CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
New technological
inventions can have a great impact in organizations through its contributions
to change the social environment while expediting sharing of knowledge and the
development of new ideas. (Kling et al, 2005). Social Media will come in handy
as a good example of new technological innovation that is making a great impact
in the organizations of today.
In time past, the social media inspired technologies were seen as a chapter.
But time has proven that wrong. We have seen the world being transformed daily
by these new collective technologies, which is giving a new hope to
organizations with impacts which were never considered to exist initially.
Today, most
organizations are mainly interested in incorporating social media into the
business structures of their organization, but do not have a proper know-how of
what social media is all about. They also don’t have a tangible channel to
ascertain the gain that these technologies hold for them. In a survey carried
out in 2009 by McKinsey and Company, it was discovered that with the
appropriate use of the social media a lot of organizations were able to benefit
from each other in ways such as sharing of ideas, communication becoming better
and the workplace environment becoming enhanced. The value that social media
adds in organizations is huge as an increasing number of organizations are
already endorsing and exploiting the various opportunities in social media
technological innovation. This is to enable them find support for their various
organizational and business practices (Starmark, 2008;).
Social media hold
a lot of interesting opportunities, but it is important to understand how to
utilize it with its accompanying impact in an organizational context beside
where it is applicable in real‐life projects. The
present day organizations should ask questions like how can employees use
social media technologies to do their work and what impact these have on
employees. These should be pivotal questions for modern day organizations.
These questions can help organizations to understand how social media technologies
work effectively at workplace. Thus, it affords them the opportunity to review
and understand how to utilize what it offers with its impact on how people
interact and work among them as earlier discussed.
Hill (2009)
portrayed Globalization as the deviation towards a more unified and
co-dependent economy which is historically merging different national markets
into one global enormous marketplace. The Economic Intelligence Unit (2009)
announced that, the global market place was overwhelmed by variations in
exchange rates, the purchasing behavior of consumers and inflation in the
course of the recession that started in 2007. These economic developments have
ended up compelling organizations to redesign their business strategies so they
can be able to communicate their brands more effectively. Davis (2001) writes
that brand is one of an organization’s most prized assets which simply imply
that there is a demand on the present day organization to understand that it is
important for them to capitalize on their brand. This can help them maintain a
profitable growth and achieve sustained profitability objectives.
There are various means of building brands, which can come in form of
advertising, meeting specific needs of customers, attaching a particular image
to a service or product, identifying and meeting a need that competitors are to
identify, combative communication and strategizing price (Burger et al, 2009).
As recessions is towering in recent times of high, it became very imperative
for organizations to maintain honest, clear medium of communication and retain
a good image in a cost effective means (Unit for Economic Intelligence, 2009).
Social media marketing was one of the popular channel organizations used to
communicate their brands during the recession. Some of those mediums are;
online electronic media which helps facilitates participation, responsiveness,
consultation, connectivity and networking amongst online end users (Mayfield,
2008).
Social media
channels like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn etc are some of the dynamic
tools that have helped facilitate online rapport (Golden, 2011). Relatively, it
is a low cost pattern of marketing which allows organizations to engage direct
end-users through their contacts (Heinlein and Kaplan, 2010).
Brands and
consumers have a changing role to play in the organization’s strategy given the
choices made available to consumers and the prominent role of social media
marketing being that they now have an impact on the economy (Mayfield 2004,
Lindeman, 2008). Brands have huge influence on customer choice and customers
influence other customers. Affecting repurchases are these series of events,
which goes on to affect earnings in the future and long term organizational
continuity (Oliveira and Sullivan, 2003).
Thus, consumer’s
buying behavior is often influenced by a leading brand. This value is created
by generating demand (via repurchases) and securing of future earnings for the
organization (Sullivan and Oliveira, 2003). Therefore social media marketing
serves as opportunities for communication and depends upon new and unusual
thought patterns (Heinlein and Kaplan, 2010; Kweskin, 2008). This helps
customer’s product and brand experience.
This new era of
digital communication and social engagement is preeminent for strategizing in
business. Therefore as organizations are becoming more competitive globally, it
is pertinent for them to explore marketing strategy in a more compelling and
innovative way so as to attract larger number of customers (Rockendorf, 2011).
1.2 PROBLEM
STATEMENT
The coming of the
Internet and its acceptance by the public, have altered quite a lot in the way
organizations promote their services and products as well as the channels
of communication between them and their customers. This is seen in the way they
market and communicate their brands and products nowadays which is becoming a
challenging project.
Customers are
overwhelmed by marketing commercials and promotional events. The sensitivity of
customers to get excited is fading out on promotional events and consumers are
beginning to resist the efforts of some companies at marketing them.
Basically, the promotional focus of some organizations is on the conventional
mass media advert style which includes commercials on TV, radio jingles and
advertisements in print formats such as newspapers and magazines along with
billboard placements. It is now on record that as the Internet is fast
advancing across the global marketplace, the effectiveness of traditional mass
media is fast on the decline.
1.3 Objectives of
the research
The main objective
of this study is to examine the impact of social media on buying behavior of
consumers. Specific objectives of the study are:
To examine
students’ perception towards shopping online.
To examine factors
that motivate student buyers to shop through social media platforms.
To examine how
social media channels have affected buying behavior of Lagos state university
students.
1.4 RESEARCH
QUESTIONS
What perception do
students’ have towards shopping online?
What factors
motivate student buyers to shop through social media platforms?
How have social
media channels affected buying behavior of Lagos state university students?
1.5 RESEARCH
HYPOTHESES
1.
H0:
Social media shopping in Nigeria is not effective.
H1:
Social media shopping in Nigeria is effective.
2. H0:
There is a low level of patronage for social media stores in Nigeria.
H1:
there is a high level of patronage for social media stores in Nigeria.