Hashtags to Purchases: A Bibliometric Exploration of the Impact of Social Media in Impulse Buying Behavior

This study presents a bibliometric analysis of the impact of social media on impulse purchasing, which can lead to impulsive purchasing due to its ability to carry personal content, influencer support, and interactivity. Collected data from Scopus database and advanced bibliometric analysis using Biblioshiny, VOSviewer, and Citespace were used. It also examined annual scientific production, most relevant authors, and network visualization of co-citation among cited authors. It also investigates the most relevant sources, timezone network visualization of co-citation among cited journals, and countries' scientific contributions. The most globally cited documents, trend topics, and thematic map of research clusters are also identified in the analysis. Co-occurrence of author keywords and bibliographic coupling of documents provide further insights into the intellectual structure and evolving themes in the field. The findings highlight the dominating trends of emotional triggers and influencer-driven strategies, followed by significant dominance in designing impulse buying. Some of the shortcomings of the study include longitudinal studies and cross-cultural analysis. Also presented are the practical implications of marketers and researchers. This provides comprehensive insight into bibliometric exploration as to how social media is interacting dynamically with consumer behavior, thereby opening several vistas for new avenues of future research and innovative strategies for marketing.