SIVA SIVANI INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT

A REPORT ON

“A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF HOME LOAN IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR BANKS”

NAME OF THE STUDENT GUIDE

Pawan Sharma MR.SISTLA SAMKARPAD

1

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I wish to express a hearty thanks to Prof. SISTLA SAMKARPAD, for giving me this opportunity to work and provide guidelines.

I also thank the respondents who took time from their schedule to fill in the questionnaires.

2

Abstract

Over the past decade a new form of media has arisen which due to its social features seem to have a great power of influence on consumers’ purchasing decision-making process. Today, more and more consumers use Social Media to communicate together but also to communicate with brands. This new interaction is of interests for marketing professionals.

The study aims to explain how the influence of Social Media is reflected on consumers’ purchasing decision-making process and if this influence differs at the various stages of this process.

A questionnaire was used as the data collection instrument for this research.

The study finds that the influence of Social Media differs according to the various stages of the consumers’ purchasing decision making-process. Thereby, the more the consumer progresses through the stages the more the influence of Social Media is diminished. Other findings explain that cultural background such as nationalities makes Social Media influence more or less strong according to the different stages of the consumers’ purchasing decision-making process. The study also highlights implications for Marketers that have the opportunities to seize the power of influence of Social Media.

To conclude, these findings indicate directions for futures researches to investigate the impact of characteristics, such as cultural background, demographics features and differences in usage, on the influence of Social Media that might affect consumers’ purchasing decision-making process.

KEYWORDS: Social Media influence, Consumer’s purchasing decision-making process, behavior, implications for marketers.

3

TABLE OF CONTENTSChapter 1: Introduction1.1 Back Ground……………………………………………………11.2 Objective Of Study…………………………………………....11.3 Thesis Structure……………………………………..…1Chapter 2: Literature Review2.1 Development of Social Media Marketing…………………………………………….42.2IncreasingTrend of Social Media Sites……………………………………………………….62.3 Consumer……………………………………………...62.4 Consumer Decision Process2.5 Social Media 2.6 Types Of Social Media2.7 Social Media And Marketing2.8 The impact of Online social networks on consumers’ purchase decision 2.9 The reasons behind online social networks’ influences on consumers’ purchase decision2.10 Consumers interaction in online social networksChapter 3: Methodology3.1 Data Collection……………………………………………..73.2 Questionnaire …………………………………………………..73.3 Data AnalysisChapter 4: Empirical Analysis4.1The impact of online social networks on consumers’ purchase decision 4.2 The reasons behind online social networks’ influence on consumers’ purchasing decision process4.3 Consumer interaction with Social Networking SitesChapter 5: Conclusion…………………37Chapter 6: Bibliography…………………………………………..50

Annexure1 : Questionnaire

4

1. Introduction

1.1 Background – The Changing Face of Marketing

The emergence of Web 2.0 is one of the most formidable development in the history of commerce. Social media, another buzzword that came along with, is an evolution based on the Web 2.0, where not only it encourages user-generated contents, but also extends the focus to the users by allowing them to exhibit contents to share among networks.

This particular technical revolution during the last decade has drastically revolutionized the traditional marketing approaches and brought marketers to a new era. In the new marketing era, the social media has likely to revolutionize the relationships marketers have with retailers, channels of distribution, their ultimate consumers, etc. It is an Information Age, and consumers are inundated with overwhelming quantities of information each and every day.

Social Media Marketing refers to the tools and practices used to identify and analyze conversations, to participate and initiate social interactions within communities and thus consumers. In contrast with traditional media, Social Media offer more possibilities to marketers to engage with customers and have real interactions with them.

The marketing area has thus evolved from a time where marketers had the power of influence to today where consumers have a greater power of influence on their peers. Indeed, Social Media enable consumers to share contents and ideas together, write recommendations, reviews and opinions about companies’ performance and to tell, to a wider audience than before, about their own good or bad experience with them. Consumers have access to a wide range of different Social Media types, platforms and tools, with different characteristics and possibilities that allow them to be connected and communicate together. Social Media have significantly impacted how information is shared among groups of consumers.

5

Word-of-mouth plays a central role on Social Media. Word-of-mouth is well known in the marketing area and this for decades. But today, word-of-mouth appears even more important than before in the influence of consumers’ purchasing decision-making process (Brown, and Hayes, 2008, p139-146). Indeed, Social Media can carry and spread word-of-mouth between millions of users, like none of the other channels have been able to do until now.. This shift has been made possible because Social Media usage has highly increased by consumers but also by marketers these last years.By looking at the enormous amount of social media campaigns, e-commerce websites, sales emails, forums, etc., it appears that companies of all sizes have been translating their marketing approaches to the Internet because of its accessibility to their target audience and the money required to do so. (Chui and Manyika 2012.) By contrast, the traditional advertising approach of mass media communication, for instance newspaper, magazines, and televisions, aims at large segment of people at higher cost

1.2 Objectives of the research

6

The objective of the research is to explain why, when, and how social media has impacted on consumer decision making process. Besides, perhaps, with this particular perspective the research holds, it can help to identity what are the opportunities and pitfalls companies are facing with this impact on consumers’ decision making in order to seize and embrace the possibilities in the new marketing era.

Research Questions:

1. How do consumers attend, process, and select the information before a purchase? 2. To analyze consumer’s attitude towards Internet,advertising & its effect on their purchase behavior pattern. 3. To analyze consumer’s perception of online ads & the degree to which it contributes to Internet advertising.

1.3 Thesis structureThis section gives a structure of every chapter within this thesis. This thesis consists of sixChapters. Chapter 1 Introduction: It presents the background of the thesis followed by research question and the purpose of this study. Chapter 2 Literature Review: It describes the concepts of risk management in order to understand the area of interest and explanations of each factor are used in this thesis. Chapter 3 Methodology: It presents the research approach to find the answer to our research question to fulfill the purpose of this thesis. Chapter 4 Empirical findings: It reports the results from the collection data. There are given the percentage of general‘s part and main’s part. Finally, Chapter 5 Conclusion: It describes the thesis conclusion and gives the further suggestion. The next step is the literature review that describes the concept that related to the subject in this study

7

2. Literature Review2.1 The Development of Social Media MarketingIn recent years, social networking sites and social media have increased in popularity, at a global level. For instance, Facebook is said to have more than a billion active users (as of 2012) since its beginning in 2004 (www.facebook.com). Social networking sites can be described as networks of friends for social or professional interactions. Indeed, online social networks have profoundly changed the propagation of information by making it incredibly easy to share and digest information on the internet.

The unique aspects of social media and its immense popularity have revolutionized marketing practices such as advertising and promotion .Social media has also influenced consumer behavior from information acquisition to post-purchase behavior such as dissatisfaction statements or behaviors and patterns of Internet usage.

Social media is ‘‘a group of internet based applications that builds on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and it allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content’’. Social media has many advantages as it helps connect businesses to consumers, develop relationships and foster those relationships in a timely manner and at a low cost

Other functions of social media involve affecting and influencing perceptions, attitudes and end behavior, while bringing together different like-minded people .

In an online environment, people like the idea of contributing, creating, and joining communities to fulfill needs of belongingness, being socially connected and recognized or simply enjoying interactions with other like-minded members. The much higher level of efficiency of social media compared to other traditional communication channels prompted industry leaders to state that companies must participate in Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and others, in order to succeed in online environments

Thus, more industries try to benefit from social media as they can be used to develop strategy, accept their roles in managing others’ strategy or follow others’ directions Social media websites provide an opportunity for companies to engage and interact with potential and current consumers, to encourage an increased sense of intimacy of the customer relationship, and build all important meaningful relationships with consumers especially in today’s business environment when consumer loyalty can vanish at the smallest mistake, which can additionally have online propagation of their unfortunate encounter with a particular product, service, brand or company.

Some companies are beginning to take notice of the power of social media. A few corporate social networking websites already allow consumers to not only exchange information about products or services, but also engage in co-creating value in online experiences with offline outcomes, with both current and potential consumers

The marketing landscape has drastically changed in the last decade. Before, companies and their customers had no direct link to each other’s respective worlds (Jaffe, 2010, p160). The

8

emergence of Social Media has changed the way consumers interact together but also with companies. Consumers, through their growing use of Social Media and by using word-of-mouth, have now a powerful and even greater influence on peers. Social Media platforms and tools allow users to share contents, recommend products and tell about their positive and negative consumers experience with companies

2.2 Increasing Trend of various Social Networking Sites:Facebook represents a huge potential market for your social media efforts, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd. Worldwide, there are over 1.23 billion monthly active Facebook users (MAUs) which is a 16 percent increase year over year. 4.5 billion Likes generated daily as of May 2013 which is a 67 percent increase from August 2012. 757 million people log onto Facebook daily (DAU), which represents a 22% increase compared to December 2012 the Implication: A huge and vastly growing number of Facebook users are active and consistent in their visits to the site, making them a promising audience for your marketing efforts. There are 945 million mobile active users (MAU) and 556 million Mobile Daily users for December 2013 and increase of 49% year over year. Millions of people around the world use Twitter to discuss everything from the news to brands and businesses There are 230 million active users on Twitter! And those users post an average of 500 million Tweets every day. Twitter is used by people in nearly every country in the world and is available in more than 35 languages. 76% of Twitter users login via mobile devices.

9

10

More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month.Over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube—that's almost an hour for every person on Earth.100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.YouTube is localized in 61 countries and across 61 languages.Millions of subscriptions happen each day. The number of people subscribing daily is up more than 3x since last year, and the number of daily subscriptions is up more than 4x since last year. Thousands of advertisers are using TrueView in-stream and 75% of our in-stream ads are now skippable. We have more than a million advertisers using Google ad platforms, the majority of which are small businesses.Mobile makes up almost 40% of YouTube's global watch time.YouTube is available on hundreds of millions of devices

This research gives explanation on how individuals are attending, processing, and selecting the information on social media before a purchase. The findings indicated that individuals pursue an active role in information serach on social media comparing to mass media, yet information exposure is selective and subjective during the course of information search. Moreover, the empirical part of the research strives to provide insights to any companies that are trying to shift to or are currently participating in the new marketing trend

2.3 CONSUMER

Consumers are actors on the marketplace stage. Consumers, in general, can be referred as individuals who purchase or consume products and services; however, in terms of buyer and consumer, there is a slight difference. Buyers are the people who are acting either as ultimate, industrial, or institutional purchasers. The latter one, consumer, refers to individuals who purchase for merely ultimate use, which is more restrictive in terms of meaning that is, the end-users for whom the products or services are ultimately designed for.

11

2.4 Consumer Decision Process

Inevitably, businesses encounter bottlenecks where the message is not reaching their consumers and prospects, with the fact that, at times, consumers and prospects are facing significant blocks in their decision process. If not, each of them should be fully committed, loyal, enthusiastic, repeated consumers; however, this is not the case. Today the accessibility and transparency of information has profoundly influenced the decision making process; therefore, it is important to examine what are the hurdles and fiction points that hold prospects becoming consumers, or keeps consumers hesitating from repurchasing. As the figure (Figure 1) shows, the model has interpreted consumer behavior into five stages – 1) Problem recognition, 2) search of information, 3) evaluation of alternatives, 4) final decision, and 5) post purchase decisions. (Sternthal and Craig 1982)

2.4.1 Problem recognition

Problem recognition takes place whenever a consumer recognizes a significant difference between the desired and the actual state of affairs, which is in sufficient magnitude to arouse and activate the decision process or need triggered by internal or external stimuli. After the realization of a problem, it initiates the search for information before any typical buying action.

When an individual is triggered externally, for instance, a person may see a television advertisement for a vacation, the stimuli triggers thoughts or ideas about the possibility of making a purchase Nowadays, the mass media is no longer the only source of information, which may serve as a trigger of a purchase to individuals. As a result, consumers are exposed to vast amount of information, in order to get through the consumer’s filter , marketers have to identify a claim or promise about their services or products, which are strongly penetrative. Filter, in this case, is a fact of being overlooked because of too much information competing in the marketplace

2.4.2 Search of Infomation

The final purchase decision will not be made at once, even when individuals acknowledge, recognize their problems, and pay attention to the available products; likewise, when prospects have a certain interest in a product or service, they tend to go through the following steps before carrying out any action – identifying available options, studying information of selected options, and eventually judging which of these options can most likely deliver the best outcome

12

The information sources can be divided into two types: internal and external. Internal search indicates former information and experience of an individual will result in future behavior that the consumers will be likely to take (Solomon, Bamossy and Askegaard 2002). Even when a consumer is attentive towards a marketing offer, it does not imply that the offer will be comprehended as intended; therefore, aside from the accumulated information, any information or message that is generally analyzed and stored in the consumers’ memory in forms of certain meaning will be used to evaluate alternatives. Essentially, competitive brands provide alternatives for consumers who are willing to find the best solution to their problems or needs, even they may offer same products or services.

2.4.3 Evaluation of Alternatives

Once an option is identified as the best/suitable solution according to the individual’s needs after accumulating sufficient information, they undertake alternative evaluation Depending on their motives or goals, consumers establish a criteria for evaluating choice alternatives for instance which alternative is the simplest to use or to arrange, or what are other users’ experiences, because there is a need to confirm whether or not the information is reliable and to verify that the product will work out as anticipated.

In order to ensure the outcome within the expectation, individuals require relevance of experience. Direct and indirect experience, which individuals, serve as indicators during the buying process. Direct experience is not always preferred since individuals are inexperienced towards specific products, which may result using it in an unskilled manner and have negative experience with it. Most often, if negative experiences take place, they are most likely to be costly (both financially and time), risky, or even damaging to reputation.

2.4.4 Final Decision

13

Figure 2. Steps between evluation of alternatives and a purchase decision (Koter & Keller 2009, 172).

Kotler and Keller (2009) have suggested that during the course of evaluation, consumer eventually forms preferences among the brands in the choice desk, however, there are two factors, which can interfere between the purchase intension and purchase decision – attitude of the others and unanticipated situational factors (172).

Attitudes of others is the extent to which another person’s negative attitude towards the preferred alternatives or reluctance to meet the terms of supporting the purchase intention, this may result in a readjustment of the consumer’s purchase intention (Kotler and Keller 2009,172).

Likewise, Kotler (2009) has also stated that consumers are undoubtedly influenced by the infomediaries who publish their evaluations (e.g. customer reviews on Amazon.com, blogs, bulletin boards, and so on). Unanticipated situational factors refer to those may erupt to alter the purchase intention, for instance, there might come an unexpected purchase that is more urgent compared to the purchase the consumer was firstly stimulated to buy; in other

14

words, preferences and purchase intentions cannot be served as completely reliable predictors of purchase behavior. (Kotler and Keller 2009.)

The stages in the decision process are not followed sequentially, but rather in a cyclically order; that is, in reality there are loops, for instance between information search and evaluation, consumer learns about new criteria not previously considered (Bettman 1979).

2.4.5 Post Purchase Decision

After the consumption, the consumer then experiences certain levels of satisfaction or dissatisfaction, and evaluates the wisdom of the choice made in selecting the alternative. Two potential outcomes are derived from this phase – satisfaction or dissonance. When consumer experiences dissonance towards the purchase, the choice is ‘devaluated’ and the consumer begins the process of searching, obtaining information and evaluating other options for future buying decision, in which triggers new behavior. It is a phase when the consumer decides whether or not to move from merely implementing the product to a full adaption; that is, whether to use the product repeatedly or repurchase or not. Since consumer always has a choice regarding the products priority, frequency of usage, and new circumstances of new uses. When individuals are comfortable in using a specific product regularly, they will recommend it to others from using the product as well. (Silverman 2001).

Stages in decision making involves many psychological factors, which the above five-stages buying model has failed to explicate; thus, the following discussion focuses on attitude and the psychological components mentioned in the information processing theory proposed by Bettman (1979).

2.5 SOCIAL MEDIA

What is social media

Many researchers have come across the interchangeable usage of the terms

“social media” and “Web2.0” however, Safko and Brake (2009, 6) have stated out that these two terms are closely related yet not exactly synonymous, and they differ in terms of usage. For the purpose of this research, and in order to avoid any confusion, the above mentioned terms will be defined, despite the fact that social media is the central gravity of the research.

In regards of the term Web 2.0, Tim O'Reilly, the founder of O'Reilly media, has coined that "Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform." He has further provided a general business aspect in relations of Web 2.0 as the “harnessing of collective intelligence”, in which Web 2.0 provides platforms and

15

fills the Web with user-generated content where all individuals – the former audience are able to take part in instead of important decisions made by a few people. Alternatively, Web 2.0 is a platform whereby content and applications are continuously modified and exchanged by all users in participatory and collaborative manner, and no longer merely created and published by individuals

There are still many ongoing debates and discussions regarding social media’s universal definition; as social media has been transforming and merging into the evolving development of New Media (Solis 2010). Regardless of what the standardized definition per se would be, many of the existing studies and articles have stated out the common core purpose of social media.

16

According to figure 3, Dann and Dann (2011) have demonstrated how social media is formed based upon the interconnected elements – social interaction, content, and communication media. Social media has created a new landscape in supporting the socialization of information (Solis 2007), as a result it has facilitated and enhanced communication flow by making it easier and to more people, and to spread useful information with potentially vast online audiences (Smith and Zook 2011, 10), in which the conversation may be taken place on media locally but lead to a global impact.

Figure 3. Social media components

The concept proposed by Kaplan and Haenlein (2009), as they have referred social media to “activities, practices, and behaviors among communities of people who gather online to share information, knowledge, and opinions using conversational media”.

Nonetheless, social media expedites the flow of communication by encouraging contributions and feedback from everyone who is interested, and it is a two-way conversation when comparing to the traditional media because social media outlets are open up to feedback and participation.

At its essence, social media describes the powerful new ways individuals are engaging with content on the Internet, and vice versa; that is, as many have

17

observed, social media is user-centric in which it emphasizes and facilitates the process of creating, commenting, editing and sharing. More importantly, social media is the democratization of content.

2.6 Types of Social Media

In the discussion regarding different categories of social media, five distinct types of social media outlets are focused on – 1) social networking sites, 2) social news, 3) media sharing, 4) blogs, and 5) microblogging. Each of these social media platforms has provided unique features and experiences to individuals and entities, for instance marketers and consumers, in the social media sphere.

2.6.1 Social Networking Sites

Social Networking Sites (SNSs) are platforms where individuals are able to connect with others, for instance Facebook and MySpace. Social networking sites, as Weinberg (2009, 149) states, “are generic terms for sites that are used to connect users with similar backgrounds and interests”. These platforms, generally, have few common elements across most of them – (1) users are able to create interactive and customized profiles, either a public or a semi-public, within a bounded system, (2) a list of suggested “friends” with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system .

To consumers, they are the outlets, which present wealth opportunities for establishing a closer relationship with the brand via several functions – fan pages, plug-in applications, and groups.

Recently, Empathica have conducted a survey about the U.S. consumers’ usage of social media to make shopping decisions. The survey population is more than 6,500 U.S. consumers, of these consumers, over half (55 percent) have “Liked” a brand’s Facebook page, and 73 per cent have claimed that their choice of recent store visit is influenced by a social networking site.

18

2.6.2 Social News and Bookmarking Sites

Social News sites and Social Bookmarking sites, for instance Digg, Reddit, and Scoop.it, are fairly similar, and are very much in the trend of online community. Social News enables users not only to be in control of their news streams, but also allows individuals to “submit and vote on content around the Web” but the core value of the latter one is to allow users “to collect and interesting links they have discovers and may wish to revisit.”

In other words, individuals get to control and customized their news streams, this special attribute of social news site facilitates the democracy which creates values to users. These sites allow individuals to discover websites that a large number of people have already discovered; some say social news sites have changed the concept of newspaper nowadays and are governed by the

“wisdom of crowds” ,due to the fact that the contents personal and targeted news and they empower users by putting the audience in the center via active discussions and which reacts on how readers interact .

2.6.3 Media-Sharing Sites

Media-Sharing sites (e.g. Youtube and Flickr) are outlets where individuals can upload, store, and share their multimedia files, for instance photos, videos, and music, with other users. There are myriad opportunities through the engagement to these websites, because these certain platforms within the social media segment has always been a stronghold to online societies, as they provide users opportunities to create their own podcasts with affordable technology and to propaganda their identical “channels” via subscriptions. One of the major elements of these media-sharing sites has to be highlighted is the tag. “A tag is a word assigned to a piece of content that helps describe it”, which means that businesses have to acknowledge the importance of the search words on the search engines .

19

2.6.4 Blogs

A blog is an online journal which is as refer to a type of content management system (CMS), typically maintained by individuals or groups, and featured commentary and ideas for a larger group of audience. Blogs create good hubs for other social media marketing tools (videos, hyperlinks, pictures, and so on), because they can be integrated into the platforms and posts; besides, blog software provides a variety of social features such as comments, blogrolls, trackbacks, and subscriptions. On the other hand, Weber (2009) has pointed due to the fact that blogs allow everyone to publish and to join multithreaded conversations online, in which some of the bloggers have no editorial restrains and have access to the entire Web; as a result, their posts can impact personal, products, or brand reputation harmfully.

2.6.5 Microblogging

Microblogging is a real-time information network, which shares similarity to blogging, yet it limits the size (number of words) of each post and encourages a faster mode of communication. Microblogging allows users to spread their short-texted messages via instant messages, mobile phones, e-mails, or the Web. For instance, Twitter, launched in 2006, is one of the primal and leading microblogs that currently has over 140 million users as of 2012 and handles over 1.6 billion search queries per day (Twitter 2011). Obviously, Twitter provides companies with leverage via Internet traffic by creating a buzz on online communities, as users get the essence and concise information through short-texted posts. Many companies have been using Twitter to tap into the business prospects, influencers, and customers; by doing so, businesses are able to take advantage in relationship building, achieving on-line and offline marketing objectives, and brand building etc. Retweet is one of the most powerful mechanisms to marketers, in which individuals can copy and paste what others have posted onto their Twitter stream. Consequently, the certain tweet gets to spread virally in a furious speed .

20

2.7 Social Media and Marketing

Social Media Marketing is an umbrella term that can be described as the utilization of social media platforms as marketing tools. According to Weinberg (2009), he refers social media marketing as leveraging the ‘social’ through the

‘media’ to ‘market’ businesses’ constituents; in other words, it is a process in empowering individuals to promote their websites, products, and/or services through online social channels, to interact with and to tap into a much larger community that may not have been available via traditional advertising channels.

It is no longer a striking fact that most of the advertisements via mass media are not as efficient as in the past, because by advertising through the mass, the message is generally reaching far more people than the potential customer intended to reach. Social web is where people with a common interest can gather to share thoughts, comments, and ideas; hence, instead of continuing as broadcasters, marketers should become aggregators of customer communities; that is, the Web should not be considered as a mere advertising channel, it is a place where marketers can listen and respond to communities, review contents, as well as promote a particular piece of content within the vast social sphere (community building).

What makes social media marketing special?

Upon the insufficient advertising budget that companies oftentimes encounter via the traditional channels, social media marketing might be, particularly, easier and more effective for small and medium-size companies to take maximum advantage of it. While social media marketing is an evolving technology with much potential, yet marketing’s role still reminds the same – defining the target market, communicating with prospects, building loyalty, customer engagement and so on. (Weber 2009.)

21

29

Weinberg (2009) has proposed few reasons to tap into a solid social media strategy in addition to (or instead of) the traditional ones, which are – facilitation in natural discovery of new content, boost up in traffic numbers, strong relationship building, as well as a cheap alternative to traditional marketing. Unlike the traditional advertising, individuals in the social media era have access to contents that are not necessarily associated with commercial intent (neutral); consequently, if a person like a content, he/she is likely to pass it on to their peers, families, and so on via social sites, then content will be spread out quickly without interfering with traditional marketing. (Weinberg 2009.) Social media offers opportunities to achieve communities, once company has established its presence as a community participant worth following, eventually others will be likely interested in what it shares and pass to the relevant ones (Weber 2009). Besides, in the phase of the new marketing era, bringing the brand to alive depends solely upon the engagement within communities (Weber 2009; Silverman 2001), as a result if company is genuinely paying attention to the members of the community, a strong relationship can be built upon investing time in responding on feedbacks and concerns. (Weinberg 2009)

‘Mass media audience become more and more difficult to buy,’ said Martin

Sorrel (1996) of WPP. The fortunes of advertising have grown alongside with the growth of mass media, however this growth has stopped these years. In fact, there are many sport brands in the marketplace are taking social media marketing as a vital component in their businesses, in which they look at effective ways to gain a more detailed understanding of their social media fanbase. Nike has been putting more marketing muscle behind its digital initiatives, for instance by taking social media marketing in-house, claiming that online channels are more valuable to its business strategy than traditional advertising. (Joseph 2013.)

Social Media: The New Mindset

In order to gain a better position in the transition from traditional marketing approach to social media marketing, marketers will have to, firstly, change their

22

30

marketing mindset. Social media platforms has radically changed the approach of segmentation in implanting marketing strategy, instead of easily identified demographics, such as age, gender, or income are relatively less important, it groups people by what they do, think, like, and dislike, and more importantly by their behaviors, also known as behavioral targeting. (Weber 2009.)

Many marketing experts have always emphasized that since marketing via social media is rather about receiving and exchanging perceptions and ideas, which makes social media marketing no longer one dimensional but a two-way process engaging a brand and an audience (Drury 2008) as well as a creation of increasingly visualize contents (Weber 2009). Oftentimes, content is a critical factor in achieving an effective marketing via social media; however, according to

Curata’s “B2B Marketing Trends Survey 2012 Report”, companies seem to encounter challenges in creating original content, having time to create it, and finding high-quality content.

Drury (2008) has argued that with social media in particular, the content of advertising and branding must be provided as relevant value-added content that is more about consumer, rather than brash product placement. When companies help their customers through social media outlets, it is more likely to build a long-term relationship, which will in turn propel and leverage the brand awareness and growth (Young Entrepreneur Council 2012)

Besides, with social media, company is able to create the platform of true interactivity; the American Express’ OPEN Forum is undoubtedly an outstanding case, which has surly surpassed customer expectations when it comes to putting a customer first; because instead of heavily promoting their traditional financial offerings on the community, the company has considered its consumers and their concerns and needs while providing information about their services .Social media platforms serve as a tool for consumers who may not have an outlet or support system to find one another; brands like Weight Watchers and Nike Women have demonstrated how

23

valuable social networking sites can be for bridging people who are facing similar daily obstacles (Young Entrepreneur Council 2012).

In the foregoing chapter about the course of information search and evaluation in decision making process, it has been discussed that individuals are likely to seek information that is consistent to their initial thought, and keenly avoid those that encounters with it; as a result, social media in today’s marketing provides linkages to connect individuals who share similar interests and backgrounds, in which, to consumers, these communities serve as an vital "tuning" mechanism in the selection of needed information among the overwhelming information.

2.8 The impact of Online social networks on consumers’ purchase decision

Consumers belong or admire different online groups generally and those groups are able to change their purchasing decisions behavior (Solomon, et al, 2010). According to Ev-ans, et al (2009) joint decision-making is defined as, consumers are taken their decisions within the environment around them such as environment of family, friends, and co-workers. In traditional way, consumers make their purchase decisions base on information that they received through mass media (e.g. advertising, newspaper, television comment), but nowadays, online social networks can have power to affect consumers’ purchase decision.

There are different social network groups that possess the power to influence consumers’ purchase decision

Primary groups: are characterized by the size and the close relationship with-in individuals (e.g. family members, close friends)

Secondary groups: are made up of more than one primary groups (e.g. wider social system within organizations or university)

Informal groups: are made up of individuals with common interests or cultures

Formal groups: are organized with a more rigid structures

Virtual groups (communities): online social networks, blogs

24

Reference groups are also part of social network groups that is individuals or groups whose opinions or behavior are important to consumers and have an impact on their be-havior. There are different types of reference groups for instance cultural figure, par-ents, large, and formal organizations, small and informal groups. Small and informal groups have greater impact on consumers’ purchase decision because they are a part of their day-to-day life (Evans, et al, 2009). Schiffman, et al (2008) categorized reference groups in several different categories, one of them is Virtual communities, as mentioned earlier thanks to Internet, a new type of group has emerged. The exchange of knowledge, experiences, and opinions of each individual within different virtual com-munities can help the products or services either sell faster or fail. Different social net-works groups are providing information for consumers to help them, to make the right purchase decisions.

All types of reference groups influence on consumers’ purchase decision in three ways: 1) Informational influence, seek information about different kinds of brands 2) Utilitarian influence, consumer’s purchase decision is relied on satisfaction of other in ones social groups 3) Value-expressive influence, the image that others have on consumers be-come important in order to choose particular brand (Solomon, et al, 2010).

According to a study by OTX (Online Testing eXchange) on behalf of DEI Worldwide (2008) showed that various types of online social networks have become a new source of information and consumers rely on them as much as companies websites. The re-search also confirmed 60 percent of consumers reported online Word-Of-Mouth (rec-ommendations from other consumers online) is powerful and valuable and could impact on their purchase decision. The companies, which participate with online social net-works, have a greater opportunity to impact on consumers’ purchase decision. Consumers would like to pass the information that they received about different kinds of companies, products or services. Consumers who searched information via online social networks and share the information with others, are getting involved in online Word-Of-Mouth communication

Riegner (2007) research on online social networks and consumers’ purchasing decision was based on several segments:

25

Online insiders: very active on Internet and have huge influence on consumers’ purchase decision.

Social clickers: heavy online communicators but they are younger and less ef-fective.

Content kings: tend to be young and addicted to online entertainment.

Everyday pros: participate in online shopping activities.

Fast trackers: they are using the Internet to cover their immediate needs such

as weather or news.

The segmentation aims to analyze the broadband population. Among these segments,

Online insiders and Social clickers are particularly immersed in online communication activities. Understanding segments’ online behavior can create a base for the further study and analysis of consumers’ purchasing decision process. The table 1 below showed the online users activities that have been done during a month by each segments.

26

The online insiders got engaged in online Word-Of-Mouth because of their communica-tion activities with other consumers and they are very influential groups that have huge influence on consumers’ purchase decision.

2.9 The reasons behind online social networks’ influences on consumers’ purchase decision

Online Word-Of-Mouth communication

An informal means of communication (such as communication with friends, family members and co-workers), much of what you discuss is related to products and information about different products or services. Once you ask your co-workers where they bought their dress or recommend new restaurant to your friends, you are involving in Word-Of-Mouth (WOM) communication. Many choices of consumers are made within different social groups and even once consumers decide on their own, Word-Of-Mouth from other people can influence them (East, et al, 2008). Word-Of-Mouth in traditional communication theory considers as possessing powerful influence on consumers’ purchasing decision behavior in every steps especially information search, evaluation of alternative, and product choice (Silverman, G, 2001).

Word-Of-Mouth is also can be described as an engagement of consumers in positive or negative communication or an outcome of satisfaction or dissatisfaction experiences. WOM is person-to-person communication, regarding to brands, products, services, companies, and organizations that have an impact on consumers’ purchase decision).

This type of communication is more reliable form of marketing and can be an efficient tool. Past research has shown that WOM has more impact than traditional marketing tools Social influences for instance WOM, can change peo-ple’s feelings, actions, opinions, or behaviors. Some-one’s direct recommendations possess power and have impact on purchase decisions. Although WOM is powerful especially once consumers are unfamiliar with products. It can be also harmful for companies when negative WOM occurs or it can be rumors. Negative and positive WOM is easy to spread, especially online. Recent research showed that positive WOM is more effective than negative WOM and it depends on relationship between consumers.

27

Word-Of-Mouth communication is a main part of online communication where con-sumers exchange and share their knowledge, opinions and experiences and has an im-pact on consumers’ purchasing decisions. The online communities are flexible, and may be based on a wide range of cultural and social interests Online Word-Of-Mouth communication is cheaper, faster, and more effective than the other marketing tools

There are three keys influence of Word-Of-Mouth communication on consumers’ pur-chase decision:

Tie strength:“a multidimensional construct that represents the strength of the dyadic interpersonal relationships in the context of social networks”

Homophily: members of a group are similar in terms of attributes

Source credibility: impact of source expertise and source bias on credibility of information

Online Word-Of-Mouth communication is through online social networking sites, blogs, online discussion forums, virtual communities, and rating/reviews sites. Online WOM allows consumers to gather and obtain information from variety of groups of people, not only from people they know. A survey found that most consumers are relied on online opinions for their purchase decision. According to study by Li, Bernoff, Pflaum, & Glass (2007), 50 percent of adult users of online social networks share and tell about the products that they like.

Information search is one of the consumers’ purchase decision steps and consumers like to search for information about products to reduce risk and uncertainty, which affect consumers’ purchase decision and lead them to have a better purchase decision Many consumers check other consumers’ recommendations (WOM) before making any purchasing decision especially when it comes to buy new products

28

2.10 Consumers interaction in online social networks

Nowadays, consumers have taken a role for spreading opinions through online social networks such as Facebook rather than being message receivers from marketers .On the online social networks, consumers can share experiences, opinions, and knowledge therefore they can interact easily with on another through online social networks. Online interactions and recommendations influenced consumers’ product choices.

The research study by HennigThurau and Walsh (2003) showed that, there are five factors of reading online opinions (interaction with other consumers) that influence consumers’ behavior in terms of purchasing and communication:

Obtaining buying-related information (reduce risks)

Social orientation through information (consumers can evaluate and compare be-tween different products)

Community membership (consumers belong and admire different online social networks)

Remuneration (consumers like prize and award)

Learning about new products’ consumption

Online social networks provide a place for consumers where they can share their prod-uct opinions either positive or negative with one another in social interaction . It means they can share their own recom-mendations, opinions and compare their experiences with other consumers A recent research by Edison (2011) on American users of online social networks showed that about 52 percent of Americans have at least one or more social network profiles. The research also showed a quarter of online social networks users follow their favorite products, companies and services on these online social networks sites, that 80 percent of them used Facebook companies and brands pages. The finding can showed online social networks have become a product information source.

3. Methodology:

Due to the exploratory nature of this study and, bearing in mind the factors with regard to the sample size,

convenience sample size of 100 respondents was deemed adequate. The sampling frame used comprised all students between the ages of 18 to 24 studying at Siva Sivani

29

Institute of Manangement Kompally in Hyderabad. The sample consisted of male and female

3.1 Data collection

A structured and specifically designed questionnaire was administered to 100 students (youth) in 18 to 24 year age group. The questionnaires were administered through mail. Respondents were randomly selected.The remaining data was collected from the internet and various other research papers

3.2 Questionnaire design

The questionnaire consisted of 10 questions. Likert scale was used in questions, few questions were posed to know the reliability towards the discussion. Question were all focused towards the social networking sites. 2 or 3 questions were towards the mass advertising ,so that comparison between social networking marketing and mass marketing can be compared and few question were towards information searched on social networking sites before purchasing.

3.3 Data AnalysisWhen conducting a qualitative research, the ways to measure the conclusion can be reli-able or valid. So reliability and validity will be discussed here.

Reliability

Reliability refers to the trustworthiness of the data and the analysis of the data. It focus-es on testing accuracy of the research, and whether the research is using the right meth-od to procedure data (Mason, 2002). The choice of in-depth interview comes from the fact that researchers need to understand respondents’ specific manner on Facebook when it comes to food retailers. In order to avoid bias questions giving indications to re-spondents and influencing interviewees’ answers, the interview questions are carefully designed under 2 themes. Therefore without specific questions, the authors can ask open questions according to the answers and respondents can speak freely.

Reliability : Alpha

Scale: ALL VARIABLES

Case Processing Summary

N %

Cases Valid 33 100.0

Excludeda 0 .0

30

Total 33 100.0

a. Listwise deletion based on all variables in the

procedure.

Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's

Alpha

N of Items

.764 10

Reliability as per cronbach alpha is 0.75 which is greater than 0.5, so the responses obtained from the sample is reliable as per cronbach alpha.

Reliability : Split Half

Case Processing Summary

N %

Cases

Valid 33 100.0

Excludeda 0 .0

Total 33 100.0

a. Listwise deletion based on all variables in the

procedure.

Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's Alpha

Part 1

Value .724

N of Items 5a

Part 2 Value .659

N of Items 5b

31

Total N of Items 10

Correlation Between Forms .603

Spearman-Brown Coefficient

Equal Length .752

Unequal Length .652

Guttman Split-Half Coefficient .852

a. The items are: Age, Gender, Social Media Sites, Time Spent on

Social Media, Time Spent on Mass Media.

b. The items are: Information, Persuasion, Mass Media

Advertisement, Information Search, Before Purchase.

Reliablity of the two halfs are 0.624,0.559 which are greater than 0.5 , so as per the

split-half the obtained responses are having reliability.

Reliability : Guttmann

Case Processing Summary

N %

Cases

Valid 33 100.0

Excludeda 0 .0

Total 33 100.0

a. Listwise deletion based on all variables in the

procedure.

Reliability Statistics

Lambda 1 .671

2 .780

3 .745

4 .752

32

5 .770

6 .879

N of Items 10

All the components are having the reliability above 0.5 so as per Guttman the responses are having reliability.

Reliability : Parallel

Case Processing Summary

N %

Cases

Valid 33 100.0

Excludeda 0 .0

Total 33 100.0

a. Listwise deletion based on all variables in the

procedure.

Test for Model Goodness of Fit

Chi-Square

Value 282.537

Df 53

Sig .000

Log of Determinant of

Unconstrained Matrix -7.071

Constrained Matrix 2.876

Under the parallel model assumption

Reliability Statistics

33

Common Variance 1.503

True Variance .340

Error Variance 1.163

Common Inter-Item

Correlation.226

Reliability of Scale .645

Reliability of Scale

(Unbiased).861

The reliabity of both biased and unbiased scale is greater than 0.5, so according to parallel technique the response obtained are reliable.

Reliability : Strict-Parallel

Case Processing Summary

N %

Cases

Valid 33 100.0

Excludeda 0 .0

Total 33 100.0

a. Listwise deletion based on all variables in the

procedure.

Test for Model Goodness of Fit

Chi-Square

Value 405.221

Df 62

Sig .000

Log of Determinant of

Unconstrained Matrix -7.071

Constrained Matrix 6.937

34

Under the strictly parallel model assumption

Reliability Statistics

Common Mean 2.833

Common Variance 2.100

True Variance .309

Error Variance 1.791

Common Inter-Item

Correlation.130

Reliability of Scale .700

Reliability of Scale

(Unbiased).736

The reliabity of both biased and unbiased scale is greater than 0.5, so according to Strict parallel technique the response obtained are reliable

Descriptives

Descriptive Statistics

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation Variance

Age 33 1 5 2.48 1.734 3.008

Gender 33 1 2 1.61 .496 .246

Social Media Sites 33 1 5 3.64 1.141 1.301

Time Spent on Social Media 33 1 4 2.61 1.248 1.559

Time Spent on Mass Media 33 1 4 3.09 .805 .648

Information 33 1 5 3.91 1.400 1.960

Persuasion 33 1 3 2.18 .683 .466

Mass Media Advertisement 33 1 2 1.82 .392 .153

Information Search 33 1 5 3.70 1.132 1.280

35

Before Purchase 33 1 6 3.30 2.099 4.405

Valid N (listwise) 33

Factor Analysis

Communalities

Initial Extraction

Age 1.000 .684

Gender 1.000 .825

Social Media Sites 1.000 .845

Time Spent on Social Media 1.000 .936

Time Spent on Mass Media 1.000 .892

Information 1.000 .821

Persuasion 1.000 .821

Mass Media Advertisement 1.000 .925

Information Search 1.000 .886

Before Purchase 1.000 .727

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

Total Variance Explained

Component Initial Eigenvalues Extraction Sums of Squared Loadings

Total % of Variance Cumulative % Total % of Variance Cumulative %

1 3.928 39.281 39.281 3.928 39.281 39.281

2 2.100 21.004 60.285 2.100 21.004 60.285

3 1.303 13.034 73.319 1.303 13.034 73.319

4 1.030 10.297 83.616 1.030 10.297 83.616

36

5 .631 6.310 89.926

6 .395 3.946 93.872

7 .227 2.270 96.141

8 .194 1.942 98.084

9 .105 1.050 99.134

10 .087 .866 100.000

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

Component Matrixa

Component

37

1 2 3 4

Age .653 .243 -.396 .205

Gender .429 .032 .719 -.351

Social Media Sites .429 .812 -.042 .011

Time Spent on Social Media .435 .156 .528 .666

Time Spent on Mass Media .538 .547 .257 -.487

Information .787 -.417 -.164 -.025

Persuasion .807 -.181 .175 .327

Mass Media Advertisement .759 -.511 -.125 -.266

Information Search .875 -.198 -.277 -.069

Before Purchase .206 .742 -.365 .018

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.a

a. 4 components extracted.

The factors are divided into 4 components based on Factor analysis and the bolded values shows that these values are acceptable compared to other values.

From the Scree-plot the first 5 factors are retained and remaining are accepted as they are having shallow steep.

Validity

To get credible results from interviews and minimize the risk of not answering the re-search questions, the validity of the study is going to be discussed. Validity refers to what degree a research actually measures what it was intended to measure.. Validity is to measure if researchers manage to find relevant data to answer the research questions, support the study purpose. To ensure the validity of the empirical data, the authors choose active user of Facebook so that data can cover the research questions. In order to find the proper data to answer research questions, the interview themes and questions are designed based on the research questions. All interviewees are active user of Facebook and they have checked supermarkets’ Facebook page before, so answers are all valid, respondents are encouraged to express their true feelings and opinions. Since researchers have obtained secondary data from supermarkets’ Facebook page, they are able to find what is not answered and what it means by respondents. Since interview questions are open questions, researchers can recognize what is not answered during the interview and can ask additional questions accordingly.

4. Empirical Analysis38

4.1The impact of online social networks on consumers’ purchase decision

Consumers’ purchasing decision consists of several steps: problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternative, purchase decision, and post-purchase evaluation Whether consumers are aware of these steps or not, but to make a purchase decision they were involved in these steps. There are different types of consumers’ purchase decision processes with different level of involvement. In some cases when quality and safety become important the decision-making moves to limited decision-making. Limited decision-making includes of a few evaluation of alternative and a limited amount of external search.

39

4.2 The reasons behind online social networks’ influence on consumers’ purchasing decision process

Online Word-Of-Mouth communication

Word-Of-Mouth communication is a main part of online communication where consumers exchange and share their knowledge, opinions and experiences, Online Word-Of-Mouth communication allows consumers to gather and obtain information from variety of groups of people, not only from people they know. From the findings, the authors noticed that consumers regard comments and likes on supermarkets’ Facebook page are reliable and valuable especially when it comes to new products or special offers, and consumers relied on them even though they might never known one another.

Consumers check comments, share their opinion and experience on supermarkets’ Facebook page. The main reason that they have chosen supermarkets’ Facebook page in-stead of supermarkets’ webpage or newspaper is that they can see comments and likes from other consumers and the ability of sharing information with all their friends on Facebook, which makes them get involved in online Word-Of-Mouth communication. Due to their communication and interaction activities, they are engaged in online Word-Of-Mouth communication. Someone’s direct recommendations (WOM) have an impact on purchase decisions. Negative and positive WOM is easy to spread, especially online

40

(Solomon, et al, 2010). The benefit of comments and likes from other consumers on supermarkets’ Facebook page is that they help consumers to choose between different supermarket for different products or services. Consumers stated that once they find interesting post on supermarkets’ Facebook page they can easily share with their entire friend list on Facebook.

The interviews finding showed online Word-Of-Mouth communication influence consumers’ purchase decision especially on information search, evaluation of alternative, and purchase decision steps of consumers’ purchase decision.

4.3 Consumers interaction in online social networks

Internet today is not just an information access tool; it also has become an interaction tool Online social network (Facebook) has become a well-known communication and interaction channel among people around the world Online social networks allow people to construct a dynamic public profile to share their knowledge, experiences, and opinion with one another Nowadays online social networks is not just allocated to consumers, companies can construct their official Facebook page as well.

Regarding to authors’ findings the supermarkets’ Facebook pages are new appearance on online social network, some active Facebook user may never checked supermarkets’ Facebook page. Consumers are checking special offers, promotions, discounts, comments, different posts and the number of likes on supermarkets’ Facebook page. Online social network (Facebook) is flexible and based on a wide range of social interests

From the findings, the author realized that Facebook’s characteristics make consumers rely on Facebook a lot. Consumers can do a lot of things on Facebook. It is flexible due to comments, likes, and overall view of information; consumers believed Facebook was easy to use, can save their time; it is fast, convenience, and common among majority of people. The user interface (design) of Facebook for all the different pages are the same therefore it is understandable, clear, and simple to use.

The authors’ finding showed consumers have faith on supermarkets’ Facebook page. Facebook page allows them to have direct interaction and relationship with supermar

41

kets and other consumers, consumers can see the real side of the supermarket through interaction, which can increases or decrease consumers’ royalty to the supermarket. The growth of online participation and discussion made consumers enable to impact the products and brands that some other consumers may consider to purchase. Hence positive or negative comments from consumers on different posts on supermarkets’ Facebook page have impact on consumers’ purchasing decision on products and brands or the supermarket.

The finding showed there are new activities on supermarkets’ Facebook pages and supermarkets’ web-pages, and they are introducing different recipes as well. Majority of respondents of interviews mentioned that regarding this particular activity, they prefer supermarkets’ Facebook page because other consumers’ comments are available and they can share the posts with their friends at the same time.

According to the consumers, once they like any kinds of pages (in this case they are supermarkets’ pages) any new post (activities, recipes…) from particular page comes up on their new feeds /recent posts Facebook page without they going to the website and searching. Facebook works as a reminder for them to check the supermarkets’ Facebook page.

An additional facility that consumers are interested about Facebook is, supermarkets’ Facebook pages can update their consumers several times in a day, by updating their status, posting pictures, posting several activities that and etc. Consumers believed they could be the first person to know information about supermarkets, products, or services.

42

5. Conclusions

From this exploratory study, it became evident that the youth, actively seek out social media platforms daily and spend several hours on these platforms, exposing themselves to greater influence and persuasion by marketers. However, due to the unique characteristics of social media, inter-alia, its search capabilities and ability to “congregate” consumers and archive their views, marketers using social media platforms need to do so differently from traditional media. Most importantly, they need to familiarize themselves with how these social media platforms function, as social etiquette has now crossed over into social media and there are now standards with regards to the types of behavior that are acceptable on these platforms

Reasons behind online social networks’ influence on consumers’ purchasing decision process:

The main reasons that consumers are interested in supermarkets’ online social networks is they are able to interact with other consumers and supermarkets, consumer get involved in online Word-Of-Mouth communications when they interaction with other consumers because they can not find these features in any other websites. Consumers can be influenced during interaction with others or WOM communication. Authors’ findings also showed that nowadays, online social networks are well-known among people therefore they are spending a lot of time on one or two online social network sites and it is convenience for them to use online social networks for searching information about different supermarkets, products, or services instead of supermarkets’ websites. Consumers prefer online social networks because of special features that online social networks have provided them such as sharing their knowledge, opinions, and experiences and even compare them with others’ experiences or opinions. Consumers like to receive recommendations from others for different supermarkets and products before purchasing.

To conclude, online social networks impact every step of consumers’ purchasing decision process to different extent regarding Shopping. The reasons are mainly because Facebook’s features bring convenience to people, consumers spend more time on it, and Facebook’s features allow consumers to interact with supermarkets and other consumers and see comments from other consumers on supermarkets’ Facebook pages.

6 . Bibliography:

43

Bargh, John A.; Pietromonaco, Paula.1982. Automatic information processing and social perception: The influence of trait information presented outside of conscious awareness on impression formation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 43 (3): 437–449.

Bettman, J. R. 1979. An Information Processing Theory of Consumer Choice. USA and Canada: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc..

Boyd, D. M, Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 11. available on the web at http://www.postgradolinguistica.ucv.cl/dev/documentos/90,889,Social_network_boyd_2007.pdf

Constantinides, Efthymios and Fountain, Stefan J. 2008. Web 2.0: Conceptual foundation and marketing issues. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, 9 (3). 231-244. USA: Palgrave Macmillan.

Dann, S. & Dann. S. 2011. E-Marketing: Theory and Application. London, U.K: Palgrave Macmillan.

ACNielson (2007), Trust in Advertising: A Global Nielsen Consumer Report, October.

Alvesson, M., & Sköldberg, K. (1994). Tolkning och reflektion: Vetenskapsfilisofi och Kvalitativ Metod. Lund: Studentlitteratur.

Bagozzi, R.P, (2007). The legacy of the technology acceptance model and a proposal for a

paradigm shift. Journal of the Association of Information System. Vol. 8, Nr 4.

Bennett P, (1989). Dictionary of marketing terms. McGraw-Hill.

Bernoff, J., & Li, C. (2008). Harnessing the power of the oh-so-social web. MIT Sloan Management Review, 49(3), 36-42.

Blackwell R.D, Miniard P.W, Engel J.F, (2001). Consumer behaviour. 9th ed. Manson, OH: South-Western.

Blythe J. (2008). Consumer Behaviour. THOMSON.

Smith, PR. 1993. Marketing Communications: An Integrated Approach. London: Kogan Page Ltd.

Soloman, M.; Bamossy, G. & Askegaard, S. 2002. Consumer Behavior: A European Perspective. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Sternthal, B. & Craig, C. S. 1982. Consumer Behavior: An Information Processing Perspective. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall, Inc.

Weber, L. 2009. Marketing to the Social Web: How digital customer communities build your business. Second Edition. N.J, USA: John Wiley and Sons.

Weinberg, T. 2009. The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web. Sebastopol, CA:O’Reilly Media Inc

44

Cheung Christy M.K., Lei Zhu, Timothy Kwong, Gloria W.W. Chan, Moez Limayem, (2003) Online Consumer Behavior: A Review and Agenda for Future Research, 16th Bled eCommerce Conference eTransformation.

Cheung Christy M.K., Lee Matthew K.O., Neil Rabjohn, (2008), The impact of elec-tronic word-of-mouth: The adoption of online opinions in online customer communities , Internet Research, Vol. 18 Iss: 3 pp. 229 – 247.

Constantinides E, (2004),"Influencing the online consumer's behavior: the Web experi-ence", Internet Research, Vol. 14 Iss: 2 pp. 111 – 126.

Dellarocas, C. (2003). The digitization of word of mouth: Promise and challenges of online

feedback mechanisms. Management Science, 49(10), 1407-1424.

45

Questionnaire:

1. What is your Age? A) 18-25 B) 25-30

C) 30+ D) 40+ E) 50+

2. What is your Gender? A) Male B) Female3. Which of the following social media sites you are using on a daily basis?

A) Social Networking SiteB) MicrobloggingC) Blogs/ ForumsD) Social Bookmarking Sites/ Social NewsE) Photo and video sharing site

4. Time spent on Social Media sites per weekA) 0 HoursB) 1-3 HoursC) 3-5 HoursD) More than 5 Hours

5. Time spent on Mass media per week (Tv, radio, newspaper)A) 0 HoursB) 1-3 HoursC) 3-5 HoursD) More than 5 Hours

6. Do you think that with the social media sites, you are able to seek out products/services information initiatively (actively)

A) Strongly DisagreeB) DisagreeC) NeutralD) AgreeE) Strongly Agree

7. Does social media triggers you to purchase a product/service?A) YesB) NoC) Not sure

8. Do you find advertisements on mass media are still attractive?A) YesB) No

9. Do you agree that information searching is easier via social media comparing to mass mediaA) Strongly Disagree

46

B) DisagreeC) NeutralD) AgreeE) Strongly Agree

10. Do you search for related information on social media before a purchase?A) AlwaysB) OftenC) SometimesD) SeldomE) RarelyF) Never

47