Research proposal

Title

Impact of social media on brand choice

Introduction

As in the today’s world, when everything is going digital, social media is playing a vital role
everywhere. One of the major impacts of social media is on brand choice among the consumers.
More and more organization competing on social media in order to influence consumers and turn
them towards their brands. As the main intention of the brands is to retain consumer base as much
as they can, the relevance of social media is increasing and thus forcing the brands to make wise
choices and promote their brands on social media platforms.

Literature review

keller argued that the social connections among consumers had influence on how brand messages
reach consumers, how consumers answer such messages, and eventually how firms should design
their branding efforts. While the relevance of networks to branding wasn't limited to the web
environment, social media dramatically increased the reach and visibility of consumer social
networks and made it much easier to mobilize consumers. If consumers tell tons of stories around a
brand through social media, this channel could be the ‗best ‘starting point for a branding campaign.
Meanwhile, Sheth observed that being present on social media may help a brand to create strong
brand-customer relationships, also inform and update their customers on the brands; however, just
a presence on social media wasn't an interesting factor to get products from that brand.

Further, Tsimonis and Dimitriadis indicates that why companies create brand pages for brand
building in social media, how they use them, what policies and methods they follow, and what
outcomes do they expect. Studies on Social Media and Customer Brand Engagement Social media
brand engagement is actually sort of a long-term relationship. As soon as customers plan to engage
with a brand on social media, they're actually putting trust into brand to unravel their problem.
Applied the Use-and-Gratification theory to explain the precedents and outcomes of brand name
engagement in social media, which improved its credibility for investigating and analysing the buyer
behaviors in social media context.

The author found a conceptual model for customer engagement with different brands on social
media and outcomes of engagement like brand awareness. The results of the investigation
suggested that buyers had significant perceived differences between brands that use social media
purely to interact with consumers in direct relationship building conversation and people brands
which use social media for promotion and publicity. When some brands achieved a robust and
successful position within the social media space, then it became essential that those brands not
only maintain a beautiful presence on social media, but they need to also interact directly with
consumers and it should be two-way communication, like responding immediately to consumer-
generated content. ‘On the opposite hand, Frady conducted study on students to live personal
connections with brands on social media.
He conducted a study on hotels brand engagement on social media. Their results suggest many
opportunities for content engineering, like informative characteristics should combine with brand
personality–related content that helps in maintaining future reach and branding on the social media
site. Customer engagement has become a necessity for any brand on social media platforms. Now,
social media has become fastest and quickest methods for any brand to urge customers ‘exposure
and awareness.

It was predicted by Aaker that with the huge amount of latest media that had developed which were
likely to develop in near future, it had been constantly becoming more problematic and challenging
task to make the brand awareness, and therefore the real winner within the battle of making and
raising brand awareness would be those that were ready to communicate and transfer their
branding message through all media. Since an enormous number of individuals were already visiting
social media, thus, presence of a name everywhere those networks could help to tell people about it
and become conversant in the firm, creating brand awareness. the most objective of firm-created
content on social media is to extend consumers ‘brand awareness also as brand attitudes. Marketers
are now using social media content to make brand awareness and also to market their brands
among masses.

To sum up, one among the first goals of latest businesses is to boost brand awareness, and therefore
the world of social media presents the right platform to realize it. Studies on E-Word of Mouth on
Social Media The emergence of social media has developed variable communication ways enabling
consumers to attach , create, publish, share their contents through media like Facebook, YouTube,
Twitter, Instagram, etc. Findings of the research show that 19% of micro blogs contain mention of a
brand and out of the branding micro blogs, nearly 20% contain some expression of brand name
sentiments. He finds that positive E-word of mouth which is generated by friends on social media
platforms features a positive effect on brand equity and brand attitude which successively 49
influences the acquisition intention of the consumers. Social media interactivity results in the rise of
the credibility of e-WOM due to high transparency of the knowledge which causes higher credibility
of social media as compared to traditional media.

Studies on Brand Choice and buy intension on social media with the rapid development of data
technology, global competition is increasingly furious and therefore the consumer-oriented market
are going to be more complex and changeable, which has brought unprecedented challenges to the
survival and development of enterprises. Found that buyers expressed greater liking for a brand and
willingness to interact thereupon brand on social media when brands showed their mere virtual
presence. The success of a campaign on social media results in brand exposure and awareness
among consumers which generates viral effect on social media, this end in greater chances of a
brand being chosen by consumer. Studies show that being effective stimuli for repeated recall, social
media creates brand awareness and influences brand recognition, brand recall.

RESEARCH CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND OF STUDY

The literature on consumer choice between brands (global and local) is concentrated on sales-based
measures of brand name global ness (BG). Managers got to establish an efficient social media
campaign to boost awareness of their brands’ activities on social media; the literature focus might
not provide clear guidance on how such measures are often applied to social media. This research
contributes to global brand research by combining the literature streams on consumer social media
engagement and global branding marketing strategies.
There is an interesting popularity of using social media sites in India. As a result, exponential
Growth in using social media sites, especially Facebook, LinkedIn etc. has been reported. These
social networking sites are helpful in maintaining connections between people having similar
interests, values, membership during a particular group etc. Companies also are increasingly using
social media sites to market their products and services that help them to extend the business
volume. Marketing strategies are prepared by large and little businesses to extend the business
growth by using social networking sites. In offline retail environments significant attention has been
received by impulse purchase, which refers to consumers’ involuntary and impulsive buying behavior
(Lee & Yi, 2008; Gardner & Rook, 1988; Rook, 1987). Earlier research shows that a sudden looking for
buying is experienced by consumers if they encounter certain stimuli, including atmospheric cues of
stores, promotion, and price of products.
SOURCE: - THE INFLUENCE OF GLOBAL BRAND DISRIBUTION ON BRAND POPULARITY ON SOCIAL
MEDIA.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
To identify, compare and assess the impact of internet based life (social media) on brand decision
making.

OBJECTIVES
 How social media is influencing brand decision among consumer.
 Major factors that contribute to the decision making in brand choice.
 Do anthropomorphized brands engage customers?

METHODOLOGY
 Exploratory research (quantitative and qualitative)
 Secondary data, online survey (depends upon whether it will be feasible or not)
 Tableau, excel and SPSS