The impact of social media on the Albanian and Greek customer behavior

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation was to examine and measure the impacts of social media on customer behavior and address some strategies that are really effective to attract customers from the whole world through the various social media platforms/apps (like: Facebook, Instagram, etc.). More specifically, this research was concentrated on two certain nationalities: Albanians and Greeks, which I’m very familiar with. The fact that these two countries are in border with one another and that both nationalities have a clue of each other’s lifestyle because of emigration and tourism, made this research project very interesting by discovering and analyzing their similarities and differences when it comes to the usage of social media as customers in their everyday life. According to my personal experience as an Albanian citizen who was born in Greece and spent many years of his life there (including here and the 3 years of bachelor studies at Perrotis College), I can tell that the Greeks are a little more familiar with the usage of the social media platforms/apps for shopping online compared to the Albanians. However, in nowadays where the digital world gets more and more developed day by day with new features, it is expected that both nationalities and not only, to get developed as well along with their customer behavior. This research project for the data collection process employed the quantitative research method, which involved the development of a questionnaire that was distributed to both Albanians and Greeks via Facebook and Instagram. A total of 128 usable responses collected were analyzed with the help of the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) and Microsoft Excel. All the findings of this project have shown that the social media are actually having an impact on the customer behavior and decision-making process of Albanians and Greeks, but again, even though the world is facing difficulties with the Covid-19, where the presence in the markets and stores of a lot of people gets prohibited in order to stop and keep under control the spread of the virus, these two countries aren’t having a really strong will to purchase online. Also, this study provides useful information that can benefit all individuals around the world, especially Albanians and Greeks, by providing them with information on how the companies set up strategies for reaching more customers via social media.