Abstract:
Social media marketing is a modern marketing technique used by almost every
enterprise to meet its clients on virtual networks. This study is an attempt to
examine the impact thatis generated by the social media marketing practices on
consumer perception of online shopping in the consumer electronics industry.
Hence, the specific objective of the studyis to determine the impact of social
media marketing practices in the mind of consumers and to what extent they
influence consumer perception towards consumer electronic goods. Based on
the previous literature, a theoretical framework has been developed, and four
social media marketing practices were selected. A total of 384 participants
who are using social media in the Colombo district, responded to an online
questionnaire in a cross-sectional time horizon study. Reliability analysis was
conducted to check internal consistency in measurements. All the items
indicate 0.7 above Cronbach`s alpha values. The data were analysed through
SPSS and inferential statistical methods namely, correlation analysis and
regression analysis were used. The four independent variables are content
marketing, online word of mouth, troll marketing, and social bullying. The
dependent variable is consumer perception. The all the hypotheses were
successfully tested and out of four, one hypothesis was rejected. Based on the
study’s findings, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
Limitations and suggestions also are made for future research. Social bullying
is a highly influenced factor of consumer perception. One of the identified
research limitations was this research was conducted in only the consumer
electronic goods industry. As the practical implication researcher suggested
that enhance the social media marketing, consumer electronic marketers should
carefully plan to get awareness, goodness and create values to giving
preference and priority to the more influencing social media marketing elements
and lead to create a goodconsumer perception.
