Online social networks have become an integral part of the lives of people in the modern age. They are virtual spaces hosted through the Internet where people develop public profiles in a bid to share information and understandings, post material about themselves, and keep in touch with other individuals around the world. Currently, social media is being used widely for commercial purposes by different corporation in publicizing their products and communicating with both the existing and potential customers. The networks have changed the manner in which corporations view the function of marketing through enhancing relationships and interactions in the commercial level. In the modern setting, the manner of interaction between consumers and companies has changed and power shifted from the corporations to consumers because of the online social discourses. In this sense, it affects the manner in which consumers make decisions regarding purchasing behaviors. The paper seek to research the effect that social media brings to consumer purchase decisions as it regards various product categories in the Republic of Tanzania.
Statement of Purpose
The main objective of the study will be to determine the manner in which social media networks affect consumer buying behaviors.
Explicit research question
What are the effects of social networks impact on consumer buying behavior?
Limitations and assumptions
Respondents may be biased in their feedback
The proposed sample may be too miscellaneous to represent an entire population of a country
Some respondents may be illiterate and fail to offer appropriate feedback
It will be assumed that potential respondents are well-acquainted with social media
Terms to be used
Communication; it is the process of passing messages between different parties (Hudson 27).
Social media; social networks are online virtual communities through which people interact electronically (Hudson 28)
The Internet; the Internet is a worldwide network which offers a variety of communication and information facilities using standard communication tools (Hudson 28).
E-commerce; it is the concept of conducting business activities over the Internet through electronic gadgets (Hudson 30).
Buying decisions; they are the choices that consumers make when purchasing goods and services in the market (Hudson 30).
Interaction; exchanges between people with regard to various matters (Hudson 31).
Opinion shaping; it is the manner in which social networks have a direct effect on the nature of consumer buying behaviors (Hudson 31).
Literature review
Social media greatly influence communication among people and contact and in diverse ways affect the behavior of people. The Internet in the modern world goes beyond being a basic access tool to information. It has become a platform of interaction utilized by people to exchange and share content and vital opinions. As a result, consumer behavior is likely to change because of interacting with each other (Solomon 14). The main roles of social media in this respect include information distribution, influencing, and shaping opinion. Social media provides for the formation of different virtual associations that impact on the purchasing decisions of consumers in various ways. For instance, there are multi-user dungeons where individuals develop social relationships with one another with regard to playing games and influencing each other. Chat rooms provide for a platform through which people can communicate extensively on certain topics and products where need arises (Solomon 16). Further, there are blogs which are personal journals where users of common interest follow them and play part in opinion shaping. This part of the proposal depicts the manner in which the literature review section in the dissertation will be structured.
Tanzania is a developing country but its economy is arguably in its take-off stage. It therefore means that there is a broad range of commercial activities taking place in the nation. Consumers in the country have a broad range of products from which to choose (Bienen 12). Also, a majority of people in Tanzania are financially unstable. In this sense, they have important decisions and choices to make in order to ensure that they prioritize their needs and wants from the most important ones to the least needed. They need to make rational choices because their financial capability does not allow them to be random spenders on both the necessary and unnecessary needs and wants. In the process of making these choices, Tanzanians are largely informed by social media networks through observing trends and communicating with other consumers both locally and globally (Bienen 14). Their decisions are affected by social media networks in different ways because they have varying perception of things and understanding of needs and wants. The literature review section of the dissertation will look into different ways in which social media affects the decisions made by consumers both individually and collectively.
Consumers admire or belong to various online discourses that change their buying decision behaviors. Traditionally, buyers make decisions on the basis of information that they receive through the mass media but currently, the latter has been overtaken by online sources of information (Forbes 107). Word-of-mouth means of communiqué is an integral part of online communication where potential buyers share opinions, information and facts regarding different products that they may be willing to purchase in the future (Forbes 107). It is done through online discussion forums, virtual communities, blogs, and so forth. The channel provides for consumers to obtain and amass information from different groups of individuals beyond those that they know personally (Forbes 107). Research indicates that a majority of consumers depend on online opinions to make purchase decisions and about half of people share information in the social media regarding the products that they like.
On top of inter-consumer interaction, corporations in the modern commercial setting are adopting social media as a mainstream avenue of advertising their products and services. In particular, global companies have made it a basic thing to set up corporate and professional social media pages in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the fast growing Snapchat avenues (Forbes 110). The companies publicize the products and even offer video files featuring the suitability of their products and services in solving various problems of consumers. The publicity gained through using social media is expansive because social networks are used in almost all geographical regions in the world (Forbes 112). In this sense, consumers in Tanzania can access information regarding the features of Samsung electronics through the social networks and compare them with other products and make decisions regarding purchasing.
The corporate advertisements through social networks go hand in hand with the element of e-commerce in the modern retail industry. Business organizations such as Amazon provide for ordering and delivery platforms for consumers. Buyers can place orders through the social platforms at the comfort of their homes and have the products delivered at their doorstop despite the seller and purchaser being in different continents around the world (Solomon 19). Such platforms affect purchasing decisions of consumers because they come with added convenience on the part of the buyers. A consumer is likely to purchase products online and have them delivered to their premises as compared to a situation where he or she is expected to travel lengthy distances in order to purchase them (Solomon 20). In Tanzania, people are active in social media involvement and they often ship products from abroad on the availability of online ordering, payment, and delivery services as it is opposed to physical travelling for purchasing.
Potential methodology
The study aims at examining the effect of social media networks on the purchasing behaviors of consumers. Mainly, it will discover the manner in which social media affect consumers’ buying decisions and the reasons behind their decisions. To collect data and investigate for information in fulfilling the study calls for the application of proper research methods that require to be used in a bid to make sure that there is the accomplishment of reliable results at the end of the research exercise (Davies and Hughes 8). The survey in this dissertation will seek to identify different product categories for which consumer purchasing decisions are potentially affected by social media networks. The main product categories in the study will include motor vehicles, alcoholic beverages, property, holiday destinations, electronics, and jewelry. These are some of the luxurious products that a majority of people in a typical society are likely to source through online platforms. It is unlikely that people source daily foods and other routine products and services in Tanzania through the social media networks in a large scale. The SPSS program will be used for data processing in the project.
In a bid to arrive at reliable results at the end of the study, the exercise will apply cognitive theoretical framework of consumer behavior in analyzing the effect that social media brings to buyers’ decisions both individually and collectively. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches of study in data collection will be applied in the study. The quantitative data will be gathered through questionnaires that will be filled by 150 respondents and prepared through utilizing the cluster sampling. On the other hand, qualitative data will be gathered through interviews that will be done with seven participants.
Conclusion
Social media has become an integral part of the modern human life and it greatly affects the manner in which people make decisions. It influences consumer buying behavior with regard to different products in the retail industry around the world. The study will determine the way social networks influence decisions made by consumers in buying various products. Tanzania is a developing country and it has a broad range of products in retail from which consumers choose what to purchase. With the country being less developed, its nationals are largely financially unstable and hence they have to engage in decision-making when purchasing because they cannot afford random buying. In making these decisions, they are informed by social networks to a large extent. It is the intention of the research paper to identify the manner in which such decisions are influenced by the element of social media networks.
Works Cited
Bienen, Henry. Tanzania: party transformation and economic development. Princeton University Press, 2015: pp.: 12-19
Davies, Martin Brett, and Nathan Hughes. Doing a successful research project: Using qualitative or quantitative methods. Palgrave Macmillan, (2014): 7-12
Forbes, Lukas P. "Does social media influence consumer buying behavior? An investigation of recommendations and purchases." Journal of Business & Economics Research (Online) 11.2 (2013): 107-123
Hudson, Simon, et al. "The influence of social media interactions on consumer–brand relationships: A three-country study of brand perceptions and marketing behaviors." International Journal of Research in Marketing 33.1 (2016): 27-41.
Solomon, Michael R., et al. Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being. Vol. 10. Pearson, 2014.pp:14-26
