The Rise of Social Behavior in Social Media Marketing During Pandemic

Abstract

The adoption of technology has changed rapidly during the global pandemic Covid-19 especially in the sector of trading. Previous studies found that businesses that are used to utilizing technology in their operational activities tend to be more able to survive during the pandemic, including small and medium businesses. The research aims to investigate the social behavior through social media platforms and how this behavior increases during the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia. The study adopts consumer decision-making (CDM) model as a framework with a slight modification in the phase of post-purchase behavior. Data collected thru online questionnaires as many as 377 social media active users in Indonesia and analyzed using paired sample t-test. Paired sample t-test aims to perceive whether the analyzed paired sample experiences significant changes. The results revealed that during pandemic situations, social media as a medium for identifying, collecting information, evaluating, comparing and post-purchase expressions are increased. In addition, the data also shows an increase of consumers’ post-purchase behaviors that voluntarily promote their purchased goods and services during pandemic situations. This paper contributes on a different perspective of post purchase behavior where the main focus of this concept is not only to influence and change public behaviors but to invite the public to act as a social marketer in order to achieve broader social benefits. The article contains a different paradigm about social marketing which should be considered further and push social marketing behavior forward to gain broader benefits for the community.