Social media and consumer buying behavior decision: what entrepreneurs should know?

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the impacts of social media on the Pakistani consumers' buying behavior, which could be reflected in either complex buying, variety seeking, dissonance reducing or habitual buying. Entrepreneurs need to know how their loyal and prospective customers feel, think and how do they decide on purchasing certain products and services. Design/methodology/approach The self-administered online questionnaire is used to collect feedback from consumers in order to analyze the data and come up with the findings. A sample size of 396 respondents was used to analyze and find a relationship between social media and consumer buying behavior. Findings Social media is found to have a partially significant impact on Pakistani consumers' buying behavior; word of mouth and content credibility are the two factors that influence Pakistani consumers' buying behavior. Pakistani consumers, below the age of 40, possess more complex buying behavior, which alerts entrepreneurs to consider it for their future marketing strategies. Practical implications Entrepreneurs should make an effort to be differentiated from others while keeping customers aware of the products they provide. In addition, customers should not spend too much time when comparing brands; rather, businesses should make it more captive. Originality/value This paper provides different results in comparison to the previous studies, in terms of the factors influencing consumers' buying behavior.