An exploration into the influencing ability of Social Media Marketing on Irish Millennial purchasing behavior

Foley, Andrew (2015) An exploration into the influencing ability of Social Media Marketing on Irish Millennial purchasing behavior. Masters thesis, Dublin, National College of Ireland.

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Abstract

Millennials are rapidly becoming the future dominating customer segment marketers are all talking about. They are a generational cohort that are responding to brands that have never been seen before and has resulted in rendering traditional marketing tactics as ineffective on them. This is the generation that has never known life without the Internet, brought up during a time of economic turmoil and are coming of age in a new era: the social revolution. Their heavy usage of communicating via social media platforms have attracted marketers to devise online strategies to grab the attention of this market and try to retain as much of them as possible. Therefore, understanding the approach that Millennials have to brands is now considered to be the primary ambition of marketers today.

This dissertation shall delve into this growing challenge that marketers are currently facing. The researcher will be overall exploring the influencing ability of Social Media Marketing on the Millennial cohort. While previous research concentrates primarily on Millennials residing in the United States, academic literature has shown to be rather light on exploring the Irish Millennial cohort. This dissertation shall also make a contribution in the sense of providing an alternative perspective by aiming to concentrate on the behavioral aspect of the customer on social media.

The research was conducted in a qualitative manner. Nine individual in depth interviews were conducted. While seven of the interviewees were considered by the researcher to meet the participant criterion, of having a high degree of social media usage, the remaining two individuals, were chosen to provide an alternative perspective who don’t use social media as often as the latter.

It was found that companies should adopt a marketing approach that would be considered quite implicit. Instead of making explicit advertisements online to the target audience, companies should consider marketing by means of striving to generate a level of positive word of mouth. The interviewees of this research have shown to be quite familiar with conventional marketing tactics and as a result tend to be more dependent on the opinions their peers post online. Their heavy usage of social media over the years has groomed these Millennials into becoming highly skeptical, the advice to marketers is to approach this knowledgeable generational cohort in a more stealthily manner.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HF Commerce > Marketing > Consumer Behaviour Z Bibliography. Library Science. Information Resources > ZA Information resources > ZA4150 Computer Network Resources > The Internet > World Wide Web > Websites > Online social networks T Technology > TK Electrical engineering. Electronics. Nuclear engineering > Telecommunications > The Internet > World Wide Web > Websites > Online social networks
Divisions:	School of Business > Master of Science in Management
Depositing User:	Caoimhe Ní Mhaicín
Date Deposited:	10 Oct 2015 10:51
Last Modified:	10 Oct 2015 10:52
URI:	https://norma.ncirl.ie/id/eprint/2018

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