European Journal of Business and Management www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1905 (Paper) ISSN 2222-2839 (Online) Vol.6, No.30, 2014 63 Impact of Social Media Networks on Consumer Patronage in Nigeria: A Study of Jumia and Konga Nigeria Limited Benjamin Ibe Chukwu, Ph.D, FIIA, MIRDI 1 . Ifediora Chuka Uzoma, Ph.D 2 1. DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT, FACULTY OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION,UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA,ENUGU CAMPUS E-mail: benjaminichukwu@yahoo.com 2. DEPARTMENT OF MARKETING, FACULTY OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION, UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, ENUGU CAMPUS E-mail:contactchuka@yahoo.com ABSTRACT This study was carried out on the impact of social media networks on consumers’ patronage of products. It was premised on the proliferating notion of online retail businesses in Nigeria particularly through the use of many social media like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Stores, Likedlin, etc despite the nefarious atrocities of internet fraudsters. Among the most notable retail companies that engage in such online businesses in Nigeria are Jumia and Konga Nigeria Ltd, upon which this study was carried out as well as on the consumers who patronize the companies both in Enugu and in Lagos state. Two objectives were sought; to determine the perception of the consumers toward online shopping and to determine the extent to which the consumers patronize the online retailers.To achieve these objectives, a cross sectional survey research design was adopted with questionnaire being the data collection instrument. The data collected were analysed and presented in tables. The hypotheses were tested using ANOVA and Chi-square statistical tools at 5% level of significance and specified degrees of freedom. Among others, the findings revealed that there is a significant difference in the perceptions of the entire consumers and that consumers patronize online retailers very significantly. The study concluded that consumers would continue patronizing online retailers at a crescendo despite their varying perception of internet usage. Keywords: Network, Data, Social media and Consumer. 1.1 INTRODUCTION The term ‘social media’ is quite often mentioned these days. It is a new phenomenon and one would probably imagine that everyone knows or understands what it means. Nearly ninety percent (if not more) of all online or internet users use social media in one way or the other (Kietzmann and Kristopher, 2011; Dolwick, 2009). The emergence of social media began in the early days of internet when people started sharing information and communicating with one another (Boyd and Ellison, 2010) but unfortunately; the platforms used then were more ‘technology intensive’ and required some level of expertise before use. Hence, the number of people using social media platforms then was limited. Over a period of time as technology advanced, platforms that are less sophisticated were developed thus, enabling billions of regular internet users, without any technology background, to use the services (Boyd et al., 2010; Baden, Bender, Spring, Bhattacharjee and Strain, 2009) and this marked a turning point in the history of internet, making the internet technology all inclusive in such a way that people no longer remain silent spectators to the content being dished out to them. Now, they could create their own content, share it with others, respond to people, collaborate with them and many more (Andreas and Haenlein, 2010). This user interaction is what gave impetus to the today’s increasingly emerging social media networks and sites. Social media network sites such as, Facebook, Twitter, Likedin, Youtube, Google+, etc now allow member individuals to interact with one another and to build relationships even many companies across the world have joined but they joined only the fastest growing networks such as Facebook and Twitter, so as to connect with their customers (Trattner and Kappe 2012). The social media networks act so fantastically as the vehicle helping companies to gain traffic or attention to their own website usually through the use of Links via the adverts they place on the social media websites (Chinag and Chung, 2011; Deis and Hensel, 2010). It also acts just as the traditional Word of Mouth in mainstream marketing does. Corporate messages uploaded on the sites spread very fast from users to users and presumably resonate in favour of the company (Deis and Hensel, 2010). In these regards, social media networks, ever since 2008, have become the new 21 st century paradigmatic market medium for businesses to exploit (IMAP, 2010) and influence their customers’ purchasing behaviour more. This is because, globally, a survey report reveals that about half of the 400 million active users of Facebook alone log on each day and spend over 500 billion minutes per month on the same site. (Oracle Retail, 2010) and sequel to this notion, virtually all businesses now employ social media networks as an extension of their existing corporate marketing strategies especially the retail industry in order to capture and serve customarily those active users with a broad range of lifestyle brands of products across the universe. And in the light of this, many firms in Nigeria also have started plunging into using these platforms. This current study thus seeks to explore the