+ 44 20 8144 3706Introduction:
Social media channels in the past few years, emerging as one of the most important tools of the marketing for the business firms. On social media channel business firms regularly place their posts and individuals comment on it and give likes and dislikes. Many firms do aggressive marketing and even they generate sales solely from the social media channels. Firms like Hubble contacts, Blue Apron etc. consistently generate customers through social media platforms. For these companies social media is the tool to approach people and create customers. These firms did not follow Brick and Mortar model in their business. Thus, through social media channels they not only promote their products but also create customers. Thus, the question arises that why social media channels have such a big power to influence individuals buying decisions (Thomson, and McLeod, 2015).
The present research study will focus on this point. In this regard, aim and objectives are prepared. The research study will focus on identifying the role of engagement in influencing purchase decisions of the individuals. The research study will also investigate influence promotions and offers that are seen on social media on individual purchase decisions. Further, the focus will be on influencer marketing and its impact on individual purchase decisions. In the report, multiple sections are prepared like introduction, literature review, research methodology. Finally at end, reflective statement is prepared in the report.
Literature review:
Engagement on social media and its impact on buying decisions According to Duffett Mr, and Wakeham Dr, 2016 engagement that happened on social media channels influence the individuals buying decisions. This is because when people engaged on specific post, then they share their experiences. Experience may be good or bad. In both cases an individual purchase decisions are affected. If majority of comments are positive, then it motivates people to make purchases. On the other hand, if the comments are negative, then in that case one abstains from purchasing company product.
Felix, Rauschnabel, and Hinsch, 2017 also stated that many times individuals visit company page and check varied customers grievances and solutions that firms provide. In case one is going to purchase an electronic item, then in that case it will surely visit varied companies social media pages and will search about after sales service that firms provide to the customers on their grievance. In case individual identified that firm response is not good and many customers are dissatisfied then it will not prefer to take the product of the company. Hence, it can be said that engagement that is seen in the form of individual’s comments and firm response to large extent create image of the firm among the customers. Considering such kind of engaging individuals takes purchase decisions.
Contrary to this Spiller, and Tuten, 2015 state that it is true that individuals visit social sites to know more about the company, product and services and customer’s opinion but they did not give much importance to the engagement that is seen on social media channels. This is because on social sites few one place their comments which include both positive and negative. Individuals give more priority to the word of mouth marketing. They collect info about product and company services from the friends, relatives and acquaintances. They believe more on info received from the friends and relatives than those received from social media channels. Hence, it can be said that social media channels did not have much influence on individual purchase decisions.
Yang, and Wang, 2015 also support above given fact and its state that individual make use of the content they see on social media platform and info received from friends as well as relatives to make final decisions. Individuals visit social sites just to get a brief overview of customers’ experience. This to some extent give direction to the perception that individual will form about the product. On the other hand, if an individual receives positive info from the friends and relative and receive negative info from the social site then they form a positive image about the product. There is higher reliability of friends and relatives experience about the product then comments that are on social media channels.
Evaluation of individual research plan:
In the research report multiple sections are prepared namely introduction, literature review, research methodology, aim and objectives. In the introduction brief discussion is done on the social media effectiveness in influencing individual purchase decisions. Varied success stories of marketing on social media platform like Facebook are explained briefly. By doing so attempt is made to show that social media channels prove effective for the firms in terms of influencing individuals purchase decisions. Further aim and objectives are prepared in the report.
The main aim is to find out whether social media assist firms in influencing individual purchase decisions. Thus, the objectives are prepared to prove this statement. Under this focus is on identifying impact that engagement that is seen on the Facebook and other social sites has on individual purchase decisions. Moreover, attention is also paid on the impact discount ad and offers that are seen on social media have on the individuals purchase decisions. Further, impact of influence marketing is also identified. Many individuals like to use products that are suggested by the experts. Hence, due to this reason influencer marketing that is done on the Facebook and other social media platforms is also taken into account to measure effectiveness of the social media marketing tool in influencing purchase decisions of the individuals. Thus, it can be said that the scope of the research study is wide and very specific and by focusing on multiple points it will be easy to identify the effectiveness of the social media channels in influencing individuals purchase decisions.
In order to conduct literature review section varied literatures are reviewed that are published in last 5 years. An attempt is made to collect most recent articles but none of the article taken into account is more than 5 years old. The entire literature review section is classified into the multiple parts considering objective of the research. Such kind of classification is made so that one on reading heading clearly understands that on which topic literature review is based. Further, the research methodology section is prepared in the report. In this section sort of research philosophy and approach taken into account is explained in detail. In the report, considering the research requirement inductive research approach and Interpretivism research philosophy is taken into account. This is done because in the present research study main aim has been to just find out whether social media has an influence on individual purchase decisions. Here, main aim is not to prove a statement or assumption that social media has an influence on the individual purchase decisions. Thus, due to this reason the inductive research approach is selected and Interpretivism research philosophy is chosen in the present research study.
Considering, corona factor small sample size is taken in the research study. But to ensure that data collected is accurate questionnaire will only be distributed among those individuals that have good knowledge in respect to the research topic.
References:
Books and Journals
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Duffett Mr, R. G.. and Wakeham Dr, M. 2016. Social media marketing communications effect on attitudes among millennials in South Africa. The African Journal of Information Systems. 8(3). 2.
Felix, R., Rauschnabel, P. A.. and Hinsch, C. 2017. Elements of strategic social media marketing: A holistic framework. Journal of Business Research. 70. 118-126.
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