Analysis of the relationship between influencer marketing in social media and consumers' impulse buying behavior

The importance of interaction and participation social media brought to our daily lives has led to the immediate emergences of new marketing activities. While consumers started having the right to speak up more with social media's existence, companies also had the opportunity to reach more consumers and gain competitive advantage with less cost. In this very direction, marketing has gained importance with social media influencers, which are one of the most successful and popular tools of reaching the consumer directly. Influencers, which are seen as highly influential, trend-setting and authentic advertising tools, have significantly affected consumers' purchasing decisions and behaviors. Businesses that cooperate with influencers have been succesfull in increasing their brand awareness as well as increasing their sales. The influencers being in the position of opinion leaders, has made them indispensable and irreplaceable for marketing activities. Within the scope of this thesis, it is aimed to reveal the relationship between the influencer marketing, which has very high and important impact on social media, and the impulse buying behavior of consumers. The data collected through the online survey were analyzed and the findings were evaluated. As the result of the research, a significant and positive relationship was found between influencer marketing (dimentions of source reliability, effectiveness of advices, attitudes towards advertisements and discıunt sensitivity) and consumers' impulse buying behavior. In addition, no significant difference was found between demographic factors and consumers' impulse buying behaviors.