SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

This research explores the influence of social media on consumer buying behavior in Benin City, Edo State. In today’s digital age, social media has become an integral part of everyday life, revolutionizing the way consumers interact with brands, access product information, and make purchase decisions. The study investigates how platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok affect the purchasing attitudes, preferences, and behaviors of consumers in the area. It aims to determine the extent to which social media marketing strategies, online reviews, influencer endorsements, and targeted advertisements impact the decision-making process of The research adopted a quantitative method through the use of structured questionnaires distributed among residents of Benin City. A purposive sampling technique was used to target active social media users. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics to draw meaningful inferences. The findings reveal that social media significantly affects consumer behavior by increasing product awareness, shaping perceptions, and encouraging impulse buying. Additionally, consumers tend to rely heavily on peer recommendations, influencer posts, and social media trends when deciding what to purchase. The study concludes that social media is a powerful marketing tool that businesses must strategically harness to influence consumer behavior positively. It recommends that marketers focus on creating engaging content, collaborating with credible influencers, and maintaining responsive customer service online. This will not only enhance customer trust and loyalty but also drive sales growth in a highly competitive digital marketplace.

In the reality of an economic recession and increasing competition in all sectors of the economy, companies strive to find more effective and efficient ways to increase brand awareness and market their services. This research looks at the role of social media in theatre productions marketing. Developing an effective viral marketing strategy within the social media landscape requires being aware of the current usage of social media by theatre arts in their attempt to market the services to their target audiences. There is a growing interest in social media marketing research with only modest research available in the arts field. The questions that form the basis for this research are: To what extent can Facebook be applied as a good social media for marketing theatre productions in our modern day society? How does marketing on Facebook influence audience patronage for theatre productions? What are the benefits when marketing theatre productions via Facebook. However, deduction from this study has shown that Social media was seen as most effective in increasing brand awareness and building strong fan community.

This research work is titled Influence of Social Media Marketing on Consumer Behaviour in Edo state. The major aim of this study was to investigate the influence of social media marketing on consumer behaviour. Four research questions guided this study.
Subsequently, the review of literature was conducted under different subheadings in order to understand what had been done in the past on the study. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The population of this study comprised of an estimated population of 973, 000 SMEs with their consumers. The sample size of this study is made up of 100 respondents from five (5) business sectors using purposive sampling technique. The questionnaire which was validated by the researcklher's supervisor and other experts was used to elicit data for this research. The findings of this study revealed that companies makes use of Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter) and LinkedIn to promote their goods and services. Also from the findings presented in this analysis, individuals sees social media marketing as deceptive and misleading but at the same time, they consider social media marketing as important and useful source of information regarding a product. It was further revealed that consumers place value on product when marketing is done through various media tools. Furthermore, findings from this study showed that social media facilitate the exchange of information and ratings on product as individuals share their preferences on social media thus, influencing the decision of others to purchase a product, In addition, findings of this study revealed that social media helps companies to engage customers in constant communication 10 which facililates consumer loyalty and their brand image. Based on these
findings, the researcher recommended among others that entrepreneurs need to employ a social media manager to help build a strong online presence that is customer centric in order to have an active online community. Also, entrepreneurs should maximise the power of social media when attempting to introduce a new product by conducting an online survey to understand
people's feelings and opinions on the product.