Keywords

1 Introduction

Interpersonal relationships have always been an endogenous need that satisfies the need for interaction and inclusion in a group, and this timeless request is expressed to a greater extent in modern times due to the development of technological means [1] defined social media as the communication system of interaction and participation of members, which, through their networking, creates interpersonal relationships and communicates their views and shares experiences, discovering common interests and opinions.

Social media is a convenient means for creating successful marketing campaigns with a budget that is often quite small but still achieves the best result, as with pay-per-click advertising on platforms such as Facebook, which are “geo-targeted”, and individuals' reviews spread to a wide crowd in a very short time [2]. On the other hand, e-commerce, according to [3], mainly concerns distribution, purchase, sale, marketing, and customer service through online services such as the Internet and social media, with online commerce offering personalization of the services offered.

2 Literature Review

2.1 Social Media and Marketing

Social media have the following characteristics: the size or range of the media, which means the number of people participating in the social network; the composition of the members, which means the participation of family members or friends in the network and frequency; the degree of frequency of members’ interactions with each other [4] and the formation of online communities [5]. According to [6], “social media” are categorized into social media and work media, and specifically, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok are considered social, whereas the most well-known work media is LinkedIn. Apart from these, however, “social media” also includes blogs and media sharing sites, the best known of which are the following categories, “Social news and recommendations,” “Microblogging services” and “Blogging systems,” as well as the “Wikis” and finally “Social networks” and “Social sharing.”

Social media often influence the attitude and behavior of younger people to a very large extent [7], resulting in forming a negative image of themselves, which they cannot cope with and this fills them with a “void” and a feeling of dissatisfaction. Social media is therefore an important asset for businesses, but they must take into account the negative aspects of their use to avoid the risks that lurk [8].

2.2 Consumer Audience and Social Networking Media

Currently, in an economically developed and technologically advanced society, customers have many choices and are competitive in their decisions. First, the consumer tries to find out what products and services they would like to consume and then chooses only those products/services that promise greater utility. After choosing products/services, consumers estimate the available money that they can spend. Finally, they analyze the prevailing prices and decide how much they can consume [9].

Undoubtedly, advertising influences consumer behavior, as well as the direct experience of one product over another [9]. The consumer does not participate actively but passively as an observer of the marketing process, while with new technological means, they shape the purchasing landscape and make decisions [10].

In e-commerce, retailers can develop online systems to provide consumers with information. This information can be digitized and delivered electronically to reduce the costs for both retailers and consumers. Digital consumers have evolved due to the rapid development of technology and digitalization of our time. Therefore, consumers are motivated to consume in an online store and reap benefits from this act, as they save time and money, increase their trust in the company, and desire to buy, reducing the risk of being dissatisfied [11].

2.3 Digital Marketing and Social Media Influence on Consumer Behavior

According to [12], digital marketing enhances the promotion of products and services through digital channels, thus bringing the business into contact with the consumer audience in a personal and cost-effective manner. Digital Marketing includes many techniques and practices that are characteristic of online marketing, meaning that it is a branch of online marketing. It extends beyond online marketing, because it has the potential to include digital advertising and promotion channels through mobile phones. Businesses must follow developments over time and adapt to new digital trends [13]. The main types of digital marketing tools are as follows: Social media marketing [14], Digital content marketing (DCM), Search engine optimization (SEO) [15], Search engine marketing (SEM) [16], Pay-per-click advertising (PPC), Affiliate marketing Email marketing, Social media influencers (SMIs) [17], and innovative Web 3.0 technologies like blockchain [18].

3 Research Methodology

In this study, four basic research hypotheses were developed. The first research hypothesis examined whether there was a correlation between the sample’s responses to gender and social media shopping, and more specifically, the purchase of products through Influencer Marketing.

The second research hypothesis includes the examination of the existence, or not, of a correlation between the sample’s responses to the scales of “Advertising use and business benefits” and “Substantial utilization of social media in everyday life.” This hypothesis was numerically expressed by the existence of a statistically significant positive correlation between the two scales.

The third research hypothesis examines to what extent the answers of the people who participated in the research differ in the third scale (substantial utilization of social media in everyday life) with a dividing point in their answer to question “If companies integrate social media into their marketing, will they achieve better financial results in profits and customer loyalty?” The separation based on the nominal-type variable allows the examination of two distinct groups in terms of the average of their responses to the third scale of the questionnaire.

The fourth research hypothesis describes the generalizability of the sample-measured responses at the population level. Factors that are important to businesses that use social media marketing are discussed. This hypothesis was tested using the univariate χ2 test. This test was used to examine the present frequency distribution of responses to the second scale of the questionnaire and compare it with the distribution of our choice.

The questionnaire for the quantitative research included four sections and was implemented according to the research questions, aiming to strengthen its validity. These questions were translated and adapted for this study. The questionnaire consisted of 52 main closed-ended questions; six multiple-choice questions investigating the social identity of the sample demographic characteristics, such as gender, age group, educational level, professional status, and family income status; 46 questions, of which 17 were on a five-point Likert scale, 14 were multiple-choice, and 13 were dichotomous YES/NO; and, finally, two grid questions with a five-point Likert scale [19] with sub-questions investigating opinions and attitudes about the basic topic of social media marketing [20].

Convenience sampling was chosen as the data collection method, as it was adopted by researchers when collecting market research data from a conveniently available group of respondents. They also use it when collecting feedback about a specific feature or a newly released product from the sample created [21]. Data were collected directly by completing the questionnaire, which was delivered using Google Forms. The questionnaire was distributed from April 29, 2022, to May 13, 2022. In total, 418 individuals responded to the survey. Apart from filling out instructions, the questionnaire informed participants about its anonymity, and the data gathered was exclusively used for research purposes.

4 Results

4.1 Descriptive Statistics

The main objective of the following descriptive statistics is to present the sample values so that a primary interpretation of the survey results can be made (Table 1).

Table 1 Descriptive demographics (N = 418 respondents)
Full size table

4.2 Statistical Tests

The first research hypothesis states that customers’ gender does not affect purchase frequency because of Influencer Marketing. The above formulation is also the null hypothesis H0. The degree of dependence of these two categorical variables was measured using the χ2 correlation coefficient. Hypothesis testing was performed to determine whether the correlation between two variables was positive or negative, that is, to clarify whether there was a correlation between the variables. The confidence level for the test was set at 0.05, according to the literature [22]. The Pearson χ2 test was used to examine whether the two variables were independent. The significance level value is 0.806 > 0.05; therefore, the null hypothesis is not rejected that the variables are independent and tend to accept that the variables are not related to each other. The main result shows no correlation between customers’ gender and purchase frequency owing to Influencer Marketing.

The second research hypothesis is that people who believe that social media ads are useful and have a positive effect on the essential use of social media in everyday life, as well as in business marketing. Testing of this hypothesis was performed using a non-parametric test of correlation between the scales. The non-parametric test was chosen primarily because neither variable may follow a normal distribution. The correlation value between the two scales was high (0.363), and the statistical significance of the test was appropriate (p = 0.000 < α = 0.05).

In the third research hypothesis, customers who believe that if businesses integrate social media into their marketing campaigns, they will achieve enhanced profitability and customer loyalty are positive about the meaningful use of social media. The null hypothesis of the present test is equivalent to the following statement: “The mean of the scale of meaningful use of social media in everyday life for the people who answered about the greatest benefits of their use is equal to the mean of the same scale for the people who answered negatively.” To investigate this hypothesis, a Student's t-test was performed to compare the means between the two groups. Before this check, the assumption of homoscedasticity between the distributions of the two groups was considered. This assumption can be tested by using Levene's homoscedasticity test.

The homoscedasticity test was positive (p = 0.266 > α = 0.05), as its null hypothesis was that homoscedasticity was observed between the two distributions. Therefore, it is assumed with a small reservation that the variances are equal and the hypothesis is valid. Moving on to the comparison check of the averages, the same result as presented for the research sample was recorded. The difference in the averages of the two groups is significant, and the possibility that this difference exists in a wider research population is very high (p = 0.000 < α = 0.050). Thus, the null hypothesis is rejected and it can be said that the means are unequal.

The fourth hypothesis states that the research population’s customers do not show any clear preference for the factors that are important for a business using social media marketing. The above formulation is also the null hypothesis H0. The frequencies that we would theoretically expect the population to exhibit for the alternative hypothesis not to be true are those of the uniform distribution. The distribution of the responses differed significantly (p = 0.000 < α = 0.05) from the theoretically expected uniform distribution. Therefore, the null hypothesis is rejected, and it states that the research population’s customers show a clear preference for the factors, as our sample shows a corresponding preference.

The χ2 test of independence for the variables “make purchases through social media” and “open commercials displayed” gave a χ2 value of 20.240 and P-value = 0.000 < α = 0.05. Therefore, the null hypothesis is rejected, so there is a statistically significant relationship between choosing to open the displayed commercials and whether they ultimately make purchases through social media.

5 Discussion and Conclusion

The literature review focused on findings when the social media platforms were born and matured and the research findings that have already been carried out have proven that social media have undoubtedly evolved their role and are not just about people communicating with each other, but have now dynamically entered the business sector through the promotion of products and services.

At the same time, the exercise of criticism by Internet users is also a business activity, and it has been demonstrated through the literature review that businesses and the consumer public attach enormous importance to comments that are promoted by social media, significantly influencing consumers’ buying behavior [23].

This enormous influence of social media has brought the need to study the degree of their impact on consumer behavior, which was also the aim of this research. Quantitative research was conducted by distributing questionnaires through social networking groups to 418 people. Responses were processed using descriptive statistics, hypothesis testing with non-parametric correlation test of variables, t-test between independent groups, χ2 test, and principal component analysis.

In conclusion, according to the research results, users buy products because of influencer marketing after they react to advertising content messages. Women buy more than men do, because of or through Influencer Marketing. Social media advertising is useful for both respondents and businesses and is utilized in everyday life as well as in business marketing. Integrating business marketing into social media increases profits and customer loyalty. The survey population shows clear preferences for the agents, as the research sample does.

The conclusions are consistent with [24] findings, which “indicate that social networking sites have the greatest potential for information sharing”. This may be because social media offers easy ways to publish updates quickly without creating additional annoying ads or other forms of communication. It has also been pointed out that social media ads are useful for both respondents and businesses and are utilized in everyday life as well as in business marketing. To this extent, if businesses integrate social media marketing, they will achieve better financial results in terms of profit and customer loyalty. A significant dependence on the choice of opening displayed commercial ads was also found on whether customers ultimately make purchases through social media [25,26,27]. These conclusions agree with a series of studies that recognize the value of social media in business marketing, particularly influencer marketing [23, 28,29,30].