The Quiet Power of Social Media: Impact on Fish-Oil Purchases in Iceland during COVID-19

Abstract

The rise of social media has revolutionized communication and the sharing of information and interests, with a significant impact on purchasing behavior. Consumers increasingly rely on social media for product recommendations and reviews, often finding themselves "accidentally influenced" by other users' posts and advice. This study examines the impact of social media in Iceland during the COVID-19 pandemic when there was a surge of posts giving dietary advice to prevent or treat the virus or its symptoms. One example is the rise and fall of fish oil advice. Using a large-scale dataset from one of the most popular supermarket chains in Iceland and netnography, we apply Data Science to analyze: sales data; Google search trends; Twitter posts from 2019 and 2020 to understand the impact of the online world on purchasing behavior in the offline world. Our results show the massive power of social media on people's purchasing behavior, particularly during a pandemic, and provide a comparison of consumer behavior before and during COVID-19.