THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN

CONSUMER PURCHASING DECISIONS

AUTHOR – KAUSHIKI MAURYA

KEYWORDS
Social Media, Consumer, Consumer Behavior, Marketing, Consumer
Decision Process, Purchase, Social Media Marketing

Table of Content:
➢ Abstract
➢ Introduction
➢ Hypothesis
➢ Objective
➢ Literature Review
➢ Research Methodology
➢ Data Collection
➢ Analysis
➢ Limitations
 ➢ Further Scope
➢ Conclusion
➢ References

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to investigate experimentally how social

media influences customers' decision-making for complicated
transactions, which are expensive, infrequent, and typified by
considerable brand variations, high consumer participation and risk.
The use of social media in marketing strategy has been significant.
Social networking sites (SNS) are a type of social media that businesses
can use to establish open lines of communication and solid consumer
relationships. In order to strengthen their consumer interactions,
businesses using SNS must choose the appropriate marketing content.
Social media's significant role in communications as highly participatory
platforms will undoubtedly alter how businesses approach marketing.
Numerous earlier research have come to the conclusion that social
media has successfully increased brand awareness. Therefore, increased
awareness will have a favourable impact on consumers' choices.
Social media is changing how businesses and brands interact and
engage with customers, especially Millennials. This study attempts to
comprehend the impact of social media brand interaction and content
quality on consumers' brand awareness and buy intentions in light of
this expanding trend.

INTRODUCTION

Social media is becoming more and more integrated into every part of
our life. As a result, consumers are more perceptually and behaviourally
engaged with the major social media sites. Our interactions with friends
and both private and public organisations are significantly altered by
this. Indeed, social media platforms create a brand-new setting for
interactions between individuals, groups, and even governments in the
commercial, social, political, and educational spheres as well as for the
exchange of ideas, information, goods, and services. As a result,
businesses all over the world have begun to consider how utilising
these platforms might help them draw clients and develop profitable
marketing relationships with them.
Although social media ads are a type of online advertisement, because
they are Web 2.0, users may see and interact with them differently. This
is also a result of the way that social media advertisements work, which
encourages users to interact with tailored adverts more. Using social
media to promote and communicate has several major goals, one of
which is to influence consumer decision-making.
HYPOTHESIS

In order to anticipate the customer's intention to acquire the products

that are pushed using social media advertising, this study aims to
discover and investigate the key variables. Additionally, this research
aims to respond to the following queries:
1. How Social Media affects consumers while making decisions to
purchase a product?
2. How can we implement Social Media Marketing to asses
Consumer’s preferences and behavior?
The hypothesis of this research will focus on understanding how social
media marketing is affecting consumer’s choice as well as their
purchasing decisions. Things that have changed in the current scenario
of marketing will shape a better future for Social Media Marketing.
Numerous studies concentrate on how consumers behave when
purchasing online, but they rarely take into account how the internet
affects the various stages of consumers' decision-making. This study
investigates how consumers' decision-making for complex purchases is
affected by the availability and abundance of these new information
sources.

OBJECTIVE
• The objective of this research is to understand the concept of
Social Media Marketing.
 • The aim of this research is to find out about how social media
marketing benefits in figuring out Consumer’s preferred choices.
• The potential challenges which consumers might face via Social
Media Marketing.
• Finding out how Social Media Marketing affects the customer
purchase behaviour.
• The research is also going to provide the potential
recommendations that can be implemented for overcoming the
challenges.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Social Media
Social media is a platform that enables users to produce and share
content with one another. It is a collection of software
programmes that have a same technical foundation. Social media
can be considered a form of internet communication. Any person
who has access to the internet may do it; they can create, share,
and publish their thoughts and experiences. Images, text, films,
and audios can all be used to convey the ideas and experiences of
others. The rise of social media is seen as the most significant
transformation since the industrial revolution.

Social Media Marketing

Social media is being used more and more as a platform for
advertising and marketing campaigns. Advertising on social media
has taken up a lot of time, money, and resources for businesses.
However, it is never easy for businesses to create social media
advertising that attracts people and encourages them to buy their
products.
The social media revolution has created new channels for finding
and acquiring knowledge about the wide range of goods and
services available. It has made it possible for customers to
communicate with one another about brands and do so swiftly
and easily.

Consumers
Consumers are those who purchase goods or services for their
own consumption rather than for manufacturing or resale. A
customer is someone who makes purchasing decisions at retail
establishments or who is affected by marketing and advertising.
They are the recipients of goods and services at the end of the
supply chain. Buyers are those who spend money on a good or
service they may or may not use. The consumer is the individual
who will really use the commodity or service. The final target
audience for the services or products is a consumer.

Purchasing Decisions
Consumers are those who buy or use the goods and services that
are being offered to them. The purchasing habits of consumers
might occasionally be puzzling and complicated. The dynamic
process has been considerably impacted by the accessibility and
clarity of the data, thus it is crucial to identify the barriers and
false assumptions that prevent potential buyers from becoming
actual customers or prevent existing customers from
repurchasing. As a result, the process of consumer decision-
making highlights the crucial components of individual
consumption behaviour.
The likelihood of a consumer making a purchase is combined with
their interest in a product. Due to the fact that people trust social
media before making any purchases of products, social media has
a significant influence on consumer purchasing decisions.
Therefore, we also anticipate that if a product obtains favourable
ratings from users of social media, this will have an impact on
other users' decisions to buy the product.

Impact of Social Media on Consumer Behaviour

Social Media in today’s era gives consumers a voice. Companies
are participating in order to increase the number of channels,
brand exposure, consumer engagement, and traffic to other
marketing domains.
As users share product reviews, customer service stories, and/or
product usage advice on social media, it becomes a significant
source for influencing consumers' shopping and purchasing
behaviours. As a result, any company's marketing strategy should
include successful social media use.
Role of Social Media on Purchasing Decisions
While social media's main advantage is raising brand awareness for
goods and services, several sites also let users make cash purchases.
However, the volume of consumer purchases from such platforms has
disappointed many firms. The perception of risk by the consumer that a
certain product won't fulfil their expectations is a significant component
in the purchasing decision.
The connection between social media and consumer decision-making
shows that social media has an impact on customer attitudes towards
advertising, brands, and purchasing intentions. It might have a
mediating effect but won't inevitably influence the consumer's choice.
A product's positive reputation can influence the consumer's decision.
Social media advertising from for-profit sources has an impact on
consumers' brand attitudes and purchasing intentions. Any brand that
has a positive online reputation benefits more, and customers favour
that brand. Marketers may engage in defamatory publicity for rival
brands in an effort to lower those brands' market value and draw
people to their own.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

For completing the research of this document qualitative data has been
collected. The focus of the research was on collecting information from
open-ended sources or by utilizing conversational communication. In
this research paper, different academic articles have been reviewed and
analysed to have inside information about the impact of social media
marketing on consumer behaviour and their purchasing decisions. The
academic sources were analysed to find out about the future that
Social-Media platforms are building for advertising and marketing of the
brands among the targeted audiences. Only non-numeric data has been
incorporated in the research paper.

DATA COLLECTION

The data in the research paper has been collected with the use of a
secondary data collection method. Proper analysis has been done of the
resources in parameters of reliability and validity. In order to gather
secondary information, we spoke with various people about their
purchasing habits and reviewed other research articles that dealt with
related issues. The research paper has utilized information from the
scholarly articles of the past 5 years.

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

The study's findings suggest that social media platforms are being
actively consumers in urban areas as a tool for verifying their
purchasing selections. Most respondents consider social media to be
electronic word-of-mouth. Potential customers' decision-making is
influenced by the opinions and preferences of previous users on social
media sites.
Comparing social media users to those who accessed other information
sources, social media users perceived decision-making to be simpler
and more enjoyable. People were more content overall when they
believed that the information on social media was of higher quality and
bigger quantity than they had anticipated. Overall, the findings indicate
that social media has a significant influence on how consumers make
decisions.

POTENTIAL CHALLENGES
• Social media marketing is not a recent development, but it is
constantly evolving. Although there are numerous journals on the
subject, very few connect social media to alterations in consumer
behaviour. The study is provided in an all-encompassing way.
• Customers' purchasing habits may vary since cultures and values
differ from one nation to the next. For more precise and
comprehensive findings, a study involving numerous nations
should be carried out.
• The population's members who could conveniently engage in the
study and were available to provide data were collected. This
could result in a bias error and be an inaccurate portrayal of the
population.
• An aggregate (macro-level) analysis of Indian urban consumers
served as the foundation for the conclusions. Future studies
should think on comparing certain consumer segments in-depth.
 • No proper questionnaire were filled to assess the current
scenario. Secondary sources were preferred and interpretation
was based on few consumers, the data was collected on the basis
of conversations regarding their purchasing habits, which might
like accuracy at some point.

FUTURE SCOPE AND RESEARCH

In this research paper, an analysis has been conducted about the

benefits, importance and challenges and solutions related to
implementation of Social Media Marketing to assess consumer
behaviour regarding purchasing decisions. For future research, it will be
beneficial to analyse the role of Social Media Marketing in Consumer
Purchasing Decisions.
Analysing the research topic will be helpful in understanding the
importance of Social-Media as an effective tool of marketing. Along
with this a survey-based analysis of consumers can be included in the
research paper to make the information more effective. Examining
consumer’s point of view regarding Social Media Marketing will help in
creating a more accurate understanding related the current research
topic.
To evaluate the impact of social media activities in a larger and more in-
depth way, additional aspects that may affect consumer purchase
intention can also be included in future study models. Additional
research can be done by including mediation and moderation of
consumer-side variables like gender, age, and frequency of social media
usage.
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