Role of social media in customer buying behavior

Abstract

Social media has become an inseparable part of human life. It allows customers and prospects to communicate directly about various products/services with their friends. This is just a replacement of word of mouth, which place a vital role and cheapest way of promoting product in traditional marketing. The other important and unique feature of social media is immediacy, which allows the customers to approach directly with the business people. Indeed it is helpful to both business people and customers as they can get the solutions with in no time unless it is a big damage. With the process, business people can maintain a sound relationship with the customers very easily as they are responding to their queries instantly. It is nothing but customer relationship management. It is another pivotal element in marketing. All these features will influence the customers a lot in making their purchase or buying decisions. Consumer behavior is the study of when, why, how, and where people do or do not buy product. It blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology and economics. It attempts to understand the buyer decision making process, both individually and in groups. The customer buying or purchasing behavior is an evergreen marketing concept despite ample research has been done on the topic over last few decades. It would be an exaggeration, if we say without covering this concept no marketing text book will complete, that’s the significance of this particular concept. One cannot imagine a marketing book without finding a concept of customer buying behavior. Usually a customer buying behavior will be influenced by a set of internal and external factors like social, economical or financial, cultural, demographic, psychological and of course personal factors. In this day and age, online marketing, social media marketing, digital marketing are buzz words and strongly influencing the customer behavior and in making purchase decisions subsequently.