Using Social Media to Influence Consumers
According to a poll discussed in the article 5 Ways You Can Influence Consumer Purchasing Decisions: New Research, only 5% of people said that social media has a big influence on their purchasing decisions. On the other hand, 62% said that social media has absolutely no influence on their purchasing decisions. The author of the article chooses to discuss (what she believes are) the five best ways that you can influence consumer purchasing decisions.
First, there is the idea of changing social conversations followed by the idea of appealing to millennials. We then see the other ideas including engaging customers offline and online, start authentic Facebook conversations, and be available at all times.
Each idea is very important.
When it comes to changing social media conversations, the author wants us to know that “[advertisers need to] use social media channels the way consumers want to use them, not the way the business wants to use them.” When it comes it targe
ting a specific group, millennials are the ones to target. The biggest thing the author wants us to remember with this point is that, “you can build trust with Millennials by showing there’s no clash between policy and practice.” Millennials make up the age group who are statistically using the internet and social media the most. The American Press Institute has a great article about how millennials control social media. In this day and age of technology, targeting younger generations through social media is great, because they are definitely the largest consumers of social media. Next,the main idea to take away from engaging with customers offline and online is that you need to engage your audience and allow them to feel involved. Fourthly, we, as advertisers, need to talk with our customers not at them when using Facebook. Finally, advertisers need to be available always. This point is pretty self-explanatory; since social media is available all the time, consumers want a response almost instantly.
I think one of the most important things for advertisers and companies to do is be available at all times. We live in a world where social media and technology work instantly, and I think has made consumers (at times) impatient and restless. This is especially true for the people who have lived their whole lives in this new age of technology. There are quite a few ways that advertisers can attempt to be available at all times. Launching online communities are a great way to allow customers to interact and help one another instantly! Also, you can create how-two articles on how to answer and solve common issues and questions. These are just a few of many ways you can make yourself somewhat available to customers at all times.
All of the points made by the article’s author are great things that all advertisers could learn from using.