THE ROLE OF SOCIAL NETWORK IN MARKETING HEALTH PRODUCT
ABSTRACT
The study examined the role of social network in marketing health product. The study specifically aimed at identifying the relationship between social media used by health personnel to advertise their products, finding out if interaction in social network has significant impact on consumers mind as a marketing tool and ascertaining whether consumers’ perception on the reliability of the online advertisement has significant impact on the social network as marking tools.
The population of the study comprises consumers of health products in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria. One hundred and forty copies of the questionnaires were distributed to consumers of health products in Benin City, Edo State based on convenient sampling technique.  Out of this number, 130 copies of the questionnaire were completed. This represents a combined response rate of 92.86 percent. Data obtained were coded and analyzed using means, frequency distributions, an ova and regressions.
    The findings of the study showed that there is a significant relationship between interaction in social network and consumers’ patronage of health product, that there is high level of consumers’ awareness of health products, as well as the level of interaction in social network among consumers. Similarly, the results obtained revealed that the level of consumers’ perception of the marketing tools is high among consumers, that consumers’ perception on the reliability of online advertisement is high among consumers and that the level of consumers’ patronage of health products is high among consumers.
    Based on these findings, we recommend that marketers should put into consideration a more user friendly interface in communicating and advertising health products online, marketers should put into consideration relatively cheap price policy in order to capture more consumers, marketers should tailor their marketing activities in a way that reflects the needs of consumers of health products and that there is need for the practitioners to invest massively on various medium of social networking and develop more effective marketing campaign that attracts consumer’s attention and capture their interest.  
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1    Background to the Study    -    -    -    -    
1.2    Statement of Research Problem    -    -    -
1.3    Research Questions    -    -    -    -
Objectives of the study    -    -    -    -
Research Hypothesis    -    -    -    -    
    The Scope of the Study    -    -    -    -
Significance of the Study    -    -    -    -
1.8      Limitation of the Study    -    -    -    
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1    Introduction    -    -    -    -    -    -    -
2.2    Social network    -    -    -    -    -    
2.2.1    Social network marketing    -    -    -    -
2.2.2    Growth of social network marketing    -    -    -    
2.2.3     Marketing budget spending on social network    -    -
2.2.4    Benefits of social network marketing    -    -    -
2.2.5    Understanding the Relevance of Social Network in Marketing
2.3    Role of social network in marketing    -    -    -    -
2.3.1    Why businesses need to consider social network
marketing services    -    -    -    -    -    
2.3.2    Barriers to Implementation of Social Network at companies-    
2.3.3 The power and value of social networks-    -    -    -    
2.3.4 Offline versus Online networking-    -    -    -    -    
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
3.1         Introduction    -    -    -    -    -    -    
3.2        Research Design    -    -    -    -    -    
3.3    The Population of the Study    -    -    -    -    -
3.4    The Sample of the Study     -    -    -    -    -
3.5    Operationalization and Measurement of Variables-    -    -
3.6    The Research Instrument    -    -    -    -    -
3.7    Data collection-    -    -    -    -    -
3.8    Instrument Validation and Reliability    -    -    -    
3.9    Method of Data Analysis-    -    -    -    -
CHAPTER FOUR: DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
4.1    Introduction-    -    -    -    -    -    -    
4.2    Demographic Characteristics of the Respondents-    -    -
4.3    Hypothesis Testing    -    -    -    -    -    
4.4    Discussion of Findings    -    -    -    -    -
CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATION
5.1    Introduction    -    -    -    -    -    -    
Summary of Research Findings    -    -    -    
5.3    Contribution to Knowledge        -    -    -    
5.4    Conclusion    -    -    -    -    -    -    
5.5    Recommendations    -    -    -    -    -    -
BIBLIOGRAPHY    -    -    -    -    -    -    -
APPENDIX I    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    
APPENDIX II    -    -    -    -    -    -    -
LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1: Marketing budget spending on social network    -    
Table 3.1: Operationalization and Measurement of Variables-    
Table 3.2: Reliability of the Questionnaires-    -    -    -    -
Table 4.1: Demographic Characteristics of the Respondents-    
Table 4.7: The Various Social Media used by Health Personnel-    -
Table 4.8: Consumers’ Awareness about Health Products-    -    -
Table 4.9:The Interaction in Social Network    -    -    -    
Table 4.10: Consumer Perception of the Marketing Tools-    -    -
Table 4.11: Consumer’s Perception on the Reliability of Online
Advertisement-    -    -    -    -    
Table 4.12: Consumer Patronage of Health Products-    -    -
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the study
Today’s patient population is completely different from those of years past. They are involved, well educated, and not afraid to question the advice of their physicians. In its 2008 report, “How America searches: Health & wellness”, Crossing found that 59% of patients turn to the Social Media or Web as their first source of health information. Physicians rank second at 55% and traditional media like television and print trail in the distance attracting only 20% (Elkin, 2008).
Social network refer to the connection, relationship and interactions that happen within the social media platforms. On a marketing perspective, these are interactions between the marketers and those interacting within the constructs. It encompasses a wide range of web forums including blogs, discussion boards, video logs, video sharing sites, and virtual life websites. As per a 2009 Nielsen survey of social media (SM), two thirds of the world’s internet population visits online communities and spends at least 10 minutes on them every day. In addition, the time spent on these websites has increased three times the rate of overall internet growth (Global Faces and Networked Places, 2009). India has 52 million active internet users in 2009, with 20 million people using internet daily.
Patient-focused network exist in a number of places: large general social network like Facebook, Ning and MySpace; general health site like Health Central, WebMD, Revolution Health, and specialty platforms like Cure Together, Patients like Me, Inspire. As a result, patients have begun to forge relationships with one another online, discussing medication, therapies, symptoms and more (Roychowdhury, 2012). One of the first firms to embrace social media was Merck, which in 2008 set up a page on Facebook to promote its Gardasil vaccine that helps to protect human papillomavirus, which can cause cervical cancer. It was followed by GlaxoSmithKline, which choose Video sharing site YouTube to launch a promotional campaign highlighting restless leg syndrome. These moves opened the floodgates for such advertising in the US and now firms such as Bayer, Novartis, Biogen and AstraZeneca all use social media to promote their products, with the Washington post noting that a study carried out in November of last year by Manhattan Research showed that over sixty million adults in the US consume health related social network marketing .
The pew internet project estimates that between 75% and 80% of internet users have looked online for health information. Thirty-one percent of e-patients say they or someone they know has been significantly helped by following medical advice or health information found on the internet. Newly diagnosed e-patients and those who have experienced a health crisis in the past year are also particularly tuned in: 59% say the information they found online led them to ask a doctor new questions or get a second opinion (Fox, 2008). It has been shown in studies that an average person can share health information with a 50-person network within 30days (Influencers and Health Advertising, 2007). 34% of adult online users (54 million people) in the US said they have connected to others or to the content others created online about health and wellness issues in the past year (Levy, 2007).
The emergence of the internet has tremendously changed the consumers lifestyle especially the young consumers in their shopping patterns. A number of studies had been conducted on the use of social media in marketing health product (Engel, Kollat& Blackwell, 1978; Fisher, 2009; Harridge& Quinton, 2012; O’Connor, Shewchuk& Carney, 1994). However, most of these studies are western perspectives. Research in this field in Nigeria is still limited. Moreover, how Nigerians view social network as a marketing tool has been adequately measured. Even though, there are security issues, especially in buying the goods through social network, consumers still have some believe on online advertisement especially through social network as one of the alternative trend to shop. Thus, this aimed to investigate the trend and pattern of buying preferences of health products due to marketing in social network; to explore the influential factors that may affect consumers choice to shop; and to investigate the impact of time spent by the consumers and how social network impact them as a marketing tool.
Statement of Research Problem
Online social network facilitate connection between people to communicate with individuals who are in their network using the web as their interface (Barnes &Ganim, 2011). As internet continues to evolve, new uses of digital communication tools have been explored. This new tool also contributes a lot in the business field. From business point of view, social network enables the connection with new client and expanding business size as most sites allows customization of web page and provide links to personal website related with specific business (Carter, 2006). As social network usage has increased in recent times as a medium of communication, the use of social network seems to be an effective marketing tool (Baker, 2009).
Research Questions
The research questions are as follows:
What is the relationship between the various social network used by health personnel to advertise their products and consumers awareness about health product or products?
What is the relationship between the interaction in social network and the consumers perception of the marketing tools used?
Does consumers perception on the reliability of online advertisement has significant relationship of consumer patronage of health product?
Objective of the Study
The broad objective of this study is to investigate the role of social network in marketing health product. The specific objectives are:
To identify the relationship between social media used by health personnel to advertise their products.
To find out if interaction in social network has significant impact on consumers mind as a marketing tool.
To ascertain whether consumers’ perception on the reliability of the online advertisement has significant impact on the social network as marking tools.
Research Hypothesis
The research hypotheses are stated in the null form as follows:
There is no significance between interaction in social media and the consumer patronage of health products.
1.6 The Scope of the Study
This study covers the role of social network in marketing health product in Nigeria. This study will be conducted amongconsumers who purchase health products online in Benin City to ascertain the level of their involvement in social network in patronizing health products.
Significance of the Study
The study is relevant as it helps researchers and health personnel in examining the influence of social network in marketing health products. In addition, the study will help to ascertain the usefulness of social network in marketing health product.
Limitation of the Study
It is anticipated that study will encounter the following limitations: the challenge of low response rate especially with regards to questionnaires is expected. There is the potential for intended respondent to display apathy towards filling of the research questionnaires.