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CHAPTER 1
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background study
Innovation in social networking media has revolutionized the world in 21st Century. Social media has a developing effect in many angleparticularly from one standpoint, it converses the way how and why users communicate with each other. Social media is “a group of Internet based applications that builds on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and it allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content” (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, p.61).In Malaysia context, social media has grown due especially to the ease of Internet connection especially in the urban areas.
According to Malaysia Social Media Statistics,Malaysians spend five hours online daily and it is mostly on social media and a total of 64% of the population have social media penetration. This research will emphasis on Instagram as a main social media medium. Instagram was initiated in 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. Instagram has become popular mainly due to photo-sharing application, moreover, Instagram has surpass a good platform for an effective communication and marketing tool to display products with visual explanations.
Instagram reaches the younger generation, and appeals to diverse societies more largely than other social networking services (Abbott et al., 2013; Salomon, 2013).Customer will be highly motivated to shop online with varieties of visual uploaded about the products which ultimately convinced them to purchase.
Instagram provides valuable shopping experience because gives more credibility through the real visuals with a description or videos that enhance the brand image.
Keller (2001) makes brand engagement a key component of his Customer-Based Brand Equity model. Brand engagement is desire to amplify active relationship between the brand and the customer, part of which is engagement with the brand expressed as customer eagerness to talk about the brand, learn about it, and exhibit its use (Goldsmith, 2011). As a tool, social media is use to serve as a new trend for companies who are trying hard to communicate with their consumers on online or offline media platforms and offering a new way to interact online using a unique two-way channel of communication.
Moreover, social media has greater force to influence consumer behaviour from information acquisition to post purchase behaviour such as dissatisfaction statements or behaviours (Mangold & Faulds, 2009) and patterns of Internet usage (Ross et al., 2009). Ultimately, this encourages consumer to actively engage with the brand and offer motivation for participating with brands.
Most of the time, brands feel the need to adopt the social media bandwagon and simply sign up to all the current popular channels, however, it should act as an attitude or a continuation of the brand.Brand engagement is important because it is a strong predictor of brand loyalty
2.0 Research Problem
More and more companies begin to use social media as a primary marketing tool in creating a brand relationship.However, what has not been as clear for most organization is how to adapt to this new medium effectively and take advantage of the opportunities it presents.Though the fact that social media influencers are able to stimulate entire brand engaging in the social media environment have less control, firms are not confined to just interacting customer-generated content that benefit the brand. (Gensler et al., 2013; Mangold & Faulds, 2009). It’s clear that the evolution of technology is changing consumer shopping attitude around the globe. Despite the fact, organizations are lack of understanding the attitude of the customer towards online shopping presented. There is also lack of systematic study of consumer attitudes in the social media context.
According to PwC Malaysia Survey Findings 2013, over half 57% of companies do not track the impact of their social media activity on their business. Other than that, it is evident that social media is extremely decisive (Blackshaw &Nazzaro, 2004; Sago, 2010; Fisher, 2009), yet there is a little investigation how it could be exploited within IMC strategies (Mangold et al., 2009).Brand engagement in a social context indicates that customers have taken a personal interest in what companies are bringing to the market. But it has been analyze that the extent to which consumption of social media impacts upon brand engagement and outcomes that resulted from attitude is not correlate.
By virtue of, inappropriate social media activities are being executed, and then the organization isfailed to produce favorable consumer behavioral outcomes.In spite of the entireattempt put behind in creating multiple social media channels, there is always a query on how sufficient the organization perceives consumer’s online social attitude. Since online shopping is the new medium of shopping techniques with new customers. This paper intended to make an important contribution creating thefundamental linkages between consumers’ engagement with social media, their engagementwith online shopping brands, and the effects on engagement as an outcome.
3.0 Research Questions
Based on the objectives have been stated, the research questions can be outlined as follows:
RQ1: What is the relationship between Perceived Usefulness (PU) and attitude toward online shopping?
RQ2: What is the relationship between Perceived Ease of Use (PEO) and attitude toward online shopping?
RQ3: What is the relationship between attitude and brand engagement?
RQ4: What is the relationship between attitude and actual online shopping behavior?
RQ5: To what extend demographic factors influence PU, PEO, attitude and actual shopping behavior?