Final Project, Part II: Evaluate a Quantitative Study

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Evaluating a Qualitative Study

The authors conducted a study the effects of social media advertising on customer’s perception, motivation and purchase. The authors conducted the study based on the rational that current, the world is digitized and modern everyone is engaged and attached to the internet. As a result, organizations can use social media to advertise their products and services. Besides social media advertising attracts customers and organizations can use it a medium for advertising which provides them with advanced ways for businesses to obtain existing and potential customers through reviews as opposed to traditional; ways of using methods such as television and radio. Furthermore, the authors argue that using social media platforms is affordable when compared to other channels. Likewise, social media marketing influences customers, perceptions, purchase intention and motivation. The authors conducted the study to determine the effects of social media advertising on a consumers purchase intention while considers factors such as perception variables and mediation

The study is important as it provides organizations with an idea on how factors such as customer motivation, perception and purchase intention influences consumer purchase. The study also draws a model that will demonstrate the link that exists between consumer purchases and the use of social media as an advertising tool, while understanding consumer purchase decisions that enables them adopt to those brands and services that are advertised through social media. Besides, the study is important because it provides a step towards understanding consumers purchase intentions to some brands while advertising through social media.

The authors have provided a thorough literature review as they provide some of the sentiments of past studies on social media advertising and study variables. For instance, one past research indicates that the market for smart phones is increasing daily, the researcher estimate that there will be roughly 5 billion Smartphone users by the year 2020.As a result, social media marketing will play a critical role in advertising for organizations. Further, after the introduction of Smartphone touch in the year 2007, there is an upsurge of Smartphone usage globally. Furthermore, statistics conducted by Google play store and Apple indicate that more than 135 billion apps are downloaded through smart phones and the number is bound to increase in the near future. Also, users spend most of their time in social media platforms.

The author also provides a definition of customer perception. They define it a marketing concept that creates awareness consciousness and impression on a customer about an organization’s products and services. Customer’s perception is influenced by review, advertising, public relations personal experiences and other channels. Purchase intention is the customer’s perception on purchasing a particular product. Purchase intention can be used to predict customers purchase decisions and to determine if a customer can purchase a particular product. Advertising also ensures that a customer becomes familiar with a certain product as consumers are influenced by brand familiarity when they are making perceptions when purchasing certain products and services.

Important aspects such as consumer perception, customer motivation, and social media advertising which are the variables of the study have been clearly defined. Motivation is defined as a condition that encourages an individual’s desire to undertake some certain activities for them to achieve a creating goal. The authors also argue that there are internal and external factors that motivate customers in a purchase process. Past research indicates that customers are motivated by psychosocial motives. These motives include social status, physical activity, entertainment, and learning new information in the market. Social motives’ that influence an individual include communication and pleasure of bargaining. Advertisements also have positive influences on a consumer’s rational and emotional appeal. The appeal is an arousal which psychologically motivate a potential customer. The authors also argue that advertisement motivates customers to purchase certain products and services and it also changes a customer’s perception on certain products and services. Further, a customer’s behavior is shaped and motivated by purchasing a particular product that helps them remember the purchase through hinting their mind. The authors also affirm that there exists a direct relationship between advertising and motivation.

The researchers do not provide previous research methods on social media advertising. The authors only provide the perceptions of other researchers on study variables which are purchase intentions, customer motivation, customer perception and social media advertising. Furthermore, the author provides those authors that had previously adopted and measured customer motivation, purchase intentions and customer perception which are currently under study.

Evaluate the Purpose Statement

The article clearly indicates the purpose of the research and a clear argument and the same is also provided in the literature review section with support from past studies. For instance, the paper was focused on the effects of social media advertising and the relationship that exists between social medial advertising to motivation and customer perception customer purchase intention, which are well explained in the literature review section. The authors also provide five hypotheses for the research that were checked by use of interviews and framework approach.

Evaluation of Methods Section

The study is a qualitative study and cross sectional by nature as data was collected at a single point in time. Besides, the study was based on interpretive philosophy and the results were derived from real facts and figures through a sensory experience. The research was conducted in a public University in China where data was collected by the University students. The respondents for the study were in different years of study from different fields such as information technology, law, commerce, and business education.

Data for the study was collected through an inductive approach. This enables the authors generalize the results and to answer the purpose of the study as presented in the introduction. A number of ten respondents who were randomly selected through purposive sampling technique to answer the questions. Purposive sampling method assures the representatives of the sample and one student form every department was chosen to represent. The main objective of a purposive sampling method is that it focuses certain characteristics of a population of interest and will enable the researcher answer specific questions for the research. Framework analysis which is a renowned qualitative research data technique was also use. In Framework analysis, the data that is obtained from the interviews are classified in consensus and opposite responses and compared how the respondents from different departments compare on their agreement on the effects of social media advertisement on customers. The framework also analyses how the degree to which the variables think they contrast each other. The questions were based on the idea that if social media was effective for customers, the feeling the respondents felt when they see products in social media, how a customer’s purchase patterns is developed in social media advertisement, whether the consumer’s motivation and perception plays a role in developing purchase intentions and reasons why social media advertisements is considered better than other traditional media advertisement.

Relevant characteristics of the study sample were also provided. The authors explain that the respondents were 50% male and 50% female, and that the respondents were of between 18 to 35 years of age. Furthermore, 62,3% of the respondents were undergraduate students and 37% being postgraduate students. I can say that the method of sample selection used by the researcher, that is the purposive sampling method was important to when answering the questions under study, but was not a good representative of the population since only 10 students were chosen. There were no apparent biases during selection of the sample because gender was well represented and the postgraduate and graduate students were also represented.

Evaluation of Results Section

The qualitative study was analyzed by use of a framework analysis. The authors describe framework analysis as a method where a researcher analyzes a common consensus response of interviewees and the researcher develops their understanding based on the respondent’s mutual responses. The framework according to the authors presented five major themes in which they agreed and also provided contrasting opinions. When providing a description of the results response from the respondents were clearly linked to the study themes concepts and theories. The examples were also adequate since it provides a description of what normally happens when people see ads on social media. The respondents confirmed that advertising through social media is effective since one obtains a bulk of customers at a go and one can also access millions of customers. On experience about advertising, the respondents explained of some B2B and B2C suppliers whose ads were attractive and were convincing. Some of them were also convinced to purchase some products that were not in their shopping lists. Advertising also initiates a customer’s purchase intention; some of the respondents indicate that it has happened to them frequently after seeing some ads on social media. Advertising also influenced their motivation and perception to change and the respondents also agreed that some ads in social media were interesting which ultimately persuaded them to purchase the products.

Evaluating the discussions Section

The researchers in this study have clearly restated the purpose of the research and the research questions. The results of the study show that individuals find advertising through social media to be personalized, informative, entertaining and attractive. As a result, advertising through social media initiate customer’s decisions to purchase the product of their choice. The discussion section also answers the research question since the results indicate that there is a significant relationship that exists between advertising through social media, customers purchase intention, impact on customer’s motivation and perception. The authors conclude that advertising through social media is attractive and is also a source of motivation for a customer and enables customers decide to purchase the products after them watching advertising on the social media apps. The authors in this study do not provide ways in which their study relates to other theories and other findings. The authors provide how their study relates to actual practice by advising organizations to remain in touch with their customers through social media advertising. Furthermore, business is able to obtain feedback from customers who will then have positive customer reviews for the company’s products and services which will then increase the organization’s customer base. The respondents in this study argue that they make perceptions about a particular brand when people comment on a certain product in social media and react to them. Furthermore, the authors indicate that social media advertising is a platform that businesses can obtain their worthy customers which will in turn create a long lasting relationship with them by providing them with values depending on their wants and needs. Additionally, the results of the study provide organizations with insights and guidelines to design their advertising plan while they take into consideration those platforms that acts as a major medium that is used for advertising that will enable the company interact with customers on a global scale.

The researchers in this study illustrate limitations of their research. The first limitation is that the researcher was confined with time to complete the research in all the proceedings. As a result, the research was vast and focused by realizing the time limitation. The second limitation is that, generalization of results with a sample of 10 respondents from university is impossible as there are other users of social media who are not necessarily students.

The authors propose that in the future, other studies should collect data from other samples that are not confined to university students only. Furthermore, the author suggests that the samples size for the study should be increased as this will provide a more generalize able result.

Other aspects of qualitative research that I still find challenging are the methods used to analyze data, sampling methods and how the results are generalized. Additionally, there was information in the list that I was not able to find, for example implications of the findings and how these findings relate to other theories and research findings. Also, there were no concrete examples of concepts theories and themes that were provided in the results section. I did not also find any apparent biases when selecting the sample that the author described. Furthermore, the researchers did not provide previous methods that other authors used that were relevant in understanding the purpose of the study when conducting the research.

References

Islam, S., & Mahmood, M. I. (2018). A Qualitative Study on the Outcomes of Social Media Advertising.

Malec, T. & Newman, M. (2013). Research methods: Building a knowledge base. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. ISBN-13: 9781621785743, ISBN-10: 1621785742.