CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

The social media are increasingly influencing and changing the way the consumers behave, and how they make the decision to buy. The consumer decision making process consists of 5 stages: Need/problem recognition, information search, alternative evaluation, purchase decision and post-purchase behavior (Solomon, Bamossy, Askegard and Hogg, 2006). Emerging technologies gain popularity as tools to enable cooperation among businesses in business networks (Liu and Liu, 2009; Bell and Loane, 2010), whereas the applications market is flourishing (Dutta, 2012). Networked companies that take advantage of the latest social media technologies seem to outperform their competitors and report benefits like lower costs and improved efficiencies (Harris and Rea, 2009; Eisenfeld and Fluss, 2009). Within a few years social media has become an integral part of the world. Especially young people cannot think of communication without thinking of online-networks like Facebook, Google+, and Twitter. Why are people so enthusiastic about using these new technologies of virtual interaction? Since the time of Aristotle humans have been described as social beings, and one might state these technologies allow them to act out their crucial feeling of social belonging accordingly (Spitzer, 2012). Social media networks are becoming increasingly important to business owners as they provide firms with access to markets, ideas, information, advice, business opportunities, and other resources (Fang et al., 2010; Farr-Wharton and Brunetto, 2007; Gulati et al., 2000; Hoang and Antoncic, 2003; Lee and Jones, 2008; Shaw, 2006; Taylor and Thorpe, 2004).

Social Media is a just like any other form of media is a tool used for communication but at the larger scale for social interaction using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques.

Dutta and Soumitra (2010) in his article on Social media strategy in Harvard Business Review says that social media are changing the way we do business and how leaders are perceived, from the shop floor to the CEO suite. But whereas the best businesses are creating comprehensive strategies in this area, research suggests that few corporate leaders have a social media presence-say, a Facebook or LinkedIn page-and that those who do don’t use it strategically. Today’s leaders must embrace social media for three reasons. First, they provide a low-cost, highly accessible platform on which a personal brand can be built, and also communicates our identity within and outside the company. Second, they allow to engage rapidly and simultaneously with peers, employees, customers, and the broader public-in order to leverage relationships, show commitment to a cause, and demonstrate a capacity for reflection. Third, they give an opportunity to learn from instant information and unvarnished feedback. There are many services on social media are many services. A manager can choose to interact with the customers, influence their opinion, correct any negative impression and get customers’ input in order to constantly have unique offerings in the marketplace. These social media include Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, WhatsApp, Twitter, Flickr, among others. What is so appealing about social media is the power to reach, not just one customer at a time, but a huge number of people who are customers and potential customers. According to Paul May, founder and CEO, Buzz stream, new market winners will be the companies that excel at identifying and engaging their customers’ influencers across the social web.

Social media tools are gaining popularity and are increasingly used in regular operations of many companies, ranging from start-ups and small and medium enterprises to large corporations (Lee et al, 2008; Osimo, 2008; Andriole, 2010; Bell and Loane, 2010). Despite extensive use of social media, little is known on the specific impact that these tools and technologies have on business process performance (Denyer et al, 2011).

Emerging technologies gain popularity as tools to enable cooperation among businesses in business networks (Liu and Liu, 2009; Bell and Loane, 2010), whereas the applications market is flourishing (Dutta, 2012). Networked companies that take advantage of the latest social media technologies seem to outperform their competitors and report benefits like lower costs and improved efficiencies (Harris and Rea, 2009; Eisenfeld and Fluss, 2009). In this context it is important to understand the specific impact that social media have on business process performance (Wetzstein et al, 2011). The identification of a direct connection between the two will support the shift towards Enterprise 2.0 a new business environment in which companies will maximize the benefits they can obtain by integrating social media suites into their daily operations. From the foregoing therefore, the study seeks to examine the impact of social media on consumer buying behavior of Jumia Nigerian Limited.

1.2 Statement of the Problems

          There is increasing quest by corporate organizations to carve out a winning image and personality for themselves in a highly competitive business environment. However, the publics of these organizations appear to have negative perception about them. They also do not understand the activities and policies of these organizations. In the era of 21st century business, not many organizations, especially insurance companies in Nigeria, appear to explore the great potentials that social media hold to succeed in making the desired impression on customers buying behaviour with their brands’ names, drive performance and increase profitability. Internationally, there have been many studies conducted to understand the importance and the need for a business to be associated with Social Media (Statisticbrain, 2014). However in Nigeria not much study has been conducted in this area, therefore this study is determined to examine the relationship between social media and consumer buying behavior, to understand the impact of social media on consumer buying behavior of Jumia Nigerian Limited to bridge the gap.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

The main objective of the study is to examine the impact of social media on consumer buying behavior of Jumia Nigerian Limited. The specific objectives are;

1.       To examine the relationship between social network and consumer buying behaviour.

2.       To examine the relationship between Wikis and consumer buying behaviour.

3.       To examine the relationship between Weblogs and consumer buying behaviour.

1.4 Research Question

1.       To what extent does social network associate with consumer buying behaviour?

2.       To what extent does Wikis enhances consumer buying behaviour?

3.       To what extent does Weblogs associate with consumer buying behaviour?

1.5 Research Hypotheses

HO1: There is no significant relationship between social network and consumer buying behaviour.

HO2: There is no significant relationship between Wikis and consumer buying behaviour.

HO3: There is no significant relationship between Weblogs and consumer buying behaviour.

1.6 Significance of the Study

Internet connects the world and makes communication very fast and simple. The same with applied for business, makes customers, invertors, suppliers and everyone who is associated with the company connected. This study helps understand social media as a medium to connect business with world and its positive outcomes on performance.

Fundamentally, it is essential we understand current usage and behaviour and identify potential problems so they can bead dressed. This can be seen in the amount of academic studies on social media within the last years.

However, Danah Boyd has gathered a collection of research about social networking sites that list approximately one hundred and fifty research papers, three books and seven research reports published in the year 2003-2010 (Boyd, 2010) none of these papers cover Africa. This shows a lack of research that concerns the African region and especially Nigeria where this form of media is greatly used. Therefore the overall motivation for conducting this study is to contribute to research about social media in Nigeria.

This research should also create a platform for further research should provide useful data for market researchers, marketing and product development professional as well as educations as to how they can maximize social media for optimum benefit in their various fields.

1.7 Scope of the Study

The study is delimited under the following heading: content scope, geographical scope and unit of analysis.

Content Scope: The content scope of this study involves an investigation to ascertain relationship between social media and consumer buying behaviour. The dependent variable is consumer buying behaviour, measured by cultural factor, social factor and demographic factor. While independent variable is social media proxied by social network, Wiki and Weblogs.

Geographical Scope: This study is delimited in Port Harcourt Rivers State with references to Jumia Nigeria Limited.

Unit of Analysis: The units of analysis for this research are employees of Jumia Nigeria Limited at the time of the study.

1.8 Limitation of the Study

Although this study has accomplished the purpose which it was sets out to achieve, one of the very limitations is that the validity of the result or finding is depending on the honesty of the respondents in providing the needed information.

Due to constraint of time and money, it is difficult to carry out the research extensively. This led to the limiting of the scope. Cognizance was also taken to the fact that the academic calendar was too short and academic workload was enormous, as a result of this, no much time to run around for the work.

1.9 Definition of Terms

Social media:

A group of internet based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of web 2. 0 and that allows the creation and exchange of user generated content

Social skills:

Any skills facilitating interaction and communication with others. Social rules and relations are ways through a process called socialization.

Cyberspace:        

This is the elections medium of computer network in which online communication takes place.

Weblogs:

A blog (a contraction of the term web long) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.

Instant messaging:

Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real-time direct text based communication between two or more peoples, using shared clients; the text is conveyed via devices connected over a network such as the internet.

Twitter:

This is one of the social networking service and micro blogging services that enables users to send and read text based messages of up to 140 characters known as tweets.

Social Networks:

They allow people to establish personal webpages and then connect with friends for the purpose of sharing information and communication.

Weblogs:

Weblogs are online journals and it is most often arranged in the chronological order containing text, data, images and other media objects recorded and retrievable through a web browser.