SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCE ON TEENAGERS

It is necessary for businesses to get on board since social media is making impact in variety of ways. Social media emphasize the power of word of mouth. During the period when there was no TV, Radio Internet, The word of mouth was very powerful and effective (Elmerraji 2015). The introduction of internet transformed the word of mouth to online customer review. It embrace the idea by encouraging the uses to join friend’s opinions into the purchasing process. It has power to grab consumer attention power obligate them to take actions. According to study done by social lab (Elmerraji, 2015), 76% of shoppers who read social sharing comments about the product are teenagers who clicked on the link in their friends Facebook posts, directing them to product page or website of the retailer.

54% of those teens ending up making purchase. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES The general objective • To describe how social media influence teenager’s consumer decision making in specialty goods. Specific objective of the study are: • To understand the teenager’s behavior in purchase decision making by establish the number of times the teenagers spend on the social media daily. Understanding the phenomenal growth in the social networking theory influences, assist in learning the teenager behaviors decision marking on the specialty goods. Consumer decision making: In 1968, the scholars’ Engel, Blackwell and Kollat have developed a model of consumer buying decision process in five steps. Problem/need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives to meet the need, purchase decision and post purchase decision. Figure 1: EKB Five Steps (Engel et al.

, 2013) Need Recognition: It occurs when consumer recognizes a significant difference between the desire and actual state of affairs, which is sufficient magnitude to arouse and social media activities that activate the decision process (Solomon et al. Covert that rate in the making, it means selling an item or specialty goods on the market, the target audience will be roughly 500 million. The facts at hand indicate that most youth visits the internet daily and particularly social media sites. (Ofcom, 2018). RESEARCH METHODS Questionnaire were distributed to four learning institutions in the Chicago, USA using simple random and stratified sampling techniques. Out four institution, one is a basic level, high school level, one tertiary level and One University. Additionally, the researcher engage the services of research assistants who given a time frame for collating information.

The primary data to collection is the effects of social media on the teenager’s decision marking on specialty goods. Results of social media in teenager’s behavior, attitude, and perception of certain specialty goods or products. The number of times the teen spends on social media per day. Additionally, the research would provide information on the way through which the social media affects teenager’s purchasing power and decision making on specialty goods.  Consumer behavior and marketing activities. Kent Pub. Co. Leedy, P. D. Livingstone, S. M. , Bober, M. , & London School of Economics and Political Science. UK children go online: Listening to young people's experiences. , and Pierre, R. P. (2015) Understanding Consumer Conversations around Ads in a Web World. Journal of Advertising 40 p.