Role of Sustainability in Digital Age: Leveraging Social Media for Green Marketing Campaigns an Empirical Study with Reference to Bangalore

: The current empirical study aims to comprehensively investigate the influence of social media on achieving sustainability through the promotion of green marketing. The primary objective is to examine the association between environmental practices, discounts or promotions, recommendations from friends or influencers, personal values, and brand value, and the decision to support or purchase from a sustainable brand through social media promotion. Additionally, the study explores the perception of gender concerning the importance of various social media metrics, taking into account of both qualitative and quantitative research approaches, and simple random sampling method were adopted with sample size of 123 respondents, in context of Bangalore geographical area.


Introduction:
In the current era, the dynamic growth of Information and Communication Technology changed the phase in every aspect of global economic growth.The foremost essential part of ICT made potential impact on every individual life, In fact usage of internet drastically increased As of October 2023, there were 5.3 billion internet users worldwide, which amounted to 65.7 percent of the global population.Of this total, 4.95 billion, or 61.4 percent of the world's population, were social media users (Internet and Social Media Users in the World 2023 | Statista, 2023b) [1], it's an evident that Internet is playing vital role in micro and macro-economic growth of the nation.With the tremendous growth of internet users, it expanded its wings to Education, Business and Innovations etc, specifically social media succeeded in capturing huge number of audiences, in addition to this the number of users are keep on increasing due its functionalities and benefits to each individuals in terms of Creating awareness, Information sharing, and Entertainment.Compare to traditional business to modern business, modern business are majorly influenced by the various factors one among essential factor is technology, with the help of technology even domestic and international business gained important benefits with the help of technology adoption, so technology majorly contributing to the business in terms of increasing customer community, business legal operation, Business automation, remote working, human resource outsourcing, supply chain management , communication services and Relationship Management etc. so technology is contributing to the growth of the nation.In addition to this technology can be employed to long-lasting growth of the nation economy like, it should not just focus on the commercial aspect of business but it also needs to be considered for the societal and environmental progress, how?One major way is adopting and using of technology for promoting green or eco-friendly business in terms of its product and service.Social media includes various platform where many individuals, business concerns are connected with electronic device particularly mobile, and laptop by connecting through Internet.It made easy to connect with people around the globe on the tip of figure, using of social media can leverage many benefits to business like providing effective campaign in promoting green marketing or eco-friendly product and service.So, it directly and indirectly contributes to the sustainable development of the nation, and hence this respective paper addresses the role of leveraging technology in promoting green marketing, and it's an essential aspect for sustainable practice for business and nation growth.

Green Marketing:
The increase in population and drastic changes in individual lifestyles have resulted in a rapid surge in the demand and supply of products and services.Businesses, whether operating domestically or internationally, are striving to maximize their efforts to gain a competitive edge and ensure long-term sustainability.Meeting the increasing demand for products and services requires optimal utilization of natural resources, avoiding wastage, and preserving them for future generations.In the face of tough competition, every business aims to stand out by offering high-quality products and services.Additionally, businesses and individuals should be mindful of the environment, promoting ecofriendly practices through green marketing.Green marketing involves the development and promotion of products or services with environmentally friendly attributes.To achieve the objectives of green marketing, it is crucial to focus on creating awareness about ecofriendly products, initiating educational campaigns on post-usage considerations and product packaging, obtaining certifications and labels from regulatory bodies concerned with environmental protection, adhering to prescribed regulations and guidelines, and regularly monitoring progress.If necessary, precautions are not taken, corrective measures should be implemented promptly.Furthermore, leveraging technology to promote green initiatives among individuals and businesses is of utmost importance.

Social Media and Social Media Marketing:
Social media, as its name suggests, serves as a platform for engaging with a social audience.With the prevalence of technology and the internet, individuals can connect with people worldwide.Through online platforms with internet accessibility, users can create, share, and exchange information or content, including text and videos, transcending geographical boundaries and fostering virtual connections.Notably, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, official websites, and others offer facilities for social interaction.In the contemporary landscape, social media extends beyond mere networking; it plays a pivotal role in creating business development opportunities at local and global levels.It contributes to the generation of new ideas, the dissemination of information, and the rapid exchange of insights across diverse communities.The dynamic changes brought about by technological automation have significantly impacted various business operations.In the realm of marketing, traditionally considered a crucial and sophisticated task within organizations, technology has introduced diverse dimensions.Marketing operations now leverage technology to reach a large customer base, target specific audiences efficiently, and engage with customers for the long term in a more comfortable and streamlined manner.Social media marketing emerges as a strategic approach to utilize social media platforms for customer targeting, brand awareness creation, and community building.This approach ultimately contributes to achieving long-term survival and marketing goals for individual businesses in the digital era.

Sustainability
The term "sustainability" denotes enduring development, meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations.It encompasses considerations in environmental, social, and economic aspects to ensure a balanced and effective environmental practice.Achieving sustainability through the social media promotion of green marketing involves creating awareness about eco-friendly products and practices.Businesses utilize various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and their official websites to target their audience.They communicate their commitment to environmental responsibility by sharing information about the benefits of sustainable or eco-friendly products.Through timely advertisements and the transfer of messages regarding product quality and brand values, businesses engage with a community of environmentally conscious consumers.This digital approach leverages the reach and influence of social media to encourage green behaviours, fostering a collective effort towards a more sustainable and environmentally friendly future.

Literature Review:
Affan et al. (2019) conducted a study with the objective of assessing the impact of sustainable social media marketing on SMEs and the extent to which their online presence affects consumer behaviour.The research also aimed to analyse the significance of web atmospheric cues, including visual, social, security, and ethics cues, and information in influencing consumer perceptions.By considering sustainable social media marketing cues, the study explored how this influences consumer behaviour and benefits SMEs.The research employed qualitative research methods, and the findings reveal that consumer behaviour is influenced when SMEs fulfil consumer needs by sharing valuable information and offers that bring pleasure.Furthermore, the study suggests that effective security and privacy policies in promotions can attract more attention from consumers, contributing to the maintenance of an effective organizationconsumer relationship in the market [2].The study elucidates the significant factors that influence consumer perceptions and behaviours towards sustainable products and services.It specifically highlights that consumers across all countries express a desire to purchase from environmentally responsible companies.Environmental consciousness, consumers emphasize, is a crucial corporate priority, ranking just below considerations such as good value, trustworthiness, and customer care.Moreover, consumers expect environmentally conscious companies to undertake a broad spectrum of actions, with a particular emphasis on reducing toxins, recycling, and effective water management.Notably, in developing economies, a considerable number of consumers express a willingness to spend more on green products.Furthermore, the credibility of a product is enhanced through effective green marketing promotions.This involves leveraging social and Internet communication networks to disseminate compelling, interesting, and/or entertaining information about environmental products.This strategy goes beyond creating awareness and emphasizes the importance of eco-certification for trustworthy sustainable products, as highlighted by Tiwari et al. (2011) [3].Kinoti (2011).The study covers the theoretical background of "Green marketing Intervention Strategies and Sustainable Development" and it also brought lime light on micr and macro environmental factors effecting to green marketing intervention strategies specifically Green product strategies, Green pricing strategies, Green promotion strategies, Green consumption , Green probe strategies (marketing information system) and how this factors effecting directly or indirectly to the sustainable development of individual, organizational and nation concern.[4]

Research Gap
In the digital era, the Internet and technology play a vital role in rapidly expanding business.Targeting and reaching customers can be achieved in a shorter time frame due to the internet, significantly impacting product and service delivery worldwide.It is socially responsible for businesses to consider not only commercial perspectives but also environmental protection, ensuring a presence for both the present and future generations.This involves adopting and implementing green marketing strategies through social media promotion.Therefore, this current study aims to explore the consumer perception of green marketing campaigns conducted through social media promotion.The research seeks to understand the factors influencing purchasing decisions on various social media platforms, the promotion of sustainability, and the association of social media metrics in measuring the impact of green marketing promotion's sustainability across Bangalore.

Research Questions:
1. To understand the conceptual background of Sustainability, Green Marketing and social media platform and social media marketing 2. To what extent do transparency about environmental practices, discounts or promotions, recommendations from friends or influencers, personal values, and brand value influence the decision to support or purchase from a sustainable brand on social media promotion?3. To what extent do respondents' opinions about the overall perception towards green marketing influence their purchasing behaviour based on environmental or sustainability claims promoted on social media?4. To what extent do gender differences impact the perceived importance of metrics for measuring the success of green marketing campaigns on social media? 5. Is there any linkage of social media platform and their association between various factors influencing in purchasing decision or support through social media promotion of sustainable products, beside this to examine the important metrics to measure the effectiveness of social media campaign of green marketing by analysing the overall perception of the consumer

Objectives:
1. To assess the level of association between transparency about environmental practices, discounts or promotions, recommendations from friends or influencers, personal values, and brand value and the decision to support or purchase from a sustainable brand on social media promotion 2. To examine the association between respondents' overall perceptions towards green marketing and their purchasing behaviour in response to environmental or sustainability claims on social media.

3.
To explore how gender preferences influence the perceived importance of metrics including the number of likes and shares, engagement rate, conversion rates, brand sentiment analysis, and other specified metrics in the context of green marketing campaigns on social media.4. To Explore symbiotic linkage social media platform and there association between various factors influencing in purchasing decision or support through social media promotion of sustainable products, beside this to identify the important metrics to measure the effectiveness of social media campaign of green marketing by analysing the overall perception of the consumer 5. To explore recent trends in sustainability green marketing promotional practices.

HYPOTHESES: 1 Null Hypothesis (H0):
There is no significant association between transparency about environmental practices, discounts or promotions, recommendations from friends or influencers, personal values, brand value and the decision to support or purchase from a sustainable brand on social media promotion.

Alternative Hypothesis (H1):
There is a significant association between transparency about environmental practices, discounts or promotions, recommendations from friends or influencers, personal values, brand value and the decision to support or purchase from a sustainable brand on social media promotion.

HYPOTHESES: 2 Null Hypothesis (H0):
There is no association between respondents' opinions about the overall perception towards green marketing and their purchasing behavior based on environmental or sustainability claims promoted on social media.

Alternative Hypothesis (Ha):
There is an association between respondents' opinions about the overall perception towards green marketing and their purchasing behaviour based on environmental or sustainability claims promoted on social media.

HYPOTHESES: 3 Null Hypothesis (H0):
There is no significant difference in the perceived importance of metrics for measuring the success of green marketing campaigns on social media between different genders.

Alternative Hypothesis (Ha):
There is a significant difference in the perceived importance of metrics for measuring the success of green marketing campaigns on social media between different genders.

Research Design and Methodology 7.1 Data Collection:
Primary Data: Structured Questionnaire with an 29 items, were adopted for the current study, and in addition to this google form were adopted to distribute among different demographic characteristics of sample population Secondary data: to explore conceptual background of the study about Green Marketing, books, literature sources, magazines were considered are employed for the current study .72116 In order to validate the questionnaire, a Cronbach's Alpha test was conducted on a sample of 123 respondents.To enhance reliability, only 16 items were considered (out of 29 items) for assessing the "Role of Sustainability in the Digital Age: Leveraging Social Media for Marketing Campaigns" an empirical study with reference to Bangalore.The accepted threshold for Cronbach's Alpha is typically set at 0.70 or higher.In this study, the calculated Cronbach's Alpha yielded a value of 0.721, surpassing the accepted threshold.Therefore, the questionnaire utilized in the current study is considered validated.

HYPOTHESES: 1 Null Hypothesis (H0):
There is no significant association between transparency about environmental practices, discounts or promotions, recommendations from friends or influencers, personal values, brand value and the decision to support or purchase from a sustainable brand on social media promotion.

Alternative Hypothesis (H1):
There is a significant association between transparency about environmental practices, discounts or promotions, recommendations from friends or influencers, personal values, brand value and the decision to support or purchase from a sustainable brand on social media promotion.

Statistical Inferences:
The chi-square test statistics and p-values are as follows: X 2 (1) = 0.073< sig value (0.787); α=0.05=>Fail to reject Null hypotheses X 2 (1) = 5.927 > Sig value (0.015); α=0.05 => Rejecting Null Hypotheses X 2 (1) = 7.813 > Sig value (0.005); α=0.05 => Rejecting Null Hypotheses X 2 (1) = 36.496> Sig value (0.000); α=0.05 => Rejecting Null Hypotheses X 2 (1) = 86.252> Sig value (0.000); α=0.05 => Rejecting Null Hypotheses Theoretical Inferences: "Based on the statistical evidence presented, it can be inferred that the level of association between various factors influencing the purchasing decision of a sustainable brand through social media promotion differs.Specifically:  Environmental practices show no significant association. Discounts or promotions demonstrate a significant association. Recommendations from friends or influencers exhibit a significant association. Personal values and brand value have a highly significant association.These theoretical inferences are drawn from the statistical results, suggesting varying degrees of influence among the factors considered.

HYPOTHESES 2 Null Hypothesis (H0):
There is no association between respondents' opinions about the overall perception towards green marketing and their purchasing behavior based on environmental or sustainability claims promoted on social media.

Alternative Hypothesis (Ha):
There is an association between respondents' opinions about the overall perception towards green marketing and their purchasing behaviour based on environmental or sustainability claims promoted on social media.behaviour based on environmental or sustainability claims promoted on social media.Or the result shows that the opinions about green marketing are associated with the purchasing behaviour influenced by environmental or sustainability claims on social media.The null hypothesis is rejected in favour of the alternative hypothesis, supporting the idea that these two variables are not independent.

HYPOTHESES 3: Null Hypothesis (H0):
There is no significant difference in the perceived importance of metrics for measuring the success of green marketing campaigns on social media between different genders.

Alternative Hypothesis (Ha):
There is a significant difference in the perceived importance of metrics for measuring the success of green marketing campaigns on social media between different genders.

Theoretical Inferences:
As per the above statistical evidence it can be interpreted that, overall, there is no significant gender-based difference in preferences for the importance of metrics in measuring the success of green marketing campaigns on social media across gender groups.Specifically, there is no notable distinction in preferences for metrics such as Engagement Rate, Brand Sentiment Analysis, and Other Metrics.However, the evidence indicates a consistent preference for Conversion Rates, suggesting a constant perception of its importance.Notably, there is a discernible difference in preference among different gender groups for the metric of Number of Likes and Shares in measuring the success of green marketing campaigns on social media.

Summary of Findings
The current empirical study aims to comprehensively investigate the influence of social media on achieving sustainability through the promotion of green marketing.The primary objective is to examine the association between environmental practices, discounts or promotions, recommendations from friends or influencers, personal values, and brand value, and the decision to support or purchase from a sustainable brand through social media promotion.Additionally, the study explores the perception of gender concerning the importance of various social media metrics, taking into account of both employing both qualitative and quantitative research approaches, and simple random sampling method were adopted with sample size of 123 respondents, with the geographical context of Bangalore.
For the analysis and interpretation of data, the study utilized the IBM SPSS 25 software application.The data interpretation involved the application of the Cronbach's alpha test on 16 items and the reliability and validity 16 items result was 0.721.hypotheses testing with statistical and theoretical inferences.due to data were not normally distributed Non-Parametric test were adopted.The study successfully achieved its objectives, revealing that discounts or promotions, recommendations from friends or influencers, personal values, and brand value exhibit a significant association with the decision to support or purchase from a sustainable brand through social media promotion, except for environmental practices.

Outcome of Statistical Test:
"Based on the statistical evidence presented, it can be inferred that the level of association between various factors influencing the purchasing decision of a sustainable brand through social media promotion differs.Specifically:  Environmental practices show no significant association. Discounts or promotions demonstrate a significant association. Recommendations from friends or influencers exhibit a significant association. Personal values and brand value have a highly significant association.These theoretical inferences are drawn from the statistical results, suggesting varying degrees of influence among the factors considered. 1.As per the above statistical evidence it can be interpret that there is a significant association between respondents' opinions about the overall perception towards green marketing and their purchasing behaviour based on environmental or sustainability claims promoted on social media.Or the result shows that the opinions about green marketing are associated with the purchasing behaviour influenced by environmental or sustainability claims on social media.2. As per the above statistical evidence it can be interpreted that, overall, there is no significant genderbased difference in preferences for the importance of metrics in measuring the success of green marketing campaigns on social media across gender groups.Specifically, there is no notable distinction in preferences for metrics such as Engagement Rate, Brand Sentiment Analysis, and Other Metrics.However, the evidence indicates a consistent preference for Conversion Rates, suggesting a constant perception of its importance.Notably, there is a discernible difference in preference among different gender groups for the metric of Number of Likes and Shares in measuring the success of green marketing campaigns on social media.

Conclusion:
The present study was undertaken with a prime objective of exploring conceptual background of green marketing, green marketing practices, social media marketing, and how social media is contributing to the sustainability in this digital era, certainly technological advancement and automation changed the operation of every business, for surly it led to the rapid growth of industries, growing exponential demand of product and service due to change in life style of all individuals.Hence its important to concern about the importance of natural resources utilization over utilization or underutilization, and creating natural resources disturbance will lead to harmful to environment, hence every business need to take not only to create product or services to meet the short term, but they need to focus on the creating eco-friendly product with sustainable objective that can lead to environmental protection to meet for both present and future generation, hence the study is undertake with keen interest of exploring important factors effecting green marketing promotion with the help of various social media platform, metrics which is required to measure the effectiveness of green marketing sustainability initiatives and to explore about overall perception towards green leveraging social media in promoting green marketing camping with reference to Bangalore.
The study suggests that future research could delve into various other factors influencing social media promotion on purchasing decisions for sustainable brands.Furthermore, future research endeavours could focus on examining the effect of each matrix on the success of social media promotion for sustainable products.

7. 2
Sampling:Sampling Method: Simple Random Sampling 7.3 Sampling Size: 123 7.4 Data Analysis and Interpretation: Detail the analytical methods and tools used to analyse the data.To analyse and to interpret the data, Statistical methods Non-Parametric test were employed, Statistical analysis, Statistical test using SPSS 16.0 version 7.5 Data Presentation: This section varies based on the type of research.For quantitative research, you present the data in tables and graphs.For qualitative research, you provide textual descriptions or quotations.Make sure to label and caption figures and tables appropriately.8. Theoretical frame work of the current study Discounts or promotions c.Recommendations from friends or influencers d.Personal values e. Brand value Consumer overall perceptions towards green marketing through social media promotion Social Media metrics for measuring the impact of social media promotion of sustainable or green marketing campaign a. Number of likes and shares b.Engagement rate (comments, likes, shares) c.Conversion rates (e.g., sales, sign-ups), d. Brand sentiment analysis e. Others (Sources; Outcome of the current study)