Analysing the Role of User Generated Content on Consumer Purchase Intention in the New Era of Social Media and Big Data

Objective: Big Data refers to the overwhelming amount of data that is being captured today by society, computers, cell phones and the internet. These data sets are so large and are of varied in nature, type and format that it becomes difficult to actually capture, manage, analyze, transform, model and organize this unstructured data for realizing company’s goal of discovering information and gain insights into consumer purchasing behavior. The paper attempts to offer this understanding of insights into consumer’s requirements through studying this social media big data. Methods/Statistical Analysis: The paper proposes that Social Media and Big Data are related to development of consumer purchase behavior. The unstructured data that is generated also known as User Generated Data (UGC) plays a very important role in forming consumer purchase intention. Findings: Through this study it was found that the new paradigm shift in the consumer’s purchase intention is driven by Social Media and Big Data. The researcher has found a perfect model fit using Structural Equation Modeling and proven through hypothesis that Social Media and Big data combined together are responsible to generation of UGC’s which impact purchase intention of consumers. Application/Improvement: the paper proposes that social media and big data are intersecting each other in a novel way and new methods and techniques need to be developed in order to get better insights into the unstructured data so that consumer requirements are better understood by marketers.