Y.K., Rana, N.P. and Islam, R., 2019. Social media
marketing: Comparative effect of advertisement sources. Journal of Retailing and
Consumer Services, 46, pp.58-69.
Tucker, C.E., 2016. Social advertising: How advertising that explicitly promotes social
influence can backfire. Available at SSRN 1975897.

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Xu-Priour, D.L., Cliquet, G. and Palmer, A., 2017. The Influence of Buyers’ Time
Orientation on Online Shopping Behavior: A Typology. International Journal of
Electronic Commerce, 21(3), pp.299-333.