The Effect of Social Media on Consumers Purchasing Behaviour - Research Proposal Example

The paper "The Effect of Social Media on Consumer’s Purchasing Behaviour" is a good example of a marketing research proposal. Basically, online social networks growth across the globe has generated a new platform for communication as well as interaction amongst individuals. Thanks to social media, people are able to share their experiences, opinions, as well as knowledge, and it can as well have an effect on people’s behavior with regard to purchasing as well as communication. As will be indicated in the research paper, the arrival of social media resulted in a novel setting that provides a new network of individual connections. Business enterprises have realised the vast opportunities provided by social media and are ready to invest their resources in this free market, in consequence putting back the consumers to the focus of the business world. As it will be evidenced in the literature review, a number of studies have provided empirical and theoretical evidence why a business should tap into social media; other studies focus on consumers purchase behavior attributed to social media marketing. Normally, the feeling of the consumers is always not similar to what marketers think, so there is the need to study how social media marketing impact consumer purchase behavior.

Social Network Marketing has recently been amongst the most effective tools for advertising, and understanding how tools of marketing can improve the business sales is the main goal for all marketers given that it has the ability to substantially improve the company’s profitability. In social media, customers and brands are communicating without limitations of place, medium, and time, and for this reason, the conventional one-way communication has shifted to interactive shared (two-way) communication. The research paper main objective is to theoretically and empirically give details about how social media impact consumer buying behavior. In this case, the theoretical perspective will be highlighted through the literature review, wherein previous studies on consumer purchase behavior associated with social media marketing will critically be analyzed. The empirical evidence will be achieved through quantitative research method.

• • 1.0 Introduction

Social as well as digital media has encouraged brands to come up with research strategies that promote online social behavior of the consumers (Culnan et al., 2010, p.243). As stated by Nirmala (2013, p.46), perceiving and comprehending how consumers interact as well as behave, has resulted in the emergence of novel semantic analysis technologies, which facilitate firms to monitor the purchasing patterns of the consumers rooted in posted and shared content. The achieved information according to Nirmala (2013, p.46) assists the marketing experts to improve segmentation so that the customers and prospects can be targeted. Without a doubt, virtual as well as shared communities have tremendously changed companies, consumers, and societies, and this can be attributed to increased information accessibility, improved communication abilities, and enhanced social networking (Krishnamurthy & Kucuk, 2009, p.1121). For this reason, social media networks can be described as websites that connect millions of users across the globe with similar hobbies, views, as well as interests. In this case, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, and Blogs are just a few examples of social media. Social media as indicated by Ioanăs and Stoica (2014, p.295) offers marketers with a novel toolset for interacting with consumers as well as to innovatively assimilate them into their brands. Importantly, marketers must have a clear knowledge about how social media affects the buying behavior of consumers. Considering that the present era of digital communication, as well as social engagement, is vital to business strategy. While companies advance to be more competitive globally, Pradiptarini (2011, p.9) posits that it is imperative for the marketing strategy to search for avenues that are more captivating as well as innovative so as to attract many customers.