New technologies and social tools available now shape consumer behavior on the Internet, especially social networks and online videos (Tasner, 2010). Online social networks are increasingly recognized as an important source of information that influences the adoption and use of products and services via recommendations from influencers in online social networks to their followers and peers. Social trust in online social networks has received considerable attention, especially in online social networks based on eWOM via consumer reviews (Liu et al., 2015).
Users in an online social network expand their relationships of trust with people who do. There are many social networks that can be used as a communication channel, but nowadays YouTube stands out.
LITERATURE REVIEW
- Influencer Marketing and Social Influence
- Influencer Marketing
- Influencers
- Word of Mouth (WOM)
- Word-of-Mouth (WOM) – The Classical Way of Information Diffusion
- Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) – The Digital Way of Word-of-Mouth
- Trust
- Information Quality
- Entertainment
- Purchase Intention
- YouTube Marketing
- Customer Decision Journey
An influencer or reference group is a real or imagined group or individual that influences a consumer's behavior, preferences, and evaluations (Kotler et al., 2013). However, the consumer should consider the credibility of the source of information, such as a company, celebrity or influencer as a brand ambassador, a highly credible source is more persuasive than a less credible source. He then developed a circular model that, with a less linear approach, successfully identifies the moments that most influence consumer decisions, this concept is known as the Consumer Decision Journey (Marquez, 2015).
Step One: The consumer considers an initial set of brands based on brand perception and exposure to recent touchpoints. Step Two: The consumer engages in active evaluation, where he adds or subtracts brands as he evaluates what he wants.
METHODOLOGY
Primary Data Collection Method
Survey Method
- Sample Size
- Develop Questionnaire
We then conducted a survey through social media using the Google form with 12 questions about their behavior using the YouTube platform and their purchase behavior to identify potential variables that influence consumer behavior encouraged by influencers via reviews. Another section of the questionnaire consists of an additional 10 questions related to respondents' behavior regarding YouTube viewing behavior in general, e.g. frequency of use, purchase product category and frequency of internet purchases to analyze behavior using the YouTube platform in the decision-making phase according to McKinsey's customer journey to support the variables that we have defined. Finally, we have 4 questions related to respondents' profile such as gender, age, education and income to collect demographic data to analyze and compare their behavior between each group using age and gender criterion.
DATA ANALYSIS
According to the classification of variables, the credibility and reliability of products and brands is related to the trust factor, which gained the highest priority in purchasing over reviews as a 'very important' factor (27.8 percent), including the credibility and reliability of influencers (20.8 percent) . In addition, the usefulness of additional information obtained from reviews (23.4 percent), which is included in the information quality factor, also affects consumer behavior in the buyer's decision-making process. Women mostly focus on the credibility and reliability of products and brands (23.4 percent), while men focus more on price than credibility (5.2 percent).
Women are mostly interested in cosmetics, beauty products and personal care (30.4 percent) while men are interested in IT products such as smartphones, tablets, computers and laptops (8.1 percent). They also try to find an additional information about product and brands in their consideration set (41.7 percent). Women watch YouTube reviews to increase interest in products (40.8 percent) while men watch them to increase confidence and likelihood to purchase products (both 6.9 percent).
As the frequency of people who have watched YouTube within six months, they sometimes or occasionally see YouTube reviews when they have to buy something (60.2 percent), this referred to the result of the purchase frequency according to YouTube reviews, which is 61.3 percent, making a purchase when they occasionally need something. Six percent of men watch YouTube reviews, and there is an increase in purchases based on YouTube reviews (7.8 percent). On the other hand, purchases according to YouTube reviews fell in women (40.8 percent) from sea behavior (42.6 percent).
The majority of people who watch YouTube reviews, according to the survey results, indicated that watching YouTube reviews is somewhat important (45.2 percent) before making a purchase decision. In addition, most of them somewhat trust or believe the YouTube reviews they have watched (39.2 percent). According to findings, the majority of participants in the survey are women, who contribute the highest rating in the cosmetics, beauty products and personal care category (30.4 percent).
While men mostly focused on IT products such as smartphones, tablets, PCs and laptops (8.1 percent) which is their physical interest. Information quality – the usefulness of additional information obtained from reviews, which is 22.5 percent of participants as very important sub-factors, consumers look for comments and complaints before the purchase decision.
RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION
Conclusion
Regarding the different characteristics related to the respondents and the type of products purchased or searched for in connection with a greater use of recommendations and reviews from the influencers, we found that consumers who make use of these resources experience greater confidence in the purchase of the product. In addition, the age range between 25 and 34 years (57 percent), people in this range are Millennials, who everyday close to technology and the Internet. Then this age group is the most using social media in terms of YouTube reviews according to the results.
It should be considered as the most effective target or potential target when planning marketing strategies. The results of our literature review show that research into the factors of influence is still in its early stages. We have conducted in-depth research into the customer decision journey from the first phase: the first considerations determine which consumers become interested in products and brands, and then continue to search for additional information.
At this stage, it is very important to stimulate the motivation of buyers to make purchase decisions, so at this stage we focused on the important factors that influence consumer behavior. Therefore, according to our results, those that we omitted during the search are also displayed. Finally, this study suggests that there is an opportunity for companies and marketers to better understand the drivers of value and effective targeting by age group in the YouTube environment and apply to marketing strategy plans.
Recommendations
If it is a sponsored content, you should perceive it carefully because what the influencer says may not be true and in fact it is an advertisement using influencer marketing. If it is not a sponsored content, the influencer will talk in a different term about using products, such as pros and cons in realistic from their real experience as recommendations more than advertising. Then, consumers should carefully consider this content, using their judgment to make any purchase decision after viewing reviews.
However, the findings such as potential factors may relate to other social media platforms that have influencers because it is a similar strategy but on a different platform, including results that may be the same as our experiment in this study, except marketing strategies because each platform has a unique selling point and unique features. . YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are the most popular social media widely used by the companies and advertising agencies in promoting their brands and products. Forty-five percent of this YouTube viewing group reported that they watch YouTube every day, meaning that social media tools, especially the YouTube platform, are becoming more valuable to their daily activities, while 18 percent reported that they watch almost every day Watch YouTube.
The number of users of YouTube, Facebook and other social networking sites that are increasing every day will definitely bring more customers for the business and much more promotions and marketing, making social media a better platform for marketing.
Limitation and Future Research
Most respondents are unexpectedly female and collecting data from only 115 participants does not cover the entire spectrum of YouTube users, which limits the generalizability of the findings and pertains more to women than men. So we could not measure the certain values between men and women. There are other factors that influence consumer behavior, but in this article we will focus on the five most effective factors. Moreover, factors can be studied more deeply in terms of positive or negative, including direct or indirect factors, to expand the findings.
However, the findings can be related to other fields such as e-tail marketing due to the effects of influencers, due to the present digital transformation then, everything is based on the Internet and online more than offline. The findings will be useful in any fields in terms of influencer marketing for analysis and utilization. Finally, this study relied on judicious quota sampling and ear, making it difficult to generalize the findings to changes that occurred in the behavior and attitudes of all consumers.
Thus, more research should assess usage motivations associated with YouTube reviews in order to provide empirical data regarding media usage motivations.
Social interaction through new social media: (How) can Twitter interactions influence effective thinking and behavior?. 2016), “On the factors affecting consumer acceptance of social commerce – an empirical literature review”, Pacific Asia Journal of Association for Information Systems, Vol. Do Big Laughs and Positive Attitudes Sell?: An Examination of YouTube Sponsored Content and How Fun and Attitude Influence Purchase Intentions among Millennial Viewers.
The Effect of Reference Groups on Purchase Intention: Evidence Across Different Types of Buyers and Product Involvement. Cultural differences in motivation to use social networking sites: A comparative study of American and Korean college students. Identifying Effective Trust-Based Influencers for Electronic Word-of-Mouth Marketing: A Domain-Aware Approach.
Rethinking models of influence: the relationship between consumer social networks and word-of-mouth effectiveness. The impact of emotion, judgment and attitude on purchase intention as measures of online advertising.
APPENDICES
Appendix A: Questionnaire
YouTube Review Watching Behavior
- Which are video sharing websites you often visit? (Can choose more than one) (If doesn’t select YouTube as a choice can go to the end of the survey)
- Frequency of YouTube watch
- Which type of device you use to watch YouTube? (Can choose more than one)
- The category of channels you watch (Can choose more than one)
- The length of the video you usually watch
- The reason why you watch YouTube (Can choose more than one)
- How probability to share an interesting video on YouTube with your friends through your social media channels?
- Have you subscribed to any Youtubers?
- How many YouTubers you subscribe?
- Do you subscribe to a same YouTubers in their other channels also?
- Category of YouTubers you subscribe to?
- Gender of YouTubers you subscribe to?
- How strong the important to watch the reviews before making any purchasing?
- How strongly do you trust the reviews in YouTube platform?
- To what extend did you watching the YouTube video (Review contents)
- When you watch the review without purchase intention before, how do you feel about the product?
- How often you watch YouTube reviews in any product before making a purchasing decision?
- How often you make the purchasing according to the reviews you have watch?
- Please rate (0-6) what are the important factors for you to buy any
How likely you are to share an interesting video on YouTube with your friends via your social media channels. If you look at the review without purchase intention before, what do you think of the product?
Demographics
- What is your gender?
- What is the highest degree or level of school you have completed?
- Which monthly income group does your fall under?
