The severe economic recession has caused a great many consumers to seek lower prices and greater confidence when making a purchase. At the same time, consumers are going crazy for social media, including social networks, blogs and forums. In this time of economic uncertainty, social marketing can be used by retailers to spread the word on brands and prices and bring to consumers positive opinions that generate confidence in brands, marketing experts say.
"Facebook and Twitter are changing the marketing landscape in powerful ways. This new media is creating a level of confidence for consumers and making them purchase," said Andreas Roell, president and CEO of online marketing firm Geary Interactive. "93% of users of social media expect retailers to be present, and 85% want to interact with retailers."
Roell spoke at the Internet Retailer 2009 Conference and Exhibition at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center on Wednesday in a session titled "Balancing Audacity With Caution: Marketing in a Time of Uncertainty."
"In the past everything was pushed to consumers. Now the consumer is much more engaged in the purchase cycle and interconnected with retailers," he said. "At the end of the day, there are core changes to consumer behavior. The important behaviors we see are mobility, lack of attention span and increased peer-to-peer communication."
For mobile commerce, Roell advised retailers to study the efforts of pioneers using text messaging as a way of making purchases. To combat decreasing attention spans, he said, retailers can highlight on e-commerce sites and social network pages customer reviews, another form of social media, that are concise and to the point. And to help enable better communication among consumers, retailers can create communities based around similar interests, Roell added, pointing to the Netflix film community and blog as an example.
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