1. Introduction

The surfacing of Social Media during the recent past decades has dramatically changed the marketing and branding landscape. Essentially, the period of traditional marketing, in which marketers were driving out messages to consumers utilizing a one-way marketing communication, is now over. Today, ads are not reliable anymore in the actual world of marketing because they are numerous and because they confuse and interrupt people inappropriately. Contrary to the conventional media, social media has substantially altered the relationships between companies and consumers through by facilitating a two-way form of communication (Laroche, Habibi & Richard 2013). To this end, a new function of marketing has arisen, known as ‘social media marketing,’ which entails brand activities in social media.

Social media marketing can be described as the practices and tools used in identifying and analyzing conversations, to initiate and participate in social interactions with consumers. Contrary to the conventional media, social media provides more potential to brands to engage with consumers and have actual interactions with them (Ahmed & Zahid 2014). This means that the area of marketing had evolved from the time when brands had the supremacy of influencing customers to today when customers have a greater supremacy of influencing on their peers. In this regard, social media facilitate customers to share ideas and contents together, write opinions, recommendations and reviews regarding firms’ performance, as well as to tell about their own bad or good experience with them to a broader audience than before. Customers have accessibility to a broad range of various social media tools, types, and platforms, with different attributes and potential that allows them to communicate together and be connected (Laroche 2012, p. 1762). To this end, social media has significantly impacted on how marketing information is shared among consumers and branding is accomplished. All this aspects pushes companies to develop their social media marketing and hospitality industry also developing in this field.

1.2    Problem Statement

The previous research studies have proved that peers have a considerable effect on consumers during the consumers’ decision-making process (Hudson & Thal 2013; Bilal, Ahmed & Shahzad 2014). However, there is a significant deficiency of research detailing the exact role the brand activities in social media plays at the different phases of consumers’ process of decision-making. This research study is, therefore, guided by one focal research question, which is ‘How does brand activities in social media affect consumer decision-making at different stages?’ What is more, the research will attempt to establish the implications for marketers on the effect of brand activities in social media on customer’s process of decision-making, and after that make recommendations accordingly.

1.3    Research Objectives/ Aims

The study’s primary objective is to explore the effect of brand activities in social media on consumer’s process of decision-making with a particular focus on Hotel Industry. The specific research objectives include:

1. To examine the steps of consumers’ decision process that are influenced by brand activities in online social media
2. To investigate the reasons as to why brand activities in online social media have an influence on consumers’ decision process

iii.    To establish the implications for marketers concerning the effect of brand activities in social media networks on customer’s decision-making process

1.4    Research Questions

1. Which steps of customers’ decision process do brand activities in social media influence?
2. What are the real reasons as to why brand activities in online social media have an influence on consumers’ decision process?

iii.    What are the implications for marketers on the impacts of brand activities in social media networks on buyers’ decision-making process?

2. Literature Review

2.1    The Social Media Networks

Social networks involve engaging with consumers online. Social media network is based on the internet as a tool useful in discussing and sharing information. Social media regards networking, which is accomplished in a way that fosters trust among entities and individuals involved. In other words, social media refers to websites that enable clients to share their views, opinions, and content. In additions, the communities and interactions created are classified as the fraction of social media network. Some of the popular social media sites include Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Flickr, StumbleUpon, Scribd, Delicious, and MySpace, among others (Bond 2010). Social Media is a term that comprises two words, in which ‘Social’ means the interactions among people or entities within a group or community while ‘media’ describes the channel used to disseminate or communicate ideas or ad messages. Put in simpler terms; social media is a platform used for communication that is created and maintained using interpersonal interactions among people or entities via a defined medium. Essentially, social media has resulted in a paradigm swing from the broadcast means into a many-to-many communication model, which is grounded in discussions among authors, peers, and individuals (Erdogmus & Cicek 2012).

2.2    Brand Activities in Social Media

Brand activities in social media are founded on the concept of Internet marketing. Brand activities in social media can help in developing and enhancing the relationship with customers more effectively. Social media strengthens the existing company-to-customer and consumer-to-company relationships, as well as create new variants on conventional options, thereby increasing the firm’s ability to interact in company-customer dialog, enhancing their communications (Rodríguez 2009). Firms are now able to reach out to customers that otherwise could hardly be reached. Social media helps in transferring content and marketing information to a wider array of people as compared to the broadcast media (Kim & Ko 2010, p. 1608). Social media creates a “miniature world” network in which content is simply shared to a wide scope of people. This is because the system is established through voluntary connections and needs lesser steps in the exchange of information. Besides, social media helps in establishing and raising brand awareness in the sense that it allows firms to access many people in the target marketplace (Dimitriadis 2014). Since many individuals across the globe are increasingly visiting the social media, the presence of a product in the networks helps in informing people regarding it and, hence creating brand awareness. More importantly, through having people to visit the brand’s page on the social media sites, it is probable for a firm to create traffic for its website, which makes it possible for the firm to make ultimately more sales (Chou 2014).

To this end, social media marketing aids in influencing customers that a certain brand is worthwhile. More importantly, brand activities in social media do not only entail striking front-pages of the social media sites, rather, it also entails a strategic or methodical process of creating the firm’s brand reputation among customers, readers, and supporters. In the bottom line, brand activities in social media facilitate an opportunity to marketers to communicate and present their brand(s) to consumers, and also to get feedback on customers’ suggestions and grievances (Zailskaite-Jakste & Kuvykaitė 2013). Therefore, social media could be used as a tool for developing brand personality and fostering relationships, which ultimately creates consumer loyalty and repeat-buyers.

2.3    Consumers’ Decision Behavior

Consumer behavior refers to the study of processes that are involved when entities or individuals choose, buy, utilize or dispose of products, services, and ideas to gratify their needs. The buying act is only the visible stage of a more manifold decision-making process attributed to customers for every buying decision they make (Jamrozy 2007). Therefore, consumer behavior does not only a mere summary of the act of buying or making the decision, rather, consumer interactions, as well as the wide array of experiences that are associated with consumption also forms a significant component of consumer behavior. The consumer behavior process model comprises of 5 basic steps, which includes need or problem recognition, search for information, evaluations of alternatives to satisfy the need, purchase decision or action, and post-purchase behavior (Bilal, Ahmed & Shahzad 2014).

2.4    The Influence of Brand Activities in Social Media at Different Phases of Consumers’ Process of Decision-Making

2.4.1    Need Recognition Stage

Need recognition takes place when customers realize that there is an unmet need for their personal or household or workplace setting. Such needs may be triggered by either the internal stimuli or by external stimuli. In this regard, social media may trigger needs through ads displayed on the social media sites, for example on the Facebook page, and through chats with friends that can make customers recognize that they have an unmet need (Kim & Ko 2012). More specifically, the Facebook ‘Like’ and ‘Comment’ buttons are powerful tools for making consumers recognize a need. For instance, when customers ‘like’ a Facebook page of a certain brand, their contacts would view this ‘Like’ appearing on their feeds. Also, the ‘Follow’ button in Twitter works similarly to the ‘Like’ button in Facebook, and can, therefore, trigger new needs among peers. What is more, a recently introduced page in social media known as ‘Fancy’ combines various types of social media, including social bookmarking and blog and is linked to Twitter and Facebook pages.  The Fancy presents images of trendy brands to users and facilitates them to select the images of brands they would like to purchase by clicking on the ‘Fancy’ button. These images are later shown on Twitter and Facebook feeds of users. Thus, people can view what their ‘pals’ fancy and could find new needs (Abzari, Ghassemi & Vosta 2014).

2.4.2    Information Search Stage

Essentially, once the customers have recognized a need, consumers focus on seeking information on how to fulfill that need. In this regard, social media offers customers information exposition as customers can easily derive information from their social media network of ‘friends’, as well as from brands regarding products that can fulfill their needs (Singh & Sonnenburg 2012). The latter can be actualized through ‘liking’ Facebook pages on brands, as well as ‘following’ brand pages on Twitter. Worth to note, when consumers are in this information search phase, they often undertake an external and internal search. Regarding external search, customers usually consult personal sources to seek information (Leung, et al. 2013). This reflects that customers seeking for information regarding brands or products can make usage of social media platforms with a view of grasping or asking information from their ‘friends.’ What is more, social media network has a significant influence on customers, particularly when they are purchasing a certain product or from a brand they have no knowledge about, as well as when they are costly (Gensler 2013). This is basically because these factors seem to make customers conduct more research and seek for opinions. This shows that social media network can influences customers within the information search phase since customers can utilize social media platforms in obtaining information regarding brands, products, and services. Besides, social media gives consumers the possibility of engaging in dialogues with firms (Leung 2013). Nevertheless, even though social media facilitates companies and customers to have the two-way form of communication, it is worth noting that customers largely trust other customers more so than the company (De Vries & Carlson 2014). Thus, social media may give customers the possibility of getting trustful information and references from their peers on brands and products suitable to fulfill their needs.

2.4.3    Evaluation of Alternatives Stage

The communication of experiences from peers has got a positive influence on this stage on the evaluation of alternatives. Upon arriving at this phase, customers evaluate different alternatives available to them and consequently choose the most suitable one in the following stage. To evaluate various available alternatives, customers seek to compare the brands or products together with a view of making the choices that best suit their identified needs the most (Hvass & Munar 2012). Social media forums seem like a suitable place of getting valuable information since they allow discussions with current and former customers of certain brands (De Vries, Gensler & Leeflang 2012). Besides, messages shared by trusted pals who explain on their experiences are highly influential. Moreover, customers are more likely to trust ‘unbiased advice.’ Social media platforms offer customers a broad array of opinions and reviews that help them in comparing alternatives (Hutter 2013).

2.4.4    Purchase Decision Stage

At some point during this process, customers cease searching and assessing information, and move to the subsequent step of making the purchase decision. During this phase, customers decide whether they would purchase a product or services from a certain brand or not. This buying decision partially depends on the customers’ motivation, as well as on the influence from the previous phases that facilitated them to assess alternatives using the tools, recommendations and brand reviews available on social media (Karamian, Nadoushan & Nadoushan 2015).

2.4.5    Post-purchase Behavior Stage

Post-purchase behavior is the last stage, by which customers evaluate the result of their buying decision. Essentially, this phase is significant for customers, as it influences their future buying patterns. Besides changing their future buying patterns, customers can also influence their peers on whether the brand is preferable or not (Ravi 2002). In fact, customers today utilize social media to narrate on their own positive or negative experiences and hence share opinions and feedback with their peers (Bruhn, Schoenmueller & Schäfer 2012). To this end, social media has enhanced the possibility provided to customers to share their positive or negative experiences with peers more than ever before. During the previous decades, clients who wanted to narrate about their experiences with various brands could only do so to a petite circle of friend or relatives around them. Today, with the presence of social media networks, it is easier for customers to share their brand experiences swiftly to thousands of people and hence influence their buying decision-making process (Xie & Lee 2015).

2.5    Conclusion

This literature review has demonstrated that there is a considerable influence of social media, which probably play a considerable role in consumer decision-making process. Nevertheless, it is still not clear about the exact effect or role of influence brand activities in social media play and if such influence varies at the different phases of the process involved while consumers are making a decision.

3. Research Methodology

3.1    Research Approaches

There are two basic research approaches that could be used in research study, including the deductive approach and inductive approach. Essentially, it is entirely feasible to mix the two research approaches in a research study, and it is often valuable to do so. Since this particular research is to be articulated around two focal actors, who include the marketers and the consumers, it will be more suitable to combine the inductive approach and the deductive approach. Regarding the deductive model, the researcher would issue a research question, which is: ‘How do brand activities in social media affect consumer decision-making at different stages?’ What is more, the researcher would design a quantitative research with a view of testing the theory relating to the social media field, as well as to analyze the research outcomes. Compared to deductive approach, the inductive approach largely emphasizes more on the contexts of events that seem to develop at a notable pace within the study area (Khan 2011). In this case, the social media brand marketing is an evolving area that has swiftly developed over the recent years and is anticipated to continue developing even more in the coming years.

3.2    Research Strategies

There are some research strategies that could be utilized in a research study, which includes experiments, case study, surveys, action research, archival research, grounded theory, and ethnography (Bhattacharya 2006). For this research study, the researcher would use the survey as the most suitable research strategy for answering the research questions. In effect, the survey research strategy is highly aligned with the deductive research approach aforementioned for use in this study. Following this research strategy appears as being well suitable to this research area as it will help the researcher in collecting a huge quantity of data in a more cost effective way. To effectively answer the research questions, there are two kinds of questionnaires that would be combined.  One of them regards designing the interviewer-administered questionnaire, which would contain semi-structured interview questions touching on how brand activities in social media affect customer decision-making. Mostly, the interviewer-administered questionnaire would be meant for the marketers working in hotels that frequently use social media as promotion tool. The second one regards designing the self-administered questionnaire, which would be administered via the Internet through using the social media tools and platforms. Thus, an effective questionnaire would be designed and tested to be filled up by the respondents. The survey will include relevant questions touching on how brand activities in social media affect their decision-making process. Essentially, integrating these two survey types appear to be the best method of collecting the data required to accomplish the research objectives and answer the research questions (Kothari 2005).

3.3   Population and Sample

This research study will focus on the hotel industry. Two groups of the population would be targeted, including marketers of the hotels that use social media as a promotional tool (3 marketers), as well as the actual customers of this hotels. For this study, the researcher would use the non-probability sampling approach using a purposive sampling technique. This reflects that the researcher would administer the survey to the actual costumers of particular hotels through community travelers in social media including Facebook, Twitter, VK (Russian Facebook) and TripAdvisor. Since the research is touching on social media, social media thus appears as the most suitable media to undertake the survey. More importantly, by using the social media platforms the researcher would be certain that the respondents are familiar and significantly influenced by the using social media tools/platforms in their decision-making process in choosing the particular hotels. Although this sampling approach may generate some selection bias, the researcher would be confident with the respondents’ responses and their capabilities of spreading the questionnaires since they are actual customers of the hotels. What is more, in an effort of having more required data collected during the survey, the researcher would also use the snowball sampling method through requesting respondents to share the questionnaires with their friends that have been in the same hotel. In doing so, the researcher would succeed in having a larger quantity of respondents and thereby collect more data for analysis (Scruggs & Mastropieri 2006). To sum up, combining these two methods of sampling would facilitate the researcher have a huge number of respondents within a short time span and with very little budget.

3.4    Data Analysis

Concerning analyzing the quantitative data, the researcher would make use of computer-based data analysis software, including Collaborative Online Social Media Observatory (COSMOS). Since the survey would have various levels of measurement, the analysis would provide categorical responses such as the Likert scale. The researcher would also make use of the SPSS software for data analysis, cross-tabulation, and graphical representations (Singh 2006). Moreover, since the researcher would utilize Google Docs in designing the questionnaire and collecting data, the researcher would also use the analysis charts tools that Google offer. Essentially, graphical representations would be significant in the results analysis since they would allow the researcher to me to view and analyze the findings in a clear way. Concerning analyzing the qualitative data, the researcher would listen to the recorded interviews and write down the most significant aspects that are of interest in answering the research questions. Moreover, the researcher would seek to organize the content of the interviewees’ responses into coherent categories so as to be capable of utilizing the data, and draw relationships among these different groups (Daniel & Sam 2015).

Timeline of Activities

Activity	Time	Cumulative time
Preparing the Project Proposal	2 months	2 months
Data collection	1 month	3 months
Data analysis and presentation	1 week	3 months 1 week
Writing conclusions and possible recommendations based of the findings	5 months 1 weeks	8 months 2 weeks
Preparation and Presentation of the final report	2 weeks	9 months

 

Provisional Dissertation Structure

In order to conduct this research most effectively, the dissertation structure would be as follow.

Chapter One: This chapter would be the introductory part, which would highlight the study background, the problem statement, research questions, research objectives, as well as the importance of the research study.

Chapter Two: This chapter would review the available literature relevant to the study area with a view of establishing the gaps that are yet to be covered in this area of study (with respect to the research topic). This section would be articulated around defining and describing the main concepts and theories so as to have a sturdy background of the topic.

Chapter Three: This chapter would discuss the methodology that would be applied for this research, which would be most suitable in best answering the research questions and accomplishing the research objectives. This chapter will present research approaches, research strategies, population and sampling techniques, data analysis techniques, and time allocation.

Chapter 4: This chapter would present and demonstrate the research findings.

Chapter 5: This chapter would discuss the research findings.

Chapter 6: This chapter would present the research conclusions, and possible recommendations.

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