Social Media in Consumer Decision-making Process

The Great Influencer in Consumer Decision-making Process – Social Media

Nowadays, social media not only change the way people communicate but also have an impact on how people shop. Before buying a product, consumers can scroll through lots of information about it on Facebook or Instagram. Social media gives marketers countless chances to promote products, services, and brand online. Whether it’s paying to show up in platforms, sharing content on social media or having a popular blogger use product and give feedbacks in his post.

Econsultancy and Adobe conducted a survey of almost 3,500 international marketers to analysis the change of their spending on various digital marketing channels. The chart above indicates that 56% of the respondents plan to increase their social media spending.  

According to PwC’s Total Retail 2016 survey, 78 percent out of 23,000 consumers are influenced by social media when shopping online. This chart illustrates the ways how social media affects online shopping behavior.

1.     Recognizing needs

Social media is a great platform to promote products and help consumers discover something new or recognize a need, whether it’s physical, social or psychological. The buying process starts when consumers recognize a void between their desired and actual status. An individual can easily be triggered externally by exposed to a vast amount of information in social media.

For instance, Dr. Scholl launched a social website campaign in WeChat and Weibo before 2016 Single’s Day to promote their electronic foot file. Scholl target the young women group who care about their look and beauty. They hired several fashion bloggers to write articles about “focus the details, such as your foot” or “two skills to solve your high heel problem.” Those bloggers have WeChat public account with plenty of readers and their articles are read and spread in a large scope. They give suggestions on fashion trends, dress styles and so on. Their articles about “care your foot”, “foot beauty matters” triggered young women and made them realize the importance of smooth foot and the unsatisfied situation of their body care. This problem awareness results in the buying intention and the sales of Dr. Scholl reached the top in the promotion of Single’s Day.

2.     Information search

After recognizing the problem, consumers will seek information on products that will fill the void. The information sources can be divided into two types: internal and external. External information search is important; people may want to search others experience like friends and relatives on social media to gather information about products. In my opinion, social media plays a more important role in internal search. The marketing campaign and evaluation post can easily increase brand awareness and brand equity.

Before the premiere of Disney’s movie, Zootopia, a series of posters were spreading online and arouse discussion. These posters are “fake” advertisements of famous brands like Uber, Burberry, DKNY etc. Uber and Google Photo even released video advertisements to cooperate with the movie marketing campaign. The Zootopia version ads are smart and cute, people repost or retweet it spontaneously. It not only promotes this movie successfully but is also a good chance for those brands to increase their brand awareness.

3.     Evaluation of alternatives

Once an option is identified as the solution, consumers make the evaluation of a series of products. To ensure the expectation, consumers require relevance of experience, whether direct or indirect. Social media provides others experiences to help consumers to evaluate the choices. And the sharing content and comments provide a thorough understanding of products. YouTube bloggers, beauty and fashion bloggers usually provide introduction and evaluation based on their user experiences and post the outline of selection.

Social media marketing campaign is also essential to affect referral. Darry Ring is a successful Chinese jewel brand which uses social media strategies attracting lots of fans. Darry Ring targets the young generations and their slogan is “a man can only buy one Darry Ring in a lifetime.” This ad emphasis on “register with ID card” and “only buy one.” Also, Chinese actor Wu Jing proposed to actress Xie Nan with Darry Ring in 2014, this post was reposted over 40,000 times and received over 20,000 comments. The marketing objective is no longer the diamond, but the value of the one and only, faithful love in a lifetime. The whole concept is popular in young generations as the faithful love is not mentioned a lot in the 21st century. This product arouses the emotional bonds with the brand. Buying Darry Ring is buying faithful love and it means my love will last forever.

4.     Postpurchase evaluation

After the consumption, the consumer then evaluates the levels of satisfaction or dissatisfaction, and the wisdom of the choice made. Consumers often seek feedback from friends and relatives and good review on the Internet. And this is the most important process where social media have a great positive impact. New customers come to brands’ social media page to confirm their positive experience, they will see others who also interested in this brand. They will shape a community of loyal brand enthusiasts and share common buying habits and interests. This community can provide useful information to new consumer’s decision-making process.

Reference

Adnan Veysel Ertemel，Ahmad Ammoura (2016). The Role of Social Media Advertising in Consumer Buying Behavior. International Journal of Commerce and Finance, Vol. 2, Issue 1, 2016, 81-89.

Jayson DeMers, Aug 12, 2014. 7 Reasons You Need to Be Using Social Media as Your Customer Service Portal. Retrieved from: 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/12/7-reasons-you-need-to-be-using-social-media-as-your-customer-service-portal/#61a4e46a291c

Jonathan Payne, April 23, 2012. How Social Media Impacts the Consumer Decision Making Model. Retrieved from: 
http://mysocialgameplan.com/general-marketing/how-social-media-impacts-the-consumer-decision-making-model