Abstract

The increased use of social media particularly amongst youths has placed greater importance of social media as a marketing and communication tool. Based on this, this work is an exploratory study conducted among a convenience sample of 150 youths (university students); the relationship amongst their age, gender, social media browsing and purchasing behaviour was examined. It was ascertained through both multiple regression analysis (R-value of 0.98; R-square of 0.009; adjusted R-square of .003; standard error of estimate .469) and Pearson Chi-Square test result (p=0.086) that with respect to the sample of youth consumers, there is no significant relationship between age and the frequency of purchase using social media. However, with respect to the relationship between gender and social media browsing behaviour, the Pearson Chi-Square test value of p=0.009 indicated that with respect to the sample of respondents, there is a significant relationship between gender and social media browsing. Furthermore, three factors, namely, important communication channel, better product and brand choice and spending power emerged as influencing youths’ purchasing behaviour through social media browsing. The implications of the findings although exploratory, are obvious, in thatmarketers need to re-evaluate their marketing and communication strategies in order to influence the purchasing behaviour of youths through social media platforms.

Key words: Social media, youth consumer behaviour, social media browsing.