Author: Edgardo Javier Spivak Einhorn - egspivak@yahoo.com
In this doctoral thesis the influence of social networks on the buying and consumer behavior of Young People has been researched, and also how Social Media are affecting the "way of doing business" and attracting customers in the textile sector, its main objective being to identify the main parameters that define a potential New Business Model in the textile industry, due to the influence of Social Media on the behavior of young people.
Complementary objectives achieved in this research are the following:
• Analyze the evolution of Social Media, especially Facebook among others, toward a sales platform.
• Observe the Business Models in Social Media, analyzing generic portals: especially Facebook and specific fashion portals and, to a lesser extent, other Social Networks or communication systems.
• Investigate the influence of Social Media through individual surveys with a representative sample of young university students in Madrid.
• Analyze the behavior of the large clothing brands which have as customers the segment of young students between 18 and 25 years in Madrid.
• Establish, at a descriptive level, new parameters of the "Business Model" that have allowed or allow to use the Social Media as a Business Channel toward the segment of young people between 18 and 25 years.
Through three complementary fieldwork studies (Focus Group, Interviews with Communication Directors of Large Textile Spanish Companies with international presence and Surveys of Young University Students between 18 and 25 years), the following hypothesis are shown:
• Consumers, in this case young university students between 18 and 25, are "influenced" by messages of the social group to which they belong, which affects their shopping habits of clothes.
• Textile companies are increasingly participating in Social Media, to get their products and services advertised.
• The large textile companies are increasingly developing Online channels, but these companies are not anticipating that they will use them as an independent channel with commercial advantages.
• And in part, a variation of some parameters in the sale of products and services in the textile sector is taking place, under the influence of the web, the Social Media and multimedia communication.
This research is concluded with the Design of a New Business Model originally named PARCOVIS by the author. In Spanish, PARCOVIS stands for Participation, Communication and Sale to the Individual and Social Customer.
This model considers the Social Media Communication with a Customer that has 2 dimensions: Individual and Social (prosumer), through key people and group leaders in Social Media, based on what the author calls, Addressed Communication Net, a term coined for that type of communication that considers the company fan as the center the company should address itself to in the Social Media, nd especially