THE IMPACT OF VIRAL MARKETING ON CONSUMER PURCHASE INTENTION

Abstract

The aim of this study was to understand how viral marketing can impact the consumer perception and their buying behaviour on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. It focused on the effect of content appeal, informativeness, source credibility, and social influence. Together, these factors were checked in order to analyse their impact on the consumer's purchase intention.

Both descriptive and causal research designs were used to employ a quantitative approach for the purpose of this study. The sample size was of 102 respondents who were mainly MBA students and young adults aged 20 28. All of them were facebook & Instagram users. The respondents were asked to fill a structured questionnaire (with 5-point Likert scale). The Collected data was analysed for patterns among the different variables using various analytical tools.

Analysis of the survey data showed a high reliability on the reliability test. The collected data were therefore determined to be appropriate for further analysis. The data revealed that entertaining content can easily attract the attention of people but this attention alone might not be able to lead to a purchase. Respondents were most likely to trust a product if it was deemed credible by a trusted source or if it was recommended by people around them. In fact, the regression analysis found that social influence was one of the strongest predictors of the intention to purchase. All the hypothesis apart from content appeal were supported by the analysis.

In conclusion, this research showed that marketing brands that only focused on content appeal have very limited hold over the newer audiences. While a trendy advertisement may increase their awareness but they are still unlikely to result in a purchase if they don’t have any credible sources, social proof, or relevant content. The newer audience cares about what they are buying and where it comes from.