MINI PROJECT WORK REPORT

“Impact of Social Media Influencers on Consumer

Purchasing Decisions”

A Mini project work report submitted to the

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow, U.P.

By

MODERN COLLEGE JHANSI

DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT, JHANSI
Submitted By
Anshu Gupta
MBA 1st Year (1st Semester)
 DECLARATION

I, Anshu Gupta, a student of MBA 1st Semester at Modern College Jhansi, Department of
Management, hereby declare that the project work titled “Impact of Social Media
Influencers on Consumer Purchasing Decisions” is my original work and has been carried
out under the supervision of Dr. Praveen Gupta.

This project is submitted as a partial fulfilment of the requirements for the MBA 1st Semester
and has not been previously submitted to any other university or institution for any degree or
diploma.

I have duly acknowledged all sources of information used in this project. The work presented
is free from any kind of plagiarism, and I take full responsibility for its authenticity.

Date: [20/02/2025]
Place: Jhansi

Signature
Anshu Gupta
MBA 1st Semester
Modern College, Jhansi
Department of Management
 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the mini project titled "Impact of Social Media Influencers on
Consumer Purchasing Decisions" has been successfully completed and submitted by Anshu
Gupta, Roll No.______________, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Master of
Business Administration (MBA) 1st Semester at Modern College, Jhansi, affiliated with Dr.
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technical University (AKTU), Lucknow.

This project has been carried out under the supervision of Dr. Praveen Gupta and has been
evaluated by the external examiner

We acknowledge the sincere efforts and dedication of the student in conducting this project
and wish them success in future endeavours.

Forwarded By:

Dr. Praveen Gupta

(Supervisor)
(External Examiner)

Dr. Praveen Gupta

(Director, Modern College Jhansi)
Department of Management

Date: [20/02/2025]
Place: Jhansi
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I extend my heartfelt gratitude to all those who have contributed to the successful completion of

this mini-project.

First and foremost, I am deeply grateful to Dr. Praveen Gupta, whose guidance, valuable

insights, and continuous support have been instrumental in shaping this project. His expertise

and encouragement have helped me understand and analyse the subject matter more effectively.

My special appreciation goes to the Director of Modern College Jhansi, Department of

Management, for providing a supportive academic environment and necessary resources to

complete this project.

Finally, I extend my gratitude to my faculty members, peers, and family for their constant

encouragement and support throughout this journey.

Submitted By:
Anshu Gupta
MBA 1st Semester
 INDEX

Sr No. TITLE

INTRODUCTION
1.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

2.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.

DATA COLLECTION & ANALYSIS

4.

FINDINGS & INTERPRETATION

5.

CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS

6.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

7.

REFERENCES & BIBLIOGRAPHY

8.
1. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, Consumer buys good and services on the basis of recommendations of the people
they trust. The influencers and the celebrities are the ones who initiate the feeling of trust in
the people following them, due to which many consumers watching the lifestyle of these
influencers try to adopt the habits in their routine but they forget about their living standard,
their own choices and their basic necessities that is on top of their priority list. Before studying
the part of social media influencers on consumer and the choices they make in the online
environment, it is important to understand the types of to select the right influencers for
product placement. Social media influencers can be classified in many ways.
The typology of social media influencers.
Bloggers and Vloggers: They are the individuals who practice their text related content to
circulate their blog frequently. They are dynamic on innumerable platforms of social media to
endorse their content. Vloggers share their information in the form of video. To advertise the
content platforms like YouTube and Instagram are used by them.
Reality TV Stars: Many contenders of various shows like Big Boss, Roadies, etc., have fascinated
loads of supporters on various social media platforms. They often work together with cosmetic,
electric, and fashion brands.
Micro-Influencers: They generally have a few thousand or even a lesser number of followers.
However, their fan community is highly engaged and because of that they motivate their
followers easily and make them taking any desired action. It helps them to attract their viewers
to a particular brand.
Nano-Influencers: The mounting call for influencers has led to increasing in nano influencers.
Same as micro-influencers, they have a small but very promised social media following.
Generally, Nano-influencers have a few thousand followers (sometimes even less than that).
Activists: They are generally motivated by a bureaucratic or social cause. The idea they have is
to announce some sort of the constructive change in society by influencing others. Brands
should be very careful while working with them because on current issues they have deep-
seated views and they share their views on social media.
Journalists: They are effective media identities that can alter the way individuals see a specific
brand. Recognizing such writers and collaborating with them will have an amazing effect on
your reach of posts shared.
Photographers: They frequently segment their work on social media through photos. They are
very useful for travel, fashion, and lifestyle brands.
Thought Leaders: Social media users follow entrepreneurs and top-level decision-makers to
know the latest developments and trends in their industries. Their followers always entrust
with the recommendations they give.
Mainstream Celebrities: These contain movie stars, athletes, sportspersons, musicians, models,
and other current public figures of conventional media. These are often appointed as brand
ambassadors and become the appearances of these brands.
2. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

Review on the existing literature about social media influencers has been done prior to conduct
the primary research. Social media is on rapid increase earlier people used to post their photos
or chat through social media but nowadays social media is used as a marketing tool, Pranas and
Suryawardani (2020), did a study to find out whether marketing through e commerce affect the
shopping decisions of the consumers. The researcher found out that marketing through e-
commerce do affect the shopping decision of the consumer. As the quantity of blog posts and
bloggers are increasing rapidly, this rapid growth is causing variations in people purchasing
habits (Serman and Sims 2020).
Social networking sites have developed more than just being a communication channels used
by individual consumers to create content, allot materials, share ideas, express views. These
sites have resulted in authority shift between consumers and more product owners and
through these influencers, a vast generation of information has been evolved. The study
suggested the importance of clearly understanding the usage of mobile devices and the social
networking sites in ways they access and use it (Heinrichs and Lim, 2011).
Social media influencers can be a influential way to connect with potential customers and
increase customer acquisition rate. People are increasingly using social media to gather
information so as to make a rational decision on their purchases. Opinion leaders are now the
influential members of online groups and they have been proved to be a foundation of
guidance for people who are looking for some professionals in terms of their purchasing
decision. The result of this paper revealed that opinion leadership is positively affected by
apparent originality and uniqueness and it also showed that opinion leadership has a
noteworthy influence on the intention to continue interacting in the account, (Casalóa, Carlos
et.al. ,2020).
Donnellan et.al (2020) pointed out that the wonderful growth in Internet usage around the
globe during the last ten years, marketing teams now must better understand the impact of
social media on consumer buying strategies. With Internet penetration to continue to grow
during the next decade, marketing executives will need to prioritize understanding the changes
related to consumer buying patterns, this paper concluded at analysing consumer buying
pattern using repetition and theory from the mere revelation effect. Those individuals have
built a following around what they are passionate about, on the other hand, are a lot more
likely to only promote products they have thoroughly vetted as they’ll lose their following
otherwise. This is why their audience trusts them.
Thilina (2021) in his study, concluded that for fashion related products, quality of the content
shared by influencers is dependent on the attitude and credibility of those influencers. The
study shows that both attitude and credibility of social media influencers has an effective
relationship on purchase intention of consumers. These findings do provide enough evidence
regarding the postulation that attitude and credibility of social media influencers must be
studied in order to examine the impact of influencers on buying decisions of consumers.
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Nowadays, Consumer buys good and services on the basis of recommendations of the people
they trust. However, in Indian context, every individual doesn’t follow social media influencers
on different social media platforms. And due to trust issues, it is not easy for social media
influencers to influence the users. Although social media influencers are gaining the acceptance
and popularity in online purchase, still there is a need to analyse which factors makes them an
impactful influencer. The primary objective of the study is to find the impact of creditability and
attitude of social media influencers on buying behaviour of consumer. The study also focuses to
identify the category of social media influencers having the most influence on consumers.

4. DATA COLLECTION & ANALYSIS

To accomplish the research objective, primary data was collected from 210 social media users
of Bangalore and Lucknow through a structured questionnaire. The survey link was sent
through email and WhatsApp. Probability sampling is used in case to produce results that are
representative of the whole population. The Target Population was respondents of age 20-50
years. The research is only limited to Instagram, Face book and YouTube users and to 4
categories of product, namely home & living, mobiles, cosmetics and clothing. The
questionnaire consists of two section, in the first section questions related to the demographic
details of the respondent were asked. The second section consist of questions related to the
various factors like credibility, attitude and buying behaviour of social media users. To measure
credibility, six questions were asked, to measure attitude of social media influencers on social
media three questions were asked and for measuring buying behaviour only one question was
asked. Data collected was analysed using SPSS. Descriptive analysis was done using bar graph
and pie chart. Regression modelling analysis was used to know the impact of credibility and
attitude of social media influencers on consumer buying behaviour.
5. FINDINGS & INTERPRETATION

5.1 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS:

The results indicate that majority (53.8%) respondents were female while the rest were male.
Majority (68.6%) of the respondents belong to age group 20-30 years, 17.1% of respondents
belong to age group of 30-40 years, 14.3 % respondents are from age group 40-50 years. The
data on most used application reveals that 51.9% of the respondents use Instagram, 24.8%
respondents use YouTube, 17.1% use Face Book while 7.1% respondents use other social media
platforms. The other characteristics of influencers that can impact the consumers buying
decision can be authenticity, experience in the field, community management techniques,
engagement through content creation, etc. Though I have considered two characteristics i.e.
credibility and attitude of social media influencers in influencing the buying behaviour of social
media users.

Table 1: Agreement of respondents regarding attitude of social media influencers

Statements Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly

Agree Disagree
You will buy the product
from influencers, if
influencers give the good 60 89 47 12 2
response to you?
Before you buy product, you
need to ask the influencers
about the product 48 75 54 24 9
information.
Do you think the influencers
who communicate with their
followers are more 56 85 49 17 3
trustworthy.
Note: Extracted from Questionnaire

It can be noticed from table-1 that 60 respondents strongly agreed that they will buy the
product from influencers if the influencers give the good response to them, 48 respondents
strongly agreed that before buying the product, they need to ask the influencers about the
product information. 56 respondents strongly agreed that they think the influencers who
communicate with their followers are more trustworthy.
Table 2: Agreement of Respondents Regarding Credibility of Social Media Influencers

Statements Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly

Agree Disagree
Would you likely
recommend any influencer 59 79 46 18 8
to your family/friends?
Does social media influencer
persuade you to dress/buy 51 83 47 20 9
like the picture they post?
Do you find the information
provided by the influencers 45 98 46 12 9
credible enough.
Your favourite influencers
are important to you before 41 68 52 32 17
buying any new product.
Do you think influencers will
not purposely endorse a 47 63 56 30 14
brand that will harm you?
If your favourite
blogger/online personality
recommends a brand, you 42 75 52 28 13
are more likely to try it?
Note: Extracted from Questionnaire

From table 2, it can be noticed that 59 respondents strongly agreed that they are likely
recommend any influencer to their family/friends. 51 respondents strongly agreed social media
influencer persuades them to dress/buy like the picture they post while 4.28% of the
respondents strongly disagree to the same. 45 respondents strongly agreed that the
information provided by the influencers credible enough. 41 respondents strongly agreed that
their favourite influencers are important before buying any new product. 47 respondents
strongly agreed that Influencers will not purposely endorse a brand that will harm them. 42
respondents strongly agreed that when their favourite blogger/online personality recommends
a brand, they are more likely to try it.

5.2 REGRESSION MODELLING

The author found that creditability and attitude of social media influencers are the factors of
the study and it was further investigated using regression modelling where the dependent
variable was buying behaviour of social media users. And the independent variables were
creditability and attitude of social media influencers, following two hypotheses were framed:
 H0: There is no significant influence of creditability of social media influencers on
Consumer’s buying behaviour
Table 3: Regression Analysis of Creditability of Social Media Influencers and Buying
Behaviour of Consumers.
Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate
a
1 .658 .432 .430 .79646
a. Predictors: (Constant), creditability

R: The value of R is 0.658 which indicates a positive relation between creditability of social
media influencer and buying behaviour of consumers. R2: The value of R2 is 0.432. This value
indicates that 43.2% of the variance in Buying behaviour of consumer can be predicted from the
creditability of social media influencers.

Table 4: ANOVA of Regression Analysis of Creditability of Social Media Influencers and

buying Behaviour of Consumers.
Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.
b
1 Regression 100.538 1 100.538 158.491 .000
Residual 131.943 208 .634
Total 232.481 209
a. Dependent Variable: buying behaviour
b. Predictors: (Constant), creditability
The P (.000) value is less than 0.05 hence null hypothesis (H0) is rejected and the alternative
hypothesis (H1) is selected which implies that there is significant influence of creditability of
social media influencers on Consumer’s buying behaviour.
 H0: There is no significant influence of attitude of social media influencers on
Consumer’s buying behaviour

Table 5: Regression Analysis of Attitude of Social Media Influencers and Buying

Behaviour of Consumers

Model Summary
Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate
a
1 .612 .374 .371 .83644
a. Predictors: (Constant), attitude

R: The value of R is 0.612 which indicates a positive relation between attitude of social media
influencer and buying behaviour of consumers
R2: The value of R2 is 0.374. This value indicates that 37.4% of the variance in Buying behaviour
of consumer can be predicted from the attitude of social media influencers.
Table 6: ANOVA of Regression Analysis of Attitude of Social Media Influencers and
Buying Behaviour of Consumers.

Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

b
1 Regression 86.958 1 86.958 124.291 .000
Residual 145.523 208 .700
Total 232.481 209
a. Dependent Variable: buying behaviour
b. Predictors: (Constant), attitude

The P (.000) value is less than 0.05 hence null hypothesis (H0) is rejected and the alternative
hypothesis (H1) is selected which implies that there is significant influence of attitude of social
media influencers on Consumer’s buying behaviour.

The author found out that the majority of respondents are influenced by bloggers and vloggers,
followed by experienced social media influencers. Trust plays a major role in influencing the
decision of the followers. The majority of respondents agree that they prefer social media for
recommendation and actively seek out social media influencer’s review before making
purchase decision and has purchased less than 5 products after looking at promotions by
influencers on social media, they also have spent up to Rs 1000 on products after being
influenced. The majority of the respondents belonged to the student category and most of
them spent 2-4 hours daily on social media.

The study reveals that credibility of influencers and the information provided by them is
credible and therefore this is the major reason behind customer following them and which in
turn, influence their buying behaviour. The study also shows that how the attitude of
influencers is towards their followers, the influencers are more likely to influence the buying
behaviour if they have good response and behaviour towards their follower’s problems and
queries.

This study is helpful to social media influencers in a way as they will get to know what factors
they have to consider while posting any content on social media about any product/service and
how they can use this study to attract more followers and retain them.
6. CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS

The objective of this study was to examine the role of social media influencers on
consumer buying behaviour. From this study it was found that the credibility and
attitude of social media influencers affect the buying behaviour of consumers. It
was found that the respondents get persuaded by the picture/post of social
media influencers and influencers in turn persuade them to try the products they
use. Regression analysis resulted in showing that two variables attitude and
credibility of influencers have the significant impact towards purchase intention
influenced by social media influencers. Thus, the social media influencers can try
to communicate to more with the followers as it increases the trust of the people
on influencers. The social media influencers in order to increase their
responsiveness towards followers, this helps the followers to believe in the
influencer and their content. The social media influencers should refrain form the
promotion of fake and low-quality products as it may hinder their creditability
and it might lead to losing a lot of followers and must reveal to its followers if it is
paid endorsement.
7. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

The study is focused on social media influencers that influences the purchase behaviour of the
consumers. The factors that influence its usage in online purchase have been identified.
However, the scope of the study is limited to Indian customers and only 210 respondents were
considered, which may not be a representative of the large population size of online shoppers
in India. Future studies can also be done on a cross-national basis to understand the overall
growth of influencer marketing across the world. The firms using influencer marketing might be
made swifter and simpler to have better customer engagement and better shopping experience
by connecting with the influencers online to influence consumers by sharing their own set of
experiences and opinions. Companies will benefit from an even deeper collaboration with
influencers, which presents new opportunities. World influencers prices are starting to grow
enormously, so companies are increasingly using cooperation with micro-influencers Similarly,
communication is the first interaction between companies and consumers in the value creation
process. It is important for marketers to invest a substantial amount of time in conducting a
genuine and real-time dialogue with customers to promote their products. Tailored
promotional content ideally resonates well with the target audience, and can simultaneously
lead to an increase in the rate of reach. Thus, future studies can be done to get better insights
on the same.

Cooperating with influencers with high numbers of followers might not be the best marketing
choice for promoting divergent products, as this decreases the brand's perceived uniqueness
and consequently brand attitudes or consumers could react negatively to influencers' posts
when they do not appear with the products, they endorse, future studies can also be done in
this area.
8. REFERENCES & BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Al-Dhuhli, I., & Ismael, S. (2013). The Impact of social media on consumer buying behaviour.
Unpublished Master’s Project, Sultan Qaboos University.

2. Burke, K. E. (2017). Social Butterflies-How Social Media Influencers are the New Celebrity
Endorsement (Doctoral dissertation, Virginia Tech).

3. Casaló, L. V., Flavián, C., & Ibáñez-Sánchez, S. (2018). Influencers on Instagram: Antecedents and
consequences of opinion leadership. Journal of Business Research.

4. Donnellan, J., McDonald, M., & Edmondson, M. (2020). Impact of Social Media on Consumer Buying
Patterns. International Journal of Marketing Studies, 12(3).

5. Gulamali, A., & Persson, J. (2017). The Social Media Influencer and Brand Switching.

6. Heinrichs, J. H., Lim, J. S., & Lim, K. S. (2011). Influence of social networking site and user access
method on social media evaluation. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 10(6), 347-355.

7. Prasath, P., & Yoganathen, A. (2018). Influence of Social Media Marketing on Consumer Buying
Decision Making Process. SLIS Student Research Journal.

8. Priansa, D. J., & Suryawardani, B. (2020). Effects of E-Marketing and Social Media Marketing on E-
commerce Shopping Decisions. Jurnal Manajemen Indonesia, 20.

9. Ringim, K. J., & Reni, A. (2019, August). Mediating Effect of Social Media on the Consumer Buying
Behaviour of Cosmetic Products. In 3rd International Conference on Accounting, Management and
Economics 2018 (ICAME 2018). Atlantis Press.

10. Serman, Z., & Sims, J. (2020, April). How social media influencers affect consumers purchase habit. In
UK Academy for Information Systems Conference Proceedings (Vol. 10).

11. Thilina, D. K. (2021). Conceptual Review of Social Influencer Marketing on Purchase Intention;
Dynamics in Fashion Retail Industry. Sri Lanka Journal of Marketing, 7.