The effect of social media usage on the consumer perception and brand awareness in businesses: Reseach on university students

The research conducted with the aim of making easy sampling method was used and face to face interviews were made to determine the consumer perception of social media usage and its relationship with brand awareness. In the sampling process, social media users studying at universities in different cities and having different demographic characteristics were tried to be reached to minimize selection bias and obtain the best possible representative sample, In this context, a total of 390 university students from Düzce University (n = 74), Süleyman Demirel University (n = 49), Mehmet Akif Ersoy university (n = 62), Akdeniz University (n = 92) and Sakarya University (n= 113) were included in the study. Face to face survey method was used as data collection tool in the study and the obtained data were analyzed by SPSS 22.0 program. As a result of the statistical analyzes, it was determined that the perceptions of the university students were higher than the average of the consumer perceptions and the consumer perception varies according to the age and the time spent on the internet. In the study, it was also found that the brand awareness level was above the average and the brand awareness level significantly differed according to the age and the time spent on the internet. At the same time, it was found that there was a positively, medium and statistically significant relationship between brand awareness and consumer perception.