An Investigation of How Social Media Opinion Leaders Impact on Chinese Millennials’ Purchase Decision and to Evaluate the Effectiveness of the Influence During the Decision-Making Process.

With the increasing popularity on social media usage, and the growing up of digital natives, social media has become one of the most important market and tool for marketing promotion activities. The research objective of this dissertation is to identify how social media opinion leaders impact on the younger generations who live in China’s Tier 1 cities purchase decision and to evaluate the effectiveness of the influence during the consumers’ decision- making process. The survey questionnaire was employed to collect the primary data from respondents who live in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. A total of 116 respondents completed the questionnaires. The data was analysed by using the Statistic Package for the Social Science (SPSS) in several analysis methods, including descriptive analysis, reliability analysis, central tendencies, a comparison between mean and median, independent T- test and one-way ANOVA, correlation analysis and regression analysis The results indicate that involving opinion leaders in social media marketing can positively influence the younger generations’ purchase decision. Moreover, opinion leaders can positively impact on each phase of the decision-making process