June 12, 2009
And No One Watches TV for the Ads Either
A recent Adweek article reported that consumers are not using social media sites to guide their purchasing decisions. This study found that less that 5 percent of 18 – 54 regularly use social media sites when making purchases.
And Mintel released a study showing that real-life referrals are more influential than those received online. In fact, only 5 percent of its respondents bought a product based on the recommendation of a blogger.
Well, this is terrible news for us marketers… or is it?
Consumers are making more and more connections on social media platforms every day and are using them to stay in touch with friends and family. That means more personal contacts in their lives and greater potential for receiving information, and yes product advice they can trust.
As DMNews points out when evaluating the Mintel study, we may not take the advice of a blogger we don’t know, but we might seek guidance from our friends or be influenced by the brands that they “follow”.
It goes back to the old saying about buzz: any conversation about your brand is good because people are talking. No matter how many Consumer Reports findings that we read, we’re highly influenced by the thoughts and opinions of our friends and family. And now that we are more connected than ever, it’s likely that their influence will only grow.
Posted in Branding, Conversation Mining and Surveys, Social Marketing
personally, i’ve used both facebook and twitter to share tips on purchases, and request feedback. a simple “anyone had trouble with an olevia lcd tv?” tweet would certainly get you some answers back if it were a horrible purchase.
Here’s another interesting perspective on the purchasing discussion… courtesy of Dilbert author Scott Adams: http://www.hurl.ws/3wqe