TWEEN CONSUMERS : A STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON TWEEN'S BUYING DECISIONS

ABSTRACT The communication channel of Social Media is one of the most revolutionary developments of technology. The fact that consumers use Social Media actively to gather information about the products they have to purchase, has already been well established. Consumers have the power to influence other buyers, through reviews on social media, making social media marketing a critical component of the marketing mix of any company. This paper conducts an exploratory study of the impact of Social Media on the buying decision making process of Tween Consumers, a subset of the Z generation, (Williams, Page, Petrosky & Hernandez, 2009). Tweens are young consumers, in the age of 9-14years, a segment that is fast emerging as extremely attractive to marketers due to its typical characteristics. These highly brand conscious, digital natives are powerful influencers in the family buying decisions and constitute the segment that will be the future market as well as the purchase decision makers of tomorrow. Designing an effective marketing mix and communication strategy for the tweens is a challenge since this target group is full of dichotomies. These impulsive buyers have access to a lot of information online and connect with peers on Social Media, but the final decision makers are still the parents. For this study, a structured, predesigned questionnaire was administered to 81 tweens in the cites of Mumbai and Delhi via convenience sampling. Based on the findings of the survey, marketers should target both parents and tweens in order to develop effective social marketing and communication strategies. KEYWORDS : Tweens, social media, buying decisions, consumer behavior ,brand awareness, Gen Z , Gen