Masters Marketing Topic and Plan Outline Sample

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The Impact of Social Media Marketing on Consumer Purchasing Behaviour

Introduction

The web and social media have modified how businesses interact with customers to the point where they have become significant carriers of new advertising and public relations guidelines. Over three billion people now have internet service worldwide. They use it to learn about new things and trends and explore and share product reviews with other customers through online groups, forums, and social networking sites. Web-based social networking has grown in popularity to increase people’s awareness. Innovation, appreciation, commitment, motivation, and frame of mind are psychological factors that impact a buyer’s purchase behaviour (Boon-Long & Wongsurawat, 2015).

The ability of a purchaser’s intentions, which defines their purchasing behaviour using the Internet, is called online purchase intention. Marketing now has a more significant impact on customers. On the Internet, purchasing behaviour is channelled through online decision-making, which is impacted by the information load (Kumar, et al., 2020). Customers are being bombarded with more information on the Internet every day, substantially lowering their attention span, although many organisations have experienced financial difficulties in the market.

Furthermore, social media is changing and influencing consumer behaviour. Consumer behaviour is a complex and dynamic process influenced by four significant aspects: personal, social, psychological, and cultural influences (Ying, et al., 2021). People’s purchasing habits have shifted considerably over the last several years from shopping in brick-and-mortar establishments to shopping online via various social media platforms. Thus, marketers must understand customer buying behaviour and social media’s effect on consumer purchasing behaviour to achieve the business goal.

Aims and Objective

The research aims to find the influence of social media marketing on consumer purchasing behaviour.

The main objectives of this research are:

• To discover the social media marketing policies to attract the consumer
• To examine the factors that impact the consumer purchasing behaviour
• To determine consumer attitudes towards the social media platform

Research Questions

• How do marketers use social media to understand the purchasing behaviour of consumers?
• Does a consumer’s attitude influence their buying intentions on social media?
• What are the factors that affect consumer purchasing behaviour?

Literature Review

Every year, people’s business practices and interactions with one another have changed fundamentally. According to Choo (2013), traditional marketing tactics have experienced massive changes due to Web 2.0, ushering in a new age for marketers (Commission, 2018). Social media marketing is a method of communicating information to and from individuals worldwide.

Because of the fast adoption of SMM, firms must modify how they respond to consumers’ demands and desires and how they respond to rivals. Social media marketing provides improved communication chances for marketers to attract many users. It allows marketers to utilise helpful information that will assist in establishing and maintaining customer connections.

Various researchers have investigated how customers use and react to social media marketing. One of these researches investigated spontaneous usage behaviour on social media sites and discovered that a social network site’s perceived utility and reliability were the most important elements influencing user decisions (Rauniar, et al., 2014).

Another research looked at the influence of social media on meeting organisers’ actions. The study revealed that apparent serious mass directly impacts the purpose of using social networks. Perceived usefulness and ease of utility of social media indirectly affected attitudes and intentions to use social media (Lee, et al., 2013).

Numerous advertising experts (Weber, 2009) (Drury, 2008) have consistently stressed that encouraging internet networking stimulates the exchange of ideas and discernments that can make marketing feasible through a two-way process between businesses and groups of persons. In general, the material is regarded as an essential component in creating sustainable advertising through internet networking.

(Ahmed & Zahid, 2014)  Attempted to explore the influence of social media marketing on brand equity and customer relationship administration in terms of intention to buy. According to the study results, customer relationship management was essential to purchase intention. It also determined that social media marketing favourably improved consumer interactions and brand equity.

As per social media marketing industry research, the social media world is more than a passing trend to which marketers are constantly drawn. Eighty-three percent of them emphasise social media for their organisations (Asma & Misbah, 2018). Consumer purchasing attitudes are influenced not just by conventional channels but also by social media.

Peer feedback, social networks, and blogs are essential in consumer purchasing behaviour. The most considerable concern of industries and brands regarding social media marketing is losing control over the quality and regularity of data; yet, marketers must recognise that reviews and conversations, as user-generated material, help illustrate a firm’s integrity. This study explores the impact of social media marketing on consumer purchasing behaviour.

Methodology

A qualitative approach using questionnaires and interview methods will be used to collect data. The questionnaires and interviews will be based on our variables; social media marketing and consumer purchasing behaviour. The data collection must be done while considering the ethics of research.

Conclusion

Social media marketing has provided customers with a fantastic degree of accessibility and transparency of important information, which has a wide range and is also available at a faster rate. There is value in co-creation, and customers have evolved into content creators. Social media influence consumer attitudes and purchasing intentions. Customers, as such, bring value to the Internet through socialising and partnerships.

This will be a connection in which the firm and the customer are on equal footing and may participate in a proactive engagement in which both the company and the consumer profit equally. According to the researcher, there is a positive association between consumer perceptions, normative beliefs, perceived behavioural control, and purchasing intention and behaviour, which was demonstrated through hypothesis testing and approval. The rationale for this positive link is that consumer attitudes are formed due to societal standards.

Bibliography

Ahmed, M. A. & Zahid, Z., 2014. Role of Social Media Marketing to enhance CRM and Brand Equity in Purchase Intentions. ASIAN JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT RESEARCH, 4(3).

Asma, G. & Misbah, M., 2018. Impact of Social Media Marketing on Consumer Buying Behaviour -A study. RESEARCH REVIEW International Journal of Multidisciplinary, 3(6).

Boon-Long, S. & Wongsurawat, W., 2015. Social media marketing evaluation using social network comments as an indicator for identifying consumer purchasing decision effectiveness. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, Volume 17, p. 130–149.

Commission, M. C. a. M., 2018. INTERNET USERS, Cyberjaya, Selangor Darul Ehsan: Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.

Drury, G., 2008. Social media: Should marketers engage, and how can it be done effectively?. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, Volume 9, p. 274 – 277.

Kumar, V., Varma, M., Sangvikar, B. & Pawar, A., 2020. Realising the Transformation of Customer Purchase Behaviour: Assessment of the impact of Social Media on Purchasing Behavior of Consumers in India. TEST Engineering and Management, Volume 82, pp. 12990 – 12998.

Lee, W., Tyrrell, T. & Erdem, M., 2013. Exploring the behavioural aspects of adopting the technology: Meeting planners’ use of social network media and the impact of perceived critical mass. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, 4(1), pp. 6-22.

Rauniar, R., Rawski, G., Yang, J. & Johnson, B., 2014. Technology acceptance model (TAM) and social media usage: an empirical study on Facebook. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 27(1), pp. 6-30.

Weber, L., 2009. Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business. 2nd ed. s.l.:s.n.

Ying, N. S., Ab-Rahim, R. & Mohd-Kamal, K.-A., 2021. Impact of Social Media on Consumer Purchasing Behaviour in Sarawak. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 11(5), p. 367–375.