International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Research (IJSER)

ISSN (Online): 2347-3878

Impact Factor (2018): 5.426

Impact of Social Media on Consumer Behaviour in

Indian Context
Dr. Chitranshi Verma

Abstract: Today social media is playing such a big role in our daily lives that we can’t even imagine a single day without it.
Technology has become so handy that every possible thing in the world is at our fingertips. In the present study, an attempt is made to
find out as to how individuals more particularly the consumers are affected by the plethora of social platforms and how is it shaping
their behavior in general, what motivates them and what kind of activities do they engage in and what challenges does it pose for
marketers. Social media is now a key component of organization’s marketing strategies. Surveys have shown that around 74% of
shoppers make their purchase decisions based on social media. Not only B2C but also B2B companies are gaining from it.

Keywords: Social Media, Consumer Behaviour

1. Introduction  Whatsapp

Social media basically means any human communication After Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest is 3rd most popular
or sharing information on internet that occurs through the social network in India.The site generates more than 400%
medium of computer, tablet or mobile. There are revenue per click as Twitter and 20% more than
numerous websites and apps that make it possible. Social Facebook. The other platforms in descending order were
media is now becoming one of the largest means of Instagram (35%), Pinterest (29%), Snapchat (27%),
communication and is gaining popularity rapidly. Social LinkedIn (25%), Twitter (24%) and WhatsApp (22%).
media enables you to share ideas, content, information and Instagram usage grew from 28% to 35% over the two-year
news etc. at a much faster speed. In last few years social period. Consumer’s online behavior is developing at a fast
media has grown tremendously at an unexpectedly fast rate. Consumers are taking part in a variety of roles
rate and has captured millions of users around the world. ranging from consumer content, participating in
Social Media today has emerged as a game changer in the discussions and sharing knowledge with other consumers
Indian market. With the advent of Information & to contributing to other consumer activities.
Communications Technology (ICT) , the market today is
witnessing a plethora of social media platforms. Social networking allows for the dissemination of a great
Nowadays, people from different walks of life whether deal of information about a company or product. This
professional or unprofessional, male or female, old or information isn’t limited to the company alone who puts
young has gained an easy access to technology. This in out there, because many sites within a social media
turn has facilitated the social interactions amongst the network are devoted to consumer-collected information.
individuals. People are becoming digitally addicted. The increased availability has changed the common
Social networking sites are emerging as pervasive form of consumer into a researcher. Before making a purchase, the
communication in society. Taking this cue, the marketers consumer can log on to a social media network and see
worldwide have got an opportunity to showcase what other people think about your products and how you
themselves along with their products and services to a handle customer service. The more information available,
bigger volume of population that is spread geographically. the more likely the consumer will make the buying choice
The marketers have also started relying heavily on this that fits his or her needs.
platform to reach out to the masses. This paper attempts to
analyze and study how the social media has taken over 2. Review of Literature
other marketing platforms and how has it changed the
behavior of the consumers with reference to Indian Various research findings have also supported and proved
markets. the fact that social media has become a weapon of modern
marketers nowadays. It has become an easy and very
Social media marketing is a process of gaining traffic and convenient tool to reach out to their customers. Laeder
attention through social media sites. The most popular ,James (2018) in his paper has concluded that Social
social platforms are: Networking sites are so designed as to make the
consumers addicted to them in such a manner that they
 Facebook establish the feeling of belongingness with them. This
 You Tube view has also been strengthened by the studies of Gao
 Instagram et.al,2017 and Yang et.al.,2016. These studies have helped
 Snapchat in better understanding of the determinants that how an
 Twitter individual consumer’s behavior is influenced by sense of
 Pinterest belonging. These studies have primarily focused on the
 Google + positive aspects of these on the consumer behavior, but it
can result in negative consequences too. In marketing,
 Linkedin
there is currently a growing interest in digital interactivity,
 Tumblr
especially in consumer activity in social media. It has
Volume 7 Issue 4, April 2019
www.ijser.in
Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY
Paper ID: IJSER18771 31 of 34
 International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Research (IJSER)
ISSN (Online): 2347-3878
Impact Factor (2018): 5.426
empowered consumers and their role is shifting from may be once a month or would only read the updates
being passive participants to becoming active participants. while not taking an active part in it.
(Stewart & Pavlou, 2002). This active consumer behavior
is changing the media and marketing platform as Apart from consumers, the companies and marketers also
consumers are invading marketing sphere (Berthon are very keen on social media for:
et.a;.2008). With the enormous interest in social media
and user generated content i.e. UGC on sites such as You 1. Increasing Brand Awareness
Tube, Facebook, Wikipedia, Consumers are seen to be 2. Building a Community
actively contributing to the content. 3. Engaging the Customers
4. Reputation Management
3. Objective 5. Customer Service
6. Research of consumer
This paper is an attempt to discover the effects of rising
social media on behavior of the customers in Indian American Researcher Sean Gelles provides 3 key
context and how the marketers are responding to such performance indicators for brands:
changes in consumer behavior. Also an attempt is made to
discover what activities consumers engage in social media  Noticeability: The more consumers like an ad, the
and what motivates them to participate in social media longer they tend to remember about the brand.
activities and what challenges are emerging for marketers  Listening: Understanding the demands of the potential
in Indian context. customers and what types of verbal and visual content
might capture their attention.
4. Study  Reach: Determining which platform campaigns are
suited to run.
While using social media as a tool for purchasing,
consumers generally look for: It has also been seen that Facebook has emerged as the
primary platform that everyone is currently on, mainly due
1. Product related learning: By following a brand on social to its reach and popularity. However, twitter and linkedin
media, a user wishes to know more about what he will are catching up as companies are realizing their
get if they decide to follow the company. It is also effectiveness too.
determined by the information of products that he can
use if he decides to purchase one from company.  Facebook had 2.2 active billion users despite being
2. Information quality: When a user decides to start banned in several places.
following a company or brand on social media platform,  Twitter has 327 million active monthly users
the key aspect that he /she looks towards is quality of  Instagram , biggest photo sharing portal had 200million
information that the page provides him. active users.
3. Economic benefits: Consumer is also interested in  YouTube accounts for over 1billion users.
knowing if he /she can get a chance of some economic  Linkedin connects over 500million professional across
or other gains from making the deal with particular the world.
brand or offer.
4. Interaction & Collaboration: Social media platforms It would not at all be wrong to mention here that social
serve as a linking pin between consumers and the firm media has played such a tremendous effect that today it
whereby the consumers can easily access the has knitted itself so cleanly in the fabric of Indian culture
information they seek and clear their doubts and & society. As a result of which our society, consumers in
misconceptions if any. particular have undergone a drastic change, from being
5. Social presence: This digital age lets the users to gullible and naive they have turned out to be more
influence others to certain extent; wherein on various matured and responsible ones. Role of social media in
company and product pages, they can establish business and consumer market in India cannot be
themselves as opinion leaders and experts on usage of undermined. It has transformed itself into a very
concerned products. convenient tool for marketers to promote their brands by
building various communities for interactions and
The survey has revealed that the most coveted reason for spreading awareness about their services.
using social media was entertainment, spending leisure
time, information seeking and social interaction, online Any organization be it large scale, medium scale or small
shopping. This also shows their usage frequency and scale has its online presence on various social media
social media app usage which indicates how effectively or platforms. This has made them visible to their customers
ineffectively people use their time on social media. 24*7 that too with their convenience of place and time.
Studies have also shown that to understand level of brand Besides this, it also helps the marketing firms to observe
engagement through profile and page visits and to and analyze the behavior of customers on regular basis.
understand the same, the users should be divided into high
and low level of engagement. This gives an idea of how
much time the average user spends on profile/page visits.
An active user would visit may be once or multiple times
a day while a user with low level of engagement will visit
Volume 7 Issue 4, April 2019
www.ijser.in
Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY
Paper ID: IJSER18771 32 of 34
 International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Research (IJSER)
ISSN (Online): 2347-3878
Impact Factor (2018): 5.426
Digital population in India as of January 2018 (in millions)

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/309866/india-digital-population/

This statistic presents the digital population in India as of the country had 250 million active social media users
January 2018. During this period of time, it was found that during the measured time period.

Number of digital buyers in India from 2014 to 2020 (in millions)

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/309866/india-digital-population/

This timeline displays a forecast of the number of digital following on social media and they also have a
buyers in India up to 2020, based on factual numbers from tremendous role in shaping or influencing the purchase
2014 to 2016. In 2020, over 329 million people in India decisions of an individual. These individuals post their
are expected to buy goods and services online, up from reviews about some products or services which they
130.4 million in 2016. personally may or may not use. Therefore, marketers try
to identify such influencers because even surveys have
Apart from buyers, another segment of social media users proven that approximately 45% of respondents round the
is cropping up and that is social influencers. These world read the reviews, comments, suggestions, feedback
influencers are those individuals who have a significant before making a purchase decision which ultimately have
Volume 7 Issue 4, April 2019
www.ijser.in
Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY
Paper ID: IJSER18771 33 of 34
 International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Research (IJSER)
ISSN (Online): 2347-3878
Impact Factor (2018): 5.426
a bearing on their shopping behavior. These social can go worldwide in an instant with a single message sent
influencers are well versed with the social media and they from a single consumer. With some networks, the
often tag the product, brand or service in their reviews. consumer can communicate with thousands of people at
Not only this, today’s consumers are so enlightened that the click of a button, easily spreading a message about the
they have adopted the role of researcher as well. company.

5. Conclusion Also, they should try to make their brand more and more
visible to customers by trying to post frequently and
As consumers are increasingly performing activities consistently. The marketers should also try to create
previously controlled by companies, the entire marketing strong emotional bond with their audiences thereby
landscape is changing. Therefore, companies need to strengthening relationship with them. They should try to
better understand the changing behavior of consumers, in respond quickly and appropriately as every customer issue
order to create mutual benefits from the use of social is unique and therefore, needs to be handled accordingly.
media. Customers these days are relying heavily on social media
networks for customer support & service, so companies
Emergence of social media has made the world a small should make themselves visible in the digital media for
market by allowing mass cultural exchange and rendering this support. This would enable them to
intercultural transactions. Social media and use of maintain their brand reputation in eyes of public. Last but
networking websites has become a trend that almost every not the least, the marketers should also try to develop a
Indian follows. It helps to improve an individual sense of thorough and achievable set of goals which they should be
connectedness with the virtual marketing communities. It able to measure and analyze and figure out how far they
has proved itself as an effective marketing tool for have been successful in their brand building.
corporations, entrepreneurs, new start ups. At the same
time, it might turn out to be a curse rather than being a References
boon to the consumers and marketers both, just as every
coin has two sides, same is with social media. Its impact [1] Iqani M. (2012) Media in Consumer Culture: An
on our Indian consumers totally depends on the way they Introduction. In: Consumer Culture and the Media.
use it and take advantage of it rather than being a victim Palgrave Macmillan, London
of it. [2] Laeder, James, "Social Media and Consumer Culture:
Addicted to the Idealized Consumer" (2018).
Many of the marketers have not completely accepted Advanced Writing: Pop Culture Intersections. 30.
social media platform for promotion of their goods and https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/engl_176/30
services. Consumers also want the brands to take care of [3] https://www.civilserviceindia.com/subject/Essay/soci
them and society at large. Therefore, marketers must try to al-media-and-its-impact-on-indian-society.html
understand their target audience and try to focus on such [4] http:// tribelocal.com/newsocialmedia/insightsfor
platforms and networks that provide a good opportunity to 2018
connect with them. Next, they should try to interact more [5] Douglas Kar,2018: How Companies & Consumers
and more with their customers through these social media are using social media
platforms. Customers also like it when a company directly [6] https://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2017/05/social-
responds to them and social media makes it easier. media-influencing-purchase-decisions/
Marketers should be willing to engage directly with [7] https://www.coxblue.com/7-tips-for-making-social-
customers regardless of whether they are offering praise media-marketing-work-for-your-business
or making complaints about their goods or services. [8] https://smallbusiness.chron.com/social-media-
Marketers should also try to admit their errors and consumer-behavior-45733.html
mistakes in order to be successful in this world of digital
marketing.

Being able to communicate directly with a brand

representative online can increase a consumer’s loyalty to
company by establishing a personal connection that the
consumer might not be able to achieve with other
companies. Even when the consumer has a complaint, if
the company representative is professional, compassionate
and understanding, much of the consumer’s ire can be
abated. Although this is no different from a customer
service worker operating in a store with an angry patron
present, the online environment allows the company to
take its time in formulating the best response and ensures
consistency in responses to different consumers. Word-of-
mouth advertising has always been an important part of
achieving sales for a company. No ad is as convincing as
having someone you trust recommends a product or
service. With social media, word-of-mouth advertising
Volume 7 Issue 4, April 2019
www.ijser.in
Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY
Paper ID: IJSER18771 34 of 34