The Impact of Social Media Marketing Practices towards ConsumerPerception on Electronic Products: Reference to Colombo District

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.