Impact of social media marketing on consumer buying behavior in telecom sector of Pakistan

Abstract

With the emergence of internet, every aspect of our lives has been changed, whether it is conducting business or doing shopping, communicating to world or sharing knowledge and information, it brought an ease to our lives. Among all branches of internet Social Media has gained most popularity, by connecting people and ideas that are far away from each other. Through Facebook you can make friends all over the world and understand their culture, values and norms. Twitter allows you to connect and interact with celebrities and professionals that was not quite possible few years before internet emergence. LinkedIn help companies to find most competent professionals online. Along with all these changes, internet also changed the approach of commencing business and marketing it. E-commerce is evolving fast and so as social media marketing. Traditional methods of marketing are changing because with the rapid growth of social networking sites in developing countries it is providing marketers a new path to contact customers. This study attempts to assess the impact of social media marketing on consumer buying behavior, particularly in Telecom Industry of Pakistan. Though, we all know that our telecom sector is spending a lot on traditional means of marketing but it is also doing social media marketing as the trends are changing. So, the main purpose of conducting this study is to find out that, whether social media marketing in this sector is affecting consumers’ buying behavior of or not? The data collected for this study is through both primary and secondary sources. Primary source of data has been collected from respondents through questionnaires by direct survey method, and secondary source of data was collected through looking into past studies on the same subject, and through internet. Keywords: Social Media Marketing, Social Networking sites, Consumer Buying Behavior, Brand awareness, E-Word of Mouth, Telecom Sector of Pakistan.