A study on perception towards Social media with special references to online shopping

Ms. V. PAVITHRA, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR – MBA,

EASWARI ENGINEERING COLLEGE- CHENNAI

Abstract:

The rapid rise of social media has captured the attention of marketers and consumers on a global scale, and together with a rapidly changing communications environment marketers now confront new challenges in terms of our understanding of consumer behavior and consumption patterns in the new millennium. Internet and Information technology have made tremendous contribution for business transformation witnessed nowadays all over the world. The growth of this particular media attracts the attention of advertisers as a more productive source to bring in consumers. A clear idea, the consumers have with online advertisement is the control they have over the item, choosing whether to check it out or not. To broaden our understanding and assist in managing marketing communications effectively, this exploratory research investigates the role of social media within the broader advertising and communications mix. The capability of purchasing without leaving your place is of great interest to many consumers. Not only does online shopping offer really good deals, but also brings optimum convenience to the consumers. For the aforesaid purpose, a survey was conducted in Chennai city covering 250 samples.

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Key words: Online marketing, Social media, Consumer perception, consumption pattern, Advertisers, convenience

Introduction:

Knowing that, currently, social networks, blogs, forums and sharing sites are the main centers of interest for Internet users, marketers have started to rethink their online communication strategies and adjust to the new trend. Many companies are realizing that having a website and making it visible and easy to find through search engines (SEO) is simply not enough anymore. Nowadays it is vital that their online presence includes a Social Media component on sites like Facebook, Google+, Hi5, MySpace or Twitter. According to the recent research on consumer behaviour on the Internet users, there are four distinct consumer groups with different intentions and motivations:

• Exploration
• Entertainment
• Shopping
• Information

Types of Internet marketing

Internet marketing is broadly divided in to the following types:

• Display Advertising: the use of web banners or banner ads placed on a third-party website to drive traffic to a company’s own website and increase product awareness.
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM): a form of marketing that seeks to promote websites by

increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of either paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion, or through the use of free search engine optimization techniques.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.
• Social Media Marketing: the process of gaining traffic or attention through social media sites.
• Email Marketing: involves directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using electronic mail.
• Referral Marketing: a method of promoting products or services to new customers through referrals, usually word of mouth.
• Affiliate Marketing: a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.
• Content Marketing: involves creating and freely sharing informative content as a means of converting prospects into customers and customers into repeat buyers.