The objective of the present study was to examine the impacts of social media on consumer behavior within the context of Tanzania. The researcher focused on two specific industries, namely: Consumer Electronics, and Personal Effects. These two industries were selected based on the idea that consume electronic and personal effect products tend to be the ones that are heavily sold and peddled in various social media platforms. The researcher surveyed a total of 50 respondents (for the questionnaire-part), and 5 for a one on one interview version of the same study. The results so far showed that there was indeed a statistically significant correlation between social media use for product marketing, sales, and advertising, and most importantly, consumer behavior. Consumer behavior-related social media impacts were assessed based on different related variables, namely: Vision, Importance, Perceptions, Brand and Company Image, Online Shopping, Brand Knowledge and Awareness, User Experience, Overall Reputation, Peers, Initial Preference, Buying Confidence, Social Media Advertising, Product Research, Uncertainties, and (overall) Consumer Behavior. Using both descriptive and correlational statistical analyses (Pearson Correlation Coefficient), the researcher found and therefore concluded that there is a statistically significant correlation between social media use and positive consumer behaviors. This applies to both the questionnaire and interview phases of the present study.
1. Introduction and Background of the Study
A social media page acts like a virtual home or address to a business. Having an online presence in this modern day and age can spell the difference between a highly successful and a struggling company. Visibility is one of the most important factors that a presence in the social media sphere offers to businesses. Visibility, in a highly competitive business environment is everything. A business that has a low level of visibility would simply not be able to catch up with its highly visible counterparts in terms of the ability to lure clients and bring in business, hence their ability to generate profits. The importance of being savvy when it comes to social media management can be a game changer.
Businesses have to continuously adapt to the changes, and one of the changes that they can choose to either adapt to or ignore is the rise of the applications of social media in many traditionally brick and mortar business model-dependent operations and processes. The ever popular survival of the fittest concept that is most commonly used in the evolutionary science very well applies to businesses. Businesses practically have two options. They can either adapt to the demands associated with a social media-dominated business environment, or refuse to do so at the risk of being pushed towards extinction.
Consumer behavior is a complex construct. There are times, for example, where it moves in a manner that is reactive to the overall business environment. There are also times, where it moves in a manner that is stimulatory to the business environment. In some cases, it can be and do both at the same time. This is where the significance of the present study comes in. In it, the researcher argues and tries to prove that social media can affect consumer behavior. This means that in the theoretical framework, consumer behavior was presented and presumed to be the dependent variable, whereas social media would be the external of independent variable. In this paper, the author focused mainly on consumer goods that are typically sold online including, but may not be limited to, consumer electronics, clothes and apparels, and accessories.
1.1. Statement of the Problem
The problem that the present study tries to solve is how companies can make use of social media in influencing consumer behavior. The first step of which of course involves the process of determining whether social media has an impact on consumer behavior in the first place.
Social media is a fairly new technology. It has only been around for a little more than a decade. The first generation of really popular social media platforms like My Space and Friendster served as the catalyst that piqued the internet users and the people’s interest in virtual interactions. Despite being the first movers in a now multi-billion-dollar industry, however, the companies behind them failed, with the cause being their lack of ability to adapt to the rapid changes that are not uncommon in an industry that is still in its infancy as far as commercial development and its transition towards mainstream adoption are concerned. The second generation of social media platforms is where things really became interesting. Facebook and Twitter belong to this group of social medial platforms. They can be considered as the real drivers of the significant impact that social media has on consumer behavior. The current problem is that there are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to the actual impacts of social media use. In the present study, the author focuses on the examination of social media’s impacts on consumer behaviors.
1.2. Objectives of the Study
1.2.1. Main objective
The main objective of the study was to examine the impacts of social media on consumer behavior.
1.2.2. Specific Objectives
- To examine the impact of social media on customers’ perception about consumer goods
- To examine the impact of social media on customers’ intention to buy consumer goods
- To examine the impact of social media on customers’ decision to buy consumer goods
- To examine the impact of social media on customers’ action to buy consumer goods
1.3. Significance of the Study
From a policy standpoint, social media allows managers and owners of small to medium size businesses to reach a vastly larger number of people for just a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing and advertising tools that they would have had to use in order to achieve a similar outcome as far as market reach and penetration is concerned. Governments and policymakers generally do not have a say on the use of social media, as it is something that is decided upon privately. Whether a person or a company will use social media for whatever purposes it may serve is something that governments and policymakers have little influence on. This is why the present study has placed more emphasis on businesses and less on government and policymakers.
Social media platforms also allow businesses to communicate directly with their customers, despite not having a team of information technology and marketing and advertising experts offering their services. One of the main advantage of doing business using social media as one of the main communication channels is that the communication feature can be used both ways—both by the customers and the businesses. Businesses can reach their customers and their customers can do the same. This, in general, allows these two participants in a typical business transaction to communicate directly and more effectively, eliminating the need for a middle man.
Social media is a fairly new technology. Its impacts, however, have already been widespread, disrupting one economic sector and business industry after another. There are still a lot of unknown impacts of social media. Its application to business is something that still needs to be further studied. For the most part, people believe that social media’s impacts on consumer behavior are a net positive for businesses, as they lead to boosted sales, revenues, and profits. Then again, it would be too early to tell at this point, considering that this technology has only been around for no less than two decades—from a mainstream perspective at least. The reality is that there is a large number of technologies that one may cover in a discussion. For the purpose of the present study, however, the researcher has decided to focus on one of such technologies, specifically, social media. The fact that business can also be done online is a discovery that was made decades ago, with the introduction of the internet, and later on, by the introduction of electronic commerce (or simply e-commerce). The practice of conducting business via the World Wide Web, however, did not fully take off until a large percentage of the global population (who are computer literate) learned how to use social media. It is arguably social media that served as the fuel to the fire of innovation in the online business and electronic commerce sphere. This is why the author of this paper has decided to choose social media as the backbone of the discussions. It is worth noting, however, that the discussions in the present study were not meant to be solely about social media, because this variable was in fact related to consumer behavior.
2. Literature Review
2.1. Introduction and Attributes
Brand and company perception will inevitably have an impact on how consumers behave in a market or industry. Generally, a company and or a brand that is positively perceived by consumers (including prospective ones) would find it easier to sell their products and services. Brand and company awareness at some point also fall within the scope of brand and company perception. This is based on the idea that a person has to be aware of a brand or company first, before that person becomes able to develop his or her own perception about it. Brand and company perceptions tend to be discussed together. They are, however, different.
Brand perception is more concerned with a particular brand. The term brand is an arbitrarily defined one. Brand, according to an article that was published in Brand Watch by Smith (1), is “a set of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships” about a product or a set of products. Brand is an abstract concept. From a financial perspective, it is an intangible resource. Companies like Coca Cola, for example, are highly valued, because it is a very well-known brand, so much well-known in fact that simply associating it with a new product or service would immediately pique the consumers’ interest. This, however, is an extreme example. On the other end of a spectrum, associating a product or service with a brand that is negatively received would most likely lead to poor sales, regardless of how high value and high quality it is. Brand perception can be a game-changer. There is a school of thought in the marketing and advertising industry that suggests that a brand is actually more valuable than the actual product or service that is being marketed—that a brand supersede the actual products and services that are being offered (Kervyn, Fiske and Malone 166).
In a study that was published in the Journal of Product Innovation Management, Rompay & Pruyn (599) examined the impacts of brand perception on a product or service’s performance in the market. Investing on interventions that are aimed at improving the target consumers’ perceptions about a brand, according to Rompay & Pruyn (599) leads to better price expectations and more positive financial outcomes (i.e. sales and profitability). This should explain why companies tend to spend so much on brand cultivation programs and strategies—because they know that it can influence the sales performance of the products and services that are associated with a particular brand (Berger, Draganska and Simonson 460-472).
Company perception differs from brand perception because it focuses more on the mental image that the consumers or any target population forms whenever they hear about a certain company. In many ways, what is being referred to by this term is the attitudes of the public towards a company. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs, for example, are being implemented, in an effort by large (often multinational) companies to show to the public that generating profits is not their only priority, with the expectation that such efforts would make them look good in the public’s eyes (Vanhamme and Grobben 273). While many companies and for-profit organizations may deny this idea, it would still be safe to suggest that CSR programs are nothing but a public relations stunt, designed to make the companies and businesses that are spearheading them look good in the public’s eyes (Bhattacharya, Korschun and Sen 257-272).
Social media has revolutionized the way how companies organize and improve their respective brand and company perceptions. Many businesses today can create a new brand from scratch and cultivate it through the use of social media. Companies are getting in touch with their clients through social media-based web pages and contact-us pages (Baird and Parasnis 30-37). This is where the impact of customer service comes in. Social media has enabled companies and businesses to engage with their customers and form stable lines of communication, for a fraction of the price of other non-social media-based measures (Hanna, Rohm and Crittenden 265-270).
Social media has evolved so much that it now shares a host of similarities with many purely electronic commerce platforms such as Amazon and eBay. Many startup companies now generate leads and execute sales transactions with the help of social media (Bolton, Parasuraman and Migchels 245 - 250). It is, for example, not uncommon to see social media groups and pages that are dedicated to generate leads and execute sales.
Many researchers of previously published studies argue that the most valuable feature of social media is the one that allows its users to share their opinions, perceptions, and feedbacks about a product, service, company, and brand. Social media platforms allow anyone—regardless of how popular or unpopular he is, to share bits of information to other people. This, according to many studies, is what makes social media a tool that affects consumer behaviors. It changes the way how customers think, behave, and perceive products, services, brands, and entire organizations (Kaplan and Haenlein 59-62).
2.2. Theoretical Framework
The researcher developed a theoretical framework that is aimed at examining the impacts of social media use on consumer behavior. Consumer behavior is a concept that is influenced by a variety of factors. Social media’s role is merely to magnify the influence of those factors. A consumer, for example, would normally want to look at the brand that is associated with a product or service that he is thinking of buying first, before actually deciding to buy it. When social media gets inserted into that equation, one would most likely find that what it merely offers is a way for the consumer in the example scenario to more easily access information that would give him an idea about the brand or company that is behind his target product or service. Shedding light on this issue is important, because one of the most common misconceptions about social media (specifically its impacts), is that it is the one that directly shapes consumer behavior—when clearly it does not, mainly because it cannot. Social media platforms were developed by their respective creators not to directly affect consumer behavior, but to connect people. It can be suggested that it just so happened that the increased level of connectedness caused by social media use and the way how it deeply penetrated the lives of ordinary people led to significant changes in consumer behavior, and that is why businesses are starting to see their customers’ behaviors being driven by habits, activities, and trends in social media. In order to illustrate the theoretical framework that was used in the present study, the researcher developed a diagram that shows exactly that.
Figure 1 Theoretical Framework
The diagram above shows two circles. The first circle, the bigger one, shows social media, and the variables that have the ability to shape consumer behavior that are influenced by social media. It shows that by influencing variables like brand and company perception and the way how they are shared among members of a social media user population, social media becomes an indirect influencer of consumer behavior. Consumer behavior, in the present study, can be considered as the dependent variable. Social media, on the other hand, would be a secondary independent variable. The primary independent variables would be the variables like brand and company perception, customer service (i.e. responsiveness to inquiries, concerns, and request), social media-based e-commerce tools, and the user experience, opinion, and perception share-ability. Thinking about it more deeply, one should be able to realize that social media, when left (or used) on its own, would not be able to influence consumer behavior. It simply cannot, because it was not designed to do so.
2.3. Importance of Content Management on Social Media
2.3.1. Quality of Content
A social media page is basically a miniature version of a dedicated web site. In both cases (social media versus a dedicated website), content can be considered as a big deal, because it is what the visitors and users see first. The quality of the content is one of the indicators that can be used to reliably forecast the impacts of a social media campaign to promote a brand, product, or service—whether it is going to be negative or not. Naturally, sharing low quality contents such as poorly written adages and scripts, and badly edited animations and graphics would negative affect the program’s outcomes (Berthon, Pitt and Plangger 261-265). In some cases, it would be safe to say that it is going to do more harm than good.
2.3.2. Quantity of Content
The quantity of the social media content is also an important factor to consider. When it comes to social media programs and campaigns, the general rule of thumb is the fewer the content the better. The objective of social media is to help businesses communicate with their clients and stakeholders. If they can do so with just a few strings of sentences and contents, then they do not really have to produce additional content as it would be meaningless to do so (Goh, Heng and Lin 83-85). Social media contents also carry a certain amount of production costs—especially the ones that are intended for large scale marketing and advertising purposes.
2.4. Social Media Usage and Consumer Buying Behavior
2.4.1. The Statistics
Stat Counter (1) released a set of data showing the breakdown of the most commonly used social media platforms in Tanzania in terms of market share. Of all the social media users who were included in their analysis in Tanzania, 65% use Facebook, 15.35% use YouTube, 11.55% use Pinterest, 4.28% use Titter, and 2.26% use Instagram. It shows that Facebook is the most commonly used social media platform. It outperforms the second most commonly used platform, YouTube, by a wide margin.
2.4.2. Social Media for Marketing
Social media accounts, pages, and groups are now being used to conduct small, medium, and large scale marketing operations. Small to medium size enterprises who do not have the capital and liquidity that their bigger and more established counterparts have tend to be the ones who frequently use social media for marketing purposes. An important question to answer is how effective social media use can be for marketing. The consensus among the previously published studies that were reviewed so far indicates that social media use is a very effective form of marketing. This is largely due to the fact that through social media, businesses have been able to reach populations of people that have a higher likelihood of purchasing the products and or services that they offer. A company that manufactures and sells school supplies, for example, would be able to market its products directly to students and office workers through social media. Most companies can expect to see a higher sales and marketing conversion rate compared to traditional forms of marketing and advertising (Saravanakumar and Sugantha 4444-4451).
2.4.3. Social Media and Consumer Behavior
Social media is a tool that can be used to influence consumer behavior. The relationship between the two, however, is more indirect than direct. Left on its own, social media cannot possibly influence consumer behavior. Rather, it is the ability of social media to influence the factors that serve as a precursor to the development of consumer behavior that makes it (social media) so relevant in studies about consumer behavior.
In a study that was published in the journal Information Systems Research, Goh, Heng, & Lin (88) examined the impacts of social media on consumer behavior using a quantitative research method. They concluded that social media can indeed impact consumer behavior. In general, a company or business that is more engaged in social media communities stand to benefit the most from the role that social media plays in the process of shaping consumer perceptions and behaviors. Companies that do not want to adapt to the trend, on the other hand, would be facing an uphill battle, as more and more consumers start to realize how easy it is to make purchase-related decisions using the set of data and information that they can access online, through social media.
2.5. Customer Perceptions and Social Media in Tanzania
Tanzania (officially known as the United Republic of Tanzania) is a developing country that is located in the eastern African region. Its closest neighbors are Uganda and Kenya in the north; Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Burundi in the west, Malawi, Zambia, and Mozambique in the South. The country has a population of 55.57 Million according to latest census reports published in 2016 by the United Nations (United Nations 1). Economically, it has a total GDP (nominal) of 55.66 Billion. Its per capita GDP is at $1,100. These macroeconomic metrics make it one of the world’s smallest economies, and among the world’s poorest (on a per capita basis). The official language is Swahili. Despite this, however, English is used as a secondary language. In most cases, English is used more often than the national language. English is taught and used in primary school, secondary school, and higher education. It is also used in trade and business transactions. With English being the global language used in many social media platforms, it would be safe to suggest that Tanzania is one of the developing countries that have a relatively high social media penetration rate.
In a study that was published in the journal Reproductive Health Matters, Pfeiffer et al. (178) described how a typical adolescent from Tanzania (particularly those residing in Dar Es Salaam and Mtwara) use social media. It was confirmed in this study that Facebook is indeed the most popular social media platform. Most adolescents in the country use it to connect with their friends, by sharing humorous posts, links, and clips, and following and keeping in touch with role models like music stars, actors, and other symbols of modern youth culture (Pfeiffer, Kleeb and Mbelwa 178). Adolescents also use social media to view products and services, companies, and share to their friends (within their network), information and feedbacks about such. This shows that social media may indeed have a significant influence over the behaviors of market consumers, judging its ability to connect people who are looking for certain information about products, services, and companies.
This trend is not uncommon to Tanzania. Other countries within Africa are also showing signs of having increased levels of consumer and business interconnectedness via utilization of social media platforms. This trend started during the twenty-first century. It is reported that some 87% of the urban residents in a typical Tanzanian city use their mobile phones at least once a day, 34% of the country’s total population, meanwhile, have decent access to the internet—two of the most important requirements in order to be able to connect to and use social media platforms.
The current president of Tanzania, John Magufuli, has clearly expressed his distaste for social media. This explains why the country, through its legislative department, has recently imposed policies that are meant to regulate and or curb social media use among the country’s citizens. Magufuli described social media as a distraction that shifts the people’s focus away from more important matters in terms of the development of Tanzania (Cross 1). Social media use, at the moment, is being heavily policed by the government.
Statements from analysts suggest that the existing policy against free and unimpeded use of social media is a politically-motivated move by the policymakers, presumably including the president, in Tanzania. Politically-motivated policing is not unheard of in Tanzania. The reality, in fact, is that this has long been a practice in many African countries. In many eastern African countries, for example, governments have a cracked down on individuals using social media platforms to further their respective political advocacies; many statement governments do so under the guise of upholding the state’s national security.
The uniqueness of the existing policies covering social media use in African countries like Tanzania is an interesting case to look at. The theory is that social media’s impacts on consumer behaviors in the country would be muffled, considering the high level of policy-related uncertainties surrounding social media use. What is legal in a western, democratic, and capitalist country may not be legal in Tanzania.
Customer perceptions is an independent construct. It depends on a variety of factors. Social media is merely a tool that can be used to highlight the influence of those factors on consumer perceptions. The application of this theory knows no borders. It applies to a country like, say, the United States, just like how it applies to another country like Tanzania. The political and legal landscape surrounding social media use in Tanzania, is what one might refer to as unique.
3. Research Design and Methodology
3.1. Introduction
The goal of this section was to give the readers an idea about how the methodology that was used in the study looks like, what justifications and rationales were used to make the research design-related decisions, and how the researcher expects the flow of the implementation phase to go.
3.2. Research Questions and Hypotheses
RQ1: What are the impacts of social media use on consumer behavior?
RQ2: What are the perceptions of the respondents from Tanzania on the impacts of social media use on consumer behavior on a positive versus negative basis.
Research Hypothesis: The net impact of social media use on consumer behavior is more positive than negative from the perspective of online and offline customers and sellers (i.e. across all population subgroups that were surveyed and examined for and in this study).
3.3. Research Design
A quantitative research design was used in the present study. There are more unique research designs that can be used.
3.4. Instrument for Study
3.4.1. Interviews
Interviews were conducted using the survey questionnaire as the guide. It is important to note, however, that the study focused more on the written responses of the participants, mainly because the research methodology was designed to do so.
3.4.2. Questionnaire
A copy of the questionnaire that was used as the research instrument was provided in the appendix section.
3.5. Population
The sample population generally has to be representative of the target population in order for the results and findings to have a high level of external validity. The target population was composed of people who use social media. These groups of people include businesses and consumers. For the purpose of comparison, the sample population was divided into four subgroups: 1) Online Businesses, 2) Online Consumers, 3) Offline Businesses (primarily), and 4) Offline Consumers (primarily). These groups were chosen because of the fact that this population-mix offers a balanced and unbiased view of the impacts of social media on consumer behavior—across different population groups, including social media users and would-be users.
3.6. Area of the Study
The area of the study that this research focused on was Tanzania. No specific geographical location was listed because the researcher targeted social media users—as clearly indicated in the previous section. Offline businesses still have social media accounts, but their main mode of operations focus on managing their physical stores (which explains the primarily tag that describes it).
3.7. Sampling Procedures
A custom sampling procedure that was based on social media (Facebook) and Survey Monkey was used to recruit the respondents. A simple random sampling (virtual version via social media and survey monkey) was used. Facebook users within the researchers’ network of contacts in Tanzania were contacted and asked to voluntarily participate in the study.
3.8. Sample Size
A sample size of 55 was used in the study. For the interview component, 5 individuals were recruited. For the component where the respondents were asked to answer a research questionnaire, 50 individuals were recruited. The 50 respondents for this research component were divided into four subgroups, based on the research instrument’s population’s classification.
3.9. Data Collection Procedures
The data collection procedure focused on using the interview questions and the survey questionnaire to gather data from the respondents. They were oriented about the expectations from them as a participant. They were also oriented about how to answer the questionnaire prior to the implementation phase.
3.10. Data Analysis and Discussion
IBM’s SPSS statistical software was used to perform descriptive and correlative statistical analyses on the raw data. The descriptive statistical analysis focused on measures of central tendency (especially the mean) and the standard deviation. The correlative statistical analysis focused on the computation of the Pearson Correlation Coefficient.
4. Findings, Analysis and Discussions
4.1. Descriptive Stat
