HOW SOCIAL MEDIA AFFECTING THE CONSUMER BEHAVIOR: THE CROSS-NATIONAL COMPARISON

As early as twenty years ago, social media (SM) entered and integrated into people’s lives by becoming an essential part that can’t be separated, hence having a great impact on them, especially on the consumers. Besides, marketers strategically utilize SM to reach audiences and potential consumers since SM became one of the best mediums for attracting consumers by suppressing all traditional communication methods. Thus, this study aims to reveal the effect SM has on consumers and their online behavior from a cross-cultural perspective. Hence, it has been hypothesized that two main factors electronic word of mouth (E-WOM) and SM adverts have been impacted by independent factors. Online decision-making styles of consumers, which is a stereotyped form of consumer behavior (CB), are another question to answer. It has been hypothesized that online CB and consumers’ decision-making styles differ in foreign countries due to cultural factors impacting it. This study uses data from a survey of 300 Turkish consumers in Turkey and 250 Russian consumers in Russia. According to the data, 55.7% of the Turkish and 56.4% of Russian participants reported having purchased some products after a month of exposure to these ads. Both Turkish and Russian consumers don’t follow the suggestions of phenomenon/influencers. However, the rate of confidence in online reviews is higher in Turkey than in Russia.