Creative Strategies in Social Media Marketing

Question: Discuss about the Creative Strategies in Social Media Marketing. Answer: Introduction The consumer behavior refers to the study of the individuals, community, groups and organization. Further consumer behavior describes the methods they use for selecting, securing, disposing and using the products, experience and services or the ideas to satisfy the needs and demands of people. In present days, most of the consumers prefer social media to buy products. Therefore, the online buying behavior of the consumers is growing day by day. In this assignment, the importance of the social media is discussed in brief. There are several types of social media like blogs, wikis, forum and social networking sites. Social media has a great influence on the buying behavior of the customers. This discussion tries to find out the buying intension of the customers and their attitudes. Solomon (2014) mentioned that the customers need to have trust on the online buying sites of the social media. Before buying the products, the customers need to do comparative research so that they not face any loss. Importance of social media in online buying Social media has a great impact on the online buying behavior of the consumers. According to Yadav et al. (2013), the internet shopping is growing faster in recent days. In Australia the rate of online buying is 87%, in Europe the rate is 85%, in North America it is 83%, in South America 81%, in Africa 53%. However, in Middle East the rat much lower than other countries, it is only 3.7% (Pyry, Parvinen Malmivaara, 2013). However, social media sites influence the consumer behavior of the innovation in the development and market efficiency. Consumers may face problems during using the online sites at the time of purchasing products and service. Consumers need to know the procedure of the online shopping at first otherwise they can face loss. Most of the people nowadays prefer social media for buying products and the social media has a great influence on it. The online shopping sites make agreement with the social media sites to promote their products, service and brand value. Types of social media Social network sits help people to get connected with others via the webpage and internet. In these pages, people can share their views and collect information. From these sites, people get idea of the online buying and come to know about various products and online sites. Blog refers to the online journals that provide information where people can share their personal view on the online buying. Wikis help people to add or delete information and it is a database, which helps to keep records. The information can be compared with other information that is found on the other sites. The online sites help people to shop by the social media. In those sites, people get ideas about the products and the expense of those products. Examples of such online sites are Amazon, Flipkart, Myntraa and Ebay. Internet forum is the message board or bulletin board, where people share their interest of their chosen topic. It is the biggest online social media site. Various forum members take participation in the online debates and can seek help or provide advice. Content communities This is the combination of podcasts and the social networks. People can get limited facilities from the site like sharing or posting music, videos, photos or bookmarks. It is the mini version of blogs. It provides various facilities like sharing messages and gives personal opinion. Some examples of micro blogs are Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and Tinder. However, people can tweet in tweet in Twitter but the limit of the message is 140 characters. Purchase intention and customers attitude The concern of the customer to purchase a particular product and take a particular service is known as the customer purchase intention. This depends on the variables that are internal and external factors. The cue, which triggers the buyers approaches to consider a brand or a product that can be included in the consideration set. The main purpose is to attract the consumers towards the products and increase the brand value. The product or service might satisfy some inclination of the buyers. For example, luxury car, mobile phones and electronic materials can be listed in this. Various brands expect much from their customer that they will buy the new products and therefore the brand value will increase with the customer loyalty. According to Schivinski and Dabrowski (2016), some consumers have emotional contact with brands that is they prefer to buy products from that particular brand. This increase the customer loyalty and brand equity. Recommendation: The customers can buy product from the online shopping sites. However, they need to consult with the experts before shopping from the social networking sites, which will help them in their shopping. In present days, the customers have trust on the social networking sites to buy products. This can include e-commerce which is based on the internet trust. Hajli (2014) mentioned that the main target is the consumers and the web vendor. The web vendors can be surveyed to know the perspective of the consumers and it will be easier to know the percentage of trust on the social media. However, this has two sub parts: trust intention and trust beliefs. The trust beliefs include the customers belief on the products and services that is given by the web vendors. Trust intention is the intention or chance of the customers to buy the products or services online. Hinz, Schulze and Takac (2014) concerned that trust of the customers on the social media can affect the purchase intention and purchase perceive of the customers. Moreover, the trust in the social media for purchasing products can affect the offline purchasing and therefore the brands can be affected. Comparative judgment Before shopping, the consumers should perform comparative judgment that is, they needs to check various social media sites as different sites offer different discounts. Consumers should check the sites thoroughly and gain knowledge about the online shopping. Ngai, Tao and Moon (2015) mentioned that from the social media, the purchasing rate of products are various: 65%- fashion, 27%- intangible (computer software, electronic products) and 8% other products. On the other hand, people are influenced by the various social media sites in case of online shopping. Approximately 45 percent consumers prefer to select Instagram for the shopping purpose. 51% prefer Facebook, which owns the highest rate to influence people to buy products via online shopping (Forbes, 2013). People choose online sites as the sites offer branded products in low price and the sites are very much trust worthy. Some people use twitter as the tool of online shopping. However, the rate of such users is very less only 3 percent. Technology acceptance model: The technology acceptance model refers to the information system theory, which states the acceptance of the service and technology. This will help to identify the buying behavior of the customers and the benefits of the social networking sites. Hollebeek, Glynn and Brodie (2014) opined that TAM model can work as the communication tool and internet technology that will help to check the purchasing behavior of the customers. However, the employees need to have the basic knowledge of technology and computer usage so that they can use TAM properly. Before using the technology, the instruction of user guide should be followed. Questionnaire can be formed to check the online behavior. However, the technology acceptance model identifies very successfully the online behavior of the consumer. Influence of social media Social media influence refers to the description of the ability of an individual that affect the thinking of other people in the online social community. Ashley and Tuten (2015) mentioned social media influence as a marketing term. There are various tools that can measure the influence of the social media. One of such tool is Klout that provide numerical score on the basis of the online activity of the individuals. The numerical score ranges from 1 to 100. A survey can be done to check the activity of people on the social networking site. Goh, Heng and Lin (2013) opined that some people use the social networking sites just for time pass; some use those sites to buy or purchase the products or ideas. Hutter et al., (2013) argued that Klout can be used to check the online activity of people only on the twitter. Therefore, new technologies or software should be developed to check the online activity of people on the other sites also. Conclusion It can be concluded from the above discussion that people are influenced by the social media. They are attracted very much by the discount offers and attractive presentation of products. Different consumers use different social networking sites for the online shopping. Therefore, the social sites become very popular day by day. Various tools and technologies can be used to check the online activity of people. However, survey can be conducted within the customers and web vendors to check the purchasing rate of people. People need basic knowledge during using the technology acceptance model. Before purchasing products people do market research and compare the different sites to get the best offer and service. People need to have the knowledge of online shopping that the social networking sites provide. 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