How Social Media Influences Your Shopping Essay Example for Free

How Social Media Influences Your Shopping Essay At the present time social media is the one of the most powerful ways to shop and advertise online via the use of web-based and mobile technologies; it transforms online communication into an interactive dialogue. Quester, Pettigrew and Hawkins (2011) defined social media as â€Å"media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques.† According to Vithoulkas, social media is more than just the hardware or software which enables it, instead he argues that it is more of a philosophy of communication where honest and transparency is required and information is shared and has the potential to â€Å"spread virally very quickly†. For the consumer, social media can be a continual bombardment of advertising and promotion every time we use communication modes, such as the internet or mobile, which may be infuriating for the consumer but increases the market exposure for the seller. This report intends to analyse the effectiveness of social media in influencing the general population to purchase more than presently before. When large companies, such as Pepsi, invest 50% of their annual advertising budget into Social Media it is obviously a worthy idea for the discussion of marketing professionals worldwide. The buyer behaviour system has been challenged in ranges of high involvement and low involvement alike. Consumer control is now the focus of consumption, when before it was heavily regulated institutionally. Although social media is an inescapable part of every day life it cannot be assumed that it will replace other forms of communication. A great number of people of all ages use social networking sites before purchasing a product, especially in high involvement purchases. Seidma (2010, p11) has demonstrated that the large majority of people are engaged in some form of social media, showing its considerable societal acceptance; Marketing magazine online tells us that â€Å"Facebook has more than 400 million active users. Every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube. An estimated 5–10 thousand Twitter accounts are opened per day,† showing that when information is directly found by a population 20 times that of Australia there is serious product awareness to gain . Quester et al. (2011) stated that there are fives stages of decisions making processes prior to making the choice in buying a product or service. These include problem recognition, information search, evaluation and selection, store choice and purchase and post purchase processes. When consumers’ recognise a need or identify a problem which may exist, they then undertake an information search on the product or service with their behaviour influenced by internal and external factors, Consumers evaluate the various alternatives after they have gathered all information, and afterwards they make a selection of retail outlets for the actual purchase of the good or service. Lastly, the consumer compares the product performance against their expectations and decide whether they satisfied or dissatisfied with it. In last few decades, traditional media such as television, radio, newspaper has been the only way to promote and communicate with the target market, but now it appears that the trend has changed. As seen in diagram one (below) consumer control is now the driver in the marketing segment. As seen in chart one (below), it can be seen that on average people spend more time when choosing and product and general spend more money, suggesting that when purchasing online the products will be a high involvement purchase. Marketing Magazine online tell us â€Å"For 35% of shoppers, the process starts with online search; 30% of consumers read user reviews on retailer websites as a part of the shopping process.† In the U.S.A. alone there are 95 million people who admit to frequently using social-media in their purchase decisions. Hub Magazine found that more than 40% of American adults currently use social media as part of their shopping experiences, with further data showing most consumers increased in use of social media for shopping within an annual period. Hub magazine also found that 39% have strongly agreed with the statement that ‘they can learn a lot more about a brand by seeing what everyday people are saying about it online’ in comparison with only 22% percent of non-social media shoppers agreeing with the statement. This clealy shows us that Social Media can obviously affect buying habits. However, social media may not be the first choice for every business or organisation for their marketing strategy. In December 2009, COM Score released a report of their customer survey that showed peoples views on social media in comparison to traditional forms of media. Overall, they found that 28% of respondents were likely to notice advertising on social media and less than that 23% are likely to trust the advertisements they notice. Those numbers put social media websites at #5 on the list behind television, print, news and corporate websites. In the same findings it also showed that only 28% of those who had began their holiday shopping this season indicated that social media has influenced their purchases specifically consumers said their influences were: †¢ Reading a consumer-generated product review (13% of respondents) †¢ Reading an expert product review (11 %)  Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ Following a fan page on Face book to take advantage of special offers and deals (7%) †¢ Influence by a friend’s Face book status update referring to a particular product (6%) †¢ Following a company on Twitter to take advantage of special offers and deals (5%) †¢ A friend’s â€Å"tweet† about a product influenced their purchase behaviour (3%) Given the exposure to the internet that we in the western world undergo every day versus time spend watching television, it is odd that only 13% saw the high consumer involvement in reading reviews of products. What is even stranger is that these consumers have shifted from trusting expert reviews to peer reviews. In traditional media reputable sources were usually quoted to give weight to a certain product. It seems in the days of social media, peer influence has replaced the trustworthiness of reputable sources. Thus changing the buyer behaviour process. Social Media may influence and change the buyer behaviour process but it is not necessarily a replacement for tradition media. Although it is a change to the normal standards of media, it will never replace traditional media given the system of interaction in our society. The interesting thing, as discussed in this essay, is the change in the high involvement purchase process and the consumer control over purchases. It is effective to some degree, given the right target audience and consumer group, but in our society with the lack of general literacy (21.1% of the world are internet literate) and dramatic choices for consumers it is not the answer to the change of the consumer buyer process.