Social Media Marketing’s effect on Consumer Behaviour – In the FMCG industry for consumable products

Abstract

Social media is one of the fastest growing sectors and we see other sectors leveraging this and growing because of it. One of the closely related fields with social media is marketing. It is no more just marketing; we always hear the word with the prefix “digital” or “social media”. This shows the impact social media has had on many factors. Conducting this research will bring to light how social media marketing influences consumer behaviour. The research is being focused on the FMCG industry with a narrowed focus on the consumable products only.

On a daily basis in present-day, 100,000 tweets are sent, 684,478 pieces of content are shared on Facebook, 2 million search queries are made on Google, 48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube, 3,600 photos are shared on Instagram, and 571 websites are created [1].

This shows the scale at which this is going on in the background of a lot of things we are all involved in and are part of.

The challenges that could be faced at the time of this research would be, reaching out to the right set of consumers and to understand if social media marketing has any effect on the decision-making process when it comes to the consumer decision making process. There is a fine line between social media marketing and what consumers see on social media which isn’t actually social media marketing. For example, in the present-day social media space where “memes” are a famous and a common tool of marketing, lines can be blurred. The people I’m collecting data from should answer keeping in mind if an official social media marketing campaign has influenced their decision positively or negatively and not a meme which they’ve mistakenly took for a marketing campaign on the internet regardless of the positive or negative impact it has. 

The process of research would be achieved by collecting the data from the different literature sources by the authors and analyse them in our review paper which will help us derive meaningful answers using thematic analysis [2].

In the research, there will be 3 proposed hypotheses. H1: there is a positive correlation between Social Media Marketing and consumer behavior, H2: there is a positive correlation between discount and consumer behaviour, H3: there is a positive correlation between Ad campaign and consumer behaviour.

Social media is a rather blanket statement in today’s world. Social media comprises of but not limited to; Blogs (e.g., WordPress), Collaborative projects (e.g., Wikipedia), Social networking sites (e.g., Facebook), Content communities (e.g., YouTube), Virtual game worlds (e.g., World of Warcraft). On all these platforms we see communities and businesses see opportunities [3].

Everybody loves their food products they pick up from the shelves of departmental stores. While a lot of effort goes into marketing these FMCG consumables, many of us might not have given the due attention to it. During the stage of data collection, the consumers will be reminded or even be nudged in a direction to pay attention or recollect these marketing campaigns which may or may not have had an impact on their decision-making process.

The main objective of this research is to see if there is a positive correlation between Social Media Marketing and consumer behavior, if there is a positive correlation between discount and consumer behaviour, if there is a positive correlation between Ad campaign and consumer behaviour. When we get the answers to these questions in the form of data, we realise what works and what doesn’t work from the perspective of an organisation’s marketing team.

The data availed from this research will prove to be very fruitful to organisations who involve in creating these marketing trends and campaigns. Unnecessary campaigns are a waste of resource and energy. If companies can identify what unnecessary is, they can save a lot of resources and energy. Saving any type of energy will prove to be sustainable to the organisation. Be it online or offline campaigns, there is some energy expenditure happening in either the form of electricity or electronic waste, carbon emission etc.

Let us aim to understand our consumer better and deliver marketing campaigns that actually impact our consumer base!