INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING PRACTICES ON CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOUR.pdf (original) (raw)

2017, T R A N S A s i a n J o u r n a l o f M a r k e t i n g M a n a g e m e n t R e s e a r c h (TAJMMR) (Doubl e Bl ind Ref ereed & Revi ewed Internat ional Journal )

ABSTRACT Social Media has emerged as a convenient tool for customer engagement. Due to increase in internet usage, number of active social media users is increasing. In India, active social media users have grown at 15 per cent, to 136 million in 2016. The huge population has either subscribed on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Youtube, LinkedIn etc. or on a vast number of customer forums and online groups. Social networking has become so popular, that according to Anderson Analytics, 71% of social network users could not live without it (Sheehan, 2010). Now, 52% of the online population uses two or more social media sites, up from 42% in 2013. India has world’s largest number of Facebook Users with over 195 million users, overtaking US by over 4 million subscribers. Moreover key Facebook Users from India are aged 18-24, which is the largest and fastest growing population segment. Not only did this challenge the fundamental basics of traditional marketing, but it also helped to shape the practice of modern marketing. Moreover with the advent of education, changing social and economic status of women leads to drastic change to their buying behavior. One such change is also of use of social media websites. As the user bases grow, so does the interest of marketers. Marketers are willing to invest large amounts of money to reach their target market. But still the question arises how people feel about social media, how it affects their brand awareness and preference and how they perceive social media marketing practices. In this regard, present paper is an attempt to study the perception of present day educated women towards recent trends of social media practices. As India is still in its developing stage towards digital or e- commerce,so viewpoints of Indian women who constitute half of the population will naturally help the marketers to make further strategies to reach their goals. KEYWORDS: Buying behavior, Perception, Social media marketing practices, Social Networking