Mpact Of Facebook On Consumer Buying Marketing Essay

Mpact Of Facebook On Consumer Buying Marketing EssayThere has been a noticeable transport in the technological developments and innovation in the last few years. Undoubtedly, technology depends an important type in our lives. Most of population depend on the mesh in most of their daily lives such as sending e posts, searching for learning communicate with their family and friends, reading the latest new(a)s and so on. That development in technology reaches different sectors like commerce organizations, academic sectors, and governmental fields.In composition where technology plays a great role in messs lives, merchandiseers ar doing their best to take any chance that could set ashore consumers to their harvest-feasts and services. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, h venerable off forers predicted that the internet would alter the relationship between consumers and selling organization (Lord, 2000 Hamel and Sampler,1998). Ward and his colleagues in 1998 predicted that in the first quarter of the twenty first century, the main channel for shopping for most consumers would be the inter ready technologies (Ward et al, 1998). De K atomic number 18-Silver (2000) discusses the same idea that this technology will go with consumers consider to visit shops, as it will reserve it easy for masses to subvert their needs any age without going to the actual place for these products. legion(predicate) business companies that provide services or physical goods count that using the electronic resources in their marketing is vital to their success. Porter (2001) recommends that if companies emergency to remain competitors, they imbibe to rely on technology. Using technology in marketing al modests brands and companies to interact with its nodes in individual ass as it provides immediate and quick interact without time limitation (Allan and Chudry, 2000).One type of technology that people and marketers depend on is neighborly networking sites. In these friendly sites, people usually communicate with each former(a) and during these conversations, they send direct messages to each other without noticing that. The number of people who call these sites argon change magnitude day by day. In the United States around 55.6 peerless thousand million people save employ these accessible sited daily in 2009 (Ostrow, 2009). Globally, Facebook, one of the main affable sites, accounts for 750.000.000 registrations, Twitter has 200.000.000 followers (Qualman, 2011).In business sector, these affable sites play an important role in consumers purchasing behavior. In these sites, people usually shell out opinion and purplish information closely their view on brands they buy and services they using up (Jones, 2010). Consumers use to recommend a brand or marketing organization to friends and followers. In some case, fans of a specific brands establish a page in these fond sites where they write thei r opinion to the highest degree this brand, upload and download photos of the product that the brand sell.Investigating the relation between these social sites and consumer purchasing behavior is a new trend that encourages queryer to search about. That relation imprints both sides, marketers and consumers. For marketers, it helps to create a strong relationship with customers, developing a new idea for new product, and answering common daily questions from consumers (DSilva et al, 2011). Moreover, in investigating the effect of these sites on consumers purchasing behavior, some studies have been made to visualize out the relation between these sides. Most of these studies improve that there is a positive relation between social sites and consumer purchasing behavior that the majority of people believe in this statements and support that by some cases where they rely on these social sites in some stages in their purchasing process such as searching for information and evaluating their choices (Constantinides and Fountain, 2008). well-disposed media usage is growing rapidly amongst marketing professionals and organisations and fast becoming a new outlet that can potentially be used to help increase customers interest in a product or service. As it becomes widespread it brings about involving customers and facilitating exchange of information bringing about shift in consumer conduct.through and through social media, information, enticing advertisement are made available to consumers easily watch and read and at the same time allowing consumers to post their own opinions and sharing it with friends. For umteen brands, social media appears as a way to reach new customers and to reflect their feelings and this explains the reason for which many companies are shortly working on developing tender Strategies to outline the degree of interactivity that they want to have with their customers that will help consumers to present a buying stopping point.Successful firms use consumer attitudes and behaviors to segment markets and design marketing strategies. Today, however, consumer trust in corporations is declining while the influence of online communities on purchaser behavior is growing. Social media platforms have completely changed the nature of the fundamental interaction between brands and their customers, directly impacting upon the contemporary consumer termination process.Laurens (2010) argued that while social media is not the silver bullet that some pundits claim it to be, it is an extremely important and relatively low cost touch point that has a direct impact on sales and positive word of mouth and supporting this argument Glynn and David (2009) said that Companies not actively engaging the social media are missing a huge opportunity of saying something to consumers intentionally or unintentionally about how willing they are to engage on consumers terms. Therefore, its necessary for retailers to understand how social media is affecting current consumers and how they are going to react.During the economic downturn, more and more companies have reduced their colloquy budget but they have increased expenses for social media by 30%. It is presently a priority for big companies but they need also to change their global marketing strategy. It is also important to reach the right customer at the beginning of a social media strategy because opinion leaders, such as bloggers, are the ultimate key to a brands success (The Conversation Group 2012). As the marketing power of social media grows, it no longer run intos sense to treasure it as an experiment. According to Tamba (2012) Social media has a big impact on how people shop. A quarter of all purchases of FMCGs are influenced by exposure to one form of social media or another and this proportion is growing. Shoppers are weaving their interaction with social and vigorous marketing into their e realday lives As a result, big brands are increasing their socia l media investing. Social media can influence both impulse purchases and regular shopping habits when it comes to FMCGs. The trick is to understand where, when and how customers want to interact with your brand, and with your products. Social marketing for regular purchases is about strengthening and deepening the customers connection with the brand.Impulse buys are also increasingly mediated by social media especially now that so many consumers can access Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest from their mobile phones.1.1 Statement of Problem.Most often than never, companies do not benefit from social media in a way they should have benefited from it due to their lack of strategic efforts to managing it and measure it success. Through media hypes that emphasis the ease of achieving success with social media, many companies have the believe that what they need to do to achieve success with Facebook is by just launching Facebook page and such companies get disappointed when they see no act ivities occurring on the page and thereof they abandon the page. Common mistakes companies make is de ballot a little time for social media and measuring it success on whether audience is conversing or not about their brands on their social media. Nevertheless, companies make mistakes by believing they are in total control of conversations about their companies, brands products or services on social media and they spend intemperately on PR to hype their newest hires and new products whereas they forget that social media platform is all about speaking with people but not at people and more of a community of audience that discuss about companies, their products, services or brands in a way they feel they benefit them or do not (Evans 2010).1.2 Purpose of StudyThis research is carried out with the aim of appraising the impact of Facebook on Consumer buying Behaviour in the UK grocery store Market with Tesco Plc as a case study. This is to determine the effect of social media (Faceboo k) on the consumer buying deportment of groceries in the UK.1.3. Research QuestionWhat are the impacts of Facebook on consumer buying behaviour in the UK Grocery Market?1.4 Research ObjectivesFollowing from the above highlighted aim, the following objectives have been set to achieve the above aim and followed by the research questions.To describe Facebook usage patterns among UK consumers in grocery market.Evaluate how Facebook effectively changes consumers attitude towards groceries.Investigating and evaluating the role of Facebook website as influencers on Tesco customers in UK at stages of buying decision-making process.Identify if Facebook is the social medium that has the greatest impact on consumer buying pattern of Tesco in UK.Recommendation on how Tesco should use Facebook to encourage consumers to buy their products.1.5 The Significance of the ResearchThis research work was undertaken to take a critical look at the impacts of a social media called Facebook on consumer buy ing behaviour in the UK grocery market where Tesco was used as a case study. This research therefore became imperative to undertake as a result of a noticeably new development in the UK market that aroused the interest on the issue surrounding Facebook impact on consumer buying behaviour in the UK and a well known favorite FMCG trading company in UK was chosen as a case study to identify these effects of Facebook on consumer buying pattern in the UK Grocery market.Furthermore, the impact of Facebook on consumer buying pattern in grocery markets has not been looked into by researchers thus leaving a gap to identify whether social media (Facebook) in reality has a significant impact on consumer buying patterns in the grocery market apart form other commodities.Nevertheless, this research has also been undergone due to the acute interest the researcher has, following up to date on the social media impacts on marketing activities in this 20th century and it ability to completely gra te the tralatitious carcass of marketing communication.1.6. Scope and Limitations of the study.In investigating the impact of Facebook on consumer buying pattern in UK grocery markets, this study was only expressage to Facebook which is not the only social media that consumers use to purchase groceries. The research is not applicable to other social media platforms.Furthermore, the case study adopted was only bound to one of the FMCG companies in UK and thus do not provide a sufficient information about the impact of Facebook on the consumer buying pattern in UK grocery markets1.7 OverviewThe overall structure of this research consist of 5 chapters, each dwelling on a specific aspect of the topic under go offThis first chapter comprises of the introduction, research problem, purpose of the study, research question and objectives of the study. The rational and overview of the proposal have also been covered in this part. The literature review covers the chapter 2 of this research . This part reviews critically the impacts of social media on the buying pattern of consumers in the UK grocery markets from scholarly perspective. Conceptual framework also featured in this part of the research.Chapter 3 focuses on the orderology used in the entire research processes. The research method adopted both quantitative using closed questionnaire and qualitative method using case study approach will be adopted to collect data (Mixed method).The fourth chapter dealt with the analysis and findings of the research while then ordinal chapter focused on summary of conclusion and the implications of this research.CHAPTER 2LITERATURE REVIEW.2.0 IntroductionThe Literature review in chapter 2 will provide discussions from published information and an account of what has been published on the topic of this study. It explains body of text that aims to review the critical points of current knowledge including substantive findings as well as suppositious and methodological contribu tions to Impact of Facebook on Consumer buying Behaviour in the UK Grocery Market.In this chapter, various textbooks, articles, journals, blogs, dailies and websites were consulted to obtain related information, thoughts and quotes of various writers, authors and scholars.2.1. Consumer Buying BehaviourIn marketing, deep understanding of the behaviour of marketing is a very important tool for business success. Consumer buying behaviour is all about the determination of how consumers make decisions on the product or service they want to buy and the factors that are responsible for this decision. According to studies conducted in UK, 56% out of 11,000 new products that are launched by 77 companies in the UK are present after 5 years of new product launch. Also, studies revealed that only 8% of new products impression from 112 leading companies reached that market where 83% where unable to meet marketing objectives. Consumer buying behaviour tends to study these reasons why companies n eed to have a deep understanding of why consumers make the purchase they do and the factors that influence their decision to purchase (Hitesh, 2010). Because consumers are the drivers of marketing, the need to formulate well suitable marketing plans that that will critically examine consumer behavioural attributes and needs, lifestyles and purchase process in order to make a nearly perfect marketing mix decisions. Studying what consumers buy, the reason they buy, the way they buy, time they buy, the positioning and frequency at which they buy are key things to understand when undertaken the study of consumer behaviour (Hitesh, 2010).Wayne et al., 2008, be consumer buying behaviour is the reflection of the totality of consumers decisions regarding acquisition, consumption, and disposition of products and services, activities, people, ideas and experiences. Also, Dibb and simkin (2001) defined the buying behaviour of consumers as an act and decision making process of people that are involved purchasing and using products or services for in-person or household consumptions. Theoretical approaches have been used by researchers to have an in-depth understanding of consumer behaviour and these approaches have been inherent in 3 psychological orientations musical accompaniment theory, Cognitive theory and Freuds psycho-analytical theory (Fill,2006), with the most popular and current approach to consumer behaviour out of the 3 approaches been the cognitive theory (Berkman and Gilson, 1986), where cognitive theory states that people use and process information they derived from internal and external sources to identify problems and make decisions. The major elements outlined by the cognitive theory for problem solving among consumers in their buying behaviour have been perception, learning, attitudes, and personality (Fill, 2006).Consumer behaviour goes beyond the method by which consumers purchase tangible products like groceries, clothing and automobiles but rat her, consumer buying behaviour also involve consumers use of services, experiences, activities, and ideas such as going to see a General Practitioner (GP), signing up for a gym class, donating to charity, voting for politicians, seeing movies featured by certain actors etc. Consumer behaviour was also expressed as activities people get involved in when collecting, utilising and disposing products and services (Blackwell et al.,2001) or environmental factors that are aimed at creating actual behaviour (Jim,2008). Four factors namely psychological core, process of decision making, consumers finish and consumer behaviour outcomes have been identified to affect the buying behaviour of consumers (Wayne et al., 2008) while Haydon (2009) grouped factors that affect consumer buying behaviour into 3 group namely external influences (firms marketing effort and consumers culture), internal processes (psychological processes and decision making) and post decision processes. Choices are been ma de by consumers daily and buying behaviour is said to be influenced by the characteristics (cultural, social and psychological) and the decision process that buyers make (Khursia, 2012). Furthermore, several research have been undertaken to identify the buying behaviour of consumer finished and through social psychology and personality (Ajzen, 1987), marital status and responsibilities (Goldman and Johansson, 1978), and consumer loyalty (Suen and Wei, 2009).2.11 psychology of buyersPsychology of buyers must be determined by manufacturers through identification of buyers need when marketing a product to target group of customers. Buyers most often look for sense of safety and belonging, although other customers want to gain self esteem in the presence of their peers. The perception of a product by buyers must be understood when providing information about the product to buyers as there are possibilities that buyers could interpret information provided by buyers about a product on t he basis of their previous beliefs and knowledge, although learning about such product may change behavior of buyers (Jeff 2012).2.12 Behaviour of consumersAlso, buyers could also buy products depending on their personalities and lifestyles. For example individual buyer that seeks to life a healthy lifestyle could go for organic foods while avoiding foods that are sun-tanned. In family situation, buying decisions are often based on what buyers perceive to be best for their family. Deep awareness on who makes decisions for family product must be understood by marketers. Among newly weds with no children, purchasing is the product of decision made by husband and wife, while the stay at home parent makes the decision in a family with young children (Jeff 2012).2.13 Characteristics of ConsumerSocial class and culture up to some extent determines types, quality and quantity of products that buyers buy or use. In clothing, social class may determine the type of clothes buyers buy. farmi ng also greatly impacts on food where deep-fried food may be easier to sell in the south than in California. The buying process begins with a step where consumers recognise a need, or a disparity between what they possess and what they need to buy to change their condition. Also, decision to buy a product can also be based on elements such as packaging, payment methods and the features and of the product (Jeff 2012).Firms Marketing Efforts1. Product2. Promotion3. Price4. PlaceThe Consumers tillage1. Religion2. Ethnicity3. Reference Groups4. Social classPsychological Processes1. Motivation2. Perception3. Attitude4. KnowledgeDecision Making1. Problem recognition2.Information Search3. belief4. DecisionPost -decision Processes1. Purchase2. Post-purchase behaviourFigure 1 Model of Consumer Behaviour2.2 Social mediaSocial media is a set of applications such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook etc make to operate on Web 2.0 platform which enables the creation and sharing of information c reated by drug substance abusers that are known as user-generated content (Kaplan and Haenlin, 2010). Social media has been expressed to be the new millennium medium of communication across the world with the most popular of all been Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn. For example, Facebook as at June, 2012 was said to have a monthly active user of 750 million people and 1 gazillion active users were estimated to be on Facebook by the end of 2012, thus supporting the believe of many analyst that social media marketing will out rightly replace some forms of traditional marketing such as directing mail (Fuel oil news, 2012). Social network, one of the currently used platforms by social media is said to be a very diverse and big complex concept perceive to which its knowledge require a clear identification of its scope and coverage that forms it boundaries (George, 2008). Tracy (2008) expressed that social media existence is inherent in the context of communities that are built of people where relations are been developed and nurtured through creation, sharing, engaging and commenting in content. Social media are online tools that provide access to users with identical interest to share information that is referred to as user generated account content while also learning from others, or network in an open process (Stepenson, 2011). According to smith and Zee (2011), Social media has been opined to be an effective way of running business other than just an ordinary marketing tool, requiring both old and new companies to plant new culture of company wide support, systems and incentives where mindset of thinking relationships and not just sales or transaction marketing must be ensured. Social media has been further explained by Smith and Zee (2011) to look beyond short term sales but should enable the culture of sharing and listening, channelling information into organisational system that alert companies into negative and positive comments, suggestions, complaints and new ideas that are beneficial for new product development, new advertisements, new discussions and promotions.Business managers are often faced with challenges of exploiting opportunities associated with the increasing availability of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn that is been dominated by 50% users alone in UK. Despite the fact that social media has become a very popular networks that is often used by consumers, while organisations are still struggling to understand and put it to use effectively (Nielsen 2010). However, despite the believe of many about the opportunities inherent in social media, some are still sceptical about its potentials due to an immense uncertainty about how it can be leveraged for a long term profits and returns as well as the ability to identify the fact that return on investment can be attributed to social media marketing efforts (Weinberg and Berger, 2010), Weinberg and David, 2005). Apart from social media exposing consumers to research and purchase considerations, social media has also provided platform through which consumers can advocate for the products and stores they so much wanted and love (Jay, 2012). To gather information, consumers are now relying on social media to decide on which products to buy (Kozinets 2002) and the usage of social media by consumers for brand recognition, information about products and the opinion about product or service provider are most often influenced by the cultural background of consumers as consumers widely qualify in their expectation of product and service quality (Donthu and Yoo 1998).Through social media, companies are offered the opportunities to understand the needs of their consumers and increase their level of satisfaction through proactive and well timed(p) response (Jay, 2012).2.3 Usage pattern of Social media among consumers.No doubt, social media has gone through a significant transubstantiation over years (Mangold and faulds, 2009). This signifi cant transformation of social media and the extent to which consumers rely on social media to make purchasing decision led to the full awareness of the potentials of social media by marketers. Advent of social media has immensely changed the society, influencing consumers behaviour in terms of scanning for information on different social media to read other consumers view concerning products or services they want to purchase (Todaro, 2007).The traditional media has been greatly replaced by social networks and the awareness on social media opportunities seems unlimited as millions of Coca-cola fans on Facebook are declaring their love for the brand, most frequently viewed on YouTube been roller babies of Danones water brand Evian while thousands of consumers that patronise Starbucks work hand in hand with the brand to generate new ideas for their products. According to Trusvo et al., 2009, 1.54 billion dollars was said to have been used to implement and support social media communica tions in 2008 and as such, social media growths is getting quite unlimited as investment on social media are estimated to increase to 3 billion dollars in the year 2013 (Kozinets et al., 2010). 70% internet users have been discovered to trust judgements and evaluations of their fellow consumers on the social media platforms thus leaving brand generation and awareness at the mercy of social media users (Nielsen 2009).According to a survey conducted by Fishburn Hedges, more than tercet of UK consumers that constitute 36% are said to have engaged with companies brands through social media and this increase was driven by a common belief among 40% respondents that improving customer service is as a result social media when compared with just 7% of respondents that believed that social media has a negative impact on customer service. Furthermore, 68% of respondents that have engaged with brands through social media have believed that through social media, their concerns and their wishes have been made known to their products and service provider and more than 65% respondent expressed that social media gives them a better chance to communicate with companies(David, 2012).Fishburn_image_1Figure 2 Usage pattern of social media among UK consumers (David, 2012).In the same vein, research conducted by YouGov Media, UK (2011) explained that the uptake and usage of social media services as a marketing tool remains favourably high among British public where Facebook is the social media site with a highest percentage of active users. 65% of online population in UK have Facebook with 95% of 16 to 20 years olds and 74% of 21-24 years old are frequently accessing Facebook social media site. The next social media site with the highest number of active users after Facebook is said to be YouTube that has 50% of all UK internet users while Twitter, Windows Live, LinkedIn, Google and Spotify have been surveyed to have 23%, 14%, 13%, 12% and 10% active online users respectively (YouG ov,2012).Furthermore, study conducted among by Hiscox (2012) among entrepreneurs in UK found out that 57% of businesses use social media for marketing where 19% of these entrepreneurs use Facebook as their social media platform while 14% use linkedIn. The use of social media to support marketing efforts in UK is inherent in the fact that 53% of UK adults that use social networks follow a particular brands while 4 out of 5 internet users visit other social platforms as we as blogs.Also, in a study conducted by Jon (2011), 77% of UK 48.6 million adult were discovered to have an active Facebook profile, 15.5 million adult were investigated to be using Twitter account, 7.2 million adult use a photo sharing platform while 7.9 million UK adults use LinkedIn. Facebook was discovered to be the most popular UK social networking site with 77% of all UK users having an active Facebook profile where 80% women constitute the population of active Facebook user compared to 72% of men.How Businesse s use Social Media Hiscox InsuranceFigure 3 Usage pattern of social media among UK entrepreneurs (Hiscox 2012).Social Media Usage in UK infographic low res 2Figure 4 Social Media usage pattern depending on age and gender (Jon 2011).Examining the study conducted by Dirk (2011) that proposed that the increase in the number of active user of social media was as a result of the advent of smartphones, investigated that social networks are accessed by more than half of UK users through their phones almost everyday, suggesting that overall, 35% of he UK mobile UK mobile phone population use social networks from their phones where over 44% of mobile phone users in UK are estimated to be smartphone users.uk_mobilesocialsept10-11-1Figure 5 The frequence of Social Networking site or Blog in UK (Dirk, 2011)2.4. Changing consumers attitude through Social mediaWord of mouth has been found to be an effective representation through which consumers buy products and services. Take for example an active user of Facebook with 15,000 followers finds a product valuable to him and thus recommends such product to his 15,000 followers on the social media sites and these followers also recommend the product to their followers and thus create a huge awareness for such brand through these social media medium. With the advent of social media, word of mouth and engagements which are effective means by which products are sold have been facilitated by social media. Years agone companys sale representatives only had the not less than 5 interactions a day but in the social media age, companies have increased their individual customer interactions to century or more (Joan et al., 2010). Favoured brands may be promoted by consumers through positive comments on social media like Facebook or twitter pages or could be through uploading the video clips about such brand on YouTube. In the same vein, when consumers are not satisfied with a particular product, consumers could use the brands social media to narrative their feelings of unsatisfaction about the companys product on the brands social media forum. Findings made by Dellarocas et al., 2007 found out that consumers look out for recommendations concerning products and proceed to buy such product via the traditional channel such as offline stores (Heil et al., 2010). Social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube etc are been used by consumers to serve as an evaluation forums where products quality or service reviewed by other consumers that have experience with such products or services are used as a determinant to determine whether such product or service would be purchased or not, and thus social media reduce uncertainty and improve efficiency of consumers online searches in products consumption process (Dwyer, 2007). Through social media, consumers have greatly influenced one another when making purchasing decisions where consumers ask one another for advice on these social media platform, mimicking and obs erving one anothers decision and relying on these recommendations from others earlier purchases are made (Hasan 2008). In a study conducted by IBM in Europe, more than half of Social media users in Britain, France, Italy and even Germany often check social networks before they make decision on purchasing or not purchasing a particular good or service. 35% of active Facebook users are discovered to use Facebook page to consult people for advices about products and services. In 40% of the situation, consumers procure such product they do investigation on through the social media. Furthermore, studies have also proved that 56% of Facebook users that have become the follower of a particular brand are likely to recommend to their social network followers such brand they follow (ConversationGroup, 2012). According to MRY (Mr Young), during holiday sales, exchanges among friends, family and brands have a significantly direct influence on purchasing decision. Through Faceb