The mediating role of digital marketing in the impact of university students' social media usage on mobile shopping behavior

As of 2023, there are 5.16 billion internet users in the world and 4.76 billion social media users. Social media, which supports the development of communication technology, creates a different social environment with its unique features. Social media brings together millions of users with different characteristics and enables users all over the world to communicate with each other. In this way, digital marketing applications provide businesses with the opportunity to offer products and services under more convenient and advantageous conditions. The advantages offered by the digital world, especially for young consumers, are many. In this context, the aim of the study is to determine the effects of social media use and digital marketing applications on university students' mobile shopping. In this research, 434 surveys were conducted on a voluntary basis. According to the correlation analysis made the data obtained there is a moderate positive relationship between digital marketing and mobile shopping with a strength of r = 0.533 and a significance level of p < 0.05. There is a high positive relationship between the digital marketing sub-factor informativeness and mobile shopping, with a strength of r = 0.607 and a significance level of p < 0.05. There is a weak positive relationship between the digital marketing sub-factor reliability and mobile shopping, with a strength of r = 0.380 and a significance level of p < 0.05. There is a very weak negative relationship between the digital marketing sub-factor annoyingness and mobile shopping, with a strength of r=-0.170 and a significance level of p<0.05. It was found that there was a moderate positive relationship between the digital marketing sub-factor persuasiveness and mobile shopping, with a strength of r = 0.497 and a significance level of p < 0.05. In the data obtained, it was determined that the majority of university students use social media for 3-5 hours (41.0%), they mostly prefer Instagram as social media (76.0%) and the majority of students (97.0%) actively use social media.