Consumer Behavior

In this era of internet marketers, Social Media (blogs, social networks, content communities, wiki 's and podcasts), have largely changed the face of marketing and media. Social media relies on consumer generated content and hence doesn’t conform to the ideals of traditional media where content, both commercial and other, is ‘engineered’ to suit the need of a promoter or seller. (Fernando 2007). This hence is in direct contrast with the traditional promotional mix as consumer interaction and orientation is at an optimum. This medium, in the light of a business communication strategy, is highly conversational, collaborative and credible. This involves opinion makers, journalists, seasoned practitioners and the audience who interacts with one another on a regular basis. (Fernando 2007). This high level of interaction and involvement is devoid in the traditional media and the marketing field as well. Capon and Hulbert have observed that the modern consumer is different: demanding, individualistic, involved, independent, better informed and more critical (2000 cited Constantinides, E 2006). Social Media as a whole provides the

( Paltrinieri, 2013) Social is a form where common based prosumerism actually promotes civic engagement. On social media people will build relationships based on mutual interests and trust. This creates cohesive groups which also are motivated and ready to be mobilized to support social causes. ( Paltrinieri, 2013) However, this does not just stay on the internet it also can go out into the public. Online the consumers can criticize and discuss events that are currently happening in the world. They can actively give their opinion about those matters. They do not just read about the news, they actively take part in the production process of the

Baker and McKenzie (2010) added that these types of posts in social media can reach more customers and increases firm’s exposure (p.15). We can reach out to more people through online where we cannot reach them directly. Moreover, we can do our business in remote areas or even in other countries with benefit of open communication through online. We can increase brand dealership in other countries.

The internet has services for users to work together (Diva, 2017). In this essay, I will explain about which communication theories and forms of communication are used to influence consumers. I believe that symbolic interaction communication theory and social exchange impact and mass communication have more influence to consumers.

Every person is a consumer in some way or another. Maybe it’s fuel for the automobile that is used to reach work, or maybe it is electronics such as iPad, mobile phone, or any other good or service. Prior to making most any purchase, individuals have to make a decision by doing some type of cost/benefit analysis. For example, just buying a loaf of bread can be difficult as there are so many choices of brands, types, and prices. Depending on what you will use the bread to hold, a hot-dog bun maybe the right choice, but then a decision has to be made if it is to be white or wheat. Wheat may taste better, but is it worth the dollar price difference? Another example would be using an internet site such as Angie’s List to search, select and schedule a service.

Thanks to the fear of the backlash and to have a bigger online presence, organizations are now investing in better customer service and are taking the consumer feedback seriously. The use of social technologies has gone beyond marketing and is now used in the customer service domain and the companies have realized that the cost of retaining the customer is lesser than bringing one onboard. Before the age of social media, most consumer feedback was through phone and e-mail, however now the consumers can directly provide their feedback on the official company sites and the companies will try and

According to the article "Secrets of social media revealed in 1966" by David Aaker in Businessweek, many of the current principles embodied in Internet marketing were known amongst savvy persuaders even before the current technological age. A 1966 study by Ernest Dichter revealed that word-of-mouth persuasion was one of the most important motivational factors in brand choice. Internet marketers clearly understand this, given the degree to which they try to use online review websites such as Yelp and bloggers to convince people to buy products. This is often seen as more effective in reaching a cynical audience base than standard types of advertising. Dichter found that there were four motivations for a person to communicate about brands. "The first (about 33% of the cases) is because of product-involvement. The experience is so novel and pleasurable that it must be shared. The second (about 24%) is self-involvement. Sharing knowledge or opinions is a way to gain attention, show connoisseurship, feel like a pioneer, have inside information, seek confirmation of a person's own judgment, or assert superiority. The third (around 20%) is other-involvement. The speaker wants to reach out and help to express neighborliness, caring, and friendship. The fourth (around 20%) is

To Switch or Not to Switch: Understanding Social Influence in Online Choice is a study that was focused on the role of social influence in online recommender systems. Haiyi Zhu and Bernardo A. Huberman, the authors of the study, were interested in studying how often peoples’ choices are affected by other individuals’ endorsements. The hypothesis of the study is that individuals “are more likely to reverse their opinions when the reversion causes less self-inconsistency (the confirmation pressure is weaker) or the opposing social opinions are stronger (the conformity pressure is stronger)”.

Furthermore, when teams come together to share opposing views and opinions in a safe setting and use these discussions to make better decisions about products and services, these benefits are then also passed on to customers.

Reviews offer a limited number of opinions, and they generally focus on one particular topic. There is also some bias in the reviews. People who have very strong feelings about something in a company tend to share their opinion in a form of review. Mostly, those reviews display customers’ overwhelming dissatisfaction with something or customers’ excitement about purchased products. Customers’ feeling should be strong enough to give them enough incentive to take their time and write a review. However, this is not the only way to identify customers’ awareness and opinion on companies’ reputation, price, quality, brands, product range, and customer. The social networks can provide us with a variety of opinions that fall in various categories of a conversation. We can compare

The advent of online communities has bridged the communication gap between brands and consumers by creating a two-way communication platform. This fact has encouraged the engagement of businesses with their customers

In the examination of the dimensions of the consumer engagement behaviour, there are elements such as positive and negative valence, modality/form, temporal or geographic scope (Sashi, 2012). There are various types of consumer engagement behaviours evident in the development of the research article: co-creation, blogging, writing reviews, helping other customers, complaining behaviour, and engagement in the legal action. According to the article, engaged consumers experience and demonstrate elements such as satisfaction,

Buying behaviour that occurs in blogs can differ significantly from the buying behaviour that occurs in other forms of social media. As stated before, blogs can portray several different forms of marketing that appeal to the consumers. Written from an unbiased point of view, consumers tend to put more weight into the opinion of other consumers than they would in other forms of advertisement such as banner ads or PR statements. The marketing efforts that can be found in blogs can have a huge impact on a consumer and therefore on the buying process in itself. (Solomon 2011, 137-139.)

Social media has played a significant role in consumer decision making, including such areas raising awarness, sharing information and opinions as well as postpurchase experience ( Mangold and Faulds,2009). It turns out that consumers tend to trust knowledge and experience shared by other customers on social media more than those opinions reviewed by the manufacturer or the marketer of the product or the service.(Linchi Kowk,2012)

Digital media is so universal that consumers have access to information any moment in time and any location of which they want it. Days are gone when the messages we got about a product or service came from the manufacturer and consisted of only what they wanted us to know. Digital media is a constant changing source of shopping, entertainment, social interaction, and news, and the end consumers are now exposed not only to what a company says about the brand, but what the media, relatives, peers, friends, etc., are saying as well - and we are more likely to believe what we read on the internet than the company selling the product or service. Individuals want products they can trust, businesses that know them,