Social Media & Consumer BehaviorKobe, Japan

byAdam Acar, Associate Professor of Communication

http://emergingmedialab.wordpress.com/about/

Myth 1: ROI of social media can be measured

• Fact: All these things can be done through social media: advertising, promotions, SEO, customer support, Market research,

PR. Only some short term effects of advertising, promotions and SEO can be measured. Most of the effects cannot be measured and not even necessary

Advertising• Outcome: 1-Brand

Awareness 2- Brand Image Improvement 3- Sales 4- Building trust (e.g. higher number of followers=more trust)

Promotions• Outcome: 1- Sales, 2-

Brand awareness

Search Engine Optimization• Outcome: Higher ranking

on Google, Bing

Public Relations• Protect/support brand

image (e.g. posting about brand’s sponsorship activities)

• Informing publics

Marketing Research• Understand what

customers want (e.g. asking fans what kind of flavor they like, etc.)

Customer Support• Post-sales support (e.g.

answering customers’ questions on Facebook)

• Training customers

!!!!How to measure pre-post brand image change is subjective and difficult

!!!Not necessary for most of the big brands

ROI can be measured

ROI can’t be measured

Other things can also be done through social media including-training employees-impressing shareholders-tracking competitors-e-commerce (so far failed) etc…

Myth 2: Social Media drives more traffic than search engines

• Fact 1: Most of these companies are media companies (not ordinary B2C companies)

• Fact 2: Studies show that only 2% of online sales are driven by social media

• Fact 3: Only 2% of the people say they’d buy on Facebook.

×

Myth 3: We can have a universal social media model

• Fact 1: It works differently for high involvement and low involvement products (because for some products you care what your friends do and for some products, you don’t)

• Fact 2: It works differently for companies who sell online and who have brick & mortar stores (because e-commerce companies heavily rely on SEO and many other companies don’t)

• Fact 3: It works differently for commercial entities and non-profits (non-profits are perhaps the best beneficiaries of social media, that’s why there’s a term called “slactivism”)

• Fact 4: It works differently for services and manufactured products (services tend to focus more on image building and educating consumers while manufactured products might not need these)

• Fact 5: It works differently for B2B and B2C companies (many social networks are built for relationship between people not other entities)

• Fact 6: It works differently for downloadable apps/software and other online services (Facebook has the best success rate for apps because they are immediately available and they are part of the platform)

• Fact 7: It works differently for local and nationwide brands (getting personal with a small number of fans vs. servicing the needs of a large number audience)

• Fact 8: It works differently for small-mid-size companies and big brands (need for getting new customers vs. need for increasing repeat customers)

• Fact 9: It works differently for industries with high consumer loyalty rates and low consumer loyalty rates.

• Fact 10: It works differently for products geared towards women and men.

scientific

UNscientific

Not a surprise here: First time mothers are asking their friends about strollers on Facebook. Would they ask their friends about which chewing gum to choose???

Source http://mashable.com/2011/12/18/social-consumers-infographic/

Myth 4: Social Media always has a positive impact on sales

• Fact: No. This study shows that it has a negative impact for 12% of the users and zero impact for the 48%, especially when it comes to the fashion industry. Source: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6185.html

I don’t want to wear what everyone is

wearing!

Myth 5: Facebook is the best social media tool to drive sales

• Fact: This may not be true. These studies indicated that Twitter is better to attract new customers:

• http://www.webknots.com/facebook-vs-twitter-which-is-better-sales-optimizer-for-brands/• http://www.exacttarget.com/uploadedfiles/resources/SFF6_Future_Final.pdf• http://asiajin.com/blog/2012/04/02/a-summary-of-the-latest-studies-about-japan-social-media/

I am cool…

Myth 6: People follow brands in social media to get information

• Fact: This is not true. Most of the time people follow brands because they are either a) current customers b) interested in getting discounts.

• http://www.kullin.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/chart-why-follow-brands-twitter.png• http://allfacebook.com/infographic-why-we-follow-brands-on-facebook_b49585• http://www.kullin.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/why-we-follow-brands-on-twitter.jpg• http://mashable.com/2011/10/20/twitter-brands-purchase-intent/

Myth 7: Consumers are interested in engaging with brands in social media

• Fact: Nope. Only 12% of 18-24 year olds and 6% of 12-17 year olds are interested in friending brands in social media.

• Source: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/young-users-hating-brands-125949

Myth 8: We can measure the effects of social media by Likes, shares,

comments, retweets, coupons redeemed, applications downloaded, photos/videos uploaded/tagged, photos pinned, campaigns participated, so on…

• Fact: No scientific proof (yet) that more likes/shares/comments equal to more sales (Remember the problem of causality? Do likes drive sales or do sales drive likes?). Most of the companies report using social media because their competitors are using it.

≠

Myth 9: Social Media Ads are more effective because they are based on Open graph & Interest graph

• Fact: Facebook ads have even a lower click-through rate than avg. banner ads (.1% vs .051%).

Myth 10: Social media has no impact on sales

• Fact: This is perhaps is not true either. For instance according to this study …” “Researchers surveyed customers of Dessert Gallery (DG), a popular Houston-based café chain. Prior to the study, DG did not have a Facebook presence. Surveys of more than 1,700 respondents over a three-month period found that the company's Facebook fans made 36 percent more visits to DG's stores each month, spent 45 percent more of their eating-out dollars at DG, spent 33 percent more at DG's stores, had 14 percent higher emotional attachment to the DG brand and had 41 percent greater psychological loyalty toward DG--compared to typical Dessert Gallery customers.” Source: Science 2.0

• http://www.science20.com/news_articles/how_effective_facebook_marketing_very_new_survey_says