The impact of social media use on consumers buying behavior: A study of college students

The advent of social media has opened a new avenue of marketing for corporations. The traditional 'word-of-mouth' publicity has been replaced by the 'word-of-web', as consumers are increasingly referring to social media sites before making a purchase, greatly influencing buying behavior. Though most companies these days have an official website which has complete information about their products, consumers usually engage with a company after reading reviews and feedback from existing customers. Before buying a product, every consumer wants to make sure that the product is the best in its class, and offers good value for money. Advertisements don't always give a fair idea, as every company claims supremacy of its product. This is where social media plays an important part in defining consumer behavior. People who have already used the product describe their experience - its strengths, weaknesses etc., and this helps in disseminating information. People are more likely to trust those who give an impartial account of a product rather than a celebrity who is paid to endorse the product. Social media enables people from all over the world to form a community of consumers, giving them the power to harm or herald a company. Social media had provided new way of communication to engage the consumer in different business sector. Various Online tools are also increasing on rapid rate to reach new customers. According to recent marketing research, social media is getting involved in people's lives and making them more dependent. The whole world spends for a year approximately110 billion minutes on accessing social networking sites like Facebook, twitter and reading blogs. Social media improve the interaction by providing contents publically and gain interest of visitors. Social sites are tools to spread the information among consumers. People are sharing their personnel content or public content inside and outside their professional life. The unique characteristics of social media and the popularity that it has gained in the past few years have brought forth a revolution in the practices pertaining to marketing. Social media has changed the way an organisation promotes their products or advertises for the same. Social media has also been observed to have an impact on the behaviour of a consumer from the acquisition of data from the behaviour post purchasing a product such as statements of dissatisfaction and their pattern of usage of the Internet. Given the nature of social media, anything - positive or negative - that is being said about your product or company is easily accessible to a global community of consumers, which essentially means that your business and your marketing strategy can be hailed or harmed in a matter of hours. This work will offer an overview on how the consumers use social media in the stages of decision making process and the psychographic variables that influence their behavior. A survey of 484 consumers selected randomly in the Dicle Üniversity was conducted, to find out to what extent they are impacted by the use of social media, and what role it plays in their decision making process. Keywords: costumer, social media, social networking websites, costumer behaviour, costumer purchasing desicion process