Social Media’s Influence in Purchase Decision

2008
Social Media’s Influence in Purchase Decision

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT | INDORE

Social Media’s Influence in
Purchase Decision
Submitted to Prof. Rajeev Kumra
By: Hasan Mirza | CAF ID: 60605070083

2008


Social Media’s Influence in Purchase Decision 2008

Contents:
1. Executive Summary
2. Introduction
a. So how big a deal is social media?
b. What is social media?
i. Openness
ii. Conversation
iii. Community
iv. Connectedness
c. Basic forms of social media
i. Social networks
ii. Wikis
iii. Podcasts
iv. Content communities
v. Microblogging
3. How Social Media Works
4. How Social Networks Work
5. How Blogs Work
a. Different Types of Blogs
b. Mainstream Media Blogs
c. Reading Blogs
6. How Wikis Work
a. Wikipedia
b. Trying out Wikis
7. How Podcasts Work
a. Getting Started with Podcasts
8. How Forums Work
9. How Content Communities Work
10. How Micro-blogging Works
11. How Second Life works
12. What Next?
13. Related Case study
14. Social Networking
a. So what's the downside of using social media?
b. Word of Mouth
c. Why social influence marketing matters to us?



15. Participation is Marketing
16. Social Tools for Social Media
17. The Role of Marketing
18. Consumer Buying Behaviour Process
19. What's Next for Social Platforms?
20. Conclusion
21. Research Design
22. Research Objective
23. Research Methodology
a. Sample Design
b. Field work plan and dates
c. Analysis / expected outcome plan
d. Questionnaire copy
24. Analysis
a. Simple tabulation
b. Cross-tabulation
c. Any specific analysis
25. Findings
26. Limitations



Executive Summary:
The objective of this study is to understand the influence of social media in purchase decision making.
The focus of the study is to understand the consumer buying behaviour and influence of social media’s
in decision making. The sample size taken for this study was 100 qualified respondents with diverse
backgrounds across the country. An exploratory research was done to understand the nature of social
networking and online consumer behaviour followed by a primary research where questionnaire were
administered both personally and online.



Introduction
So how big a deal is social media?
Very big indeed! To give you an idea of the numbers, when last updated there were:
More than 110 million blogs being tracked by Technorati, a specialist blog search
engine, up from 63 million at the beginning of the year
An estimated 100 million videos a day being watched on video sharing website, YouTube
More than 200 million profiles created by users on social network MySpace

What is social media?
Social media is best understood as a group of new kinds of online media, which share most or
all of the following characteristics: Participation: social media encourages contributions and
feedback from everyone who is interested. It blurs the line between media and audience.



Openness: Most social media services are open to feedback and participation. They
encourage voting, comments and the sharing of information.
There are rarely any barriers to accessing and making use of content. Password-protected
content is usually frowned on.

Conversation: while traditional media is about ‘broadcasting’, (content
transmitted or distributed to an audience) social media is better seen as a two-way
conversation.

Community: Social media allows communities to shape up quickly and
communicate successfully. Communities share common interests, such as a love of
photography, a political issue or a favourite TV show.

Connectedness: Most kinds of social media flourish on their connectedness,
making use of links to other sites, resources and people.



Basic forms of social media
There are basically six kinds of social media commonly seen and found today.

Social networks: These kinds of websites often allow people to build
personal web pages and then connect with friends to share content and communication.
The biggest social networks are MySpace, Facebook and Bebo. Blogs are perhaps the best
known forms of social media. Most blogs are in the form of online journals, with entries
appearing with the most recent first.

Wikis: These websites permit people to add content to or edit the information on them,
acting as a communal document or a database. The best-known is wiki; which stands for
Wikipedia; an online encyclopedia which has over 2 million English language articles.

Podcasts: These are audio and video files that are available and accessible by
subscription, through services like Apple iTunes. Forums on the other hand are areas for online
discussions, often done around specific topics and interests. Forums came about before the
term ‘social media’ emerged and is a powerful and popular element amongst online
communities.

Content communities: These are basically communities which
organize and share particular kinds of content. The most popular content communities tend to
form around photos (Flickr), bookmarked links (del.icio.us) and videos (YouTube).

Microblogging: These are social networking blogs combined with bite-sized
blogging, where small amounts of content ('updates') are distributed online and also through
the mobile phone network. Twitter is the clear leader in this field.



How social media works
Now let’s take a look at each of the main types of social media, and how they work. These
explanations are calculatedly very general, because with social media every rule seems to have
an exception. In fact, among the defining characteristics of social media are the blurring of
definitions, rapid innovation, reinvention and mash-ups. Each explanation also has a section on
how to try out that form of social media yourself, with pointers on both how to find social
media that’s significant to you and how you might go about creating it. If you want to really
understand how social media works, there’s no better way than to take part in it. Mash-ups:
the combination of two or more pieces of content (or software, or websites) is one of the
phenomena in social media that make it at once so exciting, dynamic and sometimes puzzling.
Mash-ups are possible because of the openness of social media – many websites and software
developers support people to play with their services and reinvent them.

There are literally hundreds of mash-ups of the Google Earth service, where people have
attached information to parts of the maps. For example there is a UK rail service mash-up
where you can track in real time where trains are on the map. Fans of the TV series 24 have
mapped locations from the shows‟ plotlines on to a Google Earth map.



A popular type of mash-up cannibalizes different pieces of content, typically videos and music.
Popular videos on YouTube can generate hundreds of imitations, homage’s and (frequently)
comic reinterpretations. In communities like this, the number of mash-ups a piece of content
spawns is often an indicator of its popularity. Some marketers have cottoned on to the power
of this and it makes it a point to encourage people to reinterpret their content.

How social networks work
Social networks on the web are like controlled versions of the extensive blog network. People
joining a social network usually create a profile and then build a network by connecting to
friends and contacts within the network, or by engaging real-world contacts and friends to join
the social network.

These communities preserve the interest of their members by being useful to them and
providing services that are pleasurable or help them to expand their networks. MySpace, for
instance, allows its members to craft vibrant, chaotic home pages (they've been likened to the
walls of a teenager's bedroom) to which they can upload images, videos and music.



MySpace has built a lot of its popularity around its music services. There are said to be over
three million bands and musicians registered on it, trying to attract a fan base from the 200
million registered accounts. According to Hitwise, in September 2006 MySpace was the 8th
largest referrer of traffic to HMV.co.uk, more even than the MSN search engine. In 2007,
Facebook a social network that originated in US colleges became available for public use in the
UK. It’s popularity rapidly sky-rocketed.

Part of Facebook's success is its creators' decision to 'open up' and allow anyone to develop
applications and run them on Facebook - without charging them. This has seen Facebook users
able to play each other at Scrabble and Chess, compare each others' tastes and send 'virtual
gifts', among any number of new ideas vying for attention.

Bebo, which is popular among school-age children, actually has the most members, perhaps
helped by the fact that it is grouped around schools and colleges. Crucially, the growth in the
use of social networks by young people in recent years has come at the expense of their
consumption of traditional media such as TV and magazines. This switch in behaviour was one
of the drivers behind the biggest deal in social media to date, when Rupert Murdoch bought
MySpace for US $580 million.5 Marketers have also increasingly begun to experiment with
trying to reach the members of MySpace and other social networks. Bebo hosts pages for many
children’s authors for instance, while MySpace has seen a rush of marketing efforts from
Toyota to the US Army.



Perhaps the most 'grown-up' of the popular networks is LinkedIn, which allows users to put up
their business and professional contacts into an online network. It has been criticised for not
being open enough and for charging for too many of its services – but next to Facebook it is still
the most popular online social network among people aged 25 and over. The huge success of
the 'opening up' of Facebook, as mentioned above, could be a dare to LinkedIn's 'closed'
approach in the future.

How blogs work
At its simplest, a blog is an online journal where the entries are published with the most recent
first. There are a number of features that make blogs noteworthy and different to other
websites: Tone: blogs tend to be written in a personal, conversational style. They are usually
the work of an acknowledged and renowned author or group of authors. Topic: blogs tend to
define what it is they are writing about. They can be as explicit as a blog about a book in
evolution or as wide in scope as books such as ‘My musings on life and stuff’.

Links and trackbacks: the services people employ to write blogs make it very easy for them to
insert links to other websites, usually in reference to an article or blog post or to provide



further information about the subject they are writing about. Comments: each blog post has a
comments section, effectively a message board for that article. On blogs with large audiences
the debates in these sections can run to hundreds of comments at a time. Subscription: blogs
can be subscribed to, usually via RSS technology, making it easy to keep up with new content.
Blogs are easy to set up using any of a number of services. One of the simplest is the free
Blogger service from Google.

Different types of blogs
With millions of people around the world of different ages and backgrounds blogging about
whatever they feel like, it is about as easy to generalize about ‘bloggers’ as it is to make
sweeping statements about ‘human beings’. Here, we have discussed some of the key kinds of
blogs one usually comes come across:

Personal blogs: Millions of people around the globe maintain blogs about their everyday lives,
much like public diaries. These sometimes become very popular indeed, especially those
anonymous, slightly risqué ones. You know the sort: they are the ones which get written about
in the Sunday Times and become best-selling novels all of a sudden. One of the best-known
personal blogs is Dooce. Political blogs are found especially in the US, but increasingly found in
the UK as well these blogs are being written on politics. Often professed as a reaction to media



bias (across the political spectrum) they tend to comment on the news, giving closer analysis on
issues they feel have been misrepresented, distorted or buffed over by the mainstream media.
In United States of America, most if not all of the contenders for the presidency in 2008 already
have bloggers on staff to advice on reaching political bloggers and their readers. We are not
quite at that stage in the UK, but blogging has been playing a part in the rebirth of grassroots of
Conservative politics. Significant examples from the political left include MediaLens and Harry's
Place.

Business blogs: Many professionals and businesses now have blogs. This allows companies to
communicate in a less formal style rather than the customary style that’s found in newsletters,
brochures and press releases, which help to give a human face and voice to the organisation.
For individuals in business, a blog can develop into a very efficient way of building a network of
like-minded individuals and raising their own profiles. Blog Maverick is a good example.

Some blogs are unashamedly media businesses in their own right, taking advertising and
employing a blogger or a group of bloggers full-time. Effectively, they are start-ups that are
taking advantage of the new blogging technologies and opportunities to build communities of
readers in new or niche subject areas. These are generally to be found covering news and
opinion in the technology and media industries.

Mainstream media blogs
Most national newspapers in the UK – not to mention the BBC – now have blogs for some of
their reporters and editors. These provide useful insights into the news gathering and reporting
processes, but also give vent to personal views that the journalist may otherwise have kept to
themselves. For example, see BBC business editor Robert Peston's blog. It’s worth noting that
while many journalist blogs are hosted on newspaper sites themselves, a large number are
independent, personal blogs with a major focus on their professional interests.



Reading blogs
The easiest way to read blogs is to subscribe to the ones you find interesting using the
Bloglines, Rojo or Newsgator newsreader services. A newsreader is a website or piece of
software where one can go to read a newsfeed that you are subscribed to via RSS. All blogs and
most news websites have RSS feeds attached to them.

You can find blogs on topics that you’re interested in by using search engines like Technorati or
Google Blog Search. If you find a blog which is predominantly fascinating or pertinent to you,
have a look for its 'blogroll' (list of recommended blogs) – it’s a great way of exploring the
networks of blogs.

How wikis work
Wikis are websites that let people to contribute or edit content on them. They are great for
collaborative working, for example creating a large document or project plan with a team in
several offices. A wiki can be as private or as open as the people who create it want it to be.



Wikipedia
The most famous wiki is of course Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia that was started in 2001. It
now has over two million articles in English alone and over a million members hooked on to it.
In 2005, the respected scientific journal Nature conducted a study into the dependability of the
scientific entries in Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica. No one was surprised that
Encyclopedia Britannica was the more reliable of the two – what was remarkable was that it
was only marginally more precise. Wikipedia has a 2,500 word articles on Encyclopedia
Britannica, its history and methodology. But Wikipedia is more than a reference source. During
a major breaking news story, especially one which affects large numbers of people directly,
such a natural disaster or political crisis, Wikipedia acts as a collective reporting function.



Trying out wikis
Everyone knows Wikipedia. Let’s discuss here some other examples of large wiki projects that
you can take a look at and even involve yourself in:
Wikia A community of wikis on different subjects
WikiHow A practical ‘how to’ manual for everything from making coffee to writing
business plans
Wikinews Wikipedia’s news project

How Podcasts work
Podcasts are audio or video files that are published on the internet and that users can subscribe
to. Sometimes 'vodcast' is used to specifically describe video services. It is the subscription
feature that makes a podcast so powerful as a form of social media. People have long been able
to upload audio content to the web, but the subscription feature means that people can build
regular audiences and communities around their shows. It effectively puts private individuals or
brands on a level playing field with traditional media organizations when it comes to competing
for people’s attention with AV content online. Podcasts, like personal video recorders (PVRs),
are part of a shift in media consumption patterns, which increasingly sees people watching or
listening to content when and where it suits them. This is sometimes known as time-shifting.
When a new podcast is posted to the web, all the subscribers‟ podcast services (such as iTunes)
are automatically notified and download the programme to their computer’s hard drive. The
podcast can then be either listened to on the computer or downloaded onto an MP3 player,
such as an iPod.

Getting started with podcasts:
If you already have an iPod and use iTunes you can click on the Podcast icon in the left-hand
toolbar to access podcasts and subscribe to them. Other
good places to find and start listening to podcasts are Podcast Alley and Yahoo! Podcasts. If you
fancy trying your hand at creating your own podcast, download the free audio editing tool
Audacious or have a look at the 'how to' guide at wikiHow.

How forums work
Internet forums are the longest time-honored and an age-old form of online social media. It
most commonly survives around specific topics and interests, for example cars or music. Each
discussion in a forum is known as a thread, and many different threads can be active at the
same time. This makes forums good places to find and engage in a variety of detailed
discussions. They are often built into websites as an added feature, but some exist as stand-
alone entities. Forums can be places for lively, vociferous debate, for seeking advice on a



subject, for sharing news, for flirting, or simply for whiling away time with idle chat. In other
words, their huge variety reflects that of face-to-face conversations.

The sites are moderated by an administrator, whose role it is to remove unsuitable posts or
spam. However, a moderator will not lead or guide the discussion. This is a major difference
between forums and blogs. Blogs have a clear owner, whereas a forum's threads are started by
its members. Forums have a strong sense of community. Some are very enclosed, existing as
'islands' of online social activity with little or no connection to other forms of social media. This
may be because forums were around long before the term 'social media' was coined, and in
advance of any of the other types of community we associate with the term. In any event, they
remain hugely popular, often with membership in the hundreds of thousands.

How content communities
work
Content communities look a bit like social networks – you have to register, you get a home page
and you can make connections with friends. However, they are focused on sharing a particular
type of content. For example, Flickr is based around sharing photography and is the most
popular service of its kind in the UK. Members upload their photos to the website and choose
whether to make them public or just share with family and friends in their network. Thousands
of groups have formed on Flickr around areas of common interest. There are groups dedicated
to particular graffiti artists, towns, sports and animals. As evidence to its enormous success,
Flickr was bought by Yahoo! in 2005 for an estimated US $30 million.

YouTube is the world’s largest video sharing service, with over 100 million videos viewed every
day. Members of YouTube can upload videos or create their own “channels” of favourite
videos. The viral nature of YouTube videos is enhanced by a feature that makes it easy for
people to cut and paste videos hosted by YouTube directly into their blogs. There are many
clips from TV shows and movies hosted on their service. Some people also use this service to
record video blogs.



Digg is a news and content community. Members submit links to news stories that they think
will be of interest and these are voted on by other members. Once a story has garnered about a
critical number of votes (the number varies according to how busy the site is) it is moved to the
front page where it receives wider attention from members as well as more casual visitors to
the website. Digg claims to receive 20 million unique visitors every month, and certainly the
volume of traffic via popular links from the service are so great that it can cause smaller
companies' servers to crash.

Folksonomies Content communities often display characteristics of what are known as
folksonomies. The term folksonomy refers to the way that information is organized – it is a play
on the word taxonomy, a classification system. In a folksonomy the information or content is
“tagged” with one-word descriptors. Anyone can add a tag to a piece of content and see what
other people have tagged, too. For instance, del.icio.us, a bookmark-sharing service that
replaces the favourite’s folder on your web browser, is a prime example of a folksonomy.
Content communities such as Flickr, YouTube and blogs generally make use of the folksonomy
approach of tagging content to make it more easily found. Music folksonomies have proved
particularly popular. Services such as last.fm let you tag tracks as you listen to them, and search
and link to music based on other people’s tags.



How micro-blogging works
Micro-blogging is tool that combines elements of blogging with instant messaging and social
networking.

The clear leader in the micro-blogging field is Twitter with over 340,000 users. Other notable
micro-blogging players comprise of Pownce and Jaiku, which offer various different features,
but for the purposes of this e-book it makes sense to focus on the Twitter format.

Twitter users can send messages of up to 140 characters instantly to multiple platforms. 90% of
Twitter interactions are not made via the Twitter website, but via mobile text message, Instant
Messaging, or a desktop application such as Twitterific. Its flexibility is further enhanced by the
ability to subscribe to updates via RSS. Uses of Twitter vary. It's popular among homeworkers
and freelancers, who use it in part as a 'virtual watercooler'. Other people use it simply to stay
in touch with a close network and share thoughts or start conversations. Its suitability as a
vehicle for breaking news has encouraged the BBC and CNN to introduce Twitter feeds.

How Second Life works
One of the biggest online marvels to capture the imagination of the traditional media is Second
Life. It's an online computer game, but is perhaps better understood as an online virtual world.
By registering and downloading the software, you can enter the game world and create an
'avatar' – an in-game representation of yourself. As Second Life encourages community and
social interaction, some believe it to be a form of social media; although like so much in the
new forms of online media, it could very well be considered as a category of its own. Over 1
million US dollars is spent in Second Life each day.

This is made possible by the ability to own private property within the game and by setting an
exchange rate between the game’s currency and the US dollar (approximately 270 “Linden
dollars” to the US dollar). In fact, Second Life created its first millionaire in November 2006,
when Anshe Chung amassed virtual assets worth one million US dollars. Marketers are
beginning to experiment with the game world too. Without a doubt, a large part of the
marketing benefit from these in-game presences really comes from the publicity in the non-
virtual world that these generate, but these are intriguing precedents for marketers.

What next?
Whether we are still using MySpace or Second Life in two, five or ten year's time is anyone's
guess. The unique way that the internet continually improves in response to user experience is
driving innovation on an unprecedented scale. There will doubtless be exciting new variants on
current formats and perhaps innovations that come to be thought of as new forms of social



media. They will develop in response to our appetite for new ways to communicate and to the
increasingly flexible ways that we can go online. That's the detail – impossible to predict. What
is beyond doubt is that social media – however it may be referred to in the future – be a genie
that will not be disappearing back into its bottle.

Case Example:
How social media helped me choose between Firefox; LA Sovereign; Hercules and Hero
bicycles and what this means for marketers!

I have been eager to write this post, but wanted to complete the loop before I actually wrote it
down. Day-before, I finally picked up a LA Sovereign bicycle as part of my new exercise regimen
to replace yoga, thanks to the neck injury that I caused myself at class.



I think I am a fussy buyer - the entire purchase experience, and not just the product, matters to
me. In this case, I was going back to something that I grew up doing with a lot of intensity and
passion and was fairly involved in the process of this purchase. Whether I made the right
decision remains to be seen, but it allowed me to witness some of our own theories play out
quite nicely:

Layers of Influence:
I had put together this simple model, capturing the core of conversational marketing, as we see
it. With some changes from case-to-case, I think it holds true.
We believe, that over and above the layer of traditional channels, is a complete new layer of
social media that is playing a very crucial role in the decision making process.

There was a time when we saved that newspaper clippings/ ads/ flyers of anything that we
found of interest or were hoping to buy. What is happening today?
The Internet is now my 'clipping'. It is my central repository where I go to look for information,
when I need it. The three important players on the new layer:
1. The peer: the increasing clutter; uncertainty about transparency/ unbiased reportage,
among a large section of the traditional media, has meant that the original circle of trust-
friends, family and peer opinion has an enhanced value.
2. The expert: the 'traditional' experts are increasingly publishing content online; new
experts are emerging, thanks to the enabling micro-publishing environment of the Internet/
Web 2.0 today.
3. The marketer: needs to engage stakeholders through transparent conversations, for,
'brochure speak' of the traditional media doesn't work anymore.
I came back having tested the Hercules Ryder and a couple of Firefox bikes. My heart was set
on buying a Firefox Fusion - it served my purpose quite beautifully - 40 mins to 1 hour ride,
mornings, on fairly smooth roads. It also fell within my budget.

A quick search on Google landed me on Shree's blog post - cautioning me 'Buy Firefox at your
own risk!'
What I witnessed was quite remarkable - there was a whole conversation happening on this
single post. There were some 85 comments already:
There were peers, of course, there were also experts - offering advice, managing communities
and events/ initiatives. And lo, what do I see!! The marketer too has joined the conversations -
taking feedback, sharing thoughts; not defending his product but offering solutions.
I left a comment, asking if my choice was a good one. The Firefox team was prompt in jumping
in, leaving a comment and then someone from their team wrote me an email requesting me to
get in touch with him on his hand phone, which I did. They were transparent, stood their
ground (no discounts). The only gap, a significant one, one could say - they were not good at
closing a deal. I bought a competitor's product when I was absolutely sold on Firefox!
Confidence? Over-confidence? Flawed Customer Service Focus? Who is to say...but a sale lost.
Lesson in this for all of us, including me! More on this later.
Who is scared of negative comments?
Simple answer: all of us!



We shudder at the thought of quot;what if there are negative comments?quot; and yet, they happen to
all of us. I learnt a lesson rather early into my blogs journey and made it a case-study on the 3rd
day (after spending the initial 2 days in absolute shock and mourning). Many learning’s came
my way from this episode.

Many, if not most, brands are scared to embrace blogs & social media for fears of quot;What if?quot; No
amount of convincing might be able to showcase to them what this one bike post does. In real
life, different people have different experiences, good is peppered with bad, and that negative
makes it REAL.

A significant number of comments in the Firefox post are negative, and YET, I was convinced
about the quality of the bikes and nearly bought one. The posts allowed me to make 'an
educated decision'. That's what the customer is looking for on the net. The attitude of the
marketer in this situation would be critical:
1. Is the marketer unnecessarily defensive?
2. Or, is the marketer open to feedback and suggestions? Is the marketer listening?
Participating?
Still sitting on the fence, Mr. Marketer?

Having tasted success from this episode, should Firefox (and others in the category) not be
embracing social media more pro-actively?
1. Setting up their own blogs, spaces where customers could engage with them directly?
Firefox does have a club.
2. Should they not be involving the customer in the very process of crafting & testing the
bikes?
3. Creating evangelist programmes and more?
Still scared to test the waters? Go, take the plunge, but do show it the reverence it deserves. Do
invest into rigor and discipline - think it through, for there are no 'One Size Fits All' solutions.
In the end, however, it's Customer Focus that matters most.
Proactive interactions on blogs, email but missing on closure - the difference between 'nearly
sold' to 'actually sold'.

The reasons I finally went with LA:
1. ' Perceived' value for money: Perceived still, and I will soon discover if it is 'real'.
2. Last mile: I called their office in Punjab for numbers of local dealers, which they
promptly messaged back on my hand-phone. I ended up speaking with Gaurav of Supreme
Cycle Co. - he had a rap number set as his caller tune; I landed at the store to find an intelligent
looking young man, dressed in grunge; stud in one ear, blue tooth headset in the other ( I
advised him to remove it when dealing with customers), laptop open on his desk - I could see
he was using it to manage his stocks, as also listen to music; passionate about bikes, he was
treating his customers with warmth. He knew his product and took me through the entire line-
up, without showing any signs of impatience. Negotiated well but also made me feel like I got a
deal. I was sold. He made a sale.
Happy biking the social media roads!



Social networking
One of the most common misperceptions about community is that it can be had simply by
enabling some level of participation or contribution. Marketers ought to filter ideas and
objectives about building true community through questions like:
 Can you hang out there?
 Can you carry on a winning dialogue?
 Can you meet people and form significant relationships?
The right level of social networking holistically ties together contributions and contributors
across one’s website. In fact, this dependence is actually co-dependence; just like user-
generated content on its own doesn't equal community; social networking too never succeeds
when it's done purely for its own sake. In order to generate value, social networking must be
quot;aboutquot; something. Your brand and the constellation of attributes and values that encircle it
are as good a connective tissue as any for long-lived and purposeful social networking.



So what's the downside of using social
media?
The most common concern that’s heard from marketers often is in relation to content risk.
With any social media venture, it's important to find the right balance between openness and
oversight. The three core principles of user-generated content, user-enhanced content and
social networking as I've laid them out here should serve as building blocks around which to
organize your concept development and planning. It's important to point out that there is no
right or wrong prescription for weighting the elements of social media, and the specific
combination of capabilities that's right for your business is heavily dependent on a multitude of
factors.

So the possible questions are:
Just because ten people recommend something to you, it doesn't mean that one needs to
listen. But if one person does, and you trust them (trust being a key factor here), then you'll be
more inclined to listen. But what will drive action? Sometimes it's a tipping point thing -- if your
best friend tells you, maybe you just nod your head. But when your girlfriend tells you too, then
you go out and buy. Unless your mom tells you the same thing -- then you trash the idea. Social
networks are huge, tangible (and measurable).

Word of Mouth pits: word of mouth has been a well known buying trends influencer. The
difference here is that you can reach the potential audience. Thus all this has a huge impact on
buying trends that keep boosting or killing sales. It is not by sheer coincidence that many big
companies have started watching all sorts of social networks searching for negative and
positive buzz on their brand and products. Many companies have learned this the hard way,
and some are only starting to take some advantages of the huge potential such networks have.
There are some big risks in trying to influence such networks. The quot;massesquot; are very sensitive to
cheap sales pitches and half-thought initiatives can backfire in the worst of ways.

Word of Mouth:
Word of mouth is not easily distinguishable to one or even two sources; however one can easily
group influential media on purchase decisions by merchandise category’s and other factors. In a
customer centric media plan, the influence of media to make a purchase becomes a key
component in determining the allocations to the various options, as marketers refine their
focus on consumers. Media planning requires more insight on how consumers behave and less
on gross audience estimates.



Recently social influence marketing was introduced – or employing social media as part of the
entire lifecycle of a marketing campaign, even beyond it. But the question is why does social
influence marketing matter to you, and does social influence marketing translate into real
digital marketing tactics? The answers to both those questions fundamentally point to the
future of social media for marketers. So it’s imperative to examine them carefully.

Why does social influence marketing matter
to us?
Consumers have always been heavily influenced by each other when they make purchasing
decisions. They ask each other for advice, they observe and mimic each other’s decision
making, and frankly they let peer pressure notify their decisions whether they like to admit it or
not. What’s changed is that digital behavior has caught up with the offline behavior – and
that’s why social influence marketing matters to anyone who has a future in marketing.

Communication technologies such as social networks, prediction markets, micro-blogging
solutions, location-based networked mobile phone applications, and even virtual worlds make
it possible for consumers to influence each other far more directly and dramatically than ever
before. This influence occurs in three ways:


 Compliance: an individual agrees with a point of view and acts in a specific way in order
to achieve a favorable reaction among his or her peers.
 Identification: a person acts a certain way in front of a group because she believes in
what she says, and belonging to a group is important to her.
 Internalization: your views are truly altered beyond the relationship with the group.
Aside from making for good copy in behavioral psychology text books, these concepts do
translate into tactics for a digital marketing program or platform. Let’s dig deeper into how this
really works!

Building compliance, identification, and internalization is in many ways the holy grail of
marketing. Here are some points to consider as you take advantage of social influence
marketing to do so.

1. Become your consumer: The rise of social networks and blogs has allowed consumers to stay
far more closely connected with each other. As a result, consumers are more intimately
watching each other transact online and offline. They want to be in conformity. To influence
consumers, you need to become like them and participate honestly in those same
conversations in an ongoing basis.



2. Aggregate information for your consumer: Social media has empowered consumers to form
stronger opinions and express them more broadly. More people are blogging, commenting and
rating than ever before. Approximately 120,000 blogs are created every day. These contributors
are providing a richer base of knowledge for other consumers to use while going through a
purchasing process. Consumers who tap into these blogs know more about your brand than
you probably do. Rather than trying to control the message, serve as the aggregator of all
information regarding the brand. Let your website become the amphitheatre for the
conversation.

3. Articulate product benefits better: Recent research by eMarketer highlights how influential
customer reviews are. Approximately, 22% of US online buyers always read customer reviews
before making a purchase. 43% of US online buyers read customer reviews at least most of the
time before making a purchase. That's social influence at play. The best thing that one can do
about it is to recognize that your consumers are more informed and make sure you sell a
strong product and articulate its benefits in a more digestible manner. This is one way of
creating happier customers who’ll then do the marketing for you instead of the other way
round.

4. Align your organization into multiple, authentic voices: Social Influence Marketing is about
providing the space for consumers to influence each other during the purchase process. As a
brand, you want them to positively influence each other. Do this by aligning your entire
organization into a network of multiple, authentic voices. Don’t leave customer interactions to
the sales and marketing teams. Empower other internal constituents across the organization to
serve as brand ambassadors maybe via blogs. They’ll talk about your brand in their own voices
to their own communities. They may not be totally on message but they’ll be authentic and it’ll
have a strong, positive influence. Trust them.

5. Amplify the favorite business stories: So you can’t control the message anymore. Your
consumers would rather listen to each other than to you. But you still have messages that you
want to disseminate. You can do that by shaping, influencing and amplifying business stories
that play to your brand’s strengths. Remember; just because your consumers are more
interested in talking to each other, it doesn’t mean you have no voice at all. It’s essential that
one publishes their favorite business stories as widely as possible and also directs it’s
consumers to the individuals or groups already inclined to your products.

6. Let consumers shape and share the experience: Your consumers don’t necessarily want to
participate in the conversations on your own website. Rather than just focusing on creating
strong brand experiences that can then be shared among consumers, also think in terms of
creating assets that allow consumers to shape and extend the brand experiences however they
want to. Furthermore, let them shape and share those experiences wherever they want to.

7. Participate where your consumers are: If you see that your consumers are spending time on
social sites interacting with their peer groups; don’t try to disrupt those social dynamics by
dragging them to your website at every opportunity you get. Instead, provide them with the



messages directly on those social sites themselves. Go to your consumers rather than
continuously trying to pull them to you. In fact, even de-emphasize the website if you have to.

8. Don’t do it all at once: Your consumers are probably smarter than you think. Don’t try too
hard to come across as clever, participatory and cool. Rather than trying every social strategy at
once, focus on strong ideas and only use the channels that are most appropriate for them. In
other words, don’t feel obliged to have a Facebook page, a CEO Blog, a wiki, a MySpace page
and a YouTube channel simply because everyone else has one. Focus on an engaging way to
interact with your consumers as a participant and then choose the channels to use. After all
your consumers maybe suffering from social networking fatigue as it’s happening in the UK. It is
early days for social influence marketing. We’re only just beginning to understand how
consumers are influencing each others’ purchasing decisions online and what role brands
should play in this. Behavioral psychology helps us understand influence to a certain extent. But
no one brand has really figured this out as yet. If you’re smart, sensible, pragmatic and mindful
of your consumers’ sensitivities, you may be one of the first to do so.



Participation is marketing
Social Media represents an entirely new way to reach customers and connect with them
directly. It adds an outbound channel that complements inbound customer service and
traditional PR, direct marketing and advertising, placing companies and their customers on a
level playing field to discuss things as peers. Most importantly, it transcends the process of
simply answering questions to creating a community of enthusiasts and evangelists. For the
most part, the only way companies know that customers have questions, comments, or
concerns, is if they contact customer service, make the news, form a public group, or if buying
patterns, stock value, and sales trends suddenly shift.

You can bet that for every inbound customer inquiry, that there is a significant percentage of
existing and potential customers actively discussing the same topic out in the open, simply
looking for guidance, feedback, acknowledgment, and/or information. And usually, these
discussions transpire without company participation, leaving people to resolve issues and
questions on their own. Companies must engage or they place themselves on the long road to
inevitable obsolescence. It's like the old adage, out of sight, out of mind. Or, quite simply,
engage or die. Nowadays participation is marketing. Conversations are a form of marketing.
Companies, first need to listen in order to accurately analyze how, where, and when to
participate. Social Media forces companies to look outward to proactively find the



conversations that are important to business and relationships. And it's not just the
responsibility of PR; it requires the participation by multiple disciplines across the organization
in order to genuinely provide meaningful support and information. Again, we're not talking
about messaging or sales propositions. If you stop to think about it, we're talking about fusing
marketing, PR, community relations, and customer service in an entirely new socially-aware
role.

Social Tools for Social Media
It’s also important to search and comb through services that track conversations and relevant
topics such as Technorati, Blog pulse, Bloglines, b5, Google Blog Search, Blog Catalog, and also
MyBlogLog. These tools allow you to proactively monitor memes and determine your level of
engagement. Social Media isn’t limited to blogs and communities. Social Media is also fueling
social networks and the ability to find and host conversations related to brands and products.
For example, Creating Facebook groups as well as searching other related groups are incredible
opportunities to have conversations with people and as well, influence groups of people in the
process.

Another way to help customers is to bring them to you through your own company blog as well
as hosting an integrated social network/discussion forum. Companies such as Satisfaction are



creating “people-powered” customer service forums where companies and customers can
create a channel dedicated to helping people use products more effectively by solving their
problems and answering questions all in one place. In many cases, services such as Satisfaction
are complementary to all other campaigns.

In the case of Twitter, companies can create an account where they can proactively update
their customers aka “followers” with new updates, answers, etc. Customers can also contact
them through “direct” messaging or public @companyname posts. #hashtags is a growing trend
within the service that allows users to callout topics such as #customer+service for others to
locate through a dedicated search tool. Jaiku integrated channels last year, for example,
allowing anyone, in this case, companies, to create a dedicated pipe to share and reply to users
looking for specific information and conversations. User groups and forums haven’t gone away.
They’re still thriving, and, determining which communities host conversations that matter to
your business in critical in maintaining customer service and also instilling satisfaction and
fostering enthusiasm. Monitoring the culture of each community and the sociology of the
interactions, can only tell one how they can participate. Whatever you do, don’t’ engage as a
marketer and don’t participate from a top down approach – meaning be helpful, not “put out”
from having to answer the same things over and over again.

The Role of Marketing
Marketing’s role in an organization is changing. It is no longer enough to push a product or
service at a customer, thinking it will meet that customer’s need because they fit into a certain
demographic. Knowing which magazines I subscribe to, which TV shows I watch and what kinds
of products I purchase do not really tell you my story, either. It is marketing’s role to truly
understand the customer’s need from a psycho-graphic and behavioral aspect. In order to do
that, marketers are Inference it necessary to view their company, its products and services, and
even each place a customer touches that company from the customer’s perspective. Only then
can we begin to understand the underlying needs of a customer.

Consumer Buying Behaviour
process
Consumer Buying Behaviour is the decision making process she/he undergoes while choosing
for a product or a service.

The basic steps to the process are as follows:
1. Need Recognition: Identifying the need for which the product or service is required
2. Alternative Search: Doing a search on the alternatives that are available in the market today
3. Alternative Evaluation: Evaluating and comparing all the alternatives on various factors



4. Purchase Decision: Choosing the most preferred alternative and buying it
5. Post Purchase Evaluation / Dissonance: Evaluating the benefits of the product/service after
using it and forming an attitude about it.

Social media are the online practices that people use to create and share opinions, insights,
experiences, and perspectives with each other. In terms of the process of decision making, a
social media plays a role in searching for alternatives and doing a comparison amongst them,
after which the user's inputs help him to review the product/service for others to benefit from
it. Hence, for the study of understanding the buying behaviour and social media's effect on it,
we need to study two constructs – alternative search and alternative evaluation, or simply
search and evaluation.
Regarding search, the construct can be broken down further into:
1. Types of search mediums and their recall (top of mind, aided and unaided)
2. Preference based on time consumption, ease and convenience, reach, relevant and reliable
information
3. Belief in the social media as a medium (reliability, how much time willing to spend, would
you use it given a chance, etc.) vis-à-vis other mediums such as telephone, yellow pages,
product brochures, etc.
4. Product or Service categories preferred across different search mediums (which medium
used for which service/product?)
5. What specific in social media attracts a user for a product search (TOM, aided, unaided;
rating of helping tools on social media, etc.)
Regarding product/service evaluation, the construct can be broken down further into:
1. Evaluation techniques
2. Level/Extent of evaluation
3. Product evaluation preferred across relevant mediums
4. Most preferred search and evaluation tools/techniques on the digital medium
5. Reliability issues (community, blogs and tools involving third party participation)

Based on the above mentioned ten factors, we can open up the floor for a FGD. The key
questions to guide the FGD can be:
1. Stages of decision making
2. At which stages do you require assistance?
3. What helps you during a purchase?
4. What do you look for, in terms of information, access and reliability when you look forward
to a medium?

Once you are through with the FGD, set up your questions and do a descriptive study on it. The
key things to look after are:
1. Type of sampling and the sample size
2. The sample needs to be spread across geographical locations and across age brackets.
3. Do not aid the user to answer questions and provide Don't Know/Can't Say (DKCS) as
options.



4. For every question, do keep in mind the type of answers (rating, ranking, etc.) you will get
which can be broken down in SPSS and can be helpful in answering your objective

What's Next for Social
Platforms?
On a panel this morning, representatives from Facebook , MySpace , Bebo, Orkut/OpenSocial,
and Six Apart talked about what we can expect in the coming year with regard to third-party
applications, data portability/data sharing, monetization, and, of course, keeping the users
happy slappy. The end result was clear from the start: Everyone is still a little fuzzy on where to
go from here.

User data and data portability
Dave Morin, senior platform manager at Facebook spoke a lot about data portability and
Facebook's emphasis on giving users control of their data going forward. quot;Our intent is to
enable users to take data with them and to enable the user and developer to have access to



data they need to create great experiences,quot; he said. quot;Our responsibility [as developers] is to
work together to define the future, whether it’s called data portability... or privacy portability.quot;
On the flipside of giving users quot;controlquot; of their data, Morin also said one of Facebook's quot;core
focusesquot; going forward is to keep a closer eye on what their users are doing at all times (i.e.,
beef up their already-perfected stalking capabilities.) quot;The recent actions you’ve taken or your
friends have taken -- those things matter most each time you stop by somebody’s profile.quot;

Conclusion
If there's one constant in digital media, its change. Every 12 to 18 months the landscape
expands. New channels seem to join existing, more mature formats that only started to dot the
horizon a few months earlier. For example, consider that in 2005 blogs was the single most
important. As we begin 2008, the lines have truly blurred between the mainstream sources that
we have years of knowledge in how to engage and quantify and a digital landscape that is more
dynamic. As the pace of change continues and the generation that grew up with the web enters
adulthood, it ensures that measuring influence will continue to become even more complex
and challenging.

Still, there is some basic truths have emerged that are grounded in human nature and can guide
the PR professional accordingly. First, even as they use their digital presences to coalesce
audiences into communities, the basic ethos of the traditional press remains grounded in
information. People visit media sites to stay informed, even as the way reporter’s work is
becoming far more open and collaborative. This means that, for now, that the traditional
methods of measuring the influence of the media remain largely the same.

In the social sphere meanwhile, whether it is a dispersed community (e.g. blogs) or a more
centralized one (MySpace), a different spirit has evolved. This one is grounded in open
collaboration toward a shared outcome. The agenda here could include everything from
information to entertainment to connections, social change and virtually thousands of others.
Communicators who desire to build and measure influence need to think about the ethos of
each venue, devise the right kinds of appropriate programmes and set up methodologies for
measuring the impact of their efforts. Arguably, marketing communications spans two different
continua. Programmes are at one end or the other or somewhere in between. This is depicted
in the schematic below. Programmes can either be closed or open (Y axis) or they can be
designed for communication or collaboration (the X axis).

The result is four distinct quadrants:
1) Controlled Communication: One-way tactics such as TV advertising, online advertising and
media relations that are great for branding and visibility, but are seldom collaborative
2) Open Communication Online initiatives, such as viral videos, that are designed to generate
discussion, but not necessarily produce a shared outcome
3) Controlled Collaboration Programmes that facilitate participation but are more controlled,
for example numerous efforts to solicit consumer generated ads



4) Conversational Collaboration Win-win initiatives that open a dialogue toward reaching a
broader goal. Currently, most marketing communication programmes sit in on the left hand
side of this matrix.
However, as companies and organizations become more aware of the tenor of each venue and
what works, we believe they will begin to mix in strategies and tactics from the right side. As a
result, the outcome is that programmes on the left will measure online influence through
metrics like impressions, conversations, in-bound links, friends and more. Meanwhile, the right
hand side - particularly Conversational Collaborative programmes - will adopt entirely new
methodologies that measure based on outcomes. For example, this could include ideas
generated, donations or other means of measuring advocacy and so forth. This is fertile ground
and one that has not been the dominion of marketers, but it will be going forward. The future
of communications is in the mixing of these quadrants and understanding how they work
together to influence the public.

Research Design:
Research: Descriptive Research
Data sources: Primary and secondary data
Research instrument: Questionnaire
Type of questionnaire: Structured non-disguised
Type of questions: close-ended questions
Sample unit: Users who use social media
Sample unit: 100 qualified users
Sampling procedure: Simple random procedure
Contact method: personal and online
Mode of collecting data: The respondents will be chosen randomly and requested to
grant interviews. The questions will then be asked in a firm
Determined sequence. The secondary data will be collected from various books,
journals, reports - both published and unpublished.
Data processing: SPSS and inferences will be drawn from the data collected.

Research Objective
The objective is to find out the influence of social media in purchase decision. The respondent’s
demographics, their preferences and their habits.

Research Methodology
a. Sample Design
b. Analysis / expected outcome plan

Analysis
c. Frequencies and Cross-tabulation
d. Factor analysis
e. Cluster analysis



SPSS DATA ANALYSIS
The below questions are in no particular order:

1. Cross tabulation between Q1 X Q2
Q1. How Net savvy are you? X
Q2. Please indicate your age?

36 - 45 years
26 - 35 years
18 - 25 years
Less than 18 years

0 5 10 15 20 25

Less than 18
18 - 25 years 26 - 35 years 36 - 45 years
years
Do you search/review and NOT
0 16 22 4
purchase online:
Do you search/review AND
1 16 25 16
purchase online

Do you search/review and NOT purchase online: Do you search/review AND purchase online

Inference:
 The chi-square test revealed there is no significant association between the variable age and
variable net savvy.
 From the chi-square test output table we see that a significant level of .112 (Pearson’s) has been
achieved.
 This means the Chi-square test is showing no significant association between the above two
variables.
 It is evident from the above chart that users’ between the age group 26 to 35 are more net
savvy and tend to search/review products/services before they make a purchase.
 It is also interesting to note that the trend continues as they mature starting from 18 years to 25
years.
 One thing is clear, that respondents between 26-35 years read reviews by experts and users
before they purchase online or not.
 It is also interesting to note that as they mature they tend to trust the online medium more than
the offline as they tend to purchase more online compared to offline.
 The chi-square test revealed there is no significant association between age and being net savvy
because the significant value was above 0.050
 This leads us to conclude that age does not play a vital role in purchasing the products after
reading reviews by experts/users.
 More crosstabs have been done to understand its association with other questions



2. Q2. Please indicate your age.

47
32 67

20

1

Less than 18 years 18 - 25 years 26 - 35 years 36 - 45 years

Inference:
 Out of the total qualified sample size of 100
 47% users are between the age group 26 to 35 years followed by
 32% in the age group of 18 to 25 years.
 The age group of 36 to 45 years followed by 18 to 25 is close and catching up fast with others
who are more active socially compared to them.



3. Q3. Please indicate your occupation

11
Self-employed

6
Employed in the public sector

72
Employed in the private sector

11
Student

0 20 40 60 80

Employed in the Employed in the
Student Self-employed
private sector public sector
Frequency 11 72 6 11

Frequency

Inference:
 We infer that 72 of users are employed in the private sector followed by students and
entrepreneurs who are at 11 each.
 It is also evident that the users who work in a private sector stay online longer compared to
others.
 This leads us to conclude that 72 of these respondents tend to manage/juggle their social life
with their professional life i.e. stay online during work.

4. Q4. Please indicate the City/Metro/Town you live in

120
100
100

80

60
43
40
19
13
12 10
20
2
1
0
Mumbai New Delhi Kolkata Chennai Bengaluru Hyderabad Guwhati Total
Frequency 19 12 1 10 13 43 2 100

Frequency

Inference:
 It is clear from the above table that majority users are mainly from metros like Mumbai, Delhi,
Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad (upcoming metro).



5. Q5. Do you personally use the Internet?

2%

98%

Yes No

Inference:
 98% of respondents have said they use the Internet personally.
 Only a small percentage of respondents have said they do not use Internet personally

6. Cross tab between Q1 X Q9
Q1.How Net savvy are you? X
Q9.How often do you purchase products/services after reading their reviews online?

4
None of the above 2
6
Seldom 9
14
Sometimes 19
6
Often 18
11
Usually 7
1
Consistently 3

None of the
Consistently Usually Often Sometimes Seldom
above
Do you search/review and NOT
1 11 6 14 6 4
purchase online:
Do you search/review AND purchase
3 7 18 19 9 2
online

Do you search/review and NOT purchase online: Do you search/review AND purchase online



Inference:
 The chi-square test revealed there is no significant association between the variable how net
savvy are you and variable how often do you purchase online after reading reviews.
achieved.
variables.
 This leads us to conclude that age does not play a vital role in how often you purchase online
after reading products after reading reviews by experts/users.
 Majority of users 19% purchased ‘Sometimes’
 Followed by 18% of users who purchased ‘Often’
 It is interesting to know that 14% of the users did not purchase online even after going through
reviews by experts/users.
 Followed by users 11% users who said they did not purchase usually like other did.
 More crosstabs have been done to understand its association with other questions

7. Crosstab between Q2 X Q9
Q2. Please indicate your Age? X
Q9. How often do you purchase products/services after reading their reviews online?

20

12
9
8 8 8
7
5
44
3
2 222
11 1 1
0 0 0 0 0

Consistently Usually Often Sometimes Seldom None of the
above
Less than 18 years 0 0 1 0 0 0
18 - 25 years 1 9 8 5 7 2
26 - 35 years 1 8 12 20 4 2
36 - 45 years 2 1 3 8 4 2

Less than 18 years 18 - 25 years 26 - 35 years 36 - 45 years

The objective of this tabulation is to find out if age plays a role in influencing the user to purchase
online.

Inference:
 The chi-square test revealed there is no significant association between the variable age and
variable how often do you purchase online after reading reviews.
achieved.



variables.
 This leads us to conclude that age does not play a vital role in how often you purchase online
after reading products after reading reviews by experts/users.
 It is clear from the chart above that users in the age group of 26 to 35 years purchase
products/services online more than the users falling in other age groups
 In this age group users purchase sometimes/often after reading the reviews online
 The users in the age group 18 to 25 are online and active but do not spend as much as their
colleagues in the age group 26 to 35.
 One reason being most of these users are either students or have just started their careers
 It is also clear that there is no significant association between the age and how often they
purchase online. This is because the chi-square result gave no significant association and hence
it is weak.

8. Crosstab between Q10 X Q9
Q10. How much did you spend online to purchase anything last year? X
Q9. How often do you purchase products/services after reading their reviews online?

Above 10,001
8,001 - 10,000 Rupees
6,001 - 8,000 Rupees
4,001 - 6,000 Rupees
2,001 - 4,000 Rupees
1,001 - 2,000 Rupees
Up to 1,000 Rupees
None

0 2 4 6 8 10 12

1,001 - 2,001 - 4,001 - 6,001 - 8,001 -
Up to 1,000 Above
None 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000
Rupees 10,001
Rupees Rupees Rupees Rupees Rupees
None of the above 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Seldom 3 9 1 1 0 1 0 0
Sometimes 3 0 3 6 5 3 2 11
Often 3 0 0 2 8 2 3 6
Usually 4 5 0 2 1 3 0 3
Consistently 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 2

None of the above Seldom Sometimes Often Usually Consistently

Inference:
 The chi-square test revealed there is a significant association between the variable how
much did you spend last year and variable how often do you purchase online after
reading reviews.



 From the chi-square test output table we see that a significant level of .000 (Pearson’s)
has been achieved.
 This means the Chi-square test is showing a strong significant association between the
above two variables.
 This leads us to conclude that your online spends does play a vital role in how often you
purchase online after reading products after reading reviews by experts/users.
 The chi-square test revealed there is a strong significant association between how much
you spent last year and being net savvy because the significant value was less than
0.050
 It is clear from the chart above that users in the age group of 26 to 35 years purchase
products/services online more than the users falling in other age groups
 In this age group users purchase sometimes/often after reading the reviews online
 The users in the age group 18 to 25 are online and active but do not spend as much as
their colleagues in the age group 26 to 35.
 One reason being most of these users are either students or have just started their
careers
 Respondents spends touched a fairly high figure of 10,000 plus but these kind of
purchases were made ‘sometimes’
 Around 9% respondents spent upto Rs. 1000 online last year
 Around 8% users spent between 4,000 to 6,000 online



9. Q12. How often do you carry out the following activities via Internet? Rate it on a scale of
1 to 5, ‘1’ being the lowest score and ‘5’ being the highest score.

250

200

150

100

50

0
5 4 3 2 1 Total Mean
Var 1 42 15 24 2 17 100 3.63
Var 2 47 8 21 6 18 100 3.88
Var 3 82 10 8 0 0 100 5.63
Var 4 32 23 22 6 17 100 3.13
Var 5 33 32 17 5 13 100 3.18
Total 236 88 92 19 65

Var 1 Var 2 Var 3 Var 4 Var 5 Total

Legend:
 Pay utility bills = Var 1
 Online banking = Var 2
 E-mail/Chats = Var 3
 Other payments and purchases = Var 4
 Read reviews and shop for products/services = Var 5

Inference:
 82% respondents spend most of their time (very often) on Emails and Chats
 47% users use online banking or transact online very often. This could also mean that these
users are more likely to make a purchase as they are familiar with transacting online.
 18% respondents said they less often transact online. Efforts need to be put in to encourage
more online transactions by them.
 Many users seem to refrain themselves when it comes to using the Internet for paying utility
bills or making any kind of payment online.
 There is a misconception that has been built which needs to be corrected by educating them.



Recommendation:
 Marketing efforts may be targeted via e-mails and chats as 82% respondents spend most of their
time (very often) on Emails and Chats.
 Banks should encourage their clients to transact online more often as this may reduce their
inconvenience.
 Many respondents have opted to stay neutral which means they are neither comfortable nor
dissatisfied with the service as such but not too happy to transact online.
 This is an area that requires tremendous development along with education like what SBI has
started doing these days through newspaper advertising.

10. Q13. Will you recommend the websites you visited to others based on your satisfied past
experiences?

120
100
100

80

60 48
37
40

11
20
4
0
Will definitely Likely to Unlikely to
Neutral Total
recommend recommend recommend
Frequency 48 37 11 4 100

Frequency

Inference:
 48% users have said they will definitely recommend the websites they have visited in the past to
other colleagues and friends based on their past experiences.
 37% are close to definitely recommending the same but they are not very sure about the same.
 This could be due to the dissatisfaction that they may be experiencing while transacting online
or interacting online.
 11% of the users are neutral.

Recommendation:
 Website owners need to take a note of this point and ensure they set up necessary customer
support to help the user anywhere anytime.



11. Q14. Has your online shopping surpassed your off-line shopping (in-store shopping)

46%

54%

Yes No

Inference:
 46% have responded saying their online shopping experience has surpassed their offline
experience.
 Whereas 54% have responded saying their experience has not surpassed the online shopping
experience.

Recommendation:
 Website owners need to pay attention to these points and take necessary action to draw critical
mass and allure them to shop online by offering them some discounts if shopped online.
 Banks also have an important role to play; they need to educate as well as encourage their
clients to use their online banking feature more often to grow this service.
 E.g. recently due to the oil prices sky rocketing, most online shopping companies in the US have
revealed that their online sales has gone up due to the oil price hike.
 People like to sit home and transact online once they know for sure what they do online is
secure.



12. Q15. Who did you purchase products for?

25
Business purchase

53
Purchased a gift for someone else

77
Purchased for yourself

0 20 40 60 80

Purchased a gift for
Purchased for yourself Business purchase
someone else
Responses 77 53 25

Responses

Inference:
 77 respondents have shopped for themselves online.
 53 have purchased for someone else or gifted someone.
 25 said they shopped online on behalf of their company.
 This is generally to purchase a white papers etc. for their organization.



13. Q16. How do you express yourself creatively?

1.17
Writing 2

2.34
Photos 4

1.17
Regular work 2

1.17
Email/IM's 2

1.17
Mobile internet user 2

31.58
Sharing musical playlists 54

29.24
Uploading videos 50

32.16
Blogging 55

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Sharing
Uploading Mobile
Blogging Email/IM's Regular work Photos Writing
musical
videos internet user
playlists
Percentages 32.16 29.24 31.58 1.17 1.17 1.17 2.34 1.17
Responses 55 50 54 2 2 2 4 2

Percentages Responses

Inference:
 Majority of the respondents have said they share music, videos and blogs to express themselves
creatively online
 Of these some of them have included their ‘regular work’ that has something to do with
spending most of their time online
 Almost 2% have written creative writing

Recommendation:
 We need to figure out ways to drive our generation to better express themselves like encourage
writing etc.


Social Media’s Influence in Purchase Decision

Social Media’s Influence in Purchase Decision

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