The effect of social media marketing on consumer behavior: A case study of Burberry in UK
Social media has affected business and stakeholders’ relationships, especially in the luxury fashion industry. For instance, many firms including Burberry have used Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to create customer engagement. The following are some examples of how these platforms contribute to shaping consumer behavior and increasing sales for the fashion giant Burberry: This paper shows that through live events, influencer marketing, and user-generated content, the company was able to present to the customers what Burberry should look and be like and thus create great experiences.
There is still a lack of research investigating the impact of Burberry’s strategy in social media on the UK market consumption. Based on this influence, it is possible to evaluate the success of the digital marketing strategy that Burberry has employed to promote purchasing and consumer intentions.
Consequently, this research aims at helping to fill this gap through an assessment of the effects of social media marketing on Burberry in the United Kingdom. It will examine the effectiveness of these strategies as beneficial or otherwise to consumer preferences, buying behavior, and loyalty and therefore provide insight into social media marketing in the luxury fashion Industry.
Read more: Accounting and Finance for Decision making for Burberry Group
Background:
Social media has become a powerful tool for companies to engage with their consumers and has provided brands with an effective way to talk with their consumers. In the luxury fashion industry, since brand personality and consumer engagement are important, social media platforms are vital for constructing consumer relationships.
Burberry remains one of the leading fashion brands that operate in the luxury; the company has adopted social media marketing. These include Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube which the company has used to deliver the luxury fashion experience in digital format. These platforms assist the company in offering the customers special content that is not only the brand’s products but also the brand’s spirit and the concept of individuality.
Live videos, behind-the-scenes, consumer-created content, and the use of influencers have also been employed by the company to shift consumer attitudes and behavior. In the same breath, it has been a plus to the company as a way of attracting the youth and the technocrat’s customers and sales.
There is no sufficient research conducted that focuses on how these strategies that have been implemented by Burberry influence consumer behavior in the UK market. The connection between the social media marketing of Burberry and the behavior of UK consumers, for example, regarding purchasing, brand loyalty, and activity, remains uncharted. This research therefore seeks to make that contribution by examining the effects of social media marketing on consumer behavior in the UK concerning Burberry.
Research Problem:
Despite the increased adoption of Social Media Marketing across the globe, the level of impact it has on consumer behavior, especially in the luxury fashion business has not been well explored. Hence, although there is a wealth of collected works on social media usage in marketing, including the marketing of luxury products, there is little focus on the effects of social media marketing on luxury products such as Burberry. Since social media is increasingly being used by the company and since it is a leading fashion house, it is crucial to establish the outcome of its digital strategies on the behavior of consumers in the UK market.
This research seeks to do so by focusing on Burberry’s social media strategies and how they affect the purchasing behavior, brand loyalty, and engagement of its UK consumers. Although it is crucial to see how the company is developing the brand’s online presence, it is possible to analyze the impact of these strategies on consumers on a deeper level. Also, the study of the response to the social media advertising of consumers in the UK on the brand Burberry will give suggestions to the luxury fashion industry in the digital age.
Research Aim:
The research aim of this study is to discover the impact of social media marketing on consumers of the company Burberry in the UK.
Research Objectives:
The research will be guided by the following objectives:
Objective 1: To evaluate previous literature to establish the possible research gap in explaining the effects of social media marketing on the utilization of customers’ goods, especially in the luxury fashion sector.
Objective 2: To study how the adopted social media strategies affect the buying and use of Burberry products by consumers in the UK.
Objective 3: To measure the impacts of Burberry’s SMM on brand equity and customer involvement in the UK market.
Objective 4: To summarize the results and give an outlook regarding the recommended further steps for improving Burberry’s social media marketing based on the examination of consumers’ behavior.
These objectives will give a systematic way of examining the relationship between social media marketing and consumer behavior and the findings may be useful to scholars and professionals in the field of digital marketing.
Research Questions:
To address the research problem, the study will seek to respond to the subsequent key questions:
- In what way does the use of SMM by Burberry change the consumers’ behavior in the United Kingdom?
- What social media marketing is used by Burberry to build customer loyalty and improve the level of engagement?
- What are the particular benefits and risks to Burberry of the application of social media in the formation of consumer behavior in the UK?
In this way, the research will help to explain the extent to which consumer behavior can be influenced through social media marketing by Burberry and what recommendations can be made regarding the brand’s digital marketing strategy. In this research, the current and potential impact of social media on consumer attitudes and brand loyalty in the luxury fashion industry will be investigated to help identify the potential of digital marketing for the future of high-end brands.
Literature Review:
The current literature review focuses on analyzing the theoretical and practical literature related to social media marketing and consumer behavior. The review is organized into four major themes: The use of social media in marketing, the effects of social media on the behavior of consumers, the use of social media in constructing brand equity, and the opportunities and risks of social media marketing. This analysis shows the limitations of the current literature and outlines how this study redresses the balance.
Social Media Marketing:
Social Media Marketing (SMM) is simply the process of advertising products and services on social media networks, especially in a world that is rapidly going social. Platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok, for instance, afford enterprises a platform to communicate directly with their consumers to post and share useful and entertaining content. Such platforms are used by brands especially the luxury ones including Burberry to engage with the target market, create a brand personality, and develop brand experience.
This way, the luxury brand can share with the consumers something special and make them feel that they are part of a certain group. This research also shows how integrating customers with the marketing strategy of social media is possible in real-time through the example of Burberry. Burberry’s products, values, and even the process of creating new collections, as well as can be seen in services such as Instagram. Furthermore, the fashion show that is carried out by the company is transmitted live on social media platforms where the company can engage the consumers in real-time, which cannot be done via conventional marketing.
However, there are still some limitations to the existing knowledge about social media marketing effectiveness, especially about the consumers’ sustainability of engagement and loyalty. Although there is a plethora of research on the impacts of social media on sales and awareness, very little attention has been paid to the potential of social media for relationship and brand equity development. This is an important research gap because there is a need to determine how brands including Burberry can cultivate and sustain social media relationships with consumers, rather than just focus on likes and shares.
Influence of Social Media on Consumer Behavior:
The purpose of this paper is to try and fill this void by examining the potential of social media in changing consumer behavior. This paper aims at identifying the benefits that accrue from using social media as a marketing tool for brands, due to its interactive nature. This social media platform enables consumers to discover brands’ content and products, opinions, and suggestions of other consumers and influencers who are often more reliable than ads.
Brand communication has a great influence on consumer behavior in the online platform. Concepts like Likes, Comments, Shares, and Personalized content are means through which social media interacts with users and all of them create a positive impact on consumers’ emotional equity with the brand. Also, the content developed by the users, for instance, the reviews and recommendations of the peers is usually better than the branded content. Such type of peer influence has led to improved engagement and purchase intentions as people value the impression of others who have come across the brand.
However, the literature frequently furnishes an incomplete or incomplete picture of how social media shapes consumer behavior across different consumer segmentations. This research gap points to the need for contextualized insights into how social media affects the behaviors and perceptions of consumers in different groups, especially in a luxury context where consumers.
This research will fill these gaps by examining the effect of Burberry’s social media strategy on the consumer and specific consumers within the UK market. Through such segmentation, this study shall be able to offer information on how the various consumer segments respond to social media marketing so that effective marketing strategies can be developed for the use of consumers.
Effects of Social Media on Brand Relationship and Brand Equity:
Consequently, brand loyalty is crucial for companies, and social networks stimulate and enhance brand loyalty. Therefore, this means, frequent contact, relevant content, and ways of brand and customer interaction will create and maintain the customer-brand relationship and, consequently, loyalty. Especially, luxury brands can leverage the advantages of social media marketing to provide consumers with special content and interaction that would make the consumers feel special and be a part of a limited audience.
This paper has identified that as a luxury brand, Burberry has been able to utilize social media in the creation of brand loyalty due to the provision of exclusive content including live streaming of fashion shows, behind-the-scenes videos and photos, and early access to new products. In this way of the customers’ involvement and their perception that they belong to the company, the company can influence the customers to buy more of its products.
Previous research tends to fail to capture the various aspects of building brand loyalty in the dynamic and rapidly evolving context of social media. On one hand, social media is an excellent tool for nurturing relationships with consumers, at the same time, it exposes brands to criticism that can go viral. Also, the consumers’ desire to generate new content and concepts may become a threat to the brands in the future to attract consumers.
This research seeks to find out how Burberry can use social media not only to build brand loyalty but also to maintain it amid such challenges. Through examining the way that Burberry interacts with consumers and builds brand affinity over the long term, this research will help to advance understanding of how luxury brands can most effectively leverage social media.
Challenges and Potentialities in Social Media Marketing:
Social media in particular can deliver a lot for brands, but certain difficulties should not be overlooked. The two are linked since social media is ever-changing and what the consumers want and what is popular. For luxury brands such as the British brand Burberry due to the necessity of maintaining, and even improving, the image and value of the brand respectively.
One of the biggest risks of social media marketing is the aggregation of complaints and negative feedback. The current consumer is empowered by technology, which allows them to engage with a brand and leave feedback at any time and in public. This is especially the case in luxury brands since brand equity may be viewed to be built on such perception of exclusivity which if contaminated by any negative information is. Another problem is the trend of the demand for content.
Audiences on social media platforms demand fresh and new content on the regular, and this can be quite challenging for companies to deliver fresh, creative content on the reg. For Burberry, this is about the continuous search of how to attract the consumer’s attention and how to tell the brand story again and again. But social media also presents a lot of opportunities for brands.
Direct contact with customers, receiving feedback immediately, and adapting the messages to the target audience is one more competitive advantage that is important for luxury brands to enhance their relationship with consumers. Also, through social media platforms, brands like Burberry can easily be able to get to consumers across the world, across all ages thereby increasing the Brand’s outreach.
Although the contemporary literature provides a very detailed view of the strategies and difficulties of social media marketing, few of the works focus on the strategies and tactics of luxury brands such as Burberry in specific markets This research will aim at filling this gap by analyzing how Burberry’s social media strategy has been customized for the UK market, and the problems and prospects that it encounters in the process.
Methodology:
This study seeks to establish the effects that social media marketing has on consumer behavior with a focus on Burberry’s social media strategy in the UK market. Data collection will consist of the use of secondary data and this will entail articles, industry reports, and the social media platform of Burberry.
This method is also practical and economical to use in the assessment of the set social media marketing strategies without having to gather original data. Although the study seeks to examine the impact of social media marketing, the approach of using secondary data is most suitable since there is already abundant knowledge regarding the subject, and findings that are already available in the industry reports, articles, and especially from the social media activity of Burberry.
Besides, using secondary data one can note trends and patterns changing over a period, gathered information concerning consumer behavior is collected without having to go through the motions of collecting primary data which can be more time-consuming and less practical when studying luxury brand markets. Moreover, the present research could use the secondary data Thematic analysis and social media monitoring to evaluate the real-time gaps in literature, and the effectiveness of Burberry’s social media marketing approaches.
Research Design:
This design makes it possible to assess the strategies of Burberry without having to gather new data and in the process save more time and costs. In the current research however, secondary data is the best because it can help to determine trends, patterns, and other important information that can be valuable in understanding the social media behavior of Burberry.
This study will use the research onion in its procedure of conducting the research from the general approach to the specific one. The research onion is a tool that is recommended by Saunders and other researchers to describe the shape of research conducted in social sciences. These are research philosophy, approach, strategy, choice, time, and methods of data collection and analysis.
For this particular work, the research philosophy applied is interpretivism in a bid to provide insights into the perception that consumers have regarding Burberry’s social media transactions. The research is deductive because the study seeks to apply existing theories and concepts of social media marketing and consumer behavior.
This study uses secondary data and the cross-sectional time horizon that looks at the current and recent social media activities of Burberry in the UK. The following methods of data collection are used in this study.
Data Collection:
Primary data will not be collected in this study and secondary sources of data will be used; scientific articles, industry reports, and the social networks of Burberry and its competitors. For instance, industry reports will assist one in getting information on the market and consumer behavior while peer-reviewed articles will assist in giving both theoretical and practical analysis of the relationship between social media marketing and consumer behavior.
Hence, the information on If more data are collected from social media monitoring tools, it is also possible to compare the company’s activities with the luxury brands and the engagement of consumers.
A content analysis of posts and comments on Burberry official pages on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Furthermore, the existing reports concerning the promotion through social media networks of the luxury fashion sector will be used to analyze consumer preferences. Research articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals that deal with the topic of social media marketing consumer behavior will be used to undergird this research.
The data for this study will be collected from various reputable and relevant secondary sources, including:
- Academic Journals and Articles:
Google Scholar:
This helps to search for articles relevant to social media marketing, consumption behavior, and brand commitment in the context of the luxury fashion industry.
JSTOR:
An online library and articles from scholarly journals will be used to study the theoretical implications of social media marketing and its impact on consumer buying behavior.
Emerald Insight:
Provides links to articles relating to the area of marketing and consumption especially in the light of conspicuous consumption of such brands as Burberry.
ScienceDirect:
It consists of a plethora of articles in the field of marketing and consumer behavior that analyze the effect of social media.
Taylor & Francis Online:
Will offer more information regarding social media plans and consumer relations.
- Industry Reports and Market Insights:
Statista:
It offers insights into basic trends involving social media, customers, and the luxury fashion market.
Euromonitor International:
Presents industry reports on the luxury fashion market, tendencies in customer behavior, and the efficiency of social media marketing.
Mintel:
Includes a selection of clothing and luxury brands reports which will be useful for understanding the patterns of consumer behavior and the use of social networks.
- Social Media Analytics Platforms:
Sprout Social:
A social media analytics tool that will assist in the determination of Burberry’s engagement about the number of likes, shares, and comments from several other sites such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Hootsuite Analytics:
Contains information on the company’s performance on social media and its target consumers to give information on social media activity and consumer habits over a given period. Burberry’s
- Social Media Platforms:
Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube:
The posts, comments, shares, and advertising campaigns of Burberry will be analyzed, so the effectiveness of the company’s strategies in social media will be determined.
These sources will help to have enough information for the evaluation of Burberry’s SMM and its impacts on consumers in the UK market.
Data Analysis:
To analyze the data collected in this study, a thematic analysis will be used. It is most useful when analyzing secondary data especially to explain marketing on social media and consumer behavior. The research will examine three key themes related to Burberry’s social media marketing:
The first research question is Consumer Engagement, and this will look at how the social media strategies used by Burberry to foster consumer interactions like the like, comment, share, and followership, as well as other strategies used by the company to foster consumer interactions through social media.
Ethical Considerations:
Since this study uses secondary data, it is easier to dodge some ethical dilemmas that are likely to occur when conducting primary research for instance the problem of informed consent. But it will be crucial to consider all the ethical issues especially when analyzing the data that is owned by the organization or any other data which has been leased.
All information collected from academic articles, industry reports, and all data from social media platforms will be appropriately referenced to avoid cases of plagiarism or the use of other people’s information.
Ethical Evaluation:
This means that, since the data for this study will be obtained from secondary sources, then there will be no direct contact with the human subject. Thus, permission to use the secondary data will be obtained from the university’s ethical committee.
The approval process also checks the authenticity of the data and whether or not it is legal and practical to use data in the organization. To this end, in line with the ethical procedures of Chester Business School, an ethical form for secondary data collection has already been approved meaning that participants’ consent will not be required for this research.
To this end, the following approval shall guarantee that the study will observe GDPR on data management and utilization in the study. Furthermore, all secondary data collected will be appropriate in terms of copyright laws to contribute to the intellectual property rights protection.
Timeline/Gantt Chart:
| Task | Sep 2024 | Oct 2024 | Oct 2024 | Nov 2024 | Dec 2024 | Dec 2024 | Jan 2025 | Feb 2025 |
| Topic Identification | X | |||||||
| Literature Review | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||
| Data Collection (Secondary) | X | X | ||||||
| Data Analysis (Thematic) | X | X | ||||||
| Writing the Proposal | X | X | X | |||||
| Revision and Final Submission | X | X |
Conclusion:
This research evaluates the significant impact of social media marketing on the behavior of consumers within the luxury fashion market of the United Kingdom by targeting the Burberry firm. The research explores the brand’s innovative strategies like live events, influencer collaborations, the content use, and reveals the tactics to enhance the engagement of the customers.
The research findings evaluate the finding process of raising customer engagement in fashion marketing by focusing on brand loyalty. The research underscores the key necessity for luxury brands to adapt to the digital landscape. Leveraging the social eider and creating the authentic or personalized experiences of the consumers.
Additionally, the research understands the benefits and the potential risks of social media integration that provide the better and valuable insights for Burberry and similar companies. Ultimately this research investigates the deeper comprehension of the consumer behavior in the sector of the luxury market. The research can shape effective marketing approaches toward the enhancement of interconnected worlds.
