Effects Of Social Media On Consumer Product Adoption Process: Research Proposal

A detailed statement of the research problem

Discuss about the Effects of Social Media on Consumer Product Adoption Process.

Technological advancements have revolutionized the modern corporate world and primarily through the rapid growth of social media. Social media has grown from a social interaction platform to one of the most significant platforms for enhancing business marketing strategies with some companies using the platform to extend their product or services campaign to a broader range of customers (Tuten et al., 2018). Social media has been found to have a significant influence on every stage of consumer decision making and therefore has been used by companies to gain a competitive advantage in the market by improving their interactions with their consumers. Consumer decision making is influenced by many factors which have an impact on their consumption behaviors (Ramprathap et al., 2017). Understanding consumer behavior and decision making are very critical to the success of a business. However, it is essential to understand the factors influencing the change in consumer behavior. With the new order of social media marketing companies have developed integrated systems and also have adopted the use of social media programs to meet the needs of their organizations (Macarthy, 2018). However despite the change of company marketing tools, change in how consumers get to know about products or even the shift in consumer behavior, it has remained the fact that consumer product adoption process does not change. The method of customer product adoption has continued unchanged, and therefore this study aims to develop a research proposal on the effects of social media on the consumer product adoption process.

The research project will be organized in different sections which will help us in building and enhance our understanding of the effects of social media on consumer product adoption. Section one of the project proposal will provide an introduction to the overview of the underlying issues in this study. Section two will give a detailed statement of the research problem while section three will provide an analysis of research aims, objectives and research questions. Part four of the proposal will provide a detailed justification and potential outcomes of the research project. Chapter five provides a conceptual framework analysis of the project wile section six provides a review of the research methodology and presentation of secondary data. Lastly section 7of the project proposal will outline the organization of the study, the proposed project budget as well as the timeline schedule for the project.

Proposed Research aims, objectives and research Questions

Social media has emerged as one of the most significant platforms for a variety of purposes, such as market research and analysis, customer interactions, marketing & advertising, and a lot more. It has revolutionized the modern business activities and marketing strategies.  However, the business organizations in the present era are still not accustomed with the measures and practices that they shall adopt to gain the maximum out of the social media channels and data sets (Chen, Chen & Xu, 2016). Different scholars have engaged in various research studies in understanding the effects of social media on consumer behavior, consumer purchasing behavior as well as on their decision making. However, three is limited research developed to determine the impact of social media on consumer product adoption process (Wang & Kim, 2017).  Therefore, this project proposal will investigate the effects that social media has on consumer product adoption process for better decision-making and development of marketing strategy.

The research aims to investigate the primary, secondary, and tertiary effects that the various social media channels have on the consumer product adoption process. The study also aims at identifying these effects in multiple industry sectors and the social media data sets that may be used for the purpose. The benefits of the procedure, tools and techniques, the role of social media in consumer decision-making process, and primary challenges will also be covered (Hajli, 2014).

For effectiveness and reliability of our project proposal, the findings of the project will be guided by various research objectives as well as questions. The first objective of the project will be to provide an understanding of the concept of consumer product adoption and the process involved in helping consumers make adoption decisions (Greve, 2014). The project seeks to provide a detailed analysis of the social media practices influencing consumer behavior and decision making. It is the objective of the company too to give an understanding of the effects of social media on the consumer product adoption process. The proposal also seeks to define the procedures, tools, and techniques used in developing social media strategies to contribute to improved consumer decision-making process.

Research Questions

RQ1. Does a social medium impact consumer product adoption process and what are the likely effects of social media influences on consumer decision making process?

RQ2. Does a social medium influence the various stages of consumer adoption process or will the process remain unchanged as it has been over the past years?

Justification and potential Output of the Research project

RQ3. Does consumer decision-making process have an impact on their product adoption process?

Many scholars have developed their studies in understanding the effects of social media on consumer behavior such as their purchasing decision, decision making as well as the impact of social media on consumer tastes and preferences and brand development. Research has also developed on understanding the impact of social media on organizational or business marketing strategies and general business performance regarding revenue development (Jeong et al., 2017). However, I believe that there is limited research or a literature gap in understanding the effects of social media on the consumer product adoption process. This research, therefore, aims at developing a research proposal that will enhance knowledge development in understanding the impact of social media on consumer behavior and thus filling the existing literature gap (Wang & Yu, 2017). The research will, therefore, be critical in helping organizations and business develop effective marketing strategies by understanding the consumer product adoption process and how the use of social media can influence it.

The project is expected to produce various outcomes based on the findings concerning the effects of social media on the consumer product adoption process. This informs that despite the different product marketing strategies that can be developed by business, consumers will still use the same method of consumer product adoption (Wang et al., 2017). The research will contribute to the development of effective organizational marketing strategies that will help to increased business performance. The findings will also contribute to increased knowledge and understanding of consumer behavior and decision making.

The rapid growth of social media use has led to the growth of a virtual community and has been very influential to consumer behavior and most important in their purchasing decisions (Faraji?Rad et al., 2017).  The development of social media platforms for business marketing has increasingly become a critical source for customers who use the platforms to seek information about the products and also share their opinion about the product and brand as well. Consumers or buyers are said to be stimulated by their social interactions environments concerning product purchase decision making. This is because some consumers feel secure or confident of using a product that has received overwhelming feedback through the various social media interaction platforms (Verhoef et al., 2017). Therefore social media has developed a social interaction tool which is very useful for the provision of information about the products at their different prices though evaluation of the brand choices in making any purchase decision.

Conceptual framework and hypothesis development

For effectiveness of social media to influence the consumer product adoption process then it must be able to control each stage of product adoption. The process is comprised of five different stages including; creating product awareness, product interest, product evaluation, product trial and production (Rahman & Mannan, 2018). Despite the changes in company or business marketing tools, changes in consumer behavior, or even on how consumers acquire product information the process of consumer product adoption has remained the same. Therefore the effect of social media on consumer product adoption is dependent on the impact of social media on the four stages of the adoption process. Different scholars have identified that social media plays a significant role in creating product awareness since it has been successfully used by business for marketing company brands, goods, and services (Chen et al., 2017). Through the various social media platforms, companies can improve their interactions with their target customers and contribute to increased customer base and revenue. The management of the company can also focus on developing a strong social presence that will help in enhancing product awareness.

Social media affects the consumer’s product interest; this stage occurs after product awareness. The company can, therefore, develop various websites, videos or even blog sites where the potential consumers can access more information and sustain their interest in the company products (Truong et al., 2017). Product evaluation helps in differentiating your product or service from other product lines. The assessment provides the consumers with a solution by evaluating the products which are valuable and are cost effective.  The consumers purchase a product for trial before deciding whether to continue consuming the product or not. If the product satisfies the consumer needs and demands, then they gain confidence and adopt the product improving the product production (McIntyre & Srinivasan, 2017). The development of social media platforms can, therefore, be instrumental in taking the consumers through these steps of product adoption process without the company having to incur other marketing associated costs.

The research project will include the mix of the research methodologies as qualitative methodology and quantitative methodology.

The qualitative methodology will include exploratory techniques and measures to understand the implications that social media has in the product adoption process of the consumers (Scuotto et al., 2017). There will be data collected from numerous data sources, and there will also be techniques that will be utilized for the collection of the data, such as domain analysis, surveys, questionnaires, group discussions, interviews and many others. The data collected will then be analyzed using the automated analytics tools to understand the effects. The quantitative methodology, on the other hand, will include mathematical tools and concepts to research on the topic. Under this methodology, the data and information will be obtained from the social media channels, and other data sources and the numerical data will be formed which will then be converted to statistical data to understand the results (Wisdom et al., 2011).

The primary data source in the research process will be social media channels and accounts, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and many others.

The secondary data sources will include the company websites, mobile applications of the business organizations, data from the marketing channels, customers, and end-users. The data sets will then be analyzed with automated analytical tools.

The data will be collected using a variety of methods.

There will be surveys conducted and questionnaires distributed to the consumers, market experts, representative of the business organizations, business analysts and experts to obtain their response on the usage of social media, purchase criteria, associated patterns and details to get the trends and effects of social media on product adoption process (Lin et al., 2017). There will also be domain analysis done for every industry sector to have an in-depth knowledge of the varied effects that the social media platforms may have in different industries.

There will also be group discussions organized to obtain the viewpoint of different entities in a collaborative environment. This may lead to the revelation of the ideas and concepts not identified before (Paradis et al., 2016). Interview sessions shall also be organized with specific users, experts, and business representative to have a one-on-one discussion on the effects that social media may have on the product adoption process. The other data collection methods shall include brainstorming sessions, observations, historical data and information gathering. The data sets collected using all the specified techniques will then be analyzed, and the irrelevant games will be discarded. The ones found relevant will be analyzed using data analytics tools.  

Organization of the study

Chapter one; development of the research proposal introduction outlining overall overview of the statement under analysis

Chapter two; a description of social media marketing strategies and platforms and their effect one consumer product adoption process

Chapter Three; will include the details of research methodology – literature review, data series and surveys (data collection methods), observing critical indicators of regression and data analysis methods.

Chapter Four; Provides a report of Findings and Analysis of the proposed research.

 
Chapter Five: provides a summary of the essential findings and a discussion of their potential implications developing effective strategies to improve the effectiveness of strategic management strategies in handling business conflicts in the current business world.

Budget, Project Activities and Gantt chart

There is need to develop a budget for the research to facilitate a smooth process of conducting the proposed research. The study is expected to be carried out at an approximated time frame of three months. Within this period an estimated budget of $ 7000 is required. The budget will be developed specifically for research activities such as conducting a literature review, data collection and data analysis and the associated costs for active project development. Below is a summary of the proposed estimated budget.

 Project activities and milestone schedules, Gantt table

References

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Chen, Y., Chen, H., & Xu, L. (2016). Social Media and eBusiness: Cultural Impacts on the Influence Process in Consumer Communities. IOP Conference Series: Journal of Materials Science And Engineering, 142, 012134. https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1757-899x/142/1/012134

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