SCROLLING ON A SHOPPING JOURNEY
A study of relationships between motivations to use social media,
the customer journey and purchase intention
Linn Gaddefors, Frida Tollqvist
Department of Business Administration Master's Program in Marketing
Master's Thesis in Business Administration II, 15 Credits, Spring 2021
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Abstract
We are currently in the middle of the digital marketing era where technological developments have made it possible for customers and businesses to communicate around the clock. Social media is a tool that makes it possible for companies and brands to create and maintain relationships. To understand social media usage and the motivations behind it, Uses & Gratifications theory is commonly used. Motivations are important when exploring consumer behaviour and understanding the customer journey. A customer journey can be explained as the different touch-points a customer has with a firm during a purchase cycle. Marketing on social media often has different objectives where purchase intention is one important, since it indicates the real value of advertising on social media. Earlier research has not combined these three concepts: motivations to social media usage, the customer journey and purchase intention and this gap got us interested in examining the relationships between these. To do this we developed two research questions:
RQ1: Do motivations to use social media affect stages in the customer journey?
RQ2: Do the different stages of the customer journey affect purchase intention?
The purpose of this study is to investigate motivations that lead to social media usage and if these affect the stages in the customer journey, and further how the customer journey affects purchase intention. We also wanted to investigate if usage of social media has changed during the Covid-19 pandemic. To answer our research questions and fulfill the purpose of this study, we conducted a quantitative research targeting students in Sweden.
Based on existing literature regarding social media, motivations, Uses & Gratification theory, the customer journey, customer decision process and purchase intention we created a theoretical framework and a conceptual model whose aim was to explain relationships between motivations to use social media, the stages of the customer journey and purchase intention. We also developed 12 hypotheses that we tested and included in the model. We collected data by using an online questionnaire and then analysed it and ran tests in SPSS.
Our results showed that 4 out of 12 hypotheses could be supported: There is a positive relationship between cognitive motivation and the pre-purchase stage of the customer journey; There is a positive relationship between cognitive motivation and the purchase stage of the customer journey; There is a positive relationship between hedonic motivation and the pre-purchase stage and lastly; There is a positive relationship between the pre- purchase stage and purchase intention. The conclusion is that changes in purchase intention mostly rely on the impact of the pre-purchase stage. The pre-purchase stage is in turn affected by cognitive and hedonic motivations to use social media.
Keywords: Social media, Uses & Gratifications, Customer journey, Purchase intention
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank our supervisor Vladimir Vanyushyn for his guidance and valuable insights throughout this process. But foremost, this thesis would be nothing without the time and effort of our respondents and the support from our friends and family. We also express our gratitude to Umeå School of Business and Economics which we have had the
pleasure to represent for the past five years.
Umeå, May 24th 2021
Linn Gaddefors & Frida Tollqvist
Table of Content
1 Introduction ... 1
1.1 Choice of Subject... 1
1.2 Theoretical Background ... 2
1.2.1 Customer Behaviour and Motivations to Social Media Usage ... 2
1.2.2 Customer Journey ... 3
1.2.3 Purchase Intention ... 4
1.3 Knowledge Gap ... 5
1.4 Research Question ... 6
1.5 Purpose ... 6
1.6 Delimitations ... 7
2 Theoretical Framework ... 8
2.1 Social Media Usage ... 8
2.1.1 Social Media 101 ... 8
2.1.2 Macro Factors that Influence Social Media Usage ... 9
2.1.3 Uses and Gratifications Theory - Why We Use Social Media ... 10
2.2 Customer Journey and Consumer Decision Process ... 12
2.2.1 Customer Journey ... 12
2.2.2 Consumer Decision Process ... 14
2.3 What Influence Purchase Intention? ... 16
2.4 Development of Conceptual Model ... 18
2.4.1 Do motivations to use social media affect stages in the customer journey? ... 18
2.4.2 Do the different stages of the customer journey affect purchase intention? ... 19
2.4.3 Does the extent of social media usage affect purchase intention? ... 19
3 Scientific Methodology ... 20
3.1 Preconceptions ... 20
3.2 Research Philosophy... 20
3.3 Research Approach ... 22
3.4 Research Strategy and Design ... 22
3.5 Literature Search... 23
3.6 Source Criticism ... 24
4 Practical Methodology ... 25
4.1 Choice of Population & Sample ... 25
4.2 Data Collection ... 25
4.3 Survey Construction ... 26
4.4 Variables ... 30
4.4.1 Dependent variables ... 31
4.4.2 Independent variables ... 31
4.4.3 Control variables ... 31
4.6 Data Loss ... 31
4.7 Research Ethics... 32
5 Empirical Data & Results ... 33
5.1 Demographics & Descriptives ... 33
5.2 Statistical Reliability... 35
5.3 Descriptive Statistics ... 35
5.4 Bivariate Estimations ... 36
5.5 Multivariate Regression ... 37
5.5.1 The Customer Journeys stages relationship to Purchase Intention ... 38
5.5.2 Motivations relationship to the Pre-purchase stage in the Customer Journey ... 39
5.5.3 Motivations relationship to the Purchase stage in the Customer Journey ... 40
5.5.4 Motivations relationship to the Post-purchase stage in the Customer Journey ... 41
5.5.5 All independent variables and its relation to Purchase intention ... 42
5.6 Summary of Empirical results ... 44
6 Discussion ... 45
6.1 Updated Conceptual Model ... 45
6.2 Social Media Usage and the Relationships to the Customer Journey ... 45
6.2.1 Social motivation to Customer Journey ... 45
6.2.2 Cognitive motivation to Customer Journey ... 46
6.2.3 Hedonic motivation to use Social Media ... 47
6.3 Customer Journey Stages and the Relationship to Purchase Intention ... 47
6.3.1 Pre-purchase stage to Purchase intention ... 47
6.3.2 Purchase stage to Purchase intention ... 48
6.3.3 Post-purchase stage to Purchase intention ... 48
6.4 All Independent Variables Towards Purchase Intention ... 49
7 Conclusion ... 51
7.1 Concluding Remarks ... 51
7.2 Theoretical & Practical Contributions ... 52
7.3 Quality Criteria ... 53
7.4 Societal & Ethical Implications ... 54
7.5 Research Limitations & Suggestions for Future Research ... 54
7.5.1 Limitations ... 54
7.5.2 Future research ... 55
References ... 56
Appendix ... 60
Appendix 1. Survey ... 60
Appendix 2. Correlation Matrix from SPSS ... 68
Appendix 3. Scatterplots of variables showing a significant correlation ... 69
List of Figures
Figure 1. Proposed research model. ... 5
Figure 2. The three stages of the Customer Journey ... 13
Figure 3. IMC conceptual framework (Batra & Keller, 2016) ... 15
Figure 4. Conceptual model ... 19
Figure 5. Gender distribution of respondents... 33
Figure 6. Age distribution of respondents ... 33
Figure 7. Social Media usage per day ... 34
Figure 8. To which extent the respondents used social media now compared to before the pandemic ... 34
Figure 9. Correlation matrix... 37
Figure 10. Updated conceptual model after collecting results ... 45
Figure 11. Final conceptual model ... 52
List of Tables
Table 1. Compilation of scientific points of departure ... 23Table 2. Survey development: Changes in social media usage during Covid-19 ... 27
Table 3. Survey development: Social motivation ... 28
Table 4. Survey development: Cognitive motivation ... 28
Table 5. Survey development: Hedonic motivation... 28
Table 6. Survey development: Customer journey pre-purchase stage ... 29
Table 7. Survey development: Customer journey purchase stage ... 29
Table 8. Survey development: Customer journey post-purchase stage ... 30
Table 9. Survey development: Purchase intention ... 30
Table 10. Cronbach's alpha ... 35
Table 11. Descriptive statistics ... 36
Table 12. Variable definitions ... 38
Table 13. Regression model 1: Effects of the customer journey stages on purchase intention. ... 39
Table 14. Regression model 2: Effects of the customer journey stages and control variables on purchase intention ... 39
Table 15. Regression model 3: Effects of motivations on the pre-purchase stage ... 40
Table 16. Regression model 4: Effects of motivations and control variables on the pre-purchase stage ... 40
Table 17. Regression model 5: Effects of motivations on the purchase stage ... 41
Table 18. Regression model 6: Effects of motivations and control variables on the purchase stage ... 41
Table 19. Regression model 7: Effects of motivations on the post-purchase stage ... 42
Table 20. Regression model 8: Effects of motivations and control variables on the post-purchase stage ... 42
Table 21. Regression model 9: Effects of all independent variables on purchase intention... 43
Table 22. Regression model 10: Effects of all independent variables and control variables on purchase intention ... 43
Table 23. Hypotheses results ... 44
1 Introduction
The first chapter of this thesis will introduce the reader to our chosen subject, the theoretical background and field of marketing which will be further discussed in the following chapters. This introduction leads to a proposed research model, our identified knowledge gap, research question and the purpose of this research.
1.1 Choice of Subject
The marketing field is always evolving and today we can say that we have shifted away from what is often ascribed as traditional marketing (Faudree, 2016; Batra & Keller, 2016, p. 122). Faudree (2016) mentioned in a blogpost that others have classified the different eras of marketing and today we are currently in the social/mobile marketing era or digital marketing era. Technology developments have made it possible for businesses and customers to communicate ‘twenty-four-seven’ and the development of social media have given consumers more power (Dolan et al., 2016, p. 262; Faudree, 2016; Faulds et al., 2018, p. 327).
Social networking sites and social media apps, like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter and TikTok, can be used by companies and brands to create and maintain relationships with their customers (Wibowo et al., 2021, p. 1). Creating marketing content on these sites, according to Wibowo et al. (2021, p. 2) must be done by carefully selecting the right content. It should include not only commercial content but also social content in order to facilitate communication among users. A social media strategy must therefore integrate activities that convert communication and interactions into useful strategic means (Wibowo et al., 2021, p. 2). McClure and Seock (2020, p. 1) has similar ideas regarding social media and highlights that social media are not only for the individuals. Instead, a brand, an organization or a business can use social media to reach out to others. Even though social media is a cheap tool that is easy to use and where companies can get direct contact with its consumers, it can be somewhat complicated to understand how followers are engaged and influenced. It is therefore important for companies to understand factors that engage their consumers (McClure & Seock, 2020, p. 2).
Consequently, it is essential for marketers to understand consumer behaviour and apply new ways to understand the customer journey. This has created an increased focus on customer experience since the customer interacts with the firm at multiple channels during the customer journey (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016, p. 69). Developments in customer experience during this social era recognizes the importance of the consumers' roles in creating this experience which have led to a customer engagement focus (Lemon &
Verhoef, 2016, p. 71). Several authors have looked at engagement on social media during the customer journey (E.g. Lemon & Verhoef, 2016; Demmers et al., 2020), purchase intention as a desired outcome on the other hand, have not been displayed in research regarding customer journeys as often. But recently research regarding this has shown factors that influence purchase intention, these are for example content that provides interactivity and information (Alalwan, 2018; McClure & Seock, 2020; Wibowo et al., 2020). These factors make us interested in how purchase intention is affected during the customer journey.
To obtain inspiration when choosing our thesis topic, we investigated what the Marketing Science Institute (MSI, 2020) had for suggestions for research priorities 2020-2022. An interesting issue MSI presents is “Which is the right channel, right content, and right time to reach a customer? How do consumers think about channels (e.g., given Facebook and Instagram)?” (MSI, 2020, p. 10). Also, a top priority for marketers according to MSI is to understand the customer journey in order to create customer value during all touch points (MSI, 2020, p. 4). Further, MSI states the issue: “How will consumer behaviour change in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath?” This confirms the importance of taking Covid-19 into account in this thesis since this issue indicates that consumer behaviour probably has changed, or will change, due to the pandemic. We found it interesting to combine these up to date issues. Taking inspiration from MSI ensures the practical reason for our topic.
These issues create an interest to investigate how social media usage during the customer journey affects purchase intention. Motivations behind social media usage have been studied (e.g. Ali-Hassan et al., 2015; Demmers et al., 2020; Dolan et al., 2016; Heinonen, 2011) and it’s interesting to investigate if consumers' behaviour on social media have changed during covid-19. To examine if motivations to use social media affect the customer journey and if the customer journey affects purchase intention, is an up to date issue which make this thesis interesting both from an academic and business perspective.
In the next section we aim to further present these concepts.
1.2 Theoretical Background
1.2.1 Customer Behaviour and Motivations to Social Media Usage
During 2020, at the time of the pandemic, overall social media usage in Sweden has increased (Internetstiftelsen, 2020, p. 104). The social networks that have increased its users the most during the pandemic are Instagram, TikTok and Linkedin. Students are the group that uses social media the most (compared to workers and pensioners) and this group is largely composed by younger people. In this group 99 percent said that they used social media at some point, and 90 percent said that they used social media daily (Internetstiftelsen, 2020, p. 107). Social media, as defined by Carr and Hayes (2015, p.
49) is:
“Internet-based, disentrained, and persistent channels of masspersonal communication facilitating perceptions of interactions among users, deriving value primarily from
user-generated content”
Today social media is playing an important role in firms' marketing strategy where they can create direct communication and relationships with customers (Wibowo et al., 2021, p. 1). The value of social media is the interactions that can occur between users and content created by other users, firms, brands and other types of organizations (Wibowo et al., 2021, p. 2). A consumer of social media in this thesis is a person that is active on social media, not necessarily posting their own content, but has an account and follows other users accounts and/or brands, participates or in other ways is active.
When studying social media, it is interesting to know why customers use it (Heinonen, 2011). Solomon et al. (2019, p. 64) describes consumer behaviour as a process where individuals or groups select, purchase, use or dispose of products and services to satisfy
certain needs and desires. Consumer behaviour as a field covers a lot and the interest in consumer behaviour in marketing and social sciences is growing (Solomon et al., 2019, p. 64). Solomon et al. (2019, p. 741) points out how other people and groups influence consumer decisions when choosing a product or service. Furthermore, Solomon et al.
(2019, p. 742) discusses how social media affects how consumers learn about and choose products. Word-of-mouth communication influences product choice to a high degree and this phenomena is circulating on social media, which has both positive and negative effects for companies.
Customers' behaviour online is changing fast according to Heinonen (2011, p. 356). By using social media, customers have gained an active role where they consume content, share their beliefs with others and discuss their experiences. The author also states that it is important for businesses to understand these changes in behaviour to be able to develop their marketing in social media at the same pace. Heinonen (2011, p. 256) studied what kind of motivations consumers have when using social media. Solomon et al. (2019, p.
348) describes motivation as the process which makes people act as they do and that motivation comes from a need, which the consumer wishes to satisfy. Why customers use social media can be explained by social motivation, cognitive motivation or hedonic motivation (Ali-Hassan et al., 2015, p. 66). These motivations will be further explained in our theoretical framework, where we present the Uses and Gratification theory (U&G) that several researchers have used when investigating motivations to use social media.
1.2.2 Customer Journey
A customer journey can be explained as the different touch-points a customer has with a firm during a purchase cycle (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016, p. 74). A touch point is when the customer encounters the business or brand for information, sees an advertisement, does a transaction e.g. Customer journeys have been portrayed in many forms, Lemon and Verhoef (2016) uses: Pre-purchase, Purchase and Post-purchase. When searching after research regarding customer journey/consumer journey and customer decision making process/consumer decision making process/consumer decision journey, authors use different words when describing these concepts. For this thesis, we have decided to use the same term each author uses which means that customer journey/consumer journey are referred to as the same concept in this thesis, and the same is for customer decision making process/consumer decision making process/consumer decision journey.
Customer journey and consumer decision journey are two concepts that are related to and similar to each other. The distinction between these are further discussed in our theoretical framework.
Research regarding the customer journey is highlighting the need to understand changes in the marketing landscape and how the customer journey has evolved (Batra & Keller, 2020; Demmers, 2020; Faulds et al., 2018; Klein et al., 2020). With all technological developments that we have today it is easier for marketers to personalize communication to consumers and marketers can use these developments and changes in communication in a powerful way (Batra & Keller, 2016, p. 123). Social media sites are today primary channels for customers to interact with brands and even though social media metrics are important to connect to business objectives, firms use social media for more than conversion rates. Social media can be viewed as an integrated marketing channel that focuses on all stages in the consumer journey (Demmers et al., 2020, p. 55). The research by Demmers et al. (2020) examined if factors that drive consumer engagement with brand generated content on social media are contingent on the stages of the customer journey.
Their findings indicated that the different stages of the consumer journey get affected by which type of content the brand used (Demmers et al., 2020, p. 67). Customers have many different sources that influence their customer journey and some of them are out of the company's direct control (Klein et al., 2020, p. 501). It is therefore critical for managers to analyse customer journeys. To solve this problem, Klein et al. (2020, p. 501) has conducted research to capture cross-media exposure to clarify its effect on customer purchase decisions. The results of the study showed that cross-media exposure drives customers to their purchase intentions. This makes us curious regarding how social media affects customers in their customer journey.
Faulds et al. (2018, p. 325) are discussing that there is a paradigm shift in the consumer decision process due to use of mobile technologies. It is more iterative and they argue that all steps often occur together in real-time. Mobile shopping has changed the retail environment and will continue to do so according to Faulds et al. (2018, p. 336). The authors argue that a new mindset is needed for retailers, instead of focusing on the shopping outcome they need to focus on influencing the consumer decision process (Faulds et al., 2018, p. 336). Both Faulds et al. (2018) and Lemon and Verhoef (2016) use pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase to describe the different stages for the customer journey, while Batra and Keller (2016) takes a bit more focus on the informational stages of the consumer decision journey, like needs, considers, search, consumes and engages. What all these authors are saying though is that the customer journey is changing due to technological developments and that mobile and social media marketing creates a different journey for the customer.
Additionally, the research by Demmers et al. (2020, p. 69) indicated that consumer engagement on social media is dynamic and differs between the stages of the customer journey. We thought that this was interesting, would it be possible to take a similar approach with purchase intention and how the relationship between purchase intention and customer journey stages look like? As we described, Faulds et al. (2018) discussed a more iterative consumer decision process. The authors also discussed that due to this more dynamic and iterative process, the initial models of customer journeys and consumer decision processes fails to capture the fact that activities in these stages often occur simultaneously (Faulds et al., 2018, p. 325). Due to this information, which is supported by other authors (Batra & Keller, 2016; Demmers et al., 2020; Lemon & Verhoef, 2016) the reason to investigate purchase intention during the stages of the customer journey seem interesting to us.
1.2.3 Purchase Intention
Purchase intention is important for businesses to understand, especially now when social media is used frequently by customers (e.g. Alalwan, 2018; Internetstiftelsen, 2020;
McClure & Seock, 2020). Intentions are interesting for businesses to know, since intentions are a key predictor of actual behaviour. Purchase intention is an important metric in marketing, understanding purchase intention on social media is therefore important in order to know the real value of advertising on social media (Booth, 2016).
Several authors have conducted research regarding different factors that can lead to purchase intention (e.g. Alalwan, 2018; Wibowo, 2020; McClure & Seock, 2020). These factors have similarities with each other and are important for businesses to acknowledge.
Quality information is important to assure that the individual’s involvement creates a positive attitude, which could lead to future purchase intention (McClure & Seock, 2020,
p. 5). The authors also highlight familiarity to the brand as an important factor for involvement. Lin and Lu (2010, p. 29) highlight the importance of trust and the impact on purchase intentions. Trust of the brand is therefore an important factor. A moderating variable on this relation is word of mouth (WOM). Positive WOM can influence trust, which in turn can lead to purchase intention. Social media have facilitated eWOM, and a lot of comments, reviews and opinions are out there. The findings by Wibowo et al. (2020, p. 13) highlight the importance of interactive content for businesses. Another factor Wibowo et al. (2020, p. 14) states as important for purchase intention, is skills within photography, graphic design and visual communication. A broader description of these factors, and some more, are presented in detail in our theoretical framework.
With help of consumer behaviour research, specifically about consumer motivations, we intend to investigate motivations to social media usage and stages in the customer journey, and further customer journey and purchase intention. This figure below shows our proposed research model that will be further developed in our theoretical framework to a conceptual model guiding this thesis.
Figure 1. Proposed research model.
1.3 Knowledge Gap
McClure and Seock (2020, p. 2) highlights that it is important for businesses to understand factors that engage consumers when using social media. Further, several authors (Faudree, 2016; Batra & Keller, 2016, p. 122) highlight that the marketing field has changed from what's called traditional marketing. It is therefore important to understand consumers, and Internetstiftelsen’s (2020, p. 104) report shows that social media usage has increased in the last year. Our theoretical background presents concepts as motivations to use social media, customer journey and purchase intention. We believe these concepts combined are interesting to study due to changes in the marketing landscape, especially now during the pandemic. When searching for articles within these subjects, we could not find any that combined these three concepts which indicates a possible research gap.
Several authors have examined motivations to use social media (e.g. Ali-Hassan et al., 2015; Demmers et al., 2020; Dolan et al., 2016; Heinonen, 2011) but few have combined it with a customer journey perspective. Demmers et al. (2020) research focuses on the customer journey and engagement, and includes motivations to use social media within this context. Further, Demmers et al. (2020, p. 71) suggest that future research should examine the relationship between motivations to social media usage (from a U&G perspective) and the stages in the customer journey. The authors point out that their research proved that the U&G theory can be used to understand different results during the customer journey, but more research needs to examine this subject. The suggestion for future research from Demmers et al. (2020, p. 71) combined with that we have not found any other article about this, indicates a research gap regarding motivations to use social media and the customer journey stages.
Today, there is much research regarding the customer journey (e.g. Batra & Keller, 2020;
Demmers et al., 2020; Faulds et al., 2018; Klein et al., 2020; Lemon & Verhoef, 2016) and purchase intention (e.g. Alalwan, 2018; Wibowo, 2020; McClure & Seock, 2020).
But we have not found any article that combines these concepts. Batra and Keller (2016, p. 123) took a new perspective on the customers decision journey where they introduced a framework to match different media with information needs at different touch-points.
Future research proposed by the authors is that each relationship should be validated by its usefulness and logic and that many of the linkages in the model need further research (Batra & Keller, 2016, p. 138). In our study, we will test if the stages in the consumer decision process that is connected to social media platforms can lead to purchase intention. By using Batra and Keller’s (2016, p. 137) conceptual framework we will test its usefulness in this study. Alalwan (2018, p. 65) investigated the impact of social media advertising features on customer purchase intention. This study did not take demographic factors into account, which they recommend to do in future research (Alalwan, 2018, p.
74). We aim to do this by targeting students in Sweden who use social media. These suggestions for future research by Batra and Keller (2016) and Alalwan (2018) strengthen our choice to examine social media on the customer journey, and the choice of a target group.
The covid-19 pandemic that has affected the world since the beginning of 2020 still remains. Even though the pandemic is first and most a health crisis, society and the world economy at large have been affected as well and it has led to a lot of challenges (European Commission, 2020). The pandemic has changed people's consumption habits and patterns, some may go back as before the pandemic but very likely a lot of new consumer patterns may remain after the pandemic (European Commission, 2020). As MSI’s research agenda for 2020-2022 (MSI, 2020, p. 4) indicated, research on how consumer behaviour will change in the wake of the pandemic is a research priority. Therefore this thesis will also investigate if the pandemic has changed to which extent consumers use social media.
This discussion about possible research gaps and suggestions for future research indicates a lack of research within our chosen concepts to examine. An understanding of motivations for social media usage, the stages in the customer journey and purchase intention in combination have not been examined, within our knowledge, which makes it an interesting field of study.
1.4 Research Question
Based on our presentation of theoretical background and our discussion about a knowledge gap within this field of study, we wish to answer the following research questions in this study:
RQ1: Do motivations to use social media affect stages in the customer journey?
RQ2: Do the different stages of the customer journey affect purchase intention?
1.5 Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate motivations that lead to social media usage and if these affect the stages in the customer journey, and further how the customer journey affects purchase intention. We also want to investigate if the usage of social media has
changed during the Covid-19 pandemic. To answer our research question and fulfil the purpose of this study, we aim to create a model which can explain relationships between motivations, customer journey and purchase intention.
By conducting research in this field of study we hope to create valuable insights to marketers and academics on social media's role in the consumer journey and for the outcome purchase intention.
1.6 Delimitations
During this study, several delimitations had to be made for us to be able to do a feasible study. One of the limitations that have been made is the choice of social media channels.
We decided to include Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Youtube in this study. The choice for doing so is because we use these channels ourselves on a daily basis and we believe it is important to conduct research on a subject we find interesting. Our target group for this study is students. We have chosen this group since they are using social media the most compared to other groups (Internetstiftelsen, 2020, p. 107). Since we are students ourselves we know from our own experience that most of our classmates and friends are using these social media channels to a higher degree than other channels.
Furthermore, since this study has a time limit of 10 weeks we need to depend on that our survey will be answered by at least 100 people during a short period of time. By using students as a target group, we can rely on the snowball-effect to get the appropriate amount of data for us to be able to present reliable results from this study.
2 Theoretical Framework
This theoretical framework aims to touch subjects and theories that can help us answer our research question and fulfil this study's purpose. This chapter starts with three sections, which are 2.1 Social Media Usage, 2.2 Customer Journey and Consumer Decision Process and 2.3 Purchase Intention. These sections provide existing knowledge that will be the base of theory in this study. In the last section, 3.4, we combine previous research presented and develop our conceptual model based on these.
2.1 Social Media Usage
2.1.1 Social Media 101
We use the definition of social media by Carr and Hayes (2015, p. 49) that we mentioned in our introduction:
“Internet-based, disentrained, and persistent channels of masspersonal communication facilitating perceptions of interactions among users, deriving value primarily from
user-generated content”
We have decided to focus on the social networking sites Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and TikTok. We will provide a short description of each of these social networking sites, which demonstrates why they are interesting to focus on in this study.
Facebook is the social media site with the most users in Sweden according to Internetstiftelsen (2020, p. 104). It appeals to users of all ages and offers a lot of functions.
You can share content such as pictures, videos and text, organise or join events, buy and sell at Marketplace, private chat in Messenger, share articles or join groups e.g (Internetstiftelsen, 2020, p. 115). According to Internetstiftelsen (2020, p. 113) Facebook is used less among the younger audience (age 16-25) on a daily basis but for the older audience it is the most used social media networking site.
On Instagram you create and share content such as pictures, videos or stories (Instagram, 2021). You can choose to follow friends and family, influencers, brands or other users that share content you like. It is easy to find accounts on the explore site where you get content based on your previous search or people you already follow. A quite new feature is that you now also can post and watch long-time videos on IGTV. You can also shop directly from stores through Instagram by tapping product tags (Instagram, 2021).
Instagram is most popular among a younger audience (16-35) on daily usage according to Internetstiftelsen (2020, p. 113).
Youtube is a video sharing site where you can upload or watch different kinds of videos.
It can be entertaining videos, educational, inspirational, sport, music, vlogs etc. You can also comment on videos and be part of discussions. 9 out of 10 Swedes aged 16+
according to Internetsiftelsen (2020, p. 77) watches Youtube, but only 31% use it daily.
TikTok is a new video sharing social media where users upload short mobile videos. The video length is about 15 seconds to 1 minute maximum. The content is mostly dance, comedy, education or inspiration. You can follow and comment on other users' content.
Unlike Facebook and Instagram where your feed is based on who or what you are following, the feed on TikTok, “For you”, is based on AI algorithms of what you have
liked and engaged with before (TikTok, 2021). TikTok has been growing rapidly during 2020 (Internetstiftelsen, 2020, p. 105) and is dominated by users of the age 25 and younger (p. 118).
All of these social media networking sites have been increasingly used as platforms for marketing and advertising by companies and brands (Alalwan, 2018, p. 65). Social media ads enable advertising to be more interactive and informative towards selected customer segments. Users can like, comment, share or engage in other ways with targeted ads.
Social media ads can therefore be used to create awareness, build knowledge, form perceptions and motivate customers to purchase products. One of the aims to pursue social media ads is to shape the consumer decision making process (Alalwan, 2018, p.
66).
As we can understand, social media is an important tool for marketers these days and it can be used in many different forms and ways. Even if marketers have many opportunities using social media, macro factors can influence how much social media is used by consumers. In the next section, this will be discussed further.
2.1.2 Macro Factors that Influence Social Media Usage
Due to Covid-19, Sweden's government has introduced statutory restrictions and prohibitions (Krisinformation, 2021). For example, a maximum of 8 people are allowed to meet, this applied to public gatherings, public events etc. Shops, gyms and sport facilities must also calculate the number of visitors so that each person gets at least ten square meters each. These restrictions and prohibitions due to Covid-19 are examples of macro-level factors that can influence the individual, which can affect how and if the individual uses social media more or less. Additionally, Bolton et al. (2013, p. 250) present macro-level factors that influence generation Y´s social media usage. These factors can affect the consumer both directly or indirectly due to, for example, socio- economic status. The macro-level factors the authors present are the following: economic, technological, cultural and legal/political. A country's economic environment influences consumers' social media usage, for example, by its employment opportunities and disposable income. Government policies can influence the country's technological environment by distributing investments in technology infrastructures. This can have a big effect on social media usage and how consumers can use the internet. Values and preferences consumers have towards social media can be influenced by culture (Bolton et al., 2013, p. 257). Governments can also influence the adoption of social media usage differently due to legal or political circumstances (Bolton et al., 2013, p. 251).
Social media is a central part in the daily life for many Swedes (Internetstiftelsen, 2020, p. 102). As stated in the introduction of this thesis, in the time of the pandemic social media usage in Sweden has increased (Internetstiftelsen, 2020, p. 104). Compared to 2019, social media usage has increased from 82% to 89% in Q3 2020. This indicates a stable increase of social media usage and the pandemic Covid-19 is a reason for it.
Internetstiftelsen (2020, p. 107) also investigates if it differs between groups. Our target group in this thesis are students and we can see from the statistics that this group uses social media the most compared to other groups.
Due to isolation during the pandemic digital video calls have increased (Internetstiftelsen, 2020, p. 127). Facebook Messenger is one of the most popular ones (Internetstiftelsen, 2020, p. 128), which makes this social media interesting to investigate in this study.
Another social media we have decided to investigate is Instagram. The chat service offered at Instagram, with focus on direct messages, is the chat service that has increased the most during the pandemic (Internetstiftelsen, 2020, p. 138). Use of Youtube has also increased during the pandemic which makes it an interesting media to investigate (Internetstiftelsen, 2020, p. 77). In 2019, 86% watched Youtube at least once and in 2020, quarter 3, 91% watched Youtube at least once. The group that uses TikTok the most are students, and this group has increased during the pandemic as well (Internetstiftelsen, 2020, p. 109). This information indicates that the social media channels of our choice for this study have developed during the pandemic which makes it interesting to investigate further. These statistics also confirm Bolton et al. 's (2013) ideas regarding that macro- level factors influence social media usage. Since Swedes are not allowed to meet, socialise and activate themselves in the same way as before, this could be a reason for the statistics that show that their social media usage has increased. This information strengthens the relevance of this study. To further understand why consumers turn to social media when, for example, macro-level factors limits their daily-lives, will be discussed in the next section.
2.1.3 Uses and Gratifications Theory - Why We Use Social Media
Social media usage can be divided into three different types: Social use, Hedonic use and Cognitive use (Ali-Hassan et al., 2015, p. 66). Social use refers to social media as a way to build and maintain social relationships. Hedonic use means use of social media to be entertained, to relax, passing time, for fun etc. Cognitive use of social media can be explained as using social media to create and share content or assess content from other users, for example, videos, photos, debates, personal opinions and ratings (Ali-Hassan et al., 2015, p. 67).
These three different types of social media use originated from Uses & Gratifications (U&G) theory (Ali-Hassan et al., 2015, p. 67). Research on U&G theory relates to the social and psychological origin of needs. U&G is a theory that is frequently used by scientists and one of the first to use it was Katz et al. in the early 1970´s. Katz et al. (1973, p. 166) studied Uses and Gratification theory on mass media and classified needs into five groups: (1) Needs related to information and knowledge that could be called cognitive needs, (2) Needs related to strengthening aesthetic, pleasurable and emotional experience that could be called affective needs, (3) Needs related to strengthening credibility, confidence, stability and status that could be called integrative needs, (4) Needs that related to strengthening contact with family, friends and the world and (5) needs related to escape one’s social role. The author's research showed among other things that individuals who indicate that a certain need is important to them, tend to evaluate the relative helpfulness to fulfil this need out of several media (Katz et al., 1973, p. 173). This indicates that people are active and responsible to choose a media that can meet their needs to accomplish this gratification. For this study, we will focus on social, hedonic and cognitive needs since studies before this one have used these parameters when conducting similar research.
U&G theory is used in several studies to explain motivations behind usage of social media (e.g. Ali-Hassan et al., 2015; Demmers et al., 2020; Dolan et al., 2016). Demmers et al.
(2020, p. 54) used U&G theory to examine brand-generated content and its impact on consumer engagement during the customer journey on social media. The authors indicated that U&G theory is a useful framework to understand consumers' different goals and motivations during the consumer journey on social media (Demmers et al., 2020, p.
56). U&G theory according to Demmers et al. (2020, p. 56) postulates that people’s media use is goal oriented and that accounts for social media as well. Hedonic motivation can be referred to as entertainment. Cognitive, or as Demmers et al. (2020, p. 56) call it, utilitarian motivation, can be described as the goal to acquire information of products, services and brands. Social motivation is related to goals such as connecting with friends, belonging and self-expression/fulfilment. They link this to consumer engagement by emphasizing that consumers are contributors to their personal experience with brands on social media, and therefore how they engage are dependent on their goals and motivations (Demmers et al., 2020, p. 56).
Heinonen (2011, p. 358) conducted research examining motivations behind activities on social media made by consumers by letting consumers keep a diary regarding their social media usage. The findings were divided into three categories which explained the motivation behind the activity (Heinonen, 2011, p. 359). The categories were:
information processing, entertainment activities and social connection. Regarding information, the respondents of the study were often searching for specific facts or explanations. User-created services were also found usable, since consumers could share knowledge and experiences which was a guidance in the decision making. Regarding entertainment, Heinonen (2011, p. 360) found linkages to finding inspiration and mood management motives within this category. And last, social connection was mostly related to surveillance (Heinonen, 2011, p. 361). This indicates that users were interested in knowing what others did in their network. Although social connection was mainly related to the matter that consumers wanted to keep in touch with family and friends.
Dolan et al. (2016, p. 263) also uses U&G theory to provide valuable insights into use of social media. According to the authors this well-established theory indicates that users are actively involved in their media usage, which is accurate for social media where the consumers interact with the media and content more than other types of media. Dolan et al. (2016, p. 263) mean that social media can be derived into four different categories based on U&G theory: level of information, entertainment, remunerative and relational.
The informational need represents to which extent the social media content provides useful information (Dolan et al., 2016, p. 263). Entertainment refers to how entertaining and fun the content is. Remunerative content is based on research that shows that consumers engage as they expect some economic benefit or gain personal wants (Dolan et al., 2016, p. 264). And last, relational content for consumer needs of social interactions and social benefits. U&G theory provides the framework needed to understand these consumer motivations, and the authors relate it to how social media content can facilitate social media engagement behaviour (Dolan et al., 2016, p. 270).
Whiting and Williams (2013) demonstrated the value of U&G theory for social media and gave an understanding of why people use social media. The authors (2013, p. 366) found ten themes on uses and gratifications of why people use social media: (1) Social interaction, (2) Information seeking, (3) Pass time, (4) Entertainment, (5) Relaxation, (6) Expression of opinions, (7) Communicatory utility, (8) Convenience utility, (9) Information sharing and (10) Surveillance / Knowledge about others. The two most mentioned reasons for using social media was for social interaction and for information seeking. Social interaction in the meaning of maintaining relationships and meeting new friends. Information seeking to find information on sales and products, on birthdays and events, and information about businesses (Whiting & Williams, 2013, p. 366).
Researches presented above highlight the need for investigating motivation from a U&G point of view. Motivation is a common aspect when conducting research regarding social media usage. To highlight the importance to take motivation into account when conducting this study, we wish to shortly present another framework where motivation is included. Research shows that consumer motivation, ability and opportunity (MOA) are important factors that determine when, or if, consumers reply to communication from marketers (Batra & Ray, 1986, p. 432). Batra and Keller (2016, p. 130) describes motivation as how much gathering of information the consumer thinks is necessary to make a choice. The consumer's ability to process information depends on for example if the consumer is acquainted with the business, product or service. It is important the consumer has motivation and the ability to process information from marketers, if not, they will not receive the message. At last, the authors (Batra & Keller, 2016, p. 131) highlight opportunity as contextual which is affected by several aspects. Aspects as time, space and the physical condition can affect how the message is received by the customer.
In this study, we have decided to investigate how social motivation, cognitive motivation and hedonic motivation to use social media affect purchase intention. Since U&G theory provides a connection between needs and their outcome, this theory is relevant to use in our framework. To clarify how U&G theory is understood and applied in this study, we will summarize social motivation, cognitive motivation and hedonic motivation. These summaries are based on similarities from Ali-Hassan et al. (2015), Demmers et al. (2020), Dolan et al. (2016), Katz et al. (1973), and Whiting and Williams (2013).
● Similarities for using social media whose foundation lies with social motivation is that consumers want to interact with others, keep in touch with family and friends, feel a sense of belonging and achieve a sense of self-esteem.
● The majority of the authors described cognitive motivation as that the consumer wishes to gather information and gain knowledge when using social media.
Consumers also wish to see what others share on social media which can be photos, debates and personal opinions.
● Regarding hedonic motivation, authors described it as that consumers wish to entertain themselves, pass time and relax.
In the next section, we will describe the customer journey and the consumer decision process since we need to understand how the consumer is affected when she or he is motivated to use social media.
2.2 Customer Journey and Consumer Decision Process
2.2.1 Customer Journey
A customer journey as we explained in the introduction is the process an individual goes through in a purchase cycle and all touch points they encounter with a firm during time (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016, p. 74). Demmers et al. (2020, p. 56) mean that customer journeys are a way to conceptualise and comprise the different stages a consumer goes through. Each stage involves different goals for the customer. Demmers et al. (2020, p.
56) talk about three broad stages: Pre-consumption, consumption and post-consumption.
Their research focused on what brand-generated content creates customer engagement on social media during these stages (Demmers et al., 2020, p. 54). In the first stage, pre-
consumption, the customers acknowledge a need and acquire information. In the consumption stage the customer experiences a product or a service and in the post- consumption stage they evaluate their experience of the product or service with their expectations (Demmers et al., 2020, p. 56).
Lemon and Verhoef (2016, p. 76) name these phases as pre-purchase, purchase and post- purchase and explain that during all these phases, the consumer can have different types of touch points: Brand-owned, partner-owned, customer-owned and external/social /independent. Brand-owned touch points are those that are managed, produced and controlled by the company and include all brand owned media. Advertising and promotions has shown an effect on customer attitudes and preference, and more direct brand-owned touch points such as loyalty programs and direct marketing have shown an influence on customer attitudes. But online advertising and the effect on customer experience have limited research so far (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016, p.77). According to Lemon and Verhoef (2016, p. 80) research that has been made of mobile use in the purchase cycle, shows that mobile devices' direct touch points significantly influence the customer journey.
To clarify how we interpret the Customer Journey, we have made our own illustration of the different stages, based on information from Lemon and Verhoef (2016) and Demmers et al. (2020).
Figure 2. The three stages of the Customer Journey
Tueanrat et al. (2021) recently conducted a literature review of existing research of customer journeys. The authors indicate that earlier research on customer journeys does not appear coherent and that the literature has evolved quickly and has a lot of different themes. In their review they included 147 articles. Lemon and Verhoef (2016) that we mentioned above was according to Tueanrat et al. (2021, p. 339) the most cited article in customer journey literature. Tueanrat et al. (2021, p. 340) identified five themes out of the articles they reviewed: Service satisfaction, failure and recovery, customer response, co-creation, channels and technological disruption.
Within the theme customer response, customer perceptions have been studied. Responses from an individual touch point will influence the next, and all together they shape customer beliefs which influences their attitudes and purchase intentions (Tueanrat et al., 2021, p. 343). If a consumer is exposed to opinions and common preferences on social media prior to a decision, it can influence the outcome. The theme channels include research that mainly focus on customer behaviour and the factors that contribute to decision making in the customer journey. Channels offer different touch points and customers have a range of different channels available such as mobile, social networking sites, physical stores etc. (Tueanrat et al., 2021, p. 344). The theme channels have two different topics included: customer channel behaviour and channel management.
Customer channel behaviour focuses on channel usage and customers’ preferences within the decision-making process (Tueanrat et al., 2021, p. 344). The authors describe that earlier research has shown that channel preferences vary across the different stages of the customer journey due to different goals, needs and values. Mobile devices and other
technological developments have evolved the customer journey, for example mobile devices have contributed to a “I want it here I want it now” mentality (Tueanrat et al., 2021, p. 345).
To summarise, a customer journey is used as a way to conceptualise all the touchpoints a customer has with a firm, from pre-purchase to post-purchase. Use of mobile devices and social media has been shown to influence the customer journey, and different channel preferences vary across the customer journey due to the customers different goals, needs and values. Within the customer journey, the customer has to make several decisions.
Therefore the next session goes deeper into the decision making process of the customer journey.
2.2.2 Consumer Decision Process
The customer journey is a more developed version of consumer decision making models, such as AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action) (Batra & Keller, 2016, p. 124).
Earlier models of consumer decision making are more linear, while customer journey models include a more iterative process with more touchpoints. Batra and Keller (2016) highlight that earlier models of consumer decision making process miss important stages and a more complex model is needed. They have therefore included more stages in their consumer decision making process which makes it more extended (Batra & Keller, 2016, p. 125). For this study, we believe it is important to understand the consumer decision making process since it is closely connected to the consumer journey and have therefore decided to use the IMC conceptual framework by Batra and Keller (2016), which will be presented in this section.
With the mobile as a tool for shopping, there has been a paradigm shift in how to influence the consumer. Instead of influencing the consumers decision outcome, marketers should try to influence the consumers decision making process (Faulds et al., 2018, p. 325). With mobile technology the decision making process is more interactive and offers different touch-points between the consumer and the retailer. To be able to understand this subject further we have chosen to investigate Batra and Keller’s (2016) research which highlights the need to understand the customer decision journey and approach it with Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC).
Batra and Keller (2016, p. 122) highlight how media patterns are shifting and how the marketing landscape is continually changing, which makes it important for businesses to apply IMC. Marketing messages are often “built on” another which makes it important that each message matches the context (Batra & Keller, 2016, p. 123). Even though one message alone is great, the whole impression of a marketing effort depends on whether all other messages the consumer receives from the same firm are matching each other. It is therefore essential that marketers create a stream of messages which goes hand in hand.
This approach is favourable to use since consumers' attention is more divided than ever before (Batra & Keller, 2016, p. 122). Consumers have many different options of information sources. This influences when, where and how consumers decide what brand they choose. To understand the customer decision journey and how communication is perceived by customers, Batra and Keller (2016, p. 122) combined a communication matching model and a communications optimization model. These two models became a comprehensive framework to improve a company's integrated marketing communications.
The communication matching model has a “bottom up” approach which means that companies can choose communication channels (connected to their objectives and wished outcomes) according to the channel's effectiveness to where the consumer is in their consumer decision journey (Batra & Keller, 2016, p. 132). The communication matching model considers the needs the consumer has, in terms of knowledge or behaviour, and by knowing this, the model can suggest the best media combination to meet the consumers' needs. By applying the communication matching model, marketers can ask themselves if they apply IMC (Batra & Keller, 2016, p. 135). The optimization model on the other hand, has a “top down” approach (Batra & Keller, 2016, p. 135). Several criteria might be relevant to assess integration, but the authors choose to present the seven criteria (“the 7Cs”) which consist of: coverage, cost, contribution, commonality, complementarity, cross-effects and conformability (Keller, 2001, cited by Batra & Keller, 2016, p. 135).
This model examines all communication options from “the 7Cs” which makes it easier for the company to effectively ensure the best result possible when choosing the major communication platforms to achieve their wished outcomes and objectives.
Figure 1 shows the Bottom-Up communication matching model and the Top-Down communications optimization model together and are called the IMC conceptual framework (Batra & Keller, 2016, p. 137). This model aims to help in the development of and delivery of IMC programs.
Figure 3. IMC conceptual framework (Batra & Keller, 2016)
The research by Batra and Keller (2016) is important for this study since it shows the importance of integrated marketing communication and that different communication channels have different purposes during the consumer decision journey. In figure 1, we can see that Online and Social Media Marketing can be used to reach outcomes and objectives as propensity to build trust and propensity to elicit emotions. Stages in the consumer decision journey that are affected are WTP (willingness to pay), commits and consumes. These insights lead us to further investigate how purchase intentions are
affected by social media usage. This is therefore our next section in our theoretical framework.
2.3 What Influence Purchase Intention?
Before starting this section regarding factors that can influence purchase intentions, we will present a definition of the phenomenon. Meskaran et al. (2013, p. 308) defines online purchase intention as the following:
“Customer’s willingness with intention to purchase behaviour via the Internet”.
This definition of online purchase intention suits this study and clarifies what we aim to investigate. Even though not all of the following researchers include “online” within their reasoning, social media is online and therefore this definition is more suitable than a purchase intention definition that refers to a purchase in a physical store. We will henceforth just name it as purchase intention. Worth mentioning, another interesting and close connected concept to purchase intention is repurchase intention. Hellier et al. (2003, p. 1764) defines repurchase intention as “The individual’s judgement about buying again a designated service from the same company, taking into account his or her current situation and likely circumstances”. Wen et al. (2015, p. 14) states that more people are using e-commerce, which makes it important to understand the concept of online repurchase intention. In this study we have chosen to examine purchase intention and not repurchase intention. This concept is still essential to comment since it indicates the possibility for a repurchase. The following section will only discuss factors that influence purchase intention.
Due to a landscape where social media is used frequently (e.g. Alalwan, 2018;
Internetstiftelsen, 2020; McClure & Seock, 2020) it is important to be able to predict purchase intention. Alalwan (2018, p. 66) aimed to do so by testing factors related to social media advertising. The author (2018, p. 74) have from his study identified five main factors that influence consumers' purchase intentions when using social media.
These factors are Interactivity, informativeness, perceived relevance, performance expectancy and hedonic motivation. Alalwan (2018, p. 73) also investigated whether habit has an impact on consumer purchase intention, but their research showed that was not the case. Below, these factors will be presented to a further extent.
Interactivity was one of the most significant factors that can predict purchase intention (Alalwan, 2018, p. 72). This factor is useful and gives the customer a good experience in following and interacting with social media ads. If a social media ad has relevant information for customers, they are more likely to do a purchase (Alalwan, 2018, p. 73).
This factor is called informativeness. Customers are using social media to find information for different kinds of services and products. Informativeness was also connected to performance expectancy, which makes it possible to predict performance expectancy by informativeness. The factor perceived relevance was important since the customers' purchase intention increased if the content in social media was related to the customers own interests and preferences (Alalwan, 2018, p. 73). If social media advertising is beneficial and advantageous for customers they are more willing to purchase products from these ads, this factor is called performance expectancy (Alalwan, 2018, p. 73). Hedonic motivation was also empirically supported as a predictor for purchase intention (Alalwan, 2018, p. 73). It is therefore important for companies to develop and design their ads in a creative way. Some of the different factors influence
each other. Interactivity also contributed to hedonic motivation and performance expectancy of purchase intention e.g. (Alalwan, 2018, p. 72). These factors are useful to understand when trying to shape the customers purchase intention (Alalwan, 2018, p.
72).
As Alalwan (2018) highlights, it is important with content that supports interactivity and information, when predicting purchase intention. Wibowo et al. (2020) research has also found that these factors are important when trying to understand purchase intention.
Wibowo et al. (2020, p. 1) investigated social media marketing activity (SMMA) and customer experience (CX) to be able to measure customer relationship quality. The customer relationship quality can further impact customer behaviour outcomes such as purchase intention, loyalty intention and participation intention. The result of the study showed that both SMMA and CX had a significant positive influence on relationship quality (Wibowo et al., 2020, p. 13-14). Regarding SMMA, it is for example important for marketers to create interactive content (Wibowo et al., 2020, p. 13). It is also important that the content is relevant and up to date with news and it is also essential that the posts are easy to understand and that they are informative (Wibowo et al., 2020, p. 14).
McClure and Seock (2020) also highlights how informativeness can affect purchase intention. The authors (McClure & Seock, 2020, p. 1) research investigated if consumers' familiarity to the brand and the quality of the information of social media content influences the consumers' involvement on a social media page. Moreover, they studied if consumer involvement influenced consumers' attitudes for future purchase intention. The results of their quantitative study showed that both familiarity and quality of content was important for involvement on the social media page (McClure & Seock, 2020, p. 5). The information quality of a social media page was shown to have a greater impact though.
Further, an individual's involvement with the social media page was important when forming attitudes towards the brands social media page and this could lead to future purchase intention. To clarify, a social media page which has quality informative content is more likely to involve consumers which can lead to future purchase intention. The authors (McClure & Seock, 2020, p. 1) highlight the importance of these findings since they suggest that companies can attract and involve followers who are not familiar with the brand, as long as the social media page has informative content. It is therefore important for companies to have social media pages that have quality information that is relevant, important and notable.
Regarding the study by Wibowo et al. (2020, p. 14) about CX, consumers on social media can't use all their senses such as taste, smell and touch. The senses that are functionable on social media, such as seeing and hearing, are important to use to make up for the lost senses. It is therefore important to have skills within photography, graphic design and visual communication. Customer relationship quality is important when using social media since it increases the willingness to purchase, be a loyal customer and to participate.
These factors that affect purchase intention presented by Alalwan (2018), McClure and Seock, (2020) and Wibowo et al. (2020) are interesting and have several similarities. The factor that all these authors have found is the importance of information. Further, Alalwan (2018) and Wibowo et al. (2020) also highlight the need for interactive content. When these authors (Alalwan, 2018; McClure & Seock, 2020: Wibowo et al., 2020) discuss factors that can affect purchase intention, they mention that it is important that the content
