| In 2012, almost a billion active users had a presence on Facebook. The research problem was that brick-and-mortar fashion boutique owners are lacking an understanding of how to use social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, effectively in their marketing strategies. This prevents fashion boutique owners from attracting more consumers. The purpose of this phenomenological research study was to explore how fashion boutique owners can use social media effectively to understand and serve consumers. The conceptual framework was social exchange theory, which connects to this study in that online users will share ideas with others in exchange for similar assistance in the future. The research question concerned how fashion boutique owners used social media effectively to understand consumers. Twenty experienced fashion industry online marketers located in the State of New York within the United States participated in interviews. Data were analyzed by thematic coding. Findings were that (a) opinion leaders interacted with other online users and influenced their purchase-decisions and (b) fashion boutique owners could use multichannel marketing strategies to target their markets. These research findings might help retailers, marketers, and fashion boutique owners increase revenue and generally perform better, resulting in increased job opportunities and benefiting the overall economy. |
