MBR Research Proposal

Research Proposal
METHODS OF BUSINESS RESEARCH

31 JANUARY, 2019
Submitted by:
 Nigeeta
 Quratulain
 Pirah
 Ali Jan
Submitted to:
 Dr. Faiz Muhammad Khawaja
Title:
”IMPACTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON CONSUMERS BEHAVIOR (DECISION MAKING PROCESS)”
Background:
In this fast moving world, the advent of social media has created a new landscape which
lays out a new grid of personal connections. 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 (James 2012).
Businesses see enormous opportunities and are eager to tap into this growing trend,
because this particular technical revolution during the last decade has drastically
revolutionized the traditional marketing approaches and brought marketers to a new era.
Based on the findings from McKinsey (2011), it has revealed that when companies go
about their business and interact with individuals, they are generating a tremendous
amount of digital “exhaust data,” i.e., data that are created as a by-product of other
activities. Social media sites, smartphones, and other consumer devices have allowed
billions of individuals around the world to contribute to the amount of big data
available. (McKinsey 2011.)By looking at the enormous amount of social media
campaigns, e-commerce websites, sales emails and forums, it shows that companies of
all sizes have been translating their marketing approaches to the Internet because of its
accessibility to their target audience.
There are many studies explaining reasons to tap into social media and to help
companies to gain a better position in the transition. Research on impact of social media
on consumers’ decision making process has done in Finland based on consumers
perceptive. Oftentimes, consumers feel differently from what marketers think, for
instance what “brand engagement” via social media looks like to consumers may not be
quite what marketers think (Sniderman, 2012).
Research Objectives:
1. To examine why, when and how social media has impacted on consumer
decision making process.
2. To examine what opportunities and pitfalls companies are facing with that
buying behavior of consumers who are impacted by social media.
3. To examine how individuals are attending, processing and selecting information
on social media before a purchase.
4. To examine the changes in consumer behavior due to social media.
5. To examine what changes social media has brought to consumers’ different
stages of their decision making.
6. To examine the components and variables involved in decision making process.
Research Method:
The basic objective of research is to identify the changes that social media has brought
to decision making process. For this purpose quantitative method of collecting data
would be better.
Questionnaire: A detailed questionnaire will be developed which will provide the in-
depth information related to the research topic by showing the questions regarding
effects of social media on decision making process. Each question will show the
relationship between social media and consumer decision making process. The
questionnaire will be distributed among the students and teachers of Sukkur IBA
University and the results will be collected in specified period of time in order to draw a
conclusion.
Moreover, few open-ended questions will be added in questionnaire where respondents
can have a chance to comment, express and add something extra. It would help us to
gain valuable qualitative information and insights for deeper analysis.
Timescale:
The time scale that we have set for our research proposal is as follows.
1. 1st - 10th February: Develop research proposal.
2. 10 _28 February: Review the literature.
3. 1– 10 March: Draft literature review.
4. 10– 25 March: Design questionnaire for data collection.
5. 25 – 5 April: compile and revise questionnaire for data mining and filtering.
6. 5 – 25 April: final collection of data.
7. 25- 10 May: Analyzing the collected data.
8. 10- 20 May: Write up of first draft.
9. 20 – 31 June: write up of final draft.
10. 1 – 15 June: Submission of dissertation.
Resources
The resources that help us in conducting the research are primary and secondary
resources. Primary resources are questionnaire that we will distribute among the
students and faculty members of Sukkur IBA University, as the aim of this research is to
provide new insights regarding impact of social media on demographics (age and
gender) in decision making process. Moreover we use the research articles and
questionnaire that are designed by other researchers.
Respondents:
Questionnaire Form
Impacts of social media on consumer decision making process
General Background
1. Age
2. Under 18
3. 18-21
4. 22-25
5. 26-30
6. 30+
7. 40+
8. 50+
Gender
1. Female
2. Male
Direct variable questions (social media)

1. Which of the following social media sites you are using on a daily basis?
(Please select all the platforms you are using)
a) Social Networking Sites (e.g. Facebook)

b) Microblogging (e.g. Twitter)
c) Blogs/ Forums
d) Social Bookmarking Sites/ Social News (e.g. Reddit, Digg)
e) Photo & Video Sharing Sites (e.g. Flickr, Youtube)
2. Time (approx.) spent on social media sites per week
a) 0 hour
b) 1-3 hours
c) 4-6 hours
d) 7-9 hours
e) 10 hours or more
3. Time (approx.) spent on the mass media (TV, radio, magazine, newspaper and so on) per
week
a) 0 hour
b) 1-3 hours
c) 4-6 hours
d) 7-9 hours
e) 10 hours or more
4. Do you think that with the social media sites, you are able to seek out
products/services information initiatively (actively)?
a) Strongly Agree
b) Agree
c) Neutral
d) Disagree
e) Strongly Disagree
5. Do you agree Social media triggers you to purchase a product/service?

a) agree
b) strongly agree
c) strongly disagree
d) neutral
e) disagree
6. Do you agree the advertisements on mass media are still attractive?
a) agree
b) disagree
c) neutral
d) strongly agree
e) strongly disagree
7. Which of the following mass media channels you still find attractive?
a) TV
b) Radio
c) Newspaper
d) Magazine
e) Other (Please Specify)
8. Do you agree that information searching is easier via social media comparing to mass media
(e.g. TV, radio, newspaper, and so on)?
a) Strongly Agree
b) Agree
c) Neutral
d) Disagree
9. Which source of information on social media you use before a purchase the most?
a) Facebook
b) Twitter
c) Online Forums/ Communities/Blogs
d) instagram
e) YouTube
Indirect variable (consumer behavior)
1. Which of the following factors are the cause of your prejudgment? (You may select more
than one answer)
a) Previous experience
b) Brand reputation
c) Information from the internet (e.g. user reviews, blogs, forums, and so on)
d) Information from the mass media (e.g. TV, radio, magazine, and so on)
e) Information from peers, friends, or family members
2. Do you tend to seek out information that is consistent with your initial opinion/preference for
a purchase?
a) Always
b) Often
c) Seldom
d) Rarely
e) Never
3. Do you search for related information on social media before a purchase?
a) Always
b) Often
c) Seldom
d) Rarely
e) Never
4. Do you agree that advertisements/blog posts/ FB pages/user reviews on social media
influence you to try new brands/products/services?
a) Strongly Agree
b) Agree
c) Neutral
d) Disagree
5. Do you agree that social media has provided more effective platforms to new
products/services/brands to draw consumers’ attention than mass media channels?
a) Strongly Agree
b) Agree
c) Neutral
d) Disagree
6. Do you agree that advertisements/ reviews/ blog posts etc. have a higher credibility than
advertisements/ editorials/ other marketing means on mass media?
a) Strongly Agree
b) Agree
c) Neutral
d) Disagree
7. Do you rely on information available on social media if you have uncertainties

regarding a purchase?
a) Always
b) Often
c) Seldom
d) Rarely
e) Never
8. Do you change your initial purchase preference after searching relevant information via
social media sites?
a) Always
b) Often
c) Sometimes
d) Rarely
e) Never
9. Are you likely to share comments/reviews/blog posts/related articles to peers or friends via
social media after a purchase?
a) Always
b) Often
c) Sometimes
d) Rarely
e) Never
10. Do you agree you change your attitude towards a certain brand or product or service after
you have read positive comments about it?
a) Agree
b) Disagree
c) Neutral
d) Strongly agree
e) Strongly disagree
11. Do you agree that feedbacks (reviews/comments/posts and so on) on social media affect
your purchase?
a) Strongly Agree
b) Agree
c) Neutral
d) Disagree
12. Do you agree that social media provides an effective and powerful platform for consumers
to communicate with each other and with the companies?
a) Strongly Agree
b) Agree
c) Neutral
d) Disagree
13. Do you feel encouraged to voice out your opinion after a purchase via social media
platforms?
a) Strongly Agree
b) Agree
c) Neutral
d) Disagree
e) Strongly disagree
14. Do you agree that information regarding products and services have a higher credibility on
social media than on mass media channels because the information is beyond the company's
control?
a) Strongly Agree
b) Agree
c) Neutral
d) Disagree
15. In your opinion, which stage of your buying decision has been affected mostly because of
social media?
a) Exposure to product/service information

b) Problem Recognition
c) Search for the alternatives
d) Evaluation of information
e) Post-purchase Evaluation
16. Do you think that social media makes your decision making more complex?
a)
b) Strongly Agree
c) Agree
d) Neutral
e) Disagree
f) Strongly Disagree
17. Which Factors mostly affects the length of your decision making process.
a) Recourse (e.g. time, finance)

b) Amount of available information
c) Personal factor (e.g. pressure)
d) Uncertainty
e) Risk
Thank you for your time!
Respondents: students and teachers of Sukkur IBA University
Articles names:
1. Impact of social networks on consumer behavior
2. Impact of social media marketing and online advertisements on consumer
behavior
3. Effects of social media on young consumers buying behavior
4. Impact of social media on consumers
5. Social media and consumer behavior
6. Does social media affect consumer decision making?
7. The impact of social media on consumers purchase intention
8. Role of social media on consumer’s preferences
9. Impact of social media on consumers decision making among youth
10. Impact of social media on consumers buying stages
Bachelor's thesis
International Business
Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA)
2013
Ethel Lee
IMPACTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
– Decision Making Process
BACHELOR´S THESIS | ABSTRACT

TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES
International Business | Bachelor of Business Administration
May 2013| 77 pages
Alberto Gonzalez
Ethel Lee
IMPACTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON CONSUMER
BEHAVIOR. DECISION MAKING PROCESS.

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 (James 2012).
The advent of social media has created a new landscape which lays out a new grid of personal
connections. Businesses see enormous opportunities and are eager to tap into the trend, whereas consumers
are put back to the center in the business world because of social media. There are many studies explaining
reasons to tap into social media and to help companies to gain a better position in the transition; yet a few
intends to study from the perspective of consumers, let alone those in Finland. Oftentimes, consumers feel
differently from what marketers think, for instance what “brand engagement” via social media looks like
to consumers may not be quite what marketers think (Sniderman, 2012).
The objective of the research is to explain why, when, and how social media has impacted on consumer
decision process.The theoretical framework rests on literature of consumer decision making process, social
media, as well as previous studies relating to social media marketing. Quantitative research method is
adapted for the purpose of this research. The empirical data was gathered by sending out questionnaire to
individuals in Turku, May 2013.
This research gives explanation on how individuals are attending, processing, and selecting the
information on social media before a purchase. The findings indicated that individuals pursue an active
role in information serach on social media comparing to mass media, yet information exposure is selective
and subjective during the course of information search. Moreover, the empirical part of the research strives
to provide insights to any companies that are trying to shift to or are currently participating in the new
marketing trend.
Findings and conclusions presented in the research are only valid within the population selection and
cannot not to be generalized elsewhere due to the differences in environmental fators.
KEYWORDS:
Social media, consumer behavior, marketing, decision making process.
CONTENT
1 INTRODUCTION 6
1.1 Objectives of the research 7
1.2 Scope and limitation of the research 8
1.3 Research Structure 10
2 CONSUMER 11
2.1 The Consumers 11
2.2 Consumer Decision Process 11
2.2.1 Problem recognition 12
2.2.2 Search of Infomation 12
2.2.3 Evaluation of Alternatives 13
2.2.4 Final Decision 14
2.2.5 Post Purchase Decision 15
2.3 Attitude 15
2.4 Information Process Theory 16
2.4.1 Exposure 17
2.4.2 Motivation 18
2.4.3 Attention and Perceptual Encoding 18
2.4.4 Information Acquisition and Evaluation 20
2.4.5 Decision Processes 21
2.4.6 Effects of Consumption and Learning 21
3 SOCIAL MEDIA 23
3.1 What is social media 23
3.2 Types of Social Media 25
3.2.1 Social Networking SItes 25
3.2.2 Social News and Bookmarking Sites 26
3.2.3 Media-Sharing Sites 26
3.2.4 Blogs 27
3.2.5 Microblogging 27
3.3 Social Media and Marketing 28
3.4 What makes social media marketing special? 28
3.5 Social Media: The New Mindset 29
4 SOCIAL MEDIA AND CONSUMER 32
4.1 Social media as a mean of giving consumers a voice 32
4.2 The Influences on Decision Making Process 38
4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 44
4.3 Introduction 44
4.4 Research Data and Data Collection 45
4.5 Research design 46
4.6 Data Quality - Validity and Reliability 47
5 DATA ANALYSIS 49
5.1 Background 49
5.2 Exposure 50
5.2.1 Attitude 52
5.3 Problem Recognition 54
5.4 Search for Alternatives 54
5.5 Evaluation of Alternatives 56
5.6 Final Decision 58
5.7 Post-purchase Evaluation 60
5.8 Big Picture of the Entire Process 63
6 CONCLUSION 67
6.1 Outline 67
6.2 Conclusion 68
6.3 Future Research 72
6.4 Limitation 73
SOURCE MATERIAL 74
APPENDICES
Appendix 1. Cover Letter

Appendix 2. Questionnaire Form
Appendix 3. Comments Collected from Individuals (Q.31)
FIGURES
Figure 1. The 5-Stage Decision Making Model (Silverman 2001.) ............................... 11

Figure 2. Steps between evluation of alternatives and a purchase decision (Koter &
Keller 2009, 172). ....................................................................................................... 14
Figure 3. Social media components (Dann and Dann 2011, 345) ............................... 24
Figure 4. Web Communication Model (Smith and Zook 2011). ................................... 34
Figure 5. The New Communication Paradigm (Mangold and Faulds 2009). ................ 35 Figure
6. 2001 Google search for Comcast (Weinberg 2009). .................................... 36
Figure 7. 2008 Google search for Comcast (Weinberg 2009). .................................... 37
Figure 8. Stimuli and Response model (Constantinides and Fountain 2008). ............. 39
Figure 9. Classic Puchase Funnel (Evan 2008). ......................................................... 40
Figure 10. Purchase validation tool (Evans 2008). ...................................................... 42
Figure 11. Age Distribution ......................................................................................... 49
Figure 12. Types of socail media sites used on daily basis ......................................... 51
Figure 13. Time spent on social media per week ........................................................ 52
Figure 14. Time spent on mass media per week ......................................................... 52
Figure 15. Prejudgment and initial search of information ............................................. 53
Figure 16. Factors causing prejudgments ................................................................... 53
Figure 17. The source of information on social media used most and least ................ 55
Figure 18. Initial preference/ attitude before a purchase ............................................. 59
Figure 19. Change of initial preference after a search of information on social media . 60
Figure 20. Tendency in passing of information on social media after a purchase ........ 61
Figure 21. Available platforms vs. Willingness to voice out ......................................... 62
TABLES
Table 1. Influence of social media on age groups to try new products/ services/ brands
57
Table 2. Impact on stages in decision making process 63
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1 INTRODUCTION
“Traditional marketing is not dying – it’s dead!”

(Zynman 1999)
The emergence of Web 2.0 is one of the most formidable development in the history of
commerce. Social media, another buzzword that came along with, is an evolution based on the
Web 2.0, where not only it encourages usergenerated contents, but also extends the focus to the
users by allowing them to exhibit contents to share among networks.
This particular technical revolution during the last decade has drastically revolutionized the
traditional marketing approaches and brought marketers to a new era. In the new marketing era,
the social media has likely to revolutionize the relationships marketers have with retailers,
channels of distribution, their ultimate consumers, etc. It is an Information Age, and consumers
are inundated with overwhelming quantities of information each and every day.
Based on the findings from McKinsey (2011), it has revealed that when companies go about
their business and interact with individuals, they are generating a tremendous amount of digital
“exhaust data,” i.e., data that are created as a by-product of other activities. Social media sites,
smartphones, and other consumer devices have allowed billions of individuals around the world
to contribute to the amount of big data available. (McKinsey 2011.)
By looking at the enormous amount of social media campaigns, e-commerce websites, sales
emails, forums, etc., it appears that companies of all sizes have been translating their marketing
approaches to the Internet because of its accessibility to their target audience and the money
required to do so. (Chui and Manyika 2012.) By contrast, the traditional advertising approach of
mass media communication, for instance newspaper, magazines, and televisions, aims at
conveying messages to a broader group of audience in the hope of reaching the few interested
ones.
Traditional advertising via mass media is on decline; Sergio Zyman (1999), former Chief
Marketing Officer, Coca Cola, believes, “The era of marketing as we have known it is over,
dead, kaput – and most marketers don’t realize it…” he further clarifies that technology has
given people many more options than they had in the past and has created a consumer
democracy in which people around the world constantly use social-media platforms to seek
and share information from discussing consumer products to organizing political movements
(see Chui and Manyika 2012).
With more stimuli bombardments, individuals are more cautious and adept in allocating attention
to information; thus it is essential for marketers to find the reasons that speak to particular
customers’ concerns, and to seek ways to speak to customers individually, or in smaller
communities (Zyman 1999). Internet offers favorable solutions to marketers these days.
Marketing through social media would be an alternative perspective of interfacing with
individuals, and yet the most influential applications of social technologies in the global
economy are largely untapped (Chui and Manyika 2012).
Social media puts consumers back to the center of the business world and provides marketers a
new set of tools to interact with consumers and to integrate them into the brands through
TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES THESIS | Ethel Lee

15
innovative ways. In essence, marketers have to understand how the social media has influenced
consumer buying behavior.
1.1 Objectives of the research

Consumers and businesses around the globe have been more connected than ever before with the
presence of Internet. An average Internet user has 669 social ties (Hampton et al. 2011);
Facebook has more than 600 million daily active users, with over 1.5 million business pages
(Facebook 2013), and 30 billion pieces of content shared on a monthly basis (McKinsey 2011).
Approximately 500 million Tweets sent per day, at about 600 Tweets per second (Tweeter
2012). LinkedIn has more than 225 million professionals worldwide, including all Fortune 500
companies (LinkedIn 2013). The global average time spent per person on social networking sites
is 6.9 hours per month (Delaney and Salminen 2012). Changes in consumer behavior due to
social media are one of the most intriguing aspects in the contemporary marketing.
Acknowledging that consumer behavior is a relatively general and broad topic, which it would
be challenging for the researcher to gather, inspect and conclude all the necessary data and
findings into one research; thus, the researcher has narrowed down the focus in association with
the decision making process, which associates with marketing through social media. The
objective of the research is to explain why, when, and how social media has impacted on
consumer decision making process. Besides, perhaps, with this particular perspective the
research holds, it can help to identity what are the opportunities and pitfalls companies are facing
with this impact on consumers’ decision making in order to seize and embrace the possibilities in
the new marketing era. Research Questions:
1. How do consumers attend, process, and select the information before a purchase?
2. What are the differences between marketing on social media and through mass media?
3. What are the changes social media has brought to consumers in different stages of their
decision making?
1.2 Scope and limitation of the research

With regard to the objectives, conducting the research from the perspective of consumers would
be a considerably suitable approach. The researcher realizes that there are many available reports
and studies which rather aims to help businesses to gain a better understanding in social media
marketing but not to help consumers to identify reasons that social media has changed their
decision making process. Since the purpose of marketing is, in sum, about consumer; therefore,
by having the starting point from the perception of consumer, and by collecting data from
consumers’ point of view, fresh insights can be gathered. The research also aims to serve as an
indicator to potential readers (companies) of how they can tab into the decision making process
via social media sites.
Factors, such as technology, infrastructure, culturual values, norms, and so fourth, across
continentals are different, the implication of this research may vary in countries accordingly;
therefore, the research targets at a geographical area, Finland, where individuals share a similar
background winthin a standardized infrastructure. The research focuses on the behavior of end

16
consumers (individuals) and particularly within the retailing industry, for instance clothing, food
and beverage, consumer electronics, and so on.
Moreover, in order to provide a more comprehensive perspective concerning the decision
making process, the researcher has discussed the five-stages buying model and the
information processing theory, because the former theory explains the stages in decision
making process clearly whereas the latter one denotes the psychological factors during the
process- they are closely linked with one another based on their objectives.
Social media marketing is no longer a new aspect, and yet it is still considerably a developing
and evolving topic in the field. With a quick literature scan on the related topic, indeed there are
vast amount of journals and articles, but with few scientific/academic research and classical
literatures about social media marketing associating with changes of consumer behavior. Thus,
this would be another limitation of the research that the discussion on the topic is rather in a
general manner.
1.3 Research Structure
The first chapter introduces and highlights the research background, the motivation of the
researcher, as well as the research questions. In order to answer all three questions, literature
reivew is covered by three chapters – consumers, social media, as well as consumers and social
media.
Decision making process is discussed elaborately so as to provide the components involved in
the process before an actual purchase taken place, and how consumers can be affected during the
course of the information processing before a purchase. With the purpose of identifying what are
the core values that social media has offered to both marketers and consumers, as well as how
marketers are utilizing social media in marketing, clarifications in terms of social media, types of
social media sites, as well as discussions in relating to social media marketing are covered in
Chapter 3. In the last chapter of the theoretical framework, the relation between social media and
consumer decision making process is discussed.
As for the empirical part, reasons of selected approach and the data collection process are
explained in details in order to provide the reliability and validity of the research. Findings form
the collected data are analyzed in associating with the discussed theories in the theoretical
framework in Chapter 5. Last but not least, conclusions are drawn for the research questions, and
suggestions are made for any further research in future.
2 CONSUMER
2.1 The Consumers
Consumers are actors on the marketplace stage. Consumers, in general, can be referred as
individuals who purchase or consume products and services; however, in terms of buyer and
consumer, there is a slight difference. Buyers are the people who are acting either as ultimate,
industrial, or institutional purchasers. The latter one, consumer, refers to individuals who
purchase for merely ultimate use, which is more restrictive in terms of meaning (Sternthal and
Craig 1982); that is, the end-users for whom the products or services are ultimately designed
for.
2.2 Consumer Decision Process

17
Inevitably, businesses encounter bottlenecks where the message is not reaching their consumers
and prospects, with the fact that, at times, consumers and prospects are facing significant blocks
in their decision process. If not, each of them should be fully committed, loyal, enthusiastic,
repeated consumers; however, this is not the case. Today the accessibility and transparency of
information has profoundly influenced the decision making process; therefore, it is important to
examine what are the hurdles and fiction points that hold prospects becoming consumers, or
keeps consumers hesitating from repurchasing. (Silverman 2001.)
Figure 1. The 5-Stage Decision Making Model (Silverman 2001.)
Engel, Kollat, and Blackwell (EKB) have presents a comprehensive model dealing with ultimate
consumer’s behavior in 1978, which attempts to capture the critical aspects of individuals’
consumption behavior. As the figure (Figure 1) shows, the model has interpreted consumer
behavior into five stages – 1) Problem recognition, 2) search of information, 3) evaluation of
alternatives, 4) final decision, and 5) post purchase decisions. (Sternthal and Craig 1982)
2.2.1 Problem recognition

Problem recognition takes place whenever a consumer recognizes a significant difference
between the desired and the actual state of affairs, which is in sufficient magnitude to arouse
and activate the decision process (Solomon, Bamossy and Askegaard 2002), or need triggered
by internal or external stimuli. After the realization of a problem, it initiates the search for
information before any typical buying action.
When an individual is triggered externally, for instance, a person may see a television
advertisement for a vacation, the stimuli triggers thoughts or ideas about the possibility of
making a purchase (Kotler and Keller 2009). Nowadays, the mass media is no longer the
only source of information, which may serve as a trigger of a purchase to individuals. As
a result, consumers are exposed to vast amount of information, in order to get through the
consumer’s filter , marketers have to identify a claim or promise about their services or products,
which are strongly penetrative. Filter, in this case, is a fact of being overlooked because of too
much information competing in the marketplace (Silverman 2001).
2.2.2 Search of Infomation

The final purchase decision will not be made at once, even when individuals acknowledge,
recognize their problems, and pay attention to the available products; likewise, when prospects
have a certain interest in a product or service, they tend to go through the following steps before
carrying out any action – identifying available options, studying information of selected
options, and eventually judging which of these options can most likely deliver the best
outcome (Silverman 2001).
The information sources can be divided into two types: internal and external. Internal search
indicates former information and experience of an individual will result in future behavior that
the consumers will be likely to take (Solomon, Bamossy and Askegaard 2002). Even when a
consumer is attentive towards a marketing offer, it does not imply that the offer will be
comprehended as intended; therefore, aside from the accumulated information, any information

18
or message that is generally analyzed and stored in the consumers’ memory in forms of certain
meaning will be used to evaluate alternatives. Essentially, competitive brands provide
alternatives for consumers who are willing to find the best solution to their problems or needs,
even they may offer same products or services.
2.2.3 Evaluation of Alternatives

Once an option is identified as the best/suitable solution according to the individual’s needs
after accumulating sufficient information, they undertake alternative evaluation (Sternthal and
Craig 1982, 46). Depending on their motives or goals, consumers establish a criteria for
evaluating choice alternatives (Sternthal and Craig 1982, 46), for instance which alternative is
the simplest to use or to arrange, or what are other users’ experiences, because there is a need
to confirm whether or not the information is reliable and to verify that the product will work out
as anticipated. (Silverman 2001.)
In order to ensure the outcome within the expectation, individuals require relevance of
experience. Direct and indirect experience, which individuals, serve as indicators during the
buying process. Direct experience is not always preferred since individuals are inexperienced
towards specific products, which may result using it in an unskilled manner and have negative
experience with it. Most often, if negative experiences take place, they are most likely to be
costly
(both financially and time), risky, or even damaging to reputation. (Silverman 2001.)
After the assessment of the choice alternatives, consumers formulate beliefs regarding the
alternatives, which guide their attitudes, intentions, and ultimately their choice among
alternatives (Sternthal and Craig 1982, 46). Besides, several studies have provided evident
findings that the decision maker will increasingly seek ways to simplify the evaluation process
when a decision becomes more complex (Bruner, Goodnow and Austin 1956; Association for
Psychological Science 2008).
2.2.4 Final Decision
Figure 2. Steps between evluation of alternatives and a purchase decision (Koter & Keller 2009,
172).
Kotler and Keller (2009) have suggested that during the course of evaluation, consumer
eventually forms preferences among the brands in the choice desk, however, there are two
factors, which can interfere between the purchase intension and purchase decision – attitude of
the others and unanticipated situational factors (172).

19
Attitudes of others is the extent to which another person’s negative attitude towards the
preferred alternatives or reluctance to meet the terms of supporting the purchase
intention, this may result in a readjustment of the consumer’s purchase intention (Kotler and
Keller 2009,172).
Likewise, Kotler (2009) has also stated that consumers are undoubtedly influenced by the
infomediaries who publish their evaluations (e.g. customer reviews on Amazon.com, blogs,
bulletin boards, and so on). Unanticipated situational factors refer to those may erupt to alter the
purchase intention, for instance, there might come an unexpected purchase that is more urgent
compared to the purchase the consumer was firstly stimulated to buy; in other words, preferences
and purchase intentions cannot be served as completely reliable predictors of purchase behavior.
(Kotler and Keller 2009.)
The stages in the decision process are not followed sequentially, but rather in a cyclically order;
that is, in reality there are loops, for instance between information search and evaluation,
consumer learns about new criteria not previously considered (Bettman 1979).
2.2.5 Post Purchase Decision

After the consumption, the consumer then experiences certain levels of satisfaction or
dissatisfaction, and evaluates the wisdom of the choice made in selecting the alternative. Two
potential outcomes are derived from this phase – satisfaction or dissonance. When consumer
experiences dissonance towards the purchase, the choice is ‘devaluated’ and the consumer
begins the process of searching, obtaining information and evaluating other options for future
buying decision, in which triggers new behavior. (Sternthal and Craig 1982).
It is a phase when the consumer decides whether or not to move from merely implementing the
product to a full adaption; that is, whether to use the product repeatedly or repurchase or not.
Since consumer always has a choice regarding the products priority, frequency of usage, and
new circumstances of new uses. When individuals are comfortable in using a specific product
regularly, they will recommend it to others from using the product as well. (Silverman 2001).
Stages in decision making involves many psychological factors, which the above five-stages
buying model has failed to explicate; thus, the following discussion focuses on attitude and the
psychological components mentioned in the information processing theory proposed by
Bettman (1979).
2.3 Attitude
Personal attitude towards products and brands, has been underlined in the buying model, due to
the fact that attitudes are closely related to consumers’ information process in which judgments
are presumably based.
There are other factors influencing the consumer buying decisions, yet attitudes regarding the
product and brand are powerful predictors of the process and the patterns of exposure to
information (Fennis and Stroebe, 2010, 112). Attitudes are learned through past
associations/experience, through trails, as well as through information processing. It is
composed of three elements – cognitive, affective, and conative. Cognitive refers to the
awareness or knowledge, such as, a brand; affective are the positive and negative feelings
associated with a certain brand; and conative is the intention to purchase (Smith 1993, 82).
In general, individuals, for whom marketers most likely want to persuade, are the most
challenging to reach. Sternthal and Craig (1982) have implied few examples of a common

20
observation such as Republicans are more likely to be exposed to Republican propaganda than
Democrats, or nonsmokers comprise the majority of the audience for anti-smoking appeals, these
evident investigations have provided the fact that information exposure is selective.
In other words, in response to the findings, individuals’ initial opinions (attitudes) are important
determinants of the information they will seek out; as people are prompt to seek information that
is consistent to their initial thought, and keenly avoid those that encounters with it. (Sternthal
and Craig 1982, 83.)
An attitude is usually learned from the result of a positive or negative experience, which the
individual has with a certain product (Smith 1993, 82). In a review relating to the differences
between attitudes based on direct or indirect experience, Fazio and Zanna (1981) have stated that
attitudes based on indirect experience depends on the expertise and credibility of the source of
information.
2.4 Information Process Theory

For the purpose of this research, information processing theory regarding the consumer choice
has denoted how information is preformed, evaluated, and post-evaluated during the course of
the deicison process. The framework is interpreted into six dominant components – processing
capacity, motivation, attention and perceptual encoding, information acquisition and
evaluation, decision processes, and effects of consumption and learning (Bettman 1979).
2.4.1 Exposure
When consumers are exposed to information via mass media, it is considered as a passive
process in respect of information processing. However, since the information is delivered in a
faster rate, it tends to decrease consumers’ attention and disrupt cognitive elaboration (Moore,
Hausknecht, and Thamodaran 1986). Adversely, in situations where consumers typically seek
out information initiatively, the perspective in viewing information is considered as an active
approach (Sternthal and Craig 1982).
Sliverman (2001) has stated “most prospects are unwilling to take in relatively low priority
new knowledge” in other words, information overload makes businesses harder to draw the
attention of potential customers and to encode messages in their memories (Shapiro and Varian
1998). Also, buying decisions are often made very quickly, such as consumers are likely to
reduce the dimensions they consider during brand choice under the pressure of time (Wright
1974, see Ratneshwar, Mike and Reitinger 1990). At this stage, it is crucial to outbreak the
clutter/ noise. Individuals’ attention must be drawn to the incoming information (Sliverman
2001, 69), in which attention serves as an essential "tuning" mechanism in the active selection
of information for additional processing (Bargh and Pietromonaco 1982; Broadbent 1977;
Kahneman 1973; Neisser 1976; see Ratneshwar et al. 1990).
The fact that human beings have a limited capacity for processing information is a very
important notion, because it impacts the various components in the decision process; such
components as motivation, attention, information search and retrieval, and so on are subjected to
the constraints imposed by the processing capacity limitation (Bettman 1979).
2.4.2 Motivation
Bettman (1979) has hypothesized that choices are made to accomplish certain goals or purposes;
thus, it is a crucial concept in any theory of consumer behavior (18). Since individuals make
choices continually, therefore motivation impacts not only on the direction (affecting choice of

21
one behavior over another) but also on the intensity of behavior (the capacity allocations on a
particular activity).
2.4.3 Attention and Perceptual Encoding

Attention and perception are essence elements in explaining, partially, the selection of
information to attend to. Once an individual is physically exposed to the presented information,
the extent of the information reception depends upon the recipient’s attention regarding the
incoming information (Sternthal and Craig 1982, 88). In the perspective of psychology,
attention refers to the amount of mental effort or cognitive capacity allocated by an
individual to the stimulus environment or task at hand (Foxall et al.1998, 80). According to
Sliverman (2001), in order for the information to be processed, the recipient must pay attention
to it; in like manner to selective information exposure, attention is selective. Individuals are
highly selective in the kinds of stimuli that they pay attention to – focal attention, and tend to
neglect stimuli that are nonfocal (Fennis and Stroebe 2010, 51).
Focal attention is typically divided into two types – voluntary and involuntary (Kahneman
1973). Voluntary allocation of attention is, most often, impelled by the need to attain some goal
or is driven by long-standing involvement with the product area (Foxall et al. 1998), for instance
when individuals are hungry, they tend to pay attention to cues or seek related information in the
environment that signal ”food” (Fennis and Stroebe 2010, 51). Since voluntary attention is
highly selective, thus it is commonly found marketers devoting vast amount of money and time
in reaching involved consumer (Foxall et al. 1998). In contrary, involuntary attention is attracted
by environment stimuli (Foxall et al. 1998), such as salience, vividness, and novelty (Fennis and
Stroebe 2010, 51).
Sternthal and Craig (1982) describes attention can be enhanced by using a stronger signal to
engage focal attention such as, in a consumer marketing perspective, using frequent advertising,
or achieving concentrated distribution (louder noise being generated).
Individual tends to look for and see what they have expected, because interpretations of
information are quickly constructed in consistent with concepts in memory, and interpretation of
stimuli requires an actively analysis utilizing information stored in memory (Bettman 1979, 25).
People tend to be drawn towards environment where a disproportionate amount of information is
consistent with their initial opinion. Namely, individual typically live in a community with
individuals who share the similar values and perspectives, and it caters to their lifestyle; hence, it
is not surprising that individuals are unlikely be aware of information that is contradicted to their
lifestyles.
Perceptual interpretation of stimuli will often influence the subsequent direction of attention –
they are continually interacting. Since consumers are likely to respond to a louder noise, such as
a novel stimulus, such events then lead to interruptions of current information processing.
Bettman (1979) has further proposed two types of interrupting events, which seems most
relevant to attention and perceptual encoding – conflicts and learning about the environment.
Individuals can have various responses to conflicts, for instance ignoring it, changing emphasis
on certain criteria, search for new information, and so on. The second major interruption
highlights that individuals may often learn about the purchasing environment even if it may
not be relevant to current purchasing decision. Learning about the environment is aroused when
a certain of external factor happens to attract the consumer’s attention, for instance, consumer
may be attracted by an “interesting” package. (Bettman 1979.)

22
Many researchers (Krugman 1965; McLaughlin 1965; Posner 1973) have studied about the
phenomenon of learning about the environment (see Bettman 1979), it can be either with
voluntary attention involvement or with little conscious allocation of attention, however all
findings refers to the basic idea that learning about the environment is closely tied to current goal
(Bettman 1979).
2.4.4 Information Acquisition and Evaluation
Howard and Ostlund (1973) have stated that often times the consumers’ media selections of
the information source are determinants of the information to which the consumers will
be exposed (see in Healey 1974); that is, in the situation, consumers may have their preferences
regarding which online communities or blogs or so on whenever they seek for information.
Sternthal and Craig (1982, 83) have also indicated that consumers’ information exposure is
highly selective during the initial stage of information acquistion. When information is sought
externally – for instance from friends, packages, advertising, and so forth, the actual external
information found would significantly influence the future course of the search in which it may
involve changing the goal, and redirecting attention and perceptual encoding.
There are many circumstances that will impact the decision regarding when the information
search should be stopped, such as the perceived costs of obtaining information (e.g. time costs,
effort required, or financial costs), the information availability, and the value of the
information in helping to make a choice (e.g.
credibility, experts’ advice). As discussed previously, individuals may often learn about the
environment, in which results in information intake unconsciously; in other words, individual is
not actively searching for the piece of information. Advertising in this case is considered as an
interruption that leads to a goal reordering – for instance, consumer may purchase a product,
which is broadcasted on television.
Organizing the acquired information entails the combination of the bits of information that
the consumer has acquired (Sternthal and Craig 1982, 89). During this stage, consumer
relates incoming information to his or her existing structure of beliefs and values
(Bettman 1979). Many studies (Bettman 1979; Sternthal and Craig 1982; Fennis and Stroebe
2010) have proposed that the consumers’ responses and reactions to the incoming information
can affect the eventual impact of the information on the existing structure, in which whether the
piece of information will be integrated, ignored, distorted, and so on.
Howard (1977) postulated (see in Sternthal and Craig 1982) that if the alternative desired is
identified, then the consumer may search for information about prices and stores where that
alternative is available, for instance the price levels, locations, service capabilities, and so on.
Bettman (1979) has suggested that the relative information availability within the particular
choice environment affects the type of information consumer seeks for. For example, he
mentioned, particular alternatives may be only available at particular stores, or vise versa, which
makes the search for the dealer be extensive (120).
One of the issues that have to be denoted in Bettman’s (1979) findings is in regards of the
influences on the source from which information is sought. In his findings, he has brought up the
temporal patterns of source usage found in innovation search by Rogers (1962). Rogers (1962)
states that mass media sources tend to be used during the earlier awareness and interest stages of

23
adoption whereas word-of-mouth communication tends to be most used during later evaluation
and trial stage (see in Bettman 1979).
2.4.5 Decision Processes

In general, decision process takes place throughout the course of selecting information and
comparing purchase alternatives. Bettman (1979) has indicated that the decision process does not
follow a sequential flow, but rather a cycling procedure; that is, if conflict arouses, attention and
perceptual encoding may be redirected regarding the solution of the conflict, eventually it may
result in a change of decision choice.
2.4.6 Effects of Consumption and Learning

The consumption of the purchased products will most likely serve as a source of information to
the individual on future purchase decisions. Depending upon how consumers interpret the
outcomes they experienced, different inferences may developed accordingly regarding the cause
of the outcome, which can result in differing actions on future purchases (Bettman 1979).

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3 SOCIAL MEDIA
3.1 What is social media
Many researchers have come across the interchangeable usage of the terms
“social media” and “Web2.0” (Safko and Brake 2009, 6; Kaplan and Haenlein 2009, 60);
however, Safko and Brake (2009, 6) have stated out that these two terms are closely related yet
not exactly synonymous, and they differ in terms of usage. For the purpose of this research, and
in order to avoid any confusion, the above mentioned terms will be defined, despite the fact that
social media is the central gravity of the research.
In regards of the term Web 2.0, Tim O'Reilly, the founder of O'Reilly media, has coined that
"Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet
as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform." He has
further provided a general business aspect in relations of Web 2.0 as the “harnessing of
collective intelligence”, in which Web 2.0 provides platforms and fills the Web with user-
generated content where all individuals – the former audience are able to take part in
instead of important decisions made by a few people. (O'Reilly 2006.) Alternatively, Web
2.0 is a platform whereby content and applications are continuously modified and
exchanged by all users in participatory and collaborative manner, and no longer merely
created and published by individuals (Kaplan and Haenlein 2009).
There are still many ongoing debates and discussions regarding social media’s universal
definition; as social media has been transforming and merging into the evolving development of
New Media (Solis 2010). Regardless of what the standardized definition per se would be, many
of the existing studies and articles have stated out the common core purpose of social media.
According to figure 3, Dann and Dann (2011) have demonstrated how social media is formed
based upon the interconnected elements – social interaction, content, and communication
media. Social media has created a new landscape in supporting the socialization of information
(Solis 2007), as a result it has facilitated and enhanced communication flow by making it easier
and to more people, and to spread useful information with potentially vast online audiences
(Smith and Zook 2011, 10), in which the conversation may be taken place on media locally but
lead to a global impact.

25
Figure 3. Social media components (Dann and Dann 2011, 345)
Safko and Brake (2009, 6) have supported the concept proposed by Kaplan and
Haenlein (2009), as they have referred social media to “activities, practices, and behaviors
among communities of people who gather online to share information, knowledge, and
opinions using conversational media”. Nonetheless, social media expedites the flow of
communication by encouraging contributions and feedback from everyone who is interested, and
it is a two-way conversation when comparing to the traditional media because social media
outlets are open up to feedback and participation (Mayfield 2008).
At its essence, social media describes the powerful new ways individuals are engaging with
content on the Internet, and vice versa; that is, as many have observed, social media is user-centric
in which it emphasizes and facilitates the process of creating, commenting, editing and
sharing. More importantly, social media is the democratization of content. (Solis 2007.)
3.2 Types of Social Media

In the discussion regarding different categories of social media, five distinct types of social
media outlets are focused on – 1) social networking sites, 2) social news, 3) media sharing, 4)
blogs, and 5) microblogging. Each of these social media platforms has provided unique features
and experiences to individuals and entities, for instance marketers and consumers, in the social
media sphere.
3.2.1 Social Networking SItes

Social Networking Sites (SNSs) are platforms where individuals are able to connect with
others, for instance Facebook and MySpace. Social networking sites, as Weinberg (2009, 149)
states, “are generic terms for sites that are used to connect users with similar backgrounds and
interests”. These platforms, generally, have few common elements across most of them – (1)
users are able to create interactive and customized profiles, either a public or a semi-public,
within a bounded system, (2) a list of suggested “friends” with whom they share a connection,

26
and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system
(Boyd and Ellison 2007, 211).
To consumers, they are the outlets, which present wealth opportunities for establishing a closer
relationship with the brand via several functions – fan pages, plug-in applications, and groups.
Recently, Empathica have conducted a survey about the U.S. consumers’ usage of social media
to make shopping decisions. The survey population is more than 6,500 U.S. consumers, of these
consumers, over half (55 percent) have “Liked” a brand’s Facebook page, and 73 per cent have
claimed that their choice of recent store visit is influenced by a social networking site
(Dugan 2012).
3.2.2 Social News and Bookmarking Sites
Social News sites and Social Bookmarking sites, for instance Digg, Reddit, and Scoop.it,
are fairly similar, and are very much in the trend of online community. Social News enables
users not only to be in control of their news streams, but also allows individuals to “submit and
vote on content around the Web” but the core value of the latter one is to allow users “to collect
and interesting links they have discovers and may wish to revisit.” (Zarrella 2010, 103.)
In other words, individuals get to control and customized their news streams, this special
attribute of social news site facilitates the democracy which creates values to users. These sites
allow individuals to discover websites that a large number of people have already discovered;
some say social news sites have changed the concept of newspaper nowadays and are governed
by the “wisdom of crowds” (Weinberg 2009), due to the fact that the contents personal and
targeted news and they empower users by putting the audience in the center via active
discussions and which reacts on how readers interact (Baekdal 2009).
3.2.3 Media-Sharing Sites

Media-Sharing sites (e.g. Youtube and Flickr) are outlets where individuals can upload, store,
and share their multimedia files, for instance photos, videos, and music, with other users. There
are myriad opportunities through the engagement to these websites, because these certain
platforms within the social media segment has always been a stronghold to online societies, as
they provide users opportunities to create their own podcasts with affordable technology and to
propaganda their identical “channels” via subscriptions. One of the major elements of these
media-sharing sites has to be highlighted is the tag. “A tag is a word assigned to a piece of
content that helps describe it”, which means that businesses have to acknowledge the importance
of the search words on the search engines (Zarrella 2010, 81).
3.2.4 Blogs
A blog is an online journal which is as refer to a type of content management system (CMS),
typically maintained by individuals or groups, and featured commentary and ideas for a larger
group of audience (Safko and Brake 2009). Blogs create good hubs for other social media
marketing tools (videos, hyperlinks, pictures, and so on), because they can be integrated into the
platforms and posts; besides, blog software provides a variety of social features such as
comments, blogrolls, trackbacks, and subscriptions (Zarrella 2010, 9). On the other hand, Weber
(2009) has pointed due to the fact that blogs allow everyone to publish and to join multithreaded
conversations online, in which some of the bloggers have no editorial restrains and have access to
the entire Web; as a result, their posts can impact personal, products, or brand reputation
harmfully.

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3.2.5 Microblogging
Microblogging is a real-time information network, which shares similarity to blogging, yet it
limits the size (number of words) of each post and encourages a faster mode of communication.
Microblogging allows users to spread their short-texted messages via instant messages, mobile
phones, e-mails, or the Web. For instance, Twitter, launched in 2006, is one of the primal and
leading microblogs that currently has over 140 million users as of 2012 and handles over 1.6
billion search queries per day (Twitter 2011). Obviously, Twitter provides companies with
leverage via Internet traffic by creating a buzz on online communities, as users get the essence
and concise information through short-texted posts. Many companies have been using Twitter to
tap into the business prospects, influencers, and customers; by doing so, businesses are able to
take advantage in relationship building, achieving on-line and offline marketing objectives, and
brand building etc. (Weinberg 2009). Retweet is one of the most powerful mechanisms to
marketers, in which individuals can copy and paste what others have posted onto their Twitter
stream. Consequently, the certain tweet gets to spread virally in a furious speed (Ingram 2012).
3.3 Social Media and Marketing
Social Media Marketing is an umbrella term that can be described as the utilization of social
media platforms as marketing tools. According to Weinberg (2009), he refers social media
marketing as leveraging the ‘social’ through the
‘media’ to ‘market’ businesses’ constituents; in other words, it is a process in empowering
individuals to promote their websites, products, and/or services through online social channels,
to interact with and to tap into a much larger community that may not have been available via
traditional advertising channels.
It is no longer a striking fact that most of the advertisements via mass media are not as efficient
as in the past, because by advertising through the mass, the message is generally reaching far
more people than the potential customer intended to reach (Weber 2009; Weinberg 2009).
Social web is where people with a common interest can gather to share thoughts, comments, and
ideas; hence, instead of continuing as broadcasters, marketers should become aggregators
of customer communities; that is, the Web should not be considered as a mere advertising
channel, it is a place where marketers can listen and respond to communities, review contents, as
well as promote a particular piece of content within the vast social sphere (community building)
(Weber 2009).
3.4 What makes social media marketing special?

Upon the insufficient advertising budget that companies oftentimes encounter via the traditional
channels, social media marketing might be, particularly, easier and more effective for small and
medium-size companies to take maximum advantage of it. While social media marketing is an
evolving technology with much potential, yet marketing’s role still reminds the same – defining
the target market, communicating with prospects, building loyalty, customer
engagement and so on. (Weber 2009.)
Weinberg (2009) has proposed few reasons to tap into a solid social media strategy in addition to
(or instead of) the traditional ones, which are – facilitation in natural discovery of new
content, boost up in traffic numbers, strong relationship building, as well as a cheap
alternative to traditional marketing. Unlike the traditional advertising, individuals in the social
media era have access to contents that are not necessarily associated with commercial intent
(neutral); consequently, if a person like a content, he/she is likely to pass it on to their peers,
families, and so on via social sites, then content will be spread out quickly without interfering

28
with traditional marketing. (Weinberg 2009.) Social media offers opportunities to achieve
communities, once company has established its presence as a community participant worth
following, eventually others will be likely interested in what it shares and pass to the relevant
ones (Weber 2009). Besides, in the phase of the new marketing era, bringing the brand to alive
depends solely upon the engagement within communities (Weber 2009; Silverman 2001), as a
result if company is genuinely paying attention to the members of the community, a strong
relationship can be built upon investing time in responding on feedbacks and concerns.
(Weinberg 2009)
‘Mass media audience become more and more difficult to buy,’ said Martin Sorrel (1996)
of WPP (see Smith and Zook 2011, 282). The fortunes of advertising have grown alongside with
the growth of mass media, however this growth has stopped these years. (Smith and Zook 2011.)
In fact, there are many sport brands in the marketplace are taking social media marketing as a
vital component in their businesses, in which they look at effective ways to gain a more detailed
understanding of their social media fanbase. Nike has been putting more marketing muscle
behind its digital initiatives, for instance by taking social media marketing in-house, claiming
that online channels are more valuable to its business strategy than traditional
advertising. (Joseph 2013.)
3.5 Social Media: The New Mindset

In order to gain a better position in the transition from traditional marketing approach to social
media marketing, marketers will have to, firstly, change their marketing mindset. Social media
platforms has radically changed the approach of segmentation in implanting marketing strategy,
instead of easily identified demographics, such as age, gender, or income are relatively less
important, it groups people by what they do, think, like, and dislike, and more importantly by
their behaviors, also known as behavioral targeting. (Weber 2009.)
Many marketing experts (Drury 2008; Mayfield 2008; Weber 2009; Weinberg 2009) have
always emphasized that since marketing via social media is rather about receiving and
exchanging perceptions and ideas, which makes social media marketing no longer one
dimensional but a two-way process engaging a brand and an audience (Drury 2008) as well as a
creation of increasingly visualize contents (Weber 2009). Oftentimes, content is a critical factor
in achieving an effective marketing via social media; however, according to
Curata’s “B2B Marketing Trends Survey 2012 Report” (MarketingProfs 2012), companies seem
to encounter challenges in creating original content, having time to create it, and finding high-
quality content (see Jacobs 2013).
Drury (2008) has argued that with social media in particular, the content of advertising and
branding must be provided as relevant value-added content that is more about consumer, rather
than brash product placement. When companies help their customers through social media
outlets, it is more likely to build a long-term relationship, which will in turn propel and leverage
the brand awareness and growth (Young Entrepreneur Council 2012)
Besides, with social media, company is able to create the platform of true interactivity; the
American Express’ OPEN Forum is undoubtedly an outstanding case, which has surly surpassed
customer expectations when it comes to putting a customer first; because instead of heavily
promoting their traditional financial offerings on the community, the company has considered its
consumers and their concerns and needs while providing information about their services
(Weinberg 2009). Social media platforms serve as a tool for consumers who may not have an
outlet or support system to find one another; brands like Weight Watchers and Nike Women

29
have demonstrated how valuable social networking sites can be for bridging people who are
facing similar daily obstacles (Young Entrepreneur Council 2012).
In the foregoing chapter about the course of information search and evaluation in decision
making process, it has been discussed that individuals are likely to seek information that is
consistent to their initial thought, and keenly avoid those that encounters with it; as a result,
social media in today’s marketing provides linkages to connect individuals who share similar
interests and backgrounds, in which, to consumers, these communities serve as an vital "tuning"
mechanism in the selection of needed information among the overwhelming information.

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4 SOCIAL MEDIA AND CONSUMER

4.1 Social media as a mean of giving consumers a voice
Having explained the possible components involved in the consumer decision process, the nature
and the essence of social media, as well as having a brief discussion of the prominent features in
different social media outlets, the researcher believes that social media is an essential touch point
in today’s consumer decision process, from stage quo to the stage of post purchase; likewise,
companies are engaging with the purpose of creating brand awareness, engaging their existing
customers, driving traffic to other marketing properties and growing channel number (Zarrella
2010; Weber 2009; Weinberg 2009; Smith and Zook 2011). The following section discusses on
how consumers are affected by social media, and identify which would be the considerate phase
of the purchase process that marketers should tap into.
Regarding the information processing theory of consumer choice, it is mentioned that there are
vast amount of advertisements competing with each other in order to grasp individuals’ attention
(Fennis and Stroebe 2011) and the fact that human beings have an obvious limited brain capacity
in processing information; therefore, it is a challenge for each discrete message to get heard
above the din (extraneous factors that distract or distort the message), even if marketers have the
right message (Silverman 2001, 67).
Each of the social media platforms plays a role in giving out, receiving, and exchanging
information without any boundary limitations, and as mentioned previously that social media
enables two-way flow of information. Since the flow of communication does not merely impact
how companies can access their targeted groups, but also it influences throughout the entire
decision process, from interpreting the message, searching for available alternatives, as well as
actions carried out in the after the purchase; thus, It is important to denote that message rejection,
misinterpretation, and misunderstanding are the possible pitfalls in the flow of communication
(Smith and Zook 2011, 120).
In relating to social media marketing, the biggest fear of companies and brands is to give up the
control over the content, and the frequency of information; however, it is essential for
marketers to realize that reviews and discussions, as user-generated contents, serve to
demonstrate a company’s transparency. (Weber 2007.)
When Zagat and Amazon started inviting individuals (such as consumers and users) to give their
opinions, there was no stopping the trend (Weber 2007); that is, the communication in present-
day has drastically altered into a medium that is composed of millions of people who can
actually contribute or detract from a marketing message. Consequently, comparing to offline
traditional marketing channels (such as television, newspaper, magazines, and so on), word-
ofmouth solely relies on social media outlets in this digital age (Knowledge@Wharton on Forbes
2012), due to the fact that websites allow users to create their own virtual spaces in which fosters
and ignite the word-ofmouth. (Weinberg 2009.)
Conversation in traditional media is one-way: the company spoke, an audience listened.
Mass messages are filtered through opinion leaders to the mass audience, in which opinion
leader is very hard to be identified since they are not formal experts and do not necessarily
provide advice but have a certain degree of influence on consumers (Katz and Lazarsfeld
1955).
In the notion of communication models theories (Goldenberg, Han and Lehmann 2010), the
findings (Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955; Bulte and Wuyts 2007) have provided that opinion leaders
are those initially exposed to certain media content who interpret the message based on their own

31
opinion, and are more active than others both in seeking information and in conveying it to
others. (See Wuyts et al. 2010, 283-300)
According to Lazarsfeld and Katz’s hypothesis (1955), the information is channeled to the masses
through opinion leaders, who have a more literate understanding of media content, explain and
diffuse the content to others. Listeners, in turns, subsequently feed back to the opinion leaders.
(Smith and Zook 2011.)
Figure 4. Web Communication Model (Smith

and Zook 2011).
“Customer are screaming to be more engage with the companies that affect their lives,” is how
Diane Hessan, president and CEO of Communispace, describes the change of social media has
brought to consumers. She further addresses that “Blooming trends like blogging, online
communities, flash mobbing, buzz agents, and MySpace show that customers have a lot to say –
they want to be asked and they want to be involved.” (Communispace 2013.)
As it is said, social media has put consumers back to the center by enabling them to engage in
conversations, and neither decisions are no longer to be made by few individuals nor the
message being sent to the masses by the brand owner. Smith and Zook (2011) have pointed out
that customers, first, talk to each other (C2C) with the online platforms came the easier
facilitation of customer communities, and secondly back to the company (C2B). According to
figure 4, it has put forward that online communities have bridged the communication gap
between brands and consumers, and eventually this certain type of communication flow fosters a
web communications between customers and opinion leaders in which spins around the brand.
(Smith and Zook 2011.)
Mangold and Faulds (2009) has presented a new communication paradigm, figure 5, indicating
that the independency of social media platforms has amplified consumers’ ability to
communicate with one another, in which has profoundly affected consumer behavior, and has
bestowed consumers with power they have not previously experienced in the marketplace.
(Mangold and Faulds 2009.)

32
Figure 5. The New Communication Paradigm (Mangold and Faulds 2009).
Eventually, information and feedbacks are constantly circulating among the online communities
and individuals are able to access to the information easily. Besides, considering that an average
Internet user has 669 social ties (Hampton et al. 2011), as a result, word of mouth undoubtedly
works much quickly online comparing to offline.
Most of the diffusion modeling (describes the process of how new products get adopted in a
population) associated with marketing have suggested that the process in which a social system
adopts an innovation is largely based on interactions among potential adopters; in this regard,
consumer’s decision to perform an action may be influenced by the decision of those around
them (Hui et al. 2012).
During the phase of information acquisition in the decision process, consumers are influenced by
external and internal source of information, Glodenberg, Han, and Lehmann (see Wuyts et al
2010, 284) have explicated that internal sources of information are previous adopters of the
innovation who can influence potential adopters by digesting, analyzing, filtering,
customizing, and spreading word-of-mouth and functioning as role models in the market.

33
Figure 6. 2001 Google search for Comcast (Weinberg 2009).

Individuals were likely to use the same traditional media channels to read about bad products or
great ones from others who had firsthand experience, however, the advent of social media has
changed the situation in nowadays; that is, with cheaper and faster technology, the extent of
communication travels farther (Weinberg 2009, 12). He further explicates the proposed situation
with an example of a search for a company (Comcast) on Google between different time period,
in 2001 and in 2008.

34
Figure 7. 2008 Google search for Comcast (Weinberg 2009).
As shown in Figures 6 & 7, the differences yield in the search results during different time
phase, has clearly indicated that information is no longer controlled by a single entity (Weber
2007; Weinberg 2009). As the findings provided by Weinberg (2009), there are online platforms
dedicated to letting consumers fight back or rant about poor products or services, for example
blogs are now media for compliments about services or products or vice versa, and more than
half of eBay’s customers come from referral (Reichhfield and Schafter, 2000); in other words,
C2C communications can be viral negatively to company on the Web.
During the phase of mass communications, marketing guru Philip Kotler says,
‘Bad news travel faster than good news’ (see Smith and Zook 2011), therefore, it is not hard to
picture the speed of bad news travel in present-day is in a formidable fast speed, as social media
offers everyone an opportunity to their own message delivery systems, in which enables
individuals to share and link stories to one another. If the negative press is highly visible,
consumers may likely to look to a competing brand that is not facing a bad press while marking
the purchase decision. As a result, social media platforms have added more dimensions to the
communication, rather than having most of the messages flowing from the organization.
(Weinberg 2009.)
As a matter of fact, the proliferation of social media is a double-edge sword. While social media
has empowered the consumers due to they have access to information which previously was not
available for them, has accelerated information flow, as well as has allowed discussions
happened globally, yet social media has also offered marketers with the tools to better target
their consumers more efficiently, to cultivate relationship among groups of consumers, as well as
to exploit new opportunities (Constantinides and Fountain 2009). Indeed, the accessibility and
availability to information has resulted changes in individuals’ attitudes changes, which
eventually leads to new needs and buying behavior; it will be further discussed.

35
4.2 The Influences on Decision Making Process

As the business world re-centers around serving and delighting customers, CMOs are confident
that social media impacts sales, brand awareness, and loyalty (Olenski 2012); as a result,
social media data impacts their decisions while making predictions or forecasts. According to
social media marketing industry report, the social media realm is not a mere fad in which
marketers are increasingly attracted and 83% of them place high value high value on social
media of their businesses (Stelzner 2012).
Social media, as a new component, has further complicated the time-honored buying behavior
process theory wherein the buying attitudes are not impacted merely by the traditional channels
but extend to the online platforms. Preferences and decision marking are prompted depend
upon the inputs provided by parties beyond the control of online marketers, such as peer reviews,
referrals, blogs, social networks, and other forms of user-generated content.
Constantinides and Fountain (2008) have suggested an innovative Stimuli and Response model
based on Kotler’s (1994) framework, due to the increasing usage of social media. According to
the presented diagram, see Figure 8, within a traditional shopping environment, consumers are
most likely to be affected by the traditional marketing mix (e.g. ads on radio, newspaper,
television, and so on) and other uncontrollable stimuli (e.g. values, societies, demographics,
perceptions, and so on); however, with social media and Web 2.0, it extends to online marketing
mix (e.g. emails, banners, cooperate websites, and so on) and the social media experiences,
which are far beyond the marketer’s control.
(Constantinides and Fountain 2008)
Figure 8. Stimuli and Response model (Constantinides and Fountain 2008).

Since the contents on social media are rather democratic and neutral, according to Vollmer and
Precourt (2008), consumers are turning more frequently to various types of social media to
conduct their information searches and to make their purchasing decisions.

36
Reviews and user-generated contents such as rate movies, books, music, and other things on
social media are involved a high degree of personal taste and subjectivity to users, in
which these reviews have one overriding attribute that gives their influence on consumers’
purchasing decision – trust. (Silverman 2001.) “More than a quarter of social media users
say they are more likely to pay attention to an ad shared by one of their social
connections,” Bannon noted. “Additionally, more than a quarter of consumers are OK
with seeing ads on social networking sites tailored to them based on their profile
information” (Miller 2012); that is, individuals tend to trust these contents so as to filter, distill,
and objectively evaluate the mound of information (Silverman 2001).
Regarding the phase of marketers tapping into the purchase process with social media, Evans
(2008) has presented the classic purchase funnel model as an indicator of how social media has
impacted on consumer decision making process in different stages. Figure 9 illustrates the
purchase funnel and the buying phases of awareness, consideration, and purchase.
Figure 9. Classic Puchase Funnel (Evan 2008).
Consideration links the buying process activities by connecting awareness and purchase, thus all
considered factors, such as brand reputation, applicability, performance, and so on, trigger a
potential purchase. In comparison to traditional media, since social media connects with and
involves consumers from awareness all the way through consideration in which simultaneously
tackles awareness and consideration instead of inciting a purchase from the awareness perspective.
Google (2012) conducted a research in U.K, U.S, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, and Brazil
associating with the customer journey to online purchase, the research has shown different
marketing channels influence the customer at different points in the path to purchase. In all the
targeted countries, social media serves as an assisting channel in which to build awareness,
consideration, and intent earlier in the purchase funnel. Sliverman (2009) has also stated
that there are many brands competing for attention, therefore an interesting blog post or a
compelling video on YouTube can be the stage quo in which a prospect pays attentions and gains
awareness of a product or a service. During the stages of consumer decision process, social
media is applicable as both a prompt (awareness) and as a validation (support the purchase
decision takes place). (Evans 2008.)

37
As indicated previously, one of the most valuable aspects of social media is in building and
maintaining a feedback loop, as the conversations are more dynamic and flow in two-way. The
difference that social media has impacted on the purchase funnel is the accessibility and
transparency of experiential data generated by current customers for the benefit of the next
wave of shoppers and prospects.
Although there is an obvious decline in the usage of traditional channels both from marketing
and consumer perspectives, traditional media still takes a part of the picture in terms of
triggering awareness. Furthermore, Evans (2008) has explicated the importance to denote the
role of the social feedback cycle as a purchase validation tool (Figure 10); that is consumer
may find out a particular product or service or either television, radio, or magazine, and then
consumer can verify it on Internet. As it is depicted in figure 10, social media extends the
purchase funnel with the addition of post-purchase word of mouth and usergenerated contents;
that is, the post-purchase conversation is built up and validated via the collective wisdom of
crowd.
Figure 10. Purchase validation tool (Evans 2008).
Word of mouth is self-generating, self- contained, and it costs nothing, besides it is

increasingly manifesting itself through social media, where it spreads both farther and faster.
Silverman (2001) has suggested the phenomenon of individuals liking to review products or
services and engage in word of mouth is due to the basis of Zagat guides to restaurant, and it
expects consumers to vote on everything from cruise lines to cookware; as a result, customer
review becomes particularly important (Weber 2009) and word of mouth has become an attribute
of a product (Silverman 2001).
In contrary, the exposure of an ad in traditional media is limited to the direct or pass-along
readers. It is noticeable that the delivery of word-of-mouth is an efficient way to make
decision easier, instead of confusing and low credibility information in the form of traditional
marketing. (Silverman 2001.) The Social Web has had a pronounced impact on how people view
their ability to gather unbiased information, to seek, find, and obtain a wider range of
products and services, and to talk with others about actual experiences both before and
after purchase. The main objective of marketers, particularly with social media, is to get people

38
to talk about their positive experiences and to accelerate the spread of these contents around the
communities.

39
4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
4.3 Introduction
The objectives of this research are twofold – first to find out the components and variables
involved in decision making process; second to identify the changes that social media has
brought to the decision making process, in which, essentially by elaborating the difference
between marketing via social media and via traditional ones. This research strives to provide a
clearer, and perhaps a better, understanding to both consumers and companies of why, when,
and how social media has impacted on decision making process. It may also offer possible
insights for companies to identify the pitfalls and opportunities in the new marketing era.
In essence, the dominant approach of this research involves the development of a theory that is
subjected to a rigorous test, where the theoretical framework provides the basis of
explanation, permit the anticipation of phenomena, predict their occurrence and
therefore allow them to be controlled. (Hussey and Hussey 1997, 52.) Secondary data –
theoretical framework serves as the foundation for this research, and primary data aims to
answer the objectives stated in the research and to provide evidence in supporting the secondary
data. The primary data of this research were collected through questionnaires from individuals in
Finland.
Theoretical part regarding steps and components constituting the consumer decision making
process has demonstrated a systematic approach in buying of the stages individuals would
engage in a potential market transaction before, during, and after the purchase. On the other
hand, it has also identified the essence of social media marketing in which has illustrated a
clarification on the change of the nature in today’s marketing approach, and its effects on
purchasing decision.
The empirical part focuses on finding out how individuals in Finland process information on
social media before a purchase, the actions carried out after a consumption, as well as
what are their perspectives regarding the new marketing era, in particular with social
media. By getting a general perspective on the current buying behavior in Finland, this research
also aims to provide new insights regarding the impacts of social media on different
demographics (age and gender) in the decision making process.
The following chapter explains the choice of research method, how the data was gathered and
analyzed, as well as the evaluation of reliability and validity regarding the research.
4.4 Research Data and Data Collection

There are two distinct research methods – quantitative and qualitative, in collectiing data for the
purpose of obtaining information from them, to solve or answer a particular research problem or
question (Ghauri & Grønhaug 2005, 109). Quaitative data is any data collection technique or
data analysis procedure that generates or uses numerical data (Saunders et al 2009); whereas
qualitative data is in form of descriptive accounts of observations or analysis which is conducted
through the use of conceptualization (Ghosh and Chopra, 2003; Ghauri & Grønhaug 2005, 110).
Although it is usually better to link quantitative data with other methods (such as in-depth
interviews) in order to complement the findings of a research (Saunders et al. 2009), this research
is to identify the stage where social media has interfered in the consumer decision making process,
in which is to describe facts and reasons in different phenomena (social media and traditional mass

40
channels) and to explain the case-and-effect relationship between

overwhealming information on social media and consumers’ responeses.
For the purpose of this research, quantitative data was gathered and utilized. With the strategy of
survey, it allows the collection of a large amount of data from a sizeable population in a highly
economical way (Saunders et al. 2009), it is also a logical and critical approach which allows the
researcher to control measurement and outcome. Since the scope of the research focuses on a
geographical area; thus the aim of the research method is to reach individuals ranging in
different age and gender groups within Finland, and the more responses are collected the higher
the credibility of the findings are. Taking the sample size into consideration, the researcher has
decided not to conduct any in-depth interviews with the targeted respondents as the results may
be difficult to analysize due to the subjectivity of individuals’ beliefs and attitudes. Besides, the
survey was not created merely as a collection of quantitative data, because few open-ended
questions are included where respondents can have a chance to comment, to express, or to add
extra.
By adding open-ended questions to survey data collection, it helps the researcher to gain
valuable qualitative information and insights for deeper analysis. While comprehending the
qualitative data, Saunders et al. (2009) have mentioned summarizing of meanings as one of the
analysis processes, which implies condensation of meanings from the large amounts of text into
fewer words, while becoming familiar with the main themes evolved from data collection.
4.5 Research design

Again, the aim of the survey is to find out how, why, where social media has influenced
individuals in the process of decision making, as well as, hopefully, to identify new insights that
companies may take advantage of. The survey was carried out in the form of questionnaire.
Since there was only one chance to collect the data, the researcher had to identify precisely of
what data is needed, and to design the questionnaire in order to meet the research objectives
(Saunders et al. 2009). The questions (Appendix 2) for the questionnaire were designed and built
closely upon the theoretical framework – decision making process, information processing
theory, and social media marketing, which has discussed thoroughly in previous chapters of the
research. In order to ensure respondent decodes the questions in the way the researcher intended,
the clarity of the questionnaire structure was a dominant factor.
Since the researcher had to keep an appropriate length of the questionnaire, thus, not every
theory discussed previously could all be included in the questionnaire. The logical order of the
questions was structured mainly based on the steps carried out during the decision making
process – problem recognition, serach of information, evaluation of alternatives, final decision,
and post purchase behaviour. Components of information processing theory were integrated in
the questions as well.
As stated in the begining of the research, the researcher tries to examine the relationship between
social media and consumer behavior from a consumer perspective, therefore, they are many
questions subjected to indivduals’ beliefs and attitudes, which are expressed in the form of scale
questions. Condiering the matter of subjectivity, the use of close questions was critical in order
to allow statistical conclusions to be made in a relatively objective manner; likewise, a few open-
ended questions allow individuals to develop own responses, and may reveal attitudes or facts
(Grummit 1980).

41
The questionnaire was sent out via school e-mail (see Appendix 1) to all international business
program students and teachers in TUAS, as well as all personal contacts of the researcher who
are currently living in Finland, which yields the sample size to be approximately 150 individuals.
Participation was voluntary and the questions were designed in English.
4.6 Data Quality - Validity and Reliability

In order to ensure the validity of the research, the questionnaire was pilot tested, so that to refine
the questionnaire and to assure respondents will not encounter problems in answering the
questions (Saunders et al. 2009). Before sending the questionnaire to the tagarted respondents,
the researcher had consulted with and approved by the thesis supervisor when the questionnaire
was outlined, also it was sent out to few people in order to get suggestions and comments for
later modifications.
Analyses and conclusions of the research are made upon actual numerical facts of the colleted
data, in order to obtain verified and applicable data. As for the reliability of the research, it refers
to to the stability of a measure, and the extent to which the data collection method will yield
consistent analysis. (Saunders et al. 2009.) The sample group of respondents was decided to
enclose as many people as possible in order to receive many answers, and finally altogether 108
questionnaires were completed in which delivers a good range of answers to yield consistent
findings and sufficient extent upon; thus, reliable conclusions can be made.

42
5 DATA ANALYSIS
5.1 Background
This following section presents analysis made on the data collected from the questionnaire. The
set of questions based on the theories discussed in preceeding chapters were sent to all possible
individuals who are currently living in Turku Region, Finland. Each question and response
option associates with componenets of theories, and they have been modified in order to allow
respondents to understand easily and to avoid any potential error in misunderstanding.
Since the survey was sent out to approximately 150 individuals, and the number of participants
were 108, therefore the total percentage of responses was 72 (%).In total the questionnaire
contains 31 questions. Questions were divided into 6 stages according to the course of decision
making process: exposure, problem/ need recognition, search for alternatives, evaluation
of alternatives, final decision, and post purchase evaluation. In the upcoming sections,
analysis and the findings are presented; as for conclusions and further suggestions, they are
discussed in the next chapter.
Figure 11. Age Distribution
By asking these two general questions – gender and age may help to identify weather social
media has impacted the decision making processes differently based on these two segmentations.
From the received 108 questionnaires, 62 (%) of the respondents were female, and 38 (%) were
male. Four different age groups are covered by collected data, they are 18 – 21 years old (8%),
22 – 25 years old (68%), 26 – 30 years old (18%), and 30 years old or more (6%). Since the
collected data covers a wide range of demographic, therefore the following analysis is carried
out in examining the general consumers behavior in Turku, instead of a particular segmentation.
5.2 Exposure
Questions in this section were aimed to find out how individuals are exposed to information on
social media platforms in comparison to mass media channels.
Considering that, previously discussed in Chapter 2.4, information exposure is a critical
determinant in the decision process, because it may impact on how the information search is

43
taken place, and how the information will be processed in later stages. By identifying which
channels or platforms are mostly used, it can help to understand how consumers are actually
exposed to information and the type of source they are exposed to. Also, by comparing the usage
between social media platforms and mass media channels, it can reveal whether mass media is
lossing its effectiveness in advertising among the targeted group or not.
With the third question, it was identified that, among 4 age groups, social networking sites are
being used most (98%), and microblogging is being used least (11%); the rest were: blogs/
forums with 32 (%), social news with 12 (%), and photos and videos sharing with 63 (%). The
choice of the social platforms are narrowed down into 5 catagories, and the reason of doing so
has already indicated in the preceeding chapter (see chapter 3.2 of the research). As the
responses are illustrated in the following chart, it shows that the pattern of using different social
media platforms among different age groups are similar that social networking sites are mostly
used on daily basis.
Figure 12. Types of socail media sites used on daily basis
In the following questions (4 & 5), respondents were asked how much time they spend on social
media platforms and mass media channels per week. The reason is to examine whether the time
of exposure to information via social media platforms comparing to mass media channels may
imply to one of the reason that advertising via mass media may not be as effective as it was
before (see Smith and Zook 2011, 282).
Figure 13 and 14, below, have demonstrated that only 16 (%) of respondents tend to spend 10
hours or more per week on mass media whereas 27(%) of respondents spend on social media
platforms. As it is seen, there is a sudden drop in between 4-6 hours (30%) and 7-9 hours (15%)
usage in mass media channels per week. Despite the age groups, in combination of the answers,
an individual spends an average of 6.2 hours on social media sites per week.

44
Figure 13 . Time spent on social Figure 14 . Time spent on mass

media per week media per week
Also, with question 6, 58 (%) of the respondents had shown agreement that they are able to seek
out information initiatively with the social media sites. According to Sternthal and Craig (1982,
83), consumers in this case are considered as an active information process; whereas in the
passive process, information is delivered in a faster rate, it tends to decrease consumers’
attention and disrupt cognitive elaboration (Moore, Hausknecht, and Thamodaran 1986).
5.2.1 Attitude
Besides taking the type, duration, and method of exposure into consideration, attitude of
individuals is one of the critical factor in associate with the buying model. In order to uderstand
better the factors which cause attitude, and how attitudes affects and altered during the course of
decision making process, several questions were asked. Answers were combined into the figure
15.
With 48 (%), 44 (%), and 4 (%) of the respondents claimed that they sometimes, often, or always
have prejudgment towards products or services before any actual consumption. An actual
consumption in this case refers as trying or using the particular product or serivce. As a matter of
fact, the responses regarding question 11, ”Do you tend to seek out information that is
consistent with your initial opinion/preference for a purchase”, has shown similar
results as the tendency of having prejudgment before a consumption. Prejudgment leads to the
types of information which individuals would seek for. As Sternthal and
Craig (1982) have stated that individuals’ initial opinions (attitudes) are important determinants
of the information they will seek out; it provides the fact that information exposure is selective.

45
Figure 15. Prejudgment and initial search of information
There are many factors causing the individuals’ attitudes regarding particular products and
services, thus the selection of cause in question 10 was narrowed down into 6 factors, both
including direct and indirect experiences. Figure 16, below, indicates that besides ”information
from mass media” (28%), the rest of the factors are fairly spreaded.
Figure 16. Factors causing prejudgments

Among the list of factors, 79 (%) of respondents expressed that information from peers, friends,
and family members are the cause of their prejudgment, in which the credibility of source of
information is high. In contrary to the source of information from mass media, 70 (%) of the
respondents claimed that information from the internet (such as user reviews, blogposts, forums,
and so on) are one of the factors that influenced their attitudes towards a product or service. The
resons of causing this pheonomenon are discussed in the upcoming sections in associating with
the relevant questions.
5.3 Problem Recognition

In the stage of problem recognition, an individual may be triggered by an internal or external
stimuli; that is, in this research, social media sites and mass media channels are considered as the

46
external stimuli. By looking at the gathered data from the survey, there were 32 (%) and 35 (%)
of respondents were not sure and doubted about social media as a trigger to purchse; whereas, 32
(%) of respondents believed it is a trigger to perform a purchase. On the other hand, the
responses regarding the attrativeness of advertisments on mass media channels were
proportionally spread, with a 45 (%) no, and a 55 (%) yes. Besides, advertisements on television
are still considered as the most attention drawing approach, in which 39 (%) of the respondents
pointed out.
As aforementioned in the social media marketing chapter, although advertising through mass
media does not consider as powerful as it used to be, they still have a certain influence in
triggering or drwaing consumers’ attention. Adversely, the data cannot tell if social media has a
great effect in triggering individuals to realize their problems or needs which would lead to a
purchase.
5.4 Search for Alternatives

As the data shows, social media allows individuals to seek out information actively (see question
6) instead of reseciving information passively; therefore, it is important to identify how
information is accessed with the mentioned platforms, types of social media platforms are used
during the search of information, as well as how it can be benefitial to companies at this stage
via the available outlets.
A majority of respondents (in total 72%) has indicated that information searching is easier through
social media comparing to mass media, which has proven that social media has created a new
landscape in supporting the socialization of information (Solis 2007). However, information
searching does not necessarily mean the search is relating to products or services. Therefore, in
responding to this question, respondents were asked about the frequency of performing a search
via the social media before a purchase; as a result,
“sometimes” was chosen the most (37%) in comparing to “often” (25%) and “always” (8%).
This indicates that there are certain reasons which keep individuals in performing a search via
social media before a purchase, such as the credibility of the source, the available time, the
available information, etc.
Figure 17. The source of information on social media used most and least

47
Respondents were inquired the source of information on social media which they use before a
purchase base on the frequency, figure 17. Among the 5 catagories of social media, “online
forums/ communities/ blogs” (44%) is the source of information being used most before a
purchase; whereas most of the respondents (78%) have used the photo sharing platforms least.
As it is shown, the researcher has split the category of video and photo sharing platforms into
two – video sharing, and photo sharing, because the researcher has believed that a video sharing
platform (Youtube) will have a relatively greater impact to individuals as a source of
product/service information comparing to a photo sharing site (Flickr).
Due to the decline in the effectiveness in traditional mass media, it is noticeable that new
products, services, or brands are oftentimes neglected and are not able to overcome consumers’
filter. However, social media at this point helps these young products, services, or brands to
deliver their presence to individuals. 68(%) of the respondents has expressed that new products,
services, and brands are able to draw attention via social media sites comparing to mass media;
whereas there was only 9 (%) of respondents who has taken an opposite stand.
5.5 Evaluation of Alternatives

One of the profound changes that social media has brought to individuals is the ability of getting
access to any content. In theory, when consumers have accumulated sufficient information, they
undertake an alternative evaluation according to their motives or goals (Sternthal and Craig
1982). Direct or indirect experience serve as an indicator at this stage of buying process, in
which social media provides means for consumer to gather information of indirect experience
regarding their initial preference of purchase. The questions which fall under this section are to
find out the perspectives that consumers are holding towards information available on social
media and on mass media. By having an answer of it can lead us to an explaination of how social
media is interfering consumer’s deicsion making process before a purchase.
As in previous section, the findings have shown that social media has provided a more powerful
platforms where new products, services, or even new brands to be noticed in the marketplace.
However, this does not imply that social media could influence consumers to actually try these
products and services. In the gathered data, it reflects that individuals (64 %) are indeed
influenced to try new products, services, or brands because of the user-generated contents
(blogposts, Facebook status, user reviews, and so on) available on the social media. According to
the data, it reveals that contents available on the social media have a different degree of effect on
different age groups, which is presented in the following table.
Table 1. Influence of social media on age groups to try new products/ services/ brands
Strongly Agree Strongly

Age Group Agree Neutral Disagree Disagree
18-21 0% 67% 33% 0% 0%

22-25 12% 58% 19% 10% 1%
26-30 0% 58% 16% 21% 5%
30+ 14% 14% 57% 14% 0%

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In the theoretical part, it is mentioned that the determinants in the impact of indirect experience,
in which affects an individual’s attitude formation as well as the decision of the final choice, are
the expertise and the credibility of the source of information (Fazio and Zanna 1981). Since
both mass media and social media have provided certain amount of information to consumers,
and the critical determinant which differ them is the credibility of them. Thus, respondents were
inquired to mention their beliefs in how credible and reputable the information on social media is
comparing to those on meass media. 58 (%) of respondents believes that contents available on
social media have a higher credibility than thos on mass media.
Then, respondents were asked to express their opinion. Regarding the statement ”contents
available on social media have a higher credibility than thos on mass media”, 60 (%) of
the respondents who has agreed, or strongly agreed upon the statement have expressed their point
of view - contents available on social media are believed to be ”unbiased, more critical, trust-
worthy, real experience, and with less commercial basis”, and one even pointed out that
”blogger who (s)he has followed for a period of time allows him/her to know what the
person (blogger) is like and makes her/him to respect the blogger’s opinion ranther than
opinion from random people in advertisements”. Also, it is also seen that information is
”easier to find” and ”information spreads faster and in large numerous” on social media
has created a higher credibility than information on mass media.
On the other hand, 18 (%) of the respondents have hold a disagreement upon the credibility that
social media has comparing to traditional media. In summary of their opinions behind the
disagreement, 55 (%) of the disagreements has reflected the concern about the possibility of the
false information, because ”information on blogs is mostly opinions of people but not fact”
and usergenerated contents can also be paid editorials and with commercial basis.
Both communication models of traditional media and social media (see chapter regarding social
media and consumer) have mentioned individuals who share their reviews, comments, or
experiences though the social media can be referred as opinion leader, in which they have a
certain degree of influence on consumers. With the available platforms on social media, the
gathered data has proven that information is easier to find and the flow of information is faster
and access to more individuals; that is, everyone can be an opinion leader and has a certain
degree of influences on the Internet over the others.
Most importantly, as mentioned in the theoretical part (social media and consumer) and with the
combination of the above findings, the social media enables information to go beyond the
company’s control which leads to a higher credibility of the source of information in
comparison to the information on mass media; 64 (%) of the respondents have agreed that the
statement as a critical factor.
5.6 Final Decision

According to five-stages buying model and information processing theory, they both have
indicated that stages in decision process are rather in a cyclic order, due to perceptual
interpretation of stimuli and attention are continually interacting. In other words, consumers may
learn about the purchase environment while the course of information, for instance to reduce
the risks of making an uncertainty, negative or unsatisfactory purchase, which leads to a change

49
in their purchase preference, establish new criteria not previouslt considered, and eventually the
search of information repeats again.
Since social media is considered as an extent of external stimuli in the decision process
(Constantinides and Fountain 2008), in order to examine the influence of information available
on social media on consumers’ decision process, respondents were asked whether they would
change their initial preference after carrying out information search via social media, and
to study the reason behing the change.
The data in Figures 18 and 19 have revealed that the percentage of respondents that has reflected
“sometimes”, “often”, and “always” as the frequency of pursuing an initial preference
before a purchase is 48 (%), 44 (%), and 4 (%); whereas, 57 (%) of the respondents
sometimes encounter changes in their initial preference after searching relevant
information on social media. 55 (%) of the respondents have stated that they are likely to
change their attitudes towards a certain brand or product or service after reading
positive contents on social media sites, yet there are 36 (%) of the respondents expressed
uncertainty regaring the issue.
Figure 18. Initial preference/ attitude before a purchase

50
Figure 19. Change of initial preference after a search of information

on social media
From the above, one can observe that information available on social media has a certain degree
of influence on consumer behavior; that is, a change in attitude (positive or negative) can be
made prior to purchase. Likewise, companies can utilize the platforms on social media to interact
with consumers in order to strive for building up a better and stronger relationship. Also, as it is
shown, social media can serve as a ”second chance” for companies to project their products,
services, or brands even if consumers did not consider initially.
Moreover, 70 (%) of the respondents have either agreed or strongly agreed that feedbacks on
social media sites do affect their purchase. This expression has indicated that consumers are
undoubtedly influenced by the infomediaries who publish their evaluations (Kotler and
Keller 2009).
5.7 Post-purchase Evaluation

After a consumption, consumers experience differently which leads certain levels of satisfaction
or dissatisfaction, and evaluates the wisdom of the choice made in selecting the alternative. Dann
& Dann (2011) have stated that social media is formed based upon the interconnected elements –
social interaction, content, and communication media; that is, social media enables a two-
way conversation, and enhances the communication flow by encouraging individuals whoever is
interested to join the conversation. Thus, after a purchase and a consumption, it is critical to
identify the actions of individuals would carry out in particular with the access to social media
sites.
As the below Figure 20 shows, when respondents were asked if they were likely to share their
opinions (comments, reviews, or related articles etc.) to peers or friends via social
media after a purchase, only 4 (%) and 8 (%) of the respondents have shown that they
“always” or “often share their comments regarding the purchase”.

51
Figure 20. Tendency in passing of information on social media after a

purchase
Then, the following questions were asked ”do you agree that social media has provided an
effective and powerful platform for consumers to communicate with each other and with
the companies”, and the answers were within expectation that majority of the respondents (78
%) have agreed or strongly agreed upon the statement, while 3 (%) of them have shown
disagreement. However, when they were inquired wether they feel encouraged to voice their
opinion after a purchase via social media platforms or not, the data has revealed that many
of the respondents do not feel the encouragement even if there is available platforms on social
media.
Figure 21. Available platforms vs. Willingness to voice out

52
As Figure 21 has shown the comparison in percentage between two variables – available of
effective communication platforms and whether individuals are encouraged or not. It is observed
that even social media has provided an effective communication platform to consumers, yet
individuals do not feel encouraged to join the conversation. In this circumstance, as a purchase
validation tool (Evans 2008), social media cannot be used to the fullest in promoting consumers
to “talk” and linking these “talks” back to the consideration stage of the decision process
among the respondents.
From one of the collected opinions (question 31), the respondent has denoted that mass media
oftentimes initiates a thought in purchase or introduces a new product, then (s)he will then use
social media to seek information relating to certain products or services. This indication has
proven that social media, according to Evans (2008), has added an important value to the
purchase funnel of nowadays, which is the role the social feedback cycle as a purchase
validation tool. Consumer may find out a particular product or service or either television, radio,
or magazine, and then consumer can verify it on Internet.
5.8 Big Picture of the Entire Process

As a consumer, the researcher has always realized that social media has affected her decision
making processes without paying much attention to it; thus, the last two questions were based on
the researcher’s personal interest that to find out whether individuals are well-aware of the
degree of impact that social media has brought to the stages involved in their buying
decision, and their opinions regarding the biggest difference in making a buying decision
between using information from the social media and information from the mass media,
the findings are demonstrated in below table 2.
Table 2. Impact on stages in decision making process
After comprehending the results, one can notice that the stage of exposure is the most affected
while the stage of problem recognition is less affected; in which corresponding to the previsous
question of asking whether respondents are triggered to make a purchase because of
social media and the result has shown that only 32 (%) of the respondents have answered
”yes”.
The data unfavors to conclude a statement regarding the stages of search of alternatives,
evaluation of information, and post-purchase evaluation, due to the findings have yielded to the
same percentage (27%) in the category of ”I don’t know”. However, considering that there were
38 (%) of the respondents have chosen the degree of impact as ”affected” which is slightly
higher than those who have chosen ”I don’t know” (27%) during the stage of evaluation of
information; therefore, this may also refer to the degree of influence that social media has in this
particular stage.

53
Last but not least, respondents were given a chance to express their opinions freely regarding
the usage of information from social media and those delivered through mass media
before making a purchase decision, which researcher believes it as a profound factor of
differing social media from mass media and eventually has created a new landscape in today’s
marketing; thus, it hereby implies a support of all the above findings of how social media has
impacted consumer decision making process at each stage.
Since there is a large amount of feebacks (97%) has collected (see appendix 3), therefore the
researcher has composed a summary from the received opinions regarding the point of view that
individuals have towards social media and mass media.
In regards of the nature of the information on social media, two factors have been mentioned
from the received comments – accessibility and transparency of the information; it has
proven the suggestion made by Evans (2008) for the purchase funnel in present-days, in which
social media has imapcted by providing experiential data from current customers for the benefit
of the next wave of shoppers and prospects. (see Chapter 5.2 of this research)
“you can attain information very quickly through social media networks whereas in mass
media the situation is quite different in that you have to rely on for instance magazines or
TVs and that takes really time”
“Customer experiences, word of mouth, going behind the marketing and advertising
mumbojumbo/polished slogans”
“When using social media, you can actually search for the aspects that interest you”
Many of the respondents have stated that social media not only enables them to obtain
independent, reliable, detailed, and a great range of information about the products and
services, but also empowers them to control their information in the own interest, for instance
the ability to skip advertisements on social media sites. The provision of information is
made by different entities/ a third party , such as bloggers, individual uers, consumers, as
well as companies; that is, information on social media is considered as real information, real
life experiences, and more subjective due to the accessibility to different user experiences
from real consumers, in which entails both negative and positive remarks of the product and
service.
”You have to filter the information from hundreds of users' opinion and comment. then
make the decision of purchase yourself”
“…in case of social media, I should take care each person's (internet user’s)
reputation is with it.”
Differences during the course of obtaining information on social media and mass media were
also mentioned in the answers. One of the respondents commented ”I always use other
people's (friends', bloggers') opinions when buying cosmetics, because the mass
media NEVER tells enough of the cosmetic products”, this shows that relative
information availability within the particular choice environment affects the type of
information consumer seeks for (Bettman 1979). With social media, the quantity of information
concerning any kind of products or services is particularly enormous when comparing to mass
media; hence, some of the responses have indicated that individuals have to filter out the relevant
information based on whay they are looking for, which in responds to the behavior in association
with contents evluation as Silverman (2009) has denoted (see Chapter 5.2 of this research).

54
“In social media you can argue with friends about your future purchase, shortcomings and
their previous experience with the same products”
“…able to make a comment and discuss and others”
In comparison to mass media, due to the independency of social media platforms (Mangold and
Faulds 2009), respondents have mentioned the social media has amplified consumers’ ability to
communicate with one another and interactivity among consumers who have purchased
the same products available, wherein they can look for help by communicating with experts
once they have an uncertainty towards a purchase, and they are able to get immediate
reply and information. On the other hand, due to the vast amount of quick and easy-access
information available to everyone on social media, few respondents have concerned about the
possibility of attaining fasle information, such as exaggerations or fake descriptions.
Besides, there are few intriguing responses that the researcher has come across to:
1. Some of the purchase decisions are taken place in the actual shop by comparing the
packages and prices etc., the only time they check reviews or ask from peers is when
when they have to make bigger purchases.
2. Respondents are aware of themselves being an active role in information exposure.
3. Traditional media still takes a part of the picture in terms of triggering awareness –
“From mass media adverticing I might by something that I have not been looking
for, a good deal” commented one of the respondents.
6 CONCLUSION
6.1 Outline
The motive of the research was triggered by personal interest in how consumer behavior has
changed in the Digital Age, in particular with social media. The amount of information available
to us increases in each new day, as a result, we are overwhelmingly exposed and attained to
different aspects of information via the Social Web. The accessibility and transparency that
social media offers has led changes in how consumers position themselves in today’s market, in
which it is inevitable and necessary for companies to equip with a new marketing mindset. The
central gravity of the research was to explain why, when, and how social media has impacted
on consumer decision making process both in theory and in practice.
There is a generous amount of reports relating to social media marketing which are primarily
aimed to help businesses benefit from this marketing trend. Oftentimes, businesses assume that
they are on the right track in the new marketing era, for instance engaging customers by creating
a Facebook page; in fact, customers may not share the same picture as businesses may have.
Therefore, the research was carried out in the perception of consumers (in Finland), which
was aimed to explain the impacts of social media on different stages in their decision making
process, by finding out how consumers perceive social media in the entire process.

55
Additionally, the research, perhaprs, could help company to gain new insights from this
perspective and to identify potential pitfalls and opportunities via social media, for instance
to develop appropriate ways to tab into the decision making process at the right time or to
have a better understanding of why their social media marketing campaigns may not be
executing as they would have anticipated.
Essentially, the theoretical framework of this research was built upon consumer buying model
and the changes social media has predominately brought to marketing. The five stages in the
buying model served as a basis of the logical order of how the survey was carried out and the
theories in social media provided guideines on which set of questions would grasp the research
questions.
The following chapter presents the conclusions drawn from the research findings. Nontheless,
further discussions and limitations are outline and deliberated.
6.2 Conclusion
The objective of the research was to to explain why, when, and how social media has impacted
on consumer decision making process. Research questions were designed to narrow down the
subject and to help the researcher to identify the explanations of the issue. The three research
questions for this thesis were as follow:
1. How do consumers attend, process, and select the information before a purchase?
2. What are the differences between marketing on social media and through mass media?
3. What are the changes social media has brought to consumers in different stages of their
decision making?
To begin with, social media has brought profound changes to both consumers and businesses,
the findings of this research are consistent with the theories presented in the theoretical
framework, Chapter 2 to 4. The collected data from the survey is elaborated in association with
the presented theories in Chapter 6 Data Analysis of the research.
In terms of the first research question, th five-stage decision making model has provided a
systematic approach in outlining the general stages that consumers engage in all purchase, while
the information process theory addresses an indepth perspective of how information is in used of
throughout the course of decision making.
The aforementioned theories and the data analysis of the research have both proven that, no
matter it is in association with social media or mass media, consumers are highly selective in
attending, process, and selecting the information before a purchase takes place. Information
exposure is highly selective in the initial stage of information, because consumers have the
selections of information source, in which determinates the type of information that consumer
will be exposed to. To be noted, personal attitude is a crucial factor which underlines during the
course of information acquisition and evaluation. As a result, not ony judgments regarding
products or services are presumably based, but also it is an vital determinant of the information
consumers will seek out, in which it eventually affects the extent of the information reception.

56
At the essence, all platforms available on social media have offered a two-way communication
flow, which is highlighted theoretically and practically. Consequesntly, this principle feature of
social media has created a new landscape in supporting the socialization of information, and has
forced marketers to give up what they old mindset in dealing with mass media marketing. As the
collected feedbacks from the individuals, it has emphasized that, in particular with social media,
consumers are able to access to customer experiences and word of mouth, in which supasses the
marketing and advertising mumbo-jumbo or polished slogans.
In other words, marketing via social media is more about creating high-quality contents that are
consumer relevant (Drury 2008), instead of being a brash product placement. Moreover,
marketing through social media focuses on building relationships between consumers and
companies. The research findings have shown that the position of the consumer in the new
marketing approach is the centralized gravity, because consumers are empowered. As many
respondents have reflected that social media has provided a more effective platforms to
communicate with one another and with the company.
Finally the core objective of the entire research was to find out the changes that social media has
brought to consumers in each stage of their decision making process. According to the findingd,
social media still cannot be considered as a powerful tool to trigger a purchase in Finland,
whereas individuals have reflected that mass media still remains a certain influence in gaining
awreness, for instance discounts available in stores, or a good deal. Social media has considered
as a powerful tool in getting relevant information, while mass media creates awareness of certain
discounts or promotions.
In theory, information exposure through mass media is considered as a passive process as
individuals are exposed and receiving information unconsciously. However, when consumers
seek out information initiatively, it is perceived as an active process. In the research findings,
consumers play an active role in the course of information acquisition because of the
accessibility and availability of information on social media platforms.
The accessibility and transparency of information that social media has offered to consumers
have been indicated throughout the entire research. Consumers are able to access to relevant
information not only in a great range but also in a faster speed, which mass media consumes
more time in searching information. In contrary, contents are not in control and monitored, thus
the chance of getting fasle and nonfactual information which the consumers have shown concern
of. In terms of a business context, marketers have to be aware of the bad mouth on social media,
because it can be spread virally and led to a damage to brand’s reputation.
The research finding has revealed the current situation concerning consumers’ post purchase
behavior in Finland. Many individuals have noticed and agreed that with social media, they are
able to voice out their opinions and to communicate with other consumers and with the company
more effectively. However, again, many of them have felt not encouraged to voice out their
feedbacks and to pass along their comments to peers, friends, or family members via social
media. In responding to the purchase validation tool (Evans
2008), the reason why social media has added value to today’s marketing is by bridging up the
post-purchase word of mouth with the consideration stage of the consumer decision
process, which has extended purchase funnel. Specifically, due to the word of mouth and user-
generated contents on social media, the
”talks” are able to generate an experiential data for prospects; however, the findings have shown
that the word of mouth would be insufficient for the influence because of unwillingness to share
the information via social media. In the perspective of marketers, this pitfall may serve as a

57
bottleneck in association with marketing via social media; thus, marketers should identify the
reason of this particular negative feelings among consumers and initiate consumers to participate
in the conversations.
Social media has altered the communication model which it uesd to be in mass media (see Smith
and Zook 2011), instead of having companies deliever messages to the public all times, social
media has fostered a web communications between customers and opinion leaders in which
spins around the brand; consequesntly, this particular new communication flow has built
interactivity and communities among all users, which the effects of it has penetrated in every
stage of the decision making process. This influence has been reflected from the collected
opinions (see Appendix 3).
To conclude, from the findings of this research, it can be observed that consumers in Finland are
actively utlilizing social media platforms as a tool in validating of the purchase decisions;
however, consumers are deemed to be inactive in sharing their word of mouth to others with the
available social media platforms. The consistency in the gathered data and time-hornoured
theories relating to consumer behavior and contemporary frameworks regarding social media
marketing, it has suggested that the essence of consumer behavior still remains the same even
after the advent of social media, in which individuals have to go through the all the stages before
a purchase, instead of straight to the purchase decision once a thought of purchase being
triggered.
6.3 Future Research

Considering the limited time and scope of this research, many theories related to the subject were
covered but in a rather general perspective so as to provide a big picture for the readers.
Therefore, if further research could be conducted, then an in-depth survey should be carried out
in tackling the research objective.
It would be undoubtely useful and interesting to have a case company as a reference of the
research. By studying the case company, it may offer a comparison between what company
thinks it is working out, and what does its consumers actually perceive. Would the result reflect a
diverse perception from two different parties in regards of social media and decision making
procee? The reults could help company to gain an evident insights and to identify actual tactics
to tackle the situation.
Since research has revealed that consumers do not feel encouraged to generate the word of
mouth through social media, and this indications may imply that marketers would have to carry
out certain actions in order to provoke these conversations. Therefore, a furture research can be
conducted based on this perspective in investigating the reasons associating with this particular
feeling and how it could be altered in order to utilize social media as an effective purchase
validation tool.
Nonetheless, if further research could be conducted for companies , then theories could be
implied more accurately, because some of the theories are propsed and developed in aiming to
help companies to gain a better postion in the transition from the traditional marketing approach
to the new marketing mindset. In that case, findings and conclusions could be drawn without
vagueness.
6.4 Limitation

58
Despite the fact that theories were approved by findings from survey and the research is able to
provide a certain degree of new insights in relating to the current situation, limitations may still
exist.
In the foregoing chapter the above findings cannot represent all individuals across Finland as a
whole, due to the decision making process involves psychological factors which may result in
different behavioral actions. Also, regarding the summarization of question 31 in the survey, it
may result in the lack of objectivity because the researcher may only highlight the comments
according to the researcher’s intention.

59
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Appendix
Cover Letter
Dear all,
I am Ethel Lee, IB09, and currently writing my thesis about the impacts of social media on
consumer behavior. The survey will only take few minutes to answer, and your answers will
have a huge contribution to my thesis writing.
Here is the link:

http://eSurv.org?s=OCLMMO_5aabafdc
I very much appreciate that you take time to fill out the survey. Your responses will help us to
understand more about the changes social media has actually brought to us. Your responses are
voluntary, anonymous and confidential.
Responses will not be analyzed individually.
Best Regards,
Ethel.

Appendix 2
Questionnaire Form
Impacts of social media on consumer decision making process
General Backgroud
1) Age
Under 18
18-21
22-25
26-30
30+
40+
50+
2) Gender
Female
Male
Exposure
3) Which of the following social media sites you are using on a daily basis?
(Please select all the platforms you are using)
Social Networking Sites (e.g. Facebook)

Appendix 2
Microblogging (e.g.Twitter)
Blogs/ Forums
Social Bookmarking Sites/ Social News (e.g. Reddit, Digg)
Photo & Video Sharing Sites (e.g. Flickr, Youtube)
4) Time (approx.) spent on social media sites per week
0 hour
1-3 hours
4-6 hours
7-9 hours
10 hours or more
5) Time (approx.) spent on the mass media (TV, radio, magazine, newspaper and so on) per
week
0 hour
1-3 hours
4-6 hours
7-9 hours
10 hours or more

Appendix 2
6) Do you think that with the social media sites, you are able to seek out
products/services information initiatively (actively)?
Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
Attitude
7) Do you have prejudgement (positive/negative) towards a particular product and/or service

before an actual consumption?
Always
Often
Sometimes
Seldom
Rarely
Never

Appendix 2
8) Which of the following factors are the cause of your prejudgement? (You may select
more than one answer)
Previous experience
Knowledge or awareness of the brand
Brand reputation
Information from the internet (e.g. user reviews, blogs, forums, and so on)
Information from the mass media (e.g. TV, radio, magazine, and so on)
Information from peers, friends, or family members
9) Do you tend to seek out information that is consistent with your initial opinion/preference
for a purchase?
Always
Often
Sometimes
Seldom
Rarely
Never
Problem Recognition
10) Does social media triggers you to purchase a product/service?

Appendix 2
Yes
No
Not sure
11) Do you find advertisements on mass media are still attractive?
Yes
No
12) Which of the following mass media channels you still find attractive?
TV
Radio
Newspaper
Magazine
Other (Please Specify)
Search for alternatives
13) Do you agree that information searching is easier via social media comparing to mass
media (e.g. TV, radio, newspaper, and so on)?
Strongly Agree
Agree

Appendix 2
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
14) Do you search for related information on social media before a purchase?

Appendix 2
Always
Often
Sometimes
Seldom
Rarely
Never
15) Rank on a scale of 1 to 5 for the source of information on social media you use before a
purchase. 1 being least, 5 being most
1 2 3 4 5
Facebook
Twitter
Online Forums/ Communities/Blogs
Social Bookmarking Sites (e.g. Digg)
Youtube
Flickr
16) Do you agree that, for instance, advertisements/blog posts/

FB pages/user reviews on social media influence you to try new brands/products/services?

Appendix 2
Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
17) Do you agree that social media has provided more effective platforms to new
products/services/brands to draw consumers’ attention than mass media channels?
Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
Evluation of Information
18) Do you agree that advertisements/ reviews/ blog posts etc. have a higher credibility than
advertisements/ editorials/ other marketing means on mass media?
Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral

Appendix 2
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
Why?
19) Do you rely on information available on social media if you have uncertainties regarding a
purchase?
Always
Often
Sometimes
Seldom
Rarely
Never
20) Do you change your initial purchase preference after searching relevant information via
social media sites?
Always

Appendix 2
Often
Sometimes
Seldom
Rarely
Never
Post-Purchase Behavior
21) Are you likely to share comments/reviews/blog posts/related articles etc. to peers or friends
via social media after a purchase?
Always
Often
Sometimes
Seldom
Rarely
Never
22) Are you likely to change your attitude towards a certain brand or product or service after
you have read positive comments/reviews/online articles etc. about it?
Yes
No

Appendix 2
Not sure
23) Do you agree that feedbacks (reviews/comments/posts and so on) on social media
affect your purchase?
Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
24) Do you agree that social media provides an effective and powerful platform for
consumers to communicate with each other and with the companies?
Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
25) Do you feel encouraged to voice out your opinion after a purchase via social media
platforms?
Strongly Agree

Appendix 2
Agree
Neutral
Disagree

Appendix 2
Strongly Disagree
26) Do you agree that information regarding products and services have a higher
credibility on social media than on mass media channels because the information is
beyond the company's control?
Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
27) In your opinion, which stage of your buying decision has been affected mostly because of
social media? Rank on a scale of 1 to 5. 1 being least, 5 being most
1 2 3 4 5
Exposure to product/service information
Problem Recognition
Search for the alternatives
Evaluation of information
Post-purchase Evaluation
28) Do you think that social media makes your decision making

Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
29) Factors that affects the length of your decision making process. Rank on a scale of 1to 5. 1
being least, 5 being most
1 2 3 4 5
Recourse (e.g. time, finance)
Amount of available information
Personal factor (e.g. pressure)
Uncertainty
Risk
30) In your opinion, what is the biggest difference in making

a purchase decision between using information from the social media and information from
Thank you for your time!

Appendix 3
Comments Collected from Individuals (Q.31)
1. I think the biggest difference between the two is the question of who controls the
information supplied: the company or the public? In social media, the
information is often independent of the company/organization while in the mass
media, the reverse is often the case.
2. It is easier to search on Internet.
3. Information is less biaised.
4. Perhaps the pressure that everybody is using a product so I have to do that to
5. you can attain information very quickly through social media networks whereas in mass
media the situation is quite different in that you have to rely on for
instance magazines or TVs and that takes really time. So social media more time
efficient and easy than the mass media.
6. Two way communication.
7. I don't have opinion as I never look for information from social media before making a
purchase.
8. More product details availability.
9. The reliability of information is greater in social media than mass media.
10. social media is cheaper for the companies who are advertising.
11. the biggest difference is that in social media u can argue with friends about your future
purchase, shortcomings and their previous experience with the
same products
12. The information provided via social media is usually more objective, hence making it
more credible.
13. In social media, there are both positive and negative comments on the products and it
allows more critical thinking on purchase decision. In mass media, only the positive side
is shown.
14. Customer experiences, word of mouth, going behind the marketing and
advertising mumbojumbo/polished slogans
15. social media gives more truthful information
16. From mass media adverticing I might by something that I have not been looking for, a
good deal. From social media I try to find information for a purchase I have thought
about and try to find the best deel for my need.
17. Mass media can be more easily paid to show bias, whereas social media is more relied
on individual's experiences and tastes.
18. The possibility for who ever wants to, to comment on a product. That's beyond the
control of the producer.
19. any one can get access to social media these days and ur not sure of the quality and the
description of the product is always 100%.more and more fake products are launched in
the social media these days
20. official and personal

21. no idea
Appendix 2
22. Word of mouth.

23. social media has more effect as you rely on your friends opinion more than just mass media
24. The amount of informationa available.

25. social media gives an opportunity to know a lot of different opinions of real consumers
26. Credibility
27. When using social media, you can actually search for the aspects that interest you, when in mass
media you cannot really control the information available to
you
28. I can get more genuine comments on social media.
29. I think information from social media is more reliable than information of mass media because
information from mass media is allmost everytime companies own advertisement.
30. In Social media we like to think that people tell the truth...
31. Social media is more trusted, affects your thinking. Mass media affects your feelings, with less
info.
32. availability
33. The comments written by the netizen.
34. Social media has real people i know using the product.
35. Information from social media can often be found more easily and in larger quantities. A large
part of it is also independent in the sense that the producing company has not paid the writer for
a positive evaluation.
36. credibility and the source of the information
37. Unwanted information is somewhat easier to skip on social media.
38. Reliability of the information- when using information available in social media, I can base my
decision on experiences of people who have actually used the products/services themselves. Also
as for social media, the people who
"advertise" or share teir opinions don't necessarily have any profit making purposes.
39. Social media are more direct.

40. trust on social media e.g. blogger
41. you feel more sure about the product and there is no feeling that you are dumped by the
company's ad campaign
42. n/a
43. Personal experience and feedback in first case
44. Company's control

45. In social Media there is different aspects on product and services (positive vs. Negative) however
in mass media it's only positive most of the time due to advertising payment.
46. Customer reviews. Opinions found online must be consistent with a trend (ie:
majority dislike/like the product) Will not fully trust reviews if there only a few. Mass media
provides only a biased view from the marketer.
47. When using social media you can get people's personal opinions
48. Social media is more appears to be more honest versus mass media.
49. real information
50. Feels more realistic when reading users' comments on social media sites
51. information from social media is more accured
52. more personal opinions or comments are given from the social media 53. You are able to
make a comment and discuss and others in the social media.
54. information from the social media reflects a more subjective opinion from the users while that
from mass media reflects a more objective one. info from
social media seems more reliable
55. User-based, more neutral information found, pros and cons can be found
56. the details of the products that we can gain
57. normally, there is no clearly direction of attitude from the social media
58. Social media still seems non-scientific, meaning it provides only subjective information. Though,
the opinions are honest, usually not affected by the company.
59. Info in mass media has been usually provided by the marketer whereas the information from
social media is from a third party and may not share the same thoughts as the marketing
company.
60. From social media I pick up the most negative comments from my friends to avoid their mistakes
and from mass media I hear about brand and make my own reserach after it.
61. the quantity and quality of the information of a particular product

62. I guess the biggest difference is that how much does a person use social media in the first place. If
one is mostly affected by mass media (like myself) one will more likely make purchasing decisions
by using the information given there. I'm always looking for creadibility and reliability no matter
what I buy, plus I think that brand is a BIG deal. Trustworthy brands can always make it, wether
they market themselves in social media or in mass media.
63. I'm available to reach different user experiences via youtube/blogs rather than only one sided
promotes from mass media
64. -
65. Mass media is mostly controlled by companies and profit seeking parties.
66. Don't have an opinion
67. In social media it's all about peer reviews and opinions from another average consumer. These
opinions (including negative remarks) can't usually be obtained in the traditional mass media.
68. No
69. personal experiences from others somehow become a good source of
information
70. Perhaps,mass media is the review of a product/service from one person published in a magazine
supported by a organization or company even enterprise. but when is about social media the
information could be provide by
different entities as blogers, normal users, consumers, clients, same company
71. -
72. In social media the information can be more personal.
73. The mass media doesn't necessarily tell you about the possible problems that the product has or
causes. E.g. I always use other people's(friends', bloggers')
opinions when buying cosmetics, because the mass media NEVER tells enough of the cosmetic
products.
74. Mass media is paid -not as honest. Items in social media can however become too popular, which
also decreases my will tu purchase if I want something unique.
75. question not clear

76. Reliability
77. Mass media might affect my thinking, but the final decision to buy comes from actual information.
78. Reviews of things that I plan to purchase are much easier to find through social media without the
overbearing initiatives of the corresponding companies to
pressure us to buy more
79. user evaluation, but not relying on a few, but many peoples opinions.
80. The immediacy and range of acquiring product information.
81. Information from the mass media is often too polished and lacks objectivity. In social media
people share their experiences honestly although people also tend to exaggerate and e.g.
sometimes their problems with certain products may
have been caused by themselves and therefore the opinion lacks objectivity again.
82. In social media you can also find out about the results or feedbacks of the products from the
consumers
83. "from mass media , we are passive to receive the poitive information from the brand.
84. But from social media, we can also get te information from the users which means we are no
longer passive to receive the info"
85. We have access to negative opinion on the social media but not the mass media
86. I can get more specific information via social media and also to read about other peoples'
experiences.
87. Information are coming from the consumer himself!
88. Information from social media can make the me more certain of the decision in both positive and
negative.
89. The advertisement from the mass media could be exposed unconsciously.
90. I actively seek info from social media for example about a certain product but the mass media info
gets me randomly
91. The social media provides more information, and of a different kind, including positive and
negatives sides of the product, as well as real life experiences. Thus, you are given more real
information to make a purchase decision. And also with the help of the social media, if you have
an uncertainty towards a purchase, you can go and look for help in the social media by
communicating with experts on blogs, people on forums who have used the product etc.
92. I trust information from the social media more since it is primarily from a third party rather than
the company itself.
93. subjective and word of click
94. The biggest difference is that I am able to access to information easier and faster comparing to
the mass media. And there are more immediate
information and feedback regarding a certain product/service
95. More information provided by other customers
96. Social media information are more reliable, of course there are people that are paid to review
products.
97. Information from the social media : Users' feedbacks seem like more realistic
98. information from social media is more diverse, there are many sources.
99. easier and quicker to use social media
100. the social media usually show more effective and efficient details about experience of using the
product, while the mass media is much better and more useful to promote the brand value.
101. the social media allows interaction with people who have purchased the same product, which is
what the mass media does not provide
102. you have to filter the information from hundreds of users' opinion and comment. then make the
decision of purchase yourself.
103. I think using information from the social media is more reliable.
104. i don't know, i do not follow a lot of bloggers and im not in twitter etc. I make most of my
purchasing decisions in the actual shop by comparing the packages and prices etc. Bigger
purchases of course are considered before-hand, that is
the only time i take time to check some reviews or ask questions from peers
105. The reliability
106. information via social media might in general be more persuasive to me. Take facebook for
example, all of my friends on facebook are people that i know personally, so i know how credible
these people are
107. In case when I purchasing with mads media, media shows only good points about products, but in
case of social media, I should take care each person's reputation is with it.
108. I have more information and feedback from social media and those are mor reliable

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Research Proposal

METHODS OF BUSINESS RESEARCH

”IMPACTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON CONSUMERS BEHAVIOR (DECISION MAKING PROCESS)”

Direct variable questions (social media)

(Please select all the platforms you are using)

a) Social Networking Sites (e.g. Facebook)

2. Time (approx.) spent on social media sites per week

5. Do you agree Social media triggers you to purchase a product/service?

Indirect variable (consumer behavior)

7. Do you rely on information available on social media if you have uncertainties

a) Exposure to product/service information

a) Recourse (e.g. time, finance)

Thank you for your time!

Respondents: students and teachers of Sukkur IBA University

Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA)

IMPACTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON

BACHELOR´S THESIS | ABSTRACT

International Business | Bachelor of Business Administration

May 2013| 77 pages

IMPACTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON CONSUMER

BEHAVIOR. DECISION MAKING PROCESS.

Social media, consumer behavior, marketing, decision making process.

Appendix 1. Cover Letter

Figure 1. The 5-Stage Decision Making Model (Silverman 2001.) ............................... 11

“Traditional marketing is not dying – it’s dead!”

TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES THESIS | Ethel Lee

1.1 Objectives of the research

1.2 Scope and limitation of the research

TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES THESIS | Ethel Lee

2.2 Consumer Decision Process

TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES THESIS | Ethel Lee

Figure 1. The 5-Stage Decision Making Model (Silverman 2001.)

2.2.1 Problem recognition

2.2.2 Search of Infomation

TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES THESIS | Ethel Lee

2.2.3 Evaluation of Alternatives

2.2.4 Final Decision

TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES THESIS | Ethel Lee

2.2.5 Post Purchase Decision

TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES THESIS | Ethel Lee

2.4 Information Process Theory

TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES THESIS | Ethel Lee

2.4.3 Attention and Perceptual Encoding

TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES THESIS | Ethel Lee

2.4.4 Information Acquisition and Evaluation

TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES THESIS | Ethel Lee

2.4.5 Decision Processes

2.4.6 Effects of Consumption and Learning

TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES THESIS | Ethel Lee

TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES THESIS | Ethel Lee

Figure 3. Social media components (Dann and Dann 2011, 345)

3.2 Types of Social Media

3.2.1 Social Networking SItes

TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES THESIS | Ethel Lee

3.2.3 Media-Sharing Sites

TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES THESIS | Ethel Lee

3.4 What makes social media marketing special?

TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES THESIS | Ethel Lee