Role of Social Media in Online Shopping Advertisements

A study on perception towards Social media with special references to online shopping

Ms. V. PAVITHRA, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR – MBA,

EASWARI ENGINEERING COLLEGE- CHENNAI

Abstract:

The rapid rise of social media has captured the attention of marketers and consumers on a global scale, and together with a rapidly changing communications environment marketers now confront new challenges in terms of our understanding of consumer behavior and consumption patterns in the new millennium. Internet and Information technology have made tremendous contribution for business transformation witnessed nowadays all over the world. The growth of this particular media attracts the attention of advertisers as a more productive source to bring in consumers. A clear idea, the consumers have with online advertisement is the control they have over the item, choosing whether to check it out or not. To broaden our understanding and assist in managing marketing communications effectively, this exploratory research investigates the role of social media within the broader advertising and communications mix. The capability of purchasing without leaving your place is of great interest to many consumers. Not only does online shopping offer really good deals, but also brings optimum convenience to the consumers. For the aforesaid purpose, a survey was conducted in Chennai city covering 250 samples.

Key words: Online marketing, Social media, Consumer perception, consumption pattern, Advertisers, convenience

Introduction:

Knowing that, currently, social networks, blogs, forums and sharing sites are the main centers of interest for Internet users, marketers have started to rethink their online communication strategies and adjust to the new trend. Many companies are realizing that having a website and making it visible and easy to find through search engines (SEO) is simply not enough anymore. Nowadays it is vital that their online presence includes a Social Media component on sites like Facebook, Google+, Hi5, MySpace or Twitter. According to the recent research on consumer behaviour on the Internet users, there are four distinct consumer groups with different intentions and motivations:

• Exploration
• Entertainment
• Shopping
• Information

Types of Internet marketing

Internet marketing is broadly divided in to the following types:

• Display Advertising: the use of web banners or banner ads placed on a third-party website to drive traffic to a company’s own website and increase product awareness.
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM): a form of marketing that seeks to promote websites by

increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of either paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion, or through the use of free search engine optimization techniques.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.
• Social Media Marketing: the process of gaining traffic or attention through social media sites.
• Email Marketing: involves directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using electronic mail.
• Referral Marketing: a method of promoting products or services to new customers through referrals, usually word of mouth.
• Affiliate Marketing: a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.
• Content Marketing: involves creating and freely sharing informative content as a means of converting prospects into customers and customers into repeat buyers.

Objectives:

1. To study the various attitude of consumers towards online shopping
2. To find out preferences regarding the attitude on social media.
3. To identify the various issues faced by users in social media towards online shopping
4. To analyze the customer response to online advertisements and their impact on purchasing behavior.

Methodology:

Secondary Research: I first of all surveyed the available literature related to the problem. The published data from various sources like e-Journals, Internet, Books were studied.

Quantitative research: After the collection of secondary data, the questionnaire was designed to collect the primary data. It is analyzed on the basis of suitable table by using – Bar technique and percentage analysis.

Chi-Square test is applied to test the goodness of fit to verify the distribution of observed data.

HYPOTHESIS

1. Analysis of Internet user’s perception of online advertisements.

H0 – The six options (entertainment, in formativeness, irritation, credibility, interactivity and purchase) i.e perception behind the online advertisements is same for all people(each of these options have same influential value on the respondents).

H1– The six options (entertainment, in formativeness, irritation, credibility, interactivity and purchase) i.e perception behind the online advertisements is different for all people(each of these options have different influential value on the respondents).

2. Analysis of the relationship between the websites that are most searched for & Age of the respondents.

H0 – Age of the respondents and the websites that are most clicked at, are independent.

H1 – Age of the respondents and the websites that are most clicked at, are dependent.

ANALYSIS

1. Analysis of the relationship between Internet user’s perception of Internet advertisements and Age of the respondents.

Relationship between Internet user’s perception and Age-Observed values

2. Relationship between Internet user’s perception and Age- Expected values

=(4-1)*(6-1)= 15 At 95% of confidence Table value of Chi Square at n=15

is 24.996

Chi Square value observed here is 10.82125416 which is lesser than table value. This proves the hypothesis H0 is accepted “Perception behind the online advertisements is same for all people”

3. Analysis of the relationship between Internet usage and the Age of the respondents

4 . Relationship between age and the website usage-Expected values

= (4-1)*(4-1) =9

At 95% of confidence Table value of Chi Square at n=9 is 16.911.

Chi Square value observed here is 2.456560586 which is lesser than table value. This proves the hypothesis H0 is accepted “Age of the respondents and the websites that are most clicked at, are independent”.

5. Important elements for the success of promotional campaigns

For most respondents (38%) the element of the greatest importance for the success of promotional campaigns through social networks is the originality, followed by a consistent and well transmitted message (for 25%), interactivity (16%), attractive design (15%) and animation (with only 6% of responses).

6. In which extent the brand, company name and company characteristics influences the

Respondents

For more than 50% of the Social Media users the brand, the company name and the company

Characteristics are also very important for capturing their attention.

Findings:

According to The Nielsen Company’s study, published at the end of January 2010, global consumers spent, on average, more than five and a half hours on social networking sites like Face book and Twitter in December 2009. The study showed an 82% increase from the same month of 2008 when users spent just over three hours on social networks. In addition, the overall traffic to social networking sites has grown over the last four years. Specifically, two thirds of online visitors spend their time on social networks and blogs, placing them ahead of other online forms of engagement and interaction including games and instant messaging. The purchase of a product as a result of experiencing a form of online advertising through social networks was achieved by only 16% of respondents who said they had purchased clothing or accessories (sunglasses, jewelry), electronics (cell phones, cameras, laptops), IT products (software and hardware) or flight tickets.

The research results showed that Facebook is the social network where most of the respondents own an user account (27.8% of responses), followed by Hi5 with (21.6%), YouTube with 14.7%, LinkedIn (7 %) and Twitter (6.6%).

Conclusion:

This study was accomplished to determine the customer perception on social media towards online shopping. Most respondents aged between 26 and 35 and all the respondents who have corporate leadership or decision making positions have a Twitter account, which may confirm the idea that the members of this site are opinion leaders or aspirational models, mature professional people, who have an important point of view to share with others. The research revealed another important finding, namely that users agree to the idea that promoting products or services through social networks can be useful and that advertisements appear in an acceptable number within these platforms. The study also shows that women tend to be more open and tolerant than men in these aspects.

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Many of the consumers are aware of the various online scams due to which they are very concerned and reluctant while providing their credit card information online. Also the online purchases take a longer time in shipments and deliveries. 65 million Face book members (almost one third of users), have accessed the website from a mobile phone, four times more than the same period in 2008, and in 2010 their number has exceeded 100 million persons. In addition, people who have accessed the site from their mobile phones were almost 50% more active than those not using mobile Internet.

I analyze the relationship between Age of the respondents and the websites that are most clicked at, are independent. In a survey of 100 respondents, 33 people used internet for Access E-mail, 23 respondents used internet for window shopping, 22 respondents used internet for downloading, and similarly 22 respondents used net surfing. Finally I concluded that the social media is giving broad platform to consumers for having more choices with comfort shopping.

REFERENCES

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2. Engel, J.F., Blackwell, R.D. and Miniard, P.W., Consumer Behavior. Chicago: Dryden Press, 1990.

3. Humphries, J., 2010. Social networking in business – Face book. CXO Europe, January 4, 2010. Retrieved June 14, 2010, from http://www.cxo.eu.com/news/social-networking-inbusiness- facebook/

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