Investigating The Influence of Social Media Influencers on Consumer Decision Making Process of Plurals and Millennials

Authors

  • Lovedeep Singh Sidhu Research Scholar, I. K. G. Punjab Technical University, Kapurthala, Punjab
  • Ramandeep Saini Chandigarh Group of Colleges, Landran, Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar, Punjab

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48165/gm.2021.1522

Keywords:

consumer decision making process, digital marketing, millennials, plurals, social media influencers

Abstract

Objective: The study examines how consumer decision making process of millennials and plurals gets impacted due to social media influencers. The impact was measured by using social media influencers as exogenous construct and five stages of consumer decision making process as endogenous construct.Research Methodology: A theoretical model was developed by reviewing earlier literature available on different journals and websites. A sample of total 500 respondents was collected through structured questionnaire by using stratified proportionate sampling whereby count of plurals and millennials was 250 each. The data was examined through Smart PLS 3.0 by performing structure equational modelling. Findings: The results indicated that all the stages of consumer decision making process of millennials and plurals were impacted due to social media influencers. Furthermore, the highest impact was found on need recognition stage (H1), followed by post purchase behaviour (H5), purchase stage (H4), evaluation of alternatives (H3), and search of information (H2).Limitations: This research has few limitations as it was conducted in only northern states of India; however, further research can be conducted in other areas which may yield other productive results. Moreover, only behavioural aspect of consumer attitude was tested, rather cognitive and affective components of consumer behaviour can be considered in future research.Implications: Through this research, marketers can avail the opportunity to understand buying process of two generations: plurals and millennials which would be valuable for firms in strategizing digital marketing plans and policies to target both age groups on social media. This study has illustrated buying process of two generations in order to fulfil the literature gap as there was inadequate literature on plurals and millennials. Hence, both literature gap and originality have been attained and fulfilled.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Appel, G., Grewal, L., Hadi, R., & Stephen, A. (2019). The future of social media in marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 48(1), 79-95. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00695-1.

Arora, A., Bansal, S., Kandpal, C., Aswani, R., & Dwivedi, Y. K. (2019). Measuring social media influencer index- insights from facebook, twitter. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 49, 86-101. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.03.012.

Davidaviciene, V., Meidute-Kavaliauskiene, I., & Paliulis, R. (2019). Research on the influence of social media on generation Y consumer purchase decisions. Marketing and Management of Innovations, 4, 39-49. https://doi.org/10.21272/mmi.2019.4-04.

De Veirman, M., Cauberghe , V., & Hudders , L. (2017). Marketing through Instagram influencers: the impact of number of followers and product divergence on brand attitude. International Journal of Advertising, 36(5), 798-828. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 02650487.2017.1348035.

Djafarova, E., & Rushworth, C. (2017). Exploring the credibility of online celebrities’ Instagram profiles in influencing the purchase decisions of young female user. Computers in Human Behavior, 68, 1-7. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.11.009.

Duffett, R. G. (2015). Facebook advertising’s influence on intention-to-purchase and purchase amongst Millennials. Internet Research(4), 498-526. https:// doi.org/10.1108/IntR-01-2014-0020.

Duffett, R. G. (2017). Influence of social media marketing communications on young consumers’ attitudes. Young Consumers, 18, 19-39. https://doi.org/10.1108/ YC-07-2016-00622.

Flecha-Ortiz, J., Santos-Corrada, M., Dones-Gonzalez, V., Lopez-Gonzalez, E., & Vega, A. (2019). Millennials & Snapchat: Self-expression through its use and its influence on purchase motivation. Journal of Business Research, 125, 798-805. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jbusres.2019.03.005.

Grave, J. F. (2019). What KPIs are key? Evaluating performance metrics for social media influencers. Social Media+ Society, 5(3), 1-9. https://doi. org/10.1177/2056305119865475.

Harrigan, P., Daly, T. M., Coussement, K., Lee, J. A., Soutar, G. N., & Evers, U. (2021). Identifying influencers on social media. International Journal of Information Management, 56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102246.

Helal, G., Ozuem, W., & Lancaster, G. (2018, November). Social media brand perceptions of millennials. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, vol. 46(10), 977-998. https://doi. org/10.1108/IJRDM-03-2018-0066.

Henseler, J., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2015). A new criterion for assessing discriminant validity in variance-based structural equation modeling. Journal of the academy of marketing science, 43(1), 115-135. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-014-0403-8.

Hou, M. (2019). Social media celebrity and the institutionalization of YouTube. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 25(3), 534-553. https://doi. org/10.1177/1354856517750368.

Huang, O., & Copeland, L. (2020). Gen z, Instagram influencers, and hashtags’influence on purchase intention of apparel. Academy of marketing studies journal, 24(3), 1-14.

Hussain, S., Fangwei, Z., Siddiqi , A. F., Ali , Z., & Shabbir, M. S. (2018). Structural equation model for evaluating factors affecting quality of social infrastructure projects. Sustainability, 10(5), 1415. https://doi. org/10.3390/su10051415.

Ibrahim, B., Aljarah, A., & Sawaftah, D. (2021). Linking social media marketing activities to revisit intention through brand trust and brand loyalty on the coffee shop Facebook pages: Exploring sequential mediation mechanism. Sustainability, 13(4), 2277. https:// doi.org/10.3390/su13042277.

Kim, D. Y., & Kim, H.-Y. (2020, February). Influencer advertising on social media: The multiple inference model on influencer-product congruence and sponsorship disclosure. Journal of Business Research, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.02.020.

Makudza, F., Mugarisanwa, C., & Siziba, S. (2020). The effect of social media on consumer purchase behaviour in the mobile telephony industry in Zimbabwe. Dutch Journal of Finance and Management, 4(2), em0065. https://doi.org/10.29333/djfm/9299.

Oumayma, B. (2020). Social media made me buy it: the impact of social media on consumer purchasing behavior and on the purchase decision-making process. In The Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Smart City Applications, 230-243. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030- 37629-1_18.

Ruiz-Gómez, A. (2019). Digital Fame and Fortune in the age of Social Media: A Classification of social media influencers. aDResearch: Revista Internacional de Investigación en Comunicación, 19, 8- 29. https://doi. org/10.7263/adresic-019-01.

Saini, R., & Sidhu, L. S. (2020). Role of persuasion: investigating the impact of social media on buying decision process of digital natives. Pacific Business Review International, 13(3), 48-56.

Schuberth, F. (2021). Confirmatory composite analysis using partial least squares: setting the record straight. Review of Managerial Science, 15, 1311–1345. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s11846-020- 00405-0.

Sidhu, L. S., & Saini, R. (2021). Influence of Instagram advertising on decision making process of Indian Echo Boomers. Empirical Economics Letters, 20(4).

Song, S., & Yoo, M. (2016). The role of social media during the pre-purchasing stage. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, 7 (1), 84-99. https://doi. org/10.1108/JHTT-11-2014-0067.

Slijepcevic, M., Radojevic, I., & Peric, N. (2020). Considering modern trends in digital marketing. Marketing, 51(1), 34-42. https://doi.org/10.5937/ markt2001034S.

Sokolova, K., & Kefi, H. (2020, March). Instagram and YouTube bloggers promote it, why should I buy? How credibility and parasocial interaction influence purchase intentions. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 53, 1-9. doi:10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.01.011.

Sudirjo, F. (2021). Social media, consumer motivation, and consumer purchase decision for fashion consumers in semarang district. Jurnal Manajemen (Edisi Elektronik, 12(1), 78-92. https://doi.org/10.32832/ jm-uika.v12i1.3985.

Tashtoush, L. (2021). The effect of social media on consumer buying behavior in commercial banks. Saudi Journal of Business and Management Studies, 6(2), 28-38. https:// doi.org/10.36348/sjbms 2021.v06i02.001.

Ting, H., de Run , E. C., & Liew, S. L. (2016). Intention to use Instagram by generation cohorts: The perspective of developing markets. Global Business and Management Research: An International Journal, 8(1), 43-55.

Tripathi, S. (2019). Impact of social media on generation Y for buying fashion apparel. Journal of Content, Community & Communication, 9(5), 105-113. https://doi.org/10.31620/JCCC.06.19/15.

Tsimonis, G., & Dimitriadis, S. (2014). Brand strategies in social media. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 32(3), 328 - 344. https://doi.org/10.1108/MIP-042013-0056.

Voramontri, D., & Klieb , L. (2019). Impact of social media on consumer behaviour. International Journal of Information and Decision Sciences, 11(3), 209-233. doi:10.1504/IJIDS.2019.10014191.

Wibowo, A., Chen, S. C., Wiangin, U., Ma, Y., & Ruangkanjanases , A. (2021). Customer behavior as an outcome of social media marketing: the role of social media marketing activity and customer experience. Sustainability, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.3390/ su13010189.

Zak, S., & Hasprova, M. (2020). The role of influencers in the consumer decision-making process. SHS web of conferences, 74(03014). https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20207403014.

Downloads

Published

2021-12-18

Issue

Vol. 15 No. 2 (2021): Gyan Management Journal (Jul-Dec) 2021

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2022 Lovedeep Singh Sidhu, Ramandeep Saini

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Sidhu, L.S., & Saini, R. (2021). Investigating The Influence of Social Media Influencers on Consumer Decision Making Process of Plurals and Millennials. Gyan Management Journal, 15(2), 12–23. https://doi.org/10.48165/gm.2021.1522
Crossref
Scopus
Google Scholar
Europe PMC