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The purpose of this research is to better understand how social media marketing affects the consumers. So far the effects of social media marketing are still very hard to measure, and they have only been attempted from the business side, like the increase in sales, profits, and leads. But how exactly does social media marketing affect the perception of the consumers is a mystery.
The report’s goal is to answer that question.
The report will contain the methodology behind the project, presenting the overall structure, research approach, paradigm study, research purpose and limitations of the project.
Then the report will try and define social media and present its main channels. The link between social media and marketing will be made as clear as possible, and also the importance of these social media channels for marketing purposes. This will basically provide a basic understanding of the concepts that will be needed for the empirical analysis.
Some theoretical frameworks and concepts will be presented to give the report a strong foundation on which the practical analysis will be based on.
The empirical analysis will consist of analyzing a questionnaire designed to address the problem and also looking at a number of secondary data for a complete image of the phenomena.
In the end of the report, some reflections on this aspect will be presented, as well as some recommendations for companies that want to use social media for their marketing activities.
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Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 2
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 4
Problem Statement and Formulation ....................................................................................................... 4
Methodology ................................................................................................................................................. 5
Motivation of choice ................................................................................................................................. 5
Level of Ambition ...................................................................................................................................... 5
Research Purpose ..................................................................................................................................... 6
Research Approach ................................................................................................................................... 6
Research Benefit ....................................................................................................................................... 6
Research Strategy ..................................................................................................................................... 7
Data collection methods and techniques ................................................................................................. 7
Scientific ideals .......................................................................................................................................... 9
Mindset ................................................................................................................................................... 10
Limitations .............................................................................................................................................. 14
Theories, frameworks and concepts ........................................................................................................... 15
AIDA Model ............................................................................................................................................. 15
Brand Awareness .................................................................................................................................... 18
Buying Decision Making Process ............................................................................................................. 21
Social Media Marketing .............................................................................................................................. 25
What is Social Media? ............................................................................................................................. 25
What is Social Media Marketing? ........................................................................................................... 29
What is the impact of Social Media Marketing on consumers? ................................................................. 31
Reflections .................................................................................................................................................. 45
Conclusions ................................................................................................................................................. 46
References .................................................................................................................................................. 48
Appendices .................................................................................................................................................. 49
Appendix 1: Questionnaire – Impact of social media marketing on consumers .................................... 49
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The world today has changed a lot. The internet has opened the door to a wide range of possibilities that were considered science fiction just decades ago.
The emphasis today is on relationships, keeping in touch, making connections, getting informed.
Social media allows people all over the world to get in contact and share experiences, photos, videos (social networks, blogs, sharing websites) or simply communicate in real time with others.
Companies have started to see the potential of these new social media channels and it wasn’t long before they saw the potential for business.
Today most companies will admit that social media marketing does have an impact on their businesses. However, measuring this effect is not that easy and it has mostly been attempted from the business side, like the increase in sales and profits. What happens in the consumer’s mind when he comes in contact with social media marketing activities is still a mystery.
The main problem this report will address is the impact of social media marketing on the consumers.
The research questions that derive from this problem formulation are:
Which are the most trust-worthy social media channels?
How does social media affect a company’s image and to what extend?
What is the importance and impact of product feedback on social media channels?
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The main reason behind this project is that social media has grown a lot in the last years, and although companies agree that using it is becoming “a must”, it is still not clear what the impact of social media marketing on consumers is. There are a lot of articles stating that social media is good for your business, that consumers are more likely to trust each other than advertisements, but there is nothing solid. The fact that social media is still growing very fast, and the potential for business is pretty obvious, as well as the lack of research in this domain are the main reasons behind this project.
In terms of the ambitions for this research there are 2 options: normative or diagnostic.
The diagnostic approach focuses on the reasons behind an event. Why do things happen in this particular way?
The normative approach focuses on how things happen and provide recommendations at the end for companies to use according to the results. A normative research cannot be completed without also including the diagnostic approach. This is normal because in order to provide recommendations you need to understand how something happens and also the reasons behind it.
For this research the level of ambition will be normative as I will not only look at how and why social media affects consumers, but also provide some recommendations for companies to use.
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The purpose of the project is to better understand what happens in the consumer’s mind when he comes in contact with social media marketing. This understanding is very important because it gives a better picture on the potential of social media as a marketing front, and allows companies to adapt their social media presence to improve their business.
Measuring the exact impact of social media marketing is hard, and companies have only attempted it from their point of view, most often in terms of sales and profits. However from the consumer point of view, everything is very foggy.
The research approach can be either qualitative or quantitative.
The quantitative approach refers to data that can be quantified and analyzed using statistical methods. Deductive strategy is usually associated with quantitative approach.
The qualitative approach involves data that is collected in the form of interviews or words and is linked to the inductive strategy (Saunders et al 2009).
Although the questionnaire points to a quantitative approach, the fact that the purpose of it is exploratory and it deals with human behavior which is hard to quantify, the approach will be more qualitative.
Who will benefit this research?
Well, this research will provide an insight in the consumer’s mind, an insight which will be very useful to any company that is interested in social media as a marketing tool. Knowing how social media affects consumers, the impact of different social media channels, as well as the importance
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consumers attribute to each channel is crucial and can help shape a company’s social media presence.
Any company, that is either already using social media as a marketing instrument, or is starting to consider it, can use these results to improve their results. Of course, I do not expect the results to be taken for granted; no major company will do that, but it will serve as a guidance tool, make them consider the recommendations provided.
The main forms of research strategies are: experiments, surveys, case studies, action research, grounded theory, ethnography and archival research (Saunders et al 2009).
Which research strategy to use depends not only on the research questions but also on the objectives and the amount of time and other resources available (Saunders et al 2009).
For this research I will adopt the survey approach since I will be conducting an empirical analysis on the impact of social media on consumers. For this particular type of research, where the beneficiary can be multiple companies, and the target group are online users, social media users to be more precise, this research strategy is by far the best. It allows to target precisely the people I want to, and by launching the questionnaire on social media, I can be sure that all the people who answered are social media users.
In this part I will present the data collection methods I will be using for this research. The 2 main ways to collect data are quantitative and qualitative methods.
The quantitative methods are designed to allow the researcher to test a hypothesis (Kuada, 2011).
Questionnaires are the basic quantitative data collection instrument. They are a very structured and objective way of gathering the data needed, allowing to better understand the magnitude of an event, quantify and calculate the result, the factors that contribute to the result.
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But quantitative methods are not perfect. Although they allow data collection in a very objective manner, which is great for certain research purposes, they do not provide anything in terms of the reasons behind the choice. Quantitative data collection should be done when the goal is more conclusive.
Qualitative methods can represent a big variety of data collection methods: ethnography, participant observation, in-depth interviewing and conversational interviewing (Bryman and
Bell, 2011).
Qualitative research can be defined as “any type of research that produces findings, which is not arrived at by statistical procedures or any other means of qualification” (Strauss and Corbin,
1998:10-11). The three commonly used techniques to gather qualitative data are (Kuada, 2011):
1) Focus group
2) Observations
3) Qualitative interviews
Focus groups are basically group interviews. The researcher brings in a group of people, and presents the problem in question. A key factor to keep in mind here are the group dynamics. The researcher will most often not be in the same room, and just observe the group in the next room.
The “interviewer” has to have some training in order to allow the group to express freely. Some people may be shyer, others more dominant, and it’s the interviewer’s job to make sure that their personalities don’t interfere or alter their discussion.
Observations can be grouped in two main categories: participant and non-participant. The participant observer will go and be part of that environment, allowing him to experience the same things that his subjects will experience. This will allow him to see whether there are any factors that could influence his decision making. The non-participant will not interact or come in contact with his subjects. He is an outsider, observing and drawing conclusions based on what he sees. Observations usually require a lot of planning, time and effort to complete.
Qualitative interviews can either be highly formalized and structured or very informal and unstructured. In between these two are intermediate positions. Interviews may be categorized as,
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structured interviews, semi-structured interviews and unstructured or in-depth interviews
(Saunders et al, 2009, pg320).
For this research I will do an online questionnaire. It is the best choice for this type of research, because firstly it targets exactly the people I am interested in answering, thus saving a lot of time and resources, and secondly, it is objective and structured. By launching it on social media channels, I can be sure that all the respondents will be using social media. The questionnaire will consist of 20 questions, either with simple or with multiple answers. The first questions will be demographic, to better understand to target audience, while the following will be related to the subject, trying to discover the impact social media marketing has on the respondents. It is important to first get a basic understanding of the respondents internet habits, like average time online or which social media channels does he use and why. After that, the respondent will answer some questions that will enable me to see the influence of social media and marketing on these channels affects him.
The questionnaire used can be found in the annexes at the end of the project.
Based on Rossman and Wilson (1985), researchers can be grouped into three categories, depending on their views on reality: purists, situationalists and pragmatists.
Purists view the 2 different perspectives on reality: subjective and objective as mutually exclusive. This means that purists are either 100% subjective or 100% objective. This is a more radical view on reality.
Situationalists are more flexible in terms of their view. They consider that is crucial for a research to look at things both subjectively and objectively, because all things have different sides, interpretations and meanings. As a result, in order to get a deeper understanding of the phenomena, you have to combine the objective and subjective perspectives. Rather than looking at them mutually exclusive, the situationalists consider the 2 views as complementary.
Pragmatists are like the missing link between the purists and situationalists. They consider that the research dictates the perspective needed. The problem formulation, research questions,
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objectives will dictate which perspective to use. This means that for every research you must choose the appropriate perspective, whether it is objective, subjective or a combination.(Kuada
2011)
For this research, I will be positioning myself as a pragmatist. I will be using the best perspective for this particular problem formulation, objectives and resources available. I am talking about the objective perspective. If not for limitations (resources and time) I would have chosen a combination of objective and subjective approach.
To explain the mindset behind this research I will be using Abnor and Bjerke’s paradigms.
There are 3 main approaches: analytical, systems and actors.
Analytical Approach
“The analytical approach is characterized by the belief that reality is objective and independent of the observer. Objective reality in this regard is assumed to have a summative character, implying that the whole is the sum of its parts. Thus researchers can decompose an objective phenomenon that they investigate into its constituent parts and analyses each part separately.
They can then bring them together to build a total picture. Epistemologically, the ultimate presumption underlying an analytical approach is that knowledge is based on facts. The researcher can therefore adopt a neutral position in his study and distance himself from his respondents. In this way knowledge is independent of the individual’s subjective experience and can be generated by formal logic. Abnor and Bjerke’s analytical approach is similar to the functionalist paradigm identified in the other typologies introduced above.”(Kuada 2011)
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Analytical approach strengths
The approach is very objective, which can be very good in certain researches. It is based heavily on facts and a research following this approach is based usually on numerical data.
Analytical approach limitations
The analytical approach does not take in consideration the interactions or connections between individuals, companies or consumers. The approach views these links as irrelevant. As a result this approach is very objective and will overlook subjective aspects like the emotional factor.
Systems Approach
“In a “systems approach”, a social entity such as a group, an organization or a community is conceived as a system which consists of constituent elements. Between these elements relations exist. These relations can reflect the synergistic properties within an existing system.
Within a system various sub-systems may be distinguished. Each system has its specific characteristics, in terms of its constituent elements as well as its mutual relations. Researchers seek to find out how changes in one constituent element may change the other elements in the system.
Thus the systems approach in Abnor and Bjerke’s methodology assumes the existence of an
“objective” (or at least objectively accessible) reality that researchers consider to be their primary field of interest. It allows the researcher to focus his study on one or a combination of the following two issues:
1. Static structures of the system, and
2. Regular and nonregular processes .
Static structures are the fixed, stable characteristics in a social system. Processes, on the other hand, draw attention to the mechanisms that produce changes within the system and the patterns of changes that take place. The regular processes are those changes that are dynamic but evolutionary, while the non-regular processes refer to radical departures from existing patterns of thinking and behavior that may bring about total and swift changes within the system. Under conditions of radical change, knowledge is valid only for a short span of time and must therefore
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be subject to constant revision. Unlike the analytical approach that makes an implicit assumption of the environment as being stable and therefore highly predictable, the systems approach draws attention to the possible unpredictability of the context within which social actors are located.”(Kuada 2011)
Systems approach strengths
The emphasis on the connections between different people, groups or entities is very good, especially today, when the importance of relations and connections has grown. The view that the
“whole” can be more or less than the sum of its parts, depending on the strength and number of connections between its parts, is very good in some situations. For example a company can be viewed as the sum of its departments. However the connections and communication between these departments will eventually determine the real value of it.
Systems approach limitations
This approach does not “see” the actions of the company/individuals as a result of another action.
Therefor it does not take in considerations the learning aspect, actions based on other actions or interactions. It also fails to see the “whole” as a sum of its elements and sees it rather like the strength of its connections between the elements.
Actor Approach
“For Abnor and Bjerke, the actor approach differs very much from the previous two approaches outlined above. Researchers subscribing to this approach see reality as emerging from interactions between each individual’s own experiences and the experiences of others within his social community over a period of time. In other words, to them reality is socially constructed through continuous negotiations and sharing of meanings. Thus, the approach emphasizes concepts such as subjectivity, individual, and interaction . As social actors act, their actions produce results over which they may reflect and which guide their subsequent actions. Actions, counteractions, reflections and thoughts in turn combine to influence the ongoing process of their social developments. In Abnor and Bjerke’s view, reality is regarded in the actor approach as
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consisting of a number of “finite provinces of meaning” that are shared by a larger or smaller number of people.” (Kuada 2011)
Actors approach strengths
The approach is very subjective and takes in considerations human factors like emotions, reactions, impulses.
Actors approach limitations
This approach sees reality from a subjective point of view and does not offer an objective point of view. It focuses mainly on “actors” and how their interactions define reality but fails to see the importance of relations between groups or systems or the importance of analyzing reality objectively by dividing it in smaller parts.
For this research a suitable approach is the systems approach. The research purpose is to see how social media marketing influences consumers. What does it happen in the consumer’s mind when he sees negative feedback about a product? How strong is the relation between the consumer and the other person? It is clear that a key factor in this research is the connections and relationships between consumers. Some social media channels may provide a stronger connection between its members and may prove more trust worthy, others less.
The research can also be done using the actor’s approach. The approach does not consider important the relations or connections between individuals or groups, but it views actions like reactions to something else. This learning aspect is also very important for a research like this.
People want to buy something; they check a review site, see only negative feedback and react to it. What this reaction is, is not important, this view on reality is.
As a result the best approach for this research would be a combination of the systems and actors approach; Seeing the importance of the connections and relations between groups and individuals as well as looking at the impact of social media marketing as a series of reactions to somebody else’s action.
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It is important before presenting any recommendation or drawing any conclusion to have some limitations. Without limitation, the research would be overloaded and not doable.
The main limitations are resources and time.
Secondary data on this subject is not that easy to find, especially good data. The primary data will be gathered from an online questionnaire. I have no control over the people who answer it and it is hard to reach a very high number of respondents without outside help. However I will not have to worry about data cleaning, since all of the replies will be valid as the questionnaire was launched on social media channels (Facebook mainly).
The lack of past research on the subject, or better said the lack of good, trust-worthy research is also a great limitation, since there is no reference point to compare to.
A number of assumptions will be made throughout the project. Although this will reduce the overall quality of the report, they are necessary in order to complete it.
Because of this, the recommendations given will serve more as a guideline for future research.
Big companies can take these results and investigate further if they want.
This research is meant to be a first step in understanding the effects of social media marketing on consumers.
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When looking at what theories best fit social media marketing it is important to keep in mind the goal of it. When we talk about social media marketing we generally refer to 2 things: advertisements on social media channels or actually being involved and being a part of social media.
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Advertisements on social media channels
This means a company who may or may not have any relation with social media pays to have its advertisements, placed on social media channels. The goal of this marketing approach is to have the targeted group to click the advertisement and ultimately purchase the product. The fact that social media advertisements allow for targeted ads means the banner/image/clip will only appear to people that fir certain criteria (gender/location/certain interests). For example a company selling golf equipment in Denmark can easily have its advertisements placed so that only people from Denmark who have Golf as their hobby or interest. The company doesn’t have to have a social media presence. It simply pays a particular channel to display its advertisements.
The best framework that fits this type of social media marketing is the AIDA model.
The name AIDA stands for Attraction (Attention) – Interest – Desire – Action. The entire social media marketing strategies based on paid advertisements are based on this model, because it simply explains the best way to get someone to buy your product or service. A more complete version of AIDA is AIDCA which has Conviction in between Desire and Action. This is because today most advertisements can be misleading and provide false information so customers will want to get some evidence.
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Attraction
It was discovered that it takes less than a second for a web user to determine whether he likes a web-page or not. The point is that because we are bombarded with this much advertising, we learned to judge very quickly whether we find something attractive or not. Different color usage, fonts, animated content; they have all been tested and tried out. You need to get the users attention with anything you have. The great part is that you can test out different strategies and see which works best for your type of page, product … This is even more important as most of the time you will have a limited amount of space available. The creativity of the marketing team will come in handy at this stage. The good part is that most companies already know a bit about how to attract from the offline marketing. However the possibilities are far greater online.
Interest
Ok, so somehow you got some of the people to click the advertisement. The challenging question now is how you get them to spend their time and get informed more about the product/company/service… The key thing to remember here is that different people have different interests so for example if you have a website on plants, some may be interested in tropical plants, others in small house plants and so on. This means you need to have a structure so it is easy for people to find what they are interested in. Having a well-structured website is essential. Tabs, headlines, categories, breaking the text up in smaller chunks, using different colors and fonts* (never use more than 3-4 or more than 2-3 fonts max for text or it will have an unprofessional look ) are some ideas. The main thing to consider here is that you already got someone to visit your website. At this stage a well-designed website would be enough to maintain interest.
Desire
This stage is linked with interest. The more interested someone is in something the more he wants to have it. There are different ways to make something desirable but the key thing here is to make the product/service/ … the perfect choice for their needs. So it is important it is specified
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what needs, the product will satisfy once someone buys it. Of course marketing will often require exaggerating these needs but it is important to do so without being seen as lies or overdoing it.
Again the online world offers ample possibilities ranging from videos to very interactive concepts (visitors able to customize their own car 3D …).
Conviction
Some consumers are more skeptical than others, so for example when they read about a new laptop or smartphone, they need physical evidence to back up what they’ve read. Even if the product is desirable and they want it badly, they will first need some evidence that in fact the product does what it says. Provide as much data possible, reviews, videos to give them the evidence needed. This conviction stage is closely linked with social media as most people will want to look for feedback from other people who bought the same product. This feedback can either strengthen or weaken their conviction. Companies should always keep an eye out for what people talk about them on social media, even if they do not use it. If they see people giving negative feedback they not only know what to adjust without any market research, but can take the necessary measures to ensure the negative feedback is either contained or dealt with.
Action
After people have convinced themselves that the product is good and it will suit their needs, they will take action. Action can mean anything from sales, to promoting or signing up for something.
It is important to have the tools set up so that people can take action. For example if you have a company selling baby diapers but you have no option to order online, then all those people that wanted to get those diapers will have nowhere to get them. So you have wasted money for advertisements, as well as potential clients. It is vital to allow people to take the action, otherwise you’ve wasted all the other steps.
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2.
Social Media Presence and Contribution
This refers to a company actually getting involved with social media. For example if we are referring to Facebook, creating different pages for each country or for each product where people can discuss and share opinions. Holding small contests to motivate people to share and keep and active community is an idea. Having a YouTube channel with video reviews of their products or showing how they are made or how to use them. The base line is that the company actively gets involved in the social media channels. If the social media advertisements goal was increased sales, the main goal in this case is to increase brand awareness.
So, a friend of mine buys a new Samsung Galaxy S3 and is very happy with it, posting some images and some comments showing his enthusiasm. This is marketing. Unwillingly, I form an image of the product and brand, even if I have previously no contact with it. I am becoming aware of the brand and the fact that it produces that smartphone. This means that in the future, if
I will ever consider buying a smartphone I will also consider this option.
According to Stelzner (2012), brand exposure is the number one benefit of using social media marketing. People using social media will come in contact with at some point with someone posting a comment about a certain product or a video or image about a product. When this happens, they become aware of that particular brand and product even if they do not pay attention to it. The more channels a company uses, the more visible the brand will be online. This exposure is vital for new products or brands. Without it, the launch will fail. Brand Exposure is the first stage in developing a relationship with the brand and maybe becoming a loyal customer.
The possibilities are vast. Companies can have a different Facebook pages for each product where people can share their feedback. Contests can be organized giving away a number of those particular products. These contests, where in order to participate you must share and like the page, are a superb way to drastically increase the brand exposure. In the same way, the company can have its own YouTube channel and have a separate video for each product, either explaining how to use it, or how to make or simply showing it and what it can do.
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Figure 1: Social Media Marketing Benefits
Source: Stelzner, 2012.
Although the results of increasing brand awareness and exposure cannot be translated immediately in sales like the social media advertisement results, they provide the company with long-term results. People knowing a particular brand over others will tend to favor it. The basic mindset is simple. For example if given a choice between Coca-Cola and a potentially better soda from a brand you have never heard, you will always choose Coca-Cola because it is worldwide famous, people know about it, you probably know about it. Although this example is highly exaggerated it is meant to illustrate the importance of getting people in contact with your brand.
Since increasing Brand Awareness is the main goal of social media marketing, it is important to know whether a company reached its goal or not. But how can you measure brand awareness?
To answer this question we need to take a look at the lead generation funnel presented according to Nichole K. (2010).
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Figure 2: Lead generation funnel
Source: Nichole K., 2010.
The main 3 components of brand awareness are: exposure, influence and engagement. So in order to measure brand awareness you must measure these 3 components.
Exposure: Social media exposure refers to the number of people that can be reached with a particular message/post/page. A more simple definition would be the number of people that come in contact with the brand while using social media. Measuring social media exposure is not easy. The main reason is because it is hard to know the exact number of unique visitors.
Measuring it generally means counting the number of subscribers, views, followers or even brand mentions.
Influence: The social media influence is a very subjective study. It is closely related to engagement and represents the perspective which can either be positive, negative or neutral.
Measuring it is done manually because of its subjective nature.
Engagement: Measuring social media engagement is pretty easy and usually means the number of shares, replies, posts and comments.
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To understand how consumers behave when they come in contact with social media marketing it is important to understand the process of making a buying decision. Although the consumer behavior literature has several variations on these steps they all present the basic steps:
Need Recognition (Perceiving a need)
The person has become aware of a need. A need can appear from a variety of reasons, like a change of lifestyle. Of course companies have become masters at making you believe you have a new need for their new products. In any case at this stage, a person is becoming aware that he has a need. It can be something as simple as noticing an empty egg carton that triggers the need perception. When we are talking about social media, people can easily perceive as a need different products that their friends are using, or sharing, or talking about. For example, someone who doesn’t have a smartphone and up until now didn’t need it, can start feeling the need as he sees his friends posting different things from their phones, sharing their adventures as they happen.
Information Search (Seeking Value)
Once a person is aware that they have a need, they will begin to start looking for information.
Most consumer behavior books agree that there are 2 steps when a person is looking for information. An internal search which means looking back at similar purchases or experience with the same product. This is usually enough for repetitive purchases or small value products like food. The external search is done when the internal search is not enough, when the value of the purchase is big, when the risk of making a bad decision is great and the consequences of the bad decision are bad or long-term. The main sources for external information are: personal sources (friends, family), public sources or marketing-dominated sources (advertisements, website ..)
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When we refer to social media, it is easy to see why other people’s opinions and experiences provide valuable external information to aid their decision making process. Also because we also may know, or have come in contact with some of the people that provided the information, we tend to be more trustful. Because social media is so “social”, it is easy to understand why people are starting to look for external information about products on these channels.
Alternative Evaluation (Assessing Value)
At this stage the consumer knows he has a need and has enough information about it to start looking for alternatives. Brand Awareness from social media is very important because if the person doesn’t know a particular brand it is pretty obvious he won’t consider it as an option. In much the same way, if a person comes in contact with a brand regularly he would be more likely to consider it an option. This stage involves choosing several alternatives based on some criteria that the person finds important. Although most of the times we may not do this consciously, we will always look at the alternatives through the prism of these criteria, which can be very subjective. The brand image plays a vital role here. Having the brand image to coincide with the person’s image of themselves is a huge bonus for that option.
Purchasing Decision (Buying Value)
The person has decided one of 2 things: either he buys or he doesn’t. If he decided to buy the best option he saw then there are 2 questions to answer: When and from who? This depends on many things like: the pressure of the purchase, return policy of the store, terms of sale, store atmosphere, past experience. At this stage social media is of no use. The person has decided what to buy, when and from who. He will not go on social media to buy it, he will most likely go to the company’s website directly and buy it or go to the shop if we are talking about offline shopping.
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Post-purchase Evaluation (Value in Consumption)
After the person has bought a product, he compares it to his expectations and forms an opinion.
He is either satisfied or dissatisfied. This experience is now stored in his mind for future reference, so this will be used as internal information if any future decision making process.
This post-purchase evaluation holds a very significant role in the social media marketing context.
Because of the fact that using social media, the whole world can see this post-purchase evaluation and furthermore, people are seriously considering it as a safe external source of information in their own decision making process. This post-purchase evaluation sharing on a global scale using social media completely changes the way companies use marketing.
If until several years ago, it could influence his own decision and his friends or family’s, now his feedback can literally influence the world. This fact poses serious challenges to marketers.
There are cases where companies where forced to hold press meetings to explain/ apologize as a result of one man’s negative feedback on social media. This is a nightmare for any company and this is why most big companies constantly monitor the social media channels. Of course when you are dealing with a world famous brand or product you will almost always find some negative feedback and opinions. It is perfectly normal. The secret is to contain it, or to confront it.
But even though the social media feedback can have devastating consequences, it can also have huge benefits. The best thing is it encourages companies to build better products. By doing so, the people will basically do the marketing themselves for the company. This is a huge bonus as it saves a lot of time and money, plus it increases sales and increases the trust level. People will be far more willing to believe what other people are saying about a product than the advertisements for it. Imagine someone wanting to buy a Samsung Galaxy S3. He has no idea about the product itself. He knows the brand and the features of the product and he knows some of his friends are using it, so he looks at some reviews to see what people say. He sees that from 1000 reviews, about 85% gave the product 5 stars. This immediately tells him that the product is good; a lot of people bought it, tried it out and are happy with their purchase. The people did all the marketing for the company.
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This post-purchase evaluation is crucial in this research because we will look at how exactly this feedback affects the consumer behavior of other people. What happens when people see positive feedback ? What happens when they see negative feedback ? How does the amount of feedback or the ratio of positive/negative affect consumers ?
We will try and answer these questions later on this report. At this stage it is important to understand the concept of post-purchase evaluation and its connection to social media marketing.
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When it comes to buying products or services, people will be more willing to trust others that have bought it and tried it before. Up until some time ago, this experience sharing was only done using word of mouth. However with the expansion of the Internet, people have begun to share their experience and knowledge online.
Social Media Marketing is very different from regular marketing mainly because the control is shifted dramatically towards the consumer. The company has very little control over what people talk about. This is very important because the consumers are aware of this and are willing to be more trustful if they see others have been in their shoes before.
In this chapter I will present the concept of social media marketing, explain what social media is and present its channels.
Social media basically means sharing pictures, videos, thoughts, experiences with each other.
People have been doing this in real life forever through word of mouth. If you take out the physical geographical limitation of this experience sharing by placing it online then you get the whole world to participate. So you could say that social media is a global sharing of experience, images, videos …
A more sophisticated definition of social media is given by Evans (2008) which refers to social media as a user generated conversation on a particular subject between persons, based on sharing experiences and thoughts.
A key characteristic of social media is that it is dynamic. Social media evolves every day. The main reason is that people make social media. They always add more information and content or change the existing one. Also social media evolves as the technology evolves. New platforms are emerging all the time, allowing for more possibilities to share things.
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Also the rate of which social media is growing is amazing. To get an idea of how fast it is growing look at the table below:
Radio
TV
Internet
Ipod
Facebook
Years it took to reach a target audience of 50 million
38 years
13 years
4 years
3 years
2 years
Also if we look at the distribution of the time spent online each week it is easy to see social media is on the rise.
Figure 3: Average hours spend online/week
Source: Hubspot, 2012
People spend on average 4.6 hours doing social activities online per week. It is obvious from the graph that this is the number one activity based on the average number of hours spend doing it per week.
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Ok, now that it is clear what social media is and that it is growing; we need to establish which are the different social media channels. Because there are so many channels today I will present a more simple presentation of them based on their purpose.
Figure 4: Social Media Landscape 2012
Source: Cavazza, 2012.
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Fred Cavazza has drawn this social media landscape every year and this is the latest creation. It groups the different channels in families:
Publishing: They provide a platform where people can publish articles on different subjects. The customization level offered is very high.
Sharing: They offer a platform where people can share content. This can be either music, videos, images, bookmarks, links or documents.
Playing: They offer platforms which allow people to play different games.
Networking: They provide a platform where people can make connections and keep in touch.
Buying: They provide a customer intelligence platform where people can share their experience or feedback on certain products.
Localization:
Platforms where people can see different localization data: city guides, events …
The core is formed by Facebook, Twitter and Google+ because they are the most used and provides a very wide variety of possibilities and cannot be classified in just one family.
Although the classification superbly represents the social media landscape of today, it is not clear enough for the purpose of this project. As a result, based on the above classification, with the goal of the project in mind I will make a new classification of the social media channels. I will only include the channels that are relevant for this research.
Social Networks
Forums
Blogs
Media Sharing
Social Bookmarking
Social Media Channels
Facebook, MySpace, Google+, Linkedln …
Yahoo Groups …
Blogger, WordPress, Twitter
YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, Slideshare
Digg, Reddit, Google Reader
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Given the growth rate of social media it is perfectly understandable why companies began to see how they can use it for marketing purposes. However marketing on social media channels is very different than regular marketing. The main reason is that social media marketing is marketing that focuses on people, not products (Diamond, 2008). People make the marketing with their opinions and feedback. This single fact makes social media marketing a potential nightmare for companies simply because they have very little or no control at all over what people say. This is completely new for marketers as in regular marketing they had full control. If years ago negative feedback was usually spread by word of mouth to several relatives which wouldn’t affect the company that much, now negative feedback can spread worldwide in just several minutes and have potentially catastrophic consequences for the company.
This feedback transmitted through social media is now a main factor in influencing the consumer behavior (awareness, opinions, attitudes, purchase decision). Today, whenever they have to make an important purchase, people will try and find information about the brands and products, but also look for opinions and feedback from others who have bought the product.
The normal buying decision making process has several steps:
Need Recognition
↓
Information Search
↓
Evaluation of Alternatives
↓
Purchase
↓
Post-Purchase Evaluation
The key step I would like to highlight is the post-purchase evaluation. Up until some years ago, post-purchase evaluation meant forming an opinion on the product you bought and sharing it
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with your friends and family. With the emerging of social media, post-purchase evaluation took a drastic turn and now means sharing your opinions with the world. Ok, great, but why is this important? Because now, this post-purchase evaluation has become a crucial factor in the buying decision making process and can directly influence it in its early stages. And if until recently, the post-evaluation could only influence your friends, now it can influence the whole world. This simple fact that one person’s post-purchase evaluation can influence basically the whole world is enough to be a nightmare for marketers. Companies now have to monitor what people are saying or discussing on social media. In extreme situations, the company can even call a press conference to clear out the problem. Of course, with big companies there will always be some negative feedback. It is inevitable. But the key is to maintain it and prevent it to go viral and influence others. Even when you look at some reviews on Amazon, you generally expect to see some bad things as well. It may even be surprising to see only positive feedback.
Ok, so the post-evaluation plays a crucial role in social media marketing. But how do the different channels affect it?
For every business using Social Media Marketing, the challenge is to find on which Social Media channels its audience and customers spend their time and hold conversations (Evans, 2010). This is basic since there is no point in having a Facebook page for example if your target doesn’t use
Facebook. The good thing about the online environment is that you can get access to a lot of data. Who visited your site/page? For how long? Where did he come from? Where did he go?
Which links did he used to go? What pages did he read? This are essential questions for social media marketing but the real amazing fact is that with social media you can also get access to targeted marketing. Imagine a company making lipstick. Normal marketing or even most forms of online marketing have little control over who sees it. But with social media, you can make sure that only your target audience sees it. This saves a lot of time and money for companies.
To sum it up, social media marketing is a completely new and different form of marketing. The sharing and opinions is not globalized. This means less control over it which presents unique new opportunities as well as challenges for marketers.
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In this chapter I will try and answer this question, following the methodology and using the theories presented earlier in the project.
To answer this question we will analyze the data from the questionnaire I sent out. For a more complete view, I will also use some secondary data from other surveys. This will provide a more complete view of the impact of Social Media Marketing on consumers.
The questionnaire was online for 3 weeks and was distributed only on social media channels. As a result all answers belong to people who use some type of social media. It was designed using
Google Docs. The questionnaire can be found in annexes.
A total of 90 answered the questionnaire. Because the number of respondents is pretty low, the findings should be used as a guideline for future research.
The data was analyzed using SPSS and because some questions allowed multiple answers, some recoding was needed.
Let’s look at the demographics to understand better who the respondents are.
Figure 5: Gender distribution of the respondents
57%
43%
Female
Male
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Figure 6: Age distribution of the respondents
30,0
25,0
20,0
15,0
10,0
5,0
0,0
Under
18
18 - 23 24 - 29 30 - 35 36 - 41 42 - 47 54 - 59
Figure 7: Marital status distribution of the respondents
50%
27%
23%
In a relationship
Married
Single
Figure 8: Ethnicity distribution of the respondents
Asian
17% 17%
10%
56%
Black or African-
American
Caucasian white
Hispanic or Latino
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We can clearly see from the charts above that 57% of the respondents were males. The dominant age group is 24 - 29 years. Most of them are Caucasian white people and they are single from a marital status point of view. No one over 60 years has answered the questionnaire to in some tables for the sake of a cleaner look the over 60 years column is gone since it was 0, but there was the option in the questionnaire.
Now let’s look at how much time they spent online.
Figure 9: Average number of hours spent online per day
15
10
5
0
35
30
25
20
Under 1 hour
1 - 2 hours
2 - 3 hours
3 - 4 hours
4 - 5 hours
5 - 6 hours
More than 6 hours
Over 35% of the respondents spend more than 6 hours online. It is easier for people to tell how much time they spent online each day rather than each week. This allows for a more accurate understanding and research. People may find it difficult to estimate the weakly hours they spend online.
Following the same reason, people may find it difficult to estimate how much they spent on social media channels each day. Because this question has already been answered by much more complex surveys, I will analyze it from there rather than have it in my questionnaire.
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Figure 10: Age distribution on time spent using social media each week
Source: A. Stelzner 2012
“People aged 20 to 29 years spend more time than other age groups using social media marketing
(with 43% spending 11+ hours weekly, up from 41% in 2011), followed by 30- to 39-year-olds
(35% spending 11+ hours per week, down from 37% in 2011)” (Stelzner 2012)
The majority of people spent 1 to5 hours each week using social media. However it is clear that that the age group ratio changes with the number of hours. The percentage of young people using
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social media for more than 30 hours each week is considerably larger than the older ones, unlike the case for 1-5 or 6-10 hours.
Let’s take a look at what kind of social media tools the people are using.
Figure 11: Most common social media tools
Virtual Worlds
Forums
Blogs
Reddit
Digg
Flickr
YouTube
Skype
Twitter
Facebook
0,0 10,0 20,0 30,0 40,0 50,0 60,0 70,0 80,0 90,0 100,0
Over 90% of the respondents are using YouTube, followed by slightly over 85% using
Facebook. Approximately 80% of them are a part or using forums, while about 76% are using
Skype. Blogs follow with over 60% of people reading them. Only 30% of them are using
Twitter, while Flickr, Reddit, Digg and Virtual Worlds are used by less than 20% each.
The real surprise is that only 30% of the respondents said they are using Twitter. This can easily be attributed to the low number of people who took the questionnaire.
For a more complete image we will also look at the most commonly used social media tools according to Stelzner (2012).
His research is more complete and because the number of respondents was considerably larger, the results are also more accurate.
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Figure 12: Commonly used social media tools
Source: Stelzner 2012
92% of the people said they were using Facebook, followed by 82% using Twitter, 73%
Linkedln, 61% Blogs and only 57% YouTube.
Some of the results contradict themselves like the percentage of people using YouTube, Twitter and Forums. In the case of YouTube the answer could be simple. In my case I only asked whether they were using it and not necessarily posting videos themselves. For forums again I asked only if they used them, not necessarily be a part of some. People may use forums for information, but they may not actively participate in them. The Twitter contradiction is probably due to the low number of respondents that took my questionnaire.
In any case it is pretty clear that most of them are using Facebook.
An important question may not only be which social media tools are they using, since like the case of Google+, social media platforms emerge all the time, but why ?
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Figure 13: Why do you use social media ?
93.3 % 93.3 %
76.7 % 73.3 %
11 %
33.3 %
13.3 %
The main reasons people use social media is to keep in touch with friends and family and to discover new things (movies, books, products, brands …). Meeting new people and sharing photos, images, music and clips with their friends follow up closely as important reasons for using social media. Amazingly a very low percentage is also using social media to promote a business. 33% of them are using it to make professional and business contacts. Combined however, about 50% of the people are also using social media for business purposes.
Figure 14: What do people feel about advertisements on social media channels?
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Very useful Somewhat useful
Indiferent Somewhat annoying
Very annoying
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As expected their reaction towards advertising on social media channels is not that great. Most of them (nearly 60%) consider these advertisements somewhat annoying. About 20% are indifferent while 10% consider them very annoying.
Figure 15: How many have purchased anything based on a social media advertisement ?
23%
77%
No
Yes
Although only about 5% consider the advertisements useful, 23% of the people who answered said that they have bought something as a result of a social media advertisement.
Figure 16: Have you purchased anything based on a social media advertisement crossed with age
Above 60
54 - 59
42 - 47
36 - 41
30 - 35
24 - 29
18 - 23
Under 18
0 5 10 15 20
Yes
No
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If we also look at the age distribution, we can clearly see that up to 18 years, the younger people are, the more likely it is to buy things as a result of social media advertisements. No one above
42 years or under 18 years has bought anything as a result of a social media ad.
But social media marketing is far more than the advertisements placed on these channels. So let’s see how many use social media to get information about companies, brands or products.
Figure 17: Frequency of using social media for information on products
10%
44%
23%
23%
Frequently
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Only 23% said they never used social media to get information about a product/brand/company at any given time. Even more amazing, only 23% said they use social media rarely for this purpose which means 54% use it quite frequent. Only 10% said they use social media for this purpose frequently.
So now we know people are using social media for information about products, brands and companies.
But where would people go to see what others think about a given product, brand or company ?
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40,0
35,0
30,0
25,0
20,0
15,0
10,0
5,0
0,0
Figure 18: Preferred choice for finding opinions about products
80,0
70,0
60,0
50,0
40,0
30,0
20,0
10,0
0,0
Blogs Facebook Forums Other Yotube
An overwhelming majority (over 70%) have chosen forums as the preferred choice for checking others opinions on products, brands or companies. Facebook, Blogs and YouTube have been chosen by less than 10% of the respondents each. The question was meant to identify the particular channels people find more relevant for finding other people’s feedback.
Figure 19: Most trust worthy social media channel
Blogs Facebook Forums Review sites Youtube I do not consider the information from these sites relevant
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To make it clear, review sites are basically forums. Each page is a different product usually where people can leave their feedback. What this means is people trust these review sites the most. When combined with the graph above, it is clear that the most trust worthy social media channel are the forums and review websites.
So people will be more willing to prioritize the information and suggestion found on forums and review sites than other social media channels. This is very important from a business perspective because companies know where to press on and focus.
But how would feedback found on these channels affect a consumer? Particularly how will it affect his image of a company/product?
Figure 20: Negative feedback impact on company/product image
59.4 %
16.7 %
I would change my image of the company/product according to what people say
20.6 %
3.3 %
I would do more research and start to doubt the company/product
With some small doubts, i will still maintain my own image of the company/product
I wouldn't change my image of a company/product based on what other people say
According to the graph, if they saw negative feedback on social media channels, almost 17% would change their image accordingly. 59.4% would do more research themselves, while starting to have doubts. 20.6% would maintain their own image, while starting to have some minor doubts. Only 3.3% said that they wouldn’t change their image of a company or product according to what others say. This basically means that negative feedback on social media channels affects 96.7% of the respondents in various ways. This is very significant as it clearly shows the impact of negative feedback on consumers and the catastrophic consequences this might have for a company if ignored.
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Another interesting way of looking at the impact of social media marketing on consumers is to see how a specialized social media channel like a forum on a particular topic would influence their decision to buy.
Figure 21: Importance of social media recommendations
53.3 %
33.3 %
13.3 %
Yes i would I would consider the recommendation and do more research about it
No, i wouldn't
Only 13.3% would stick to their original idea and would ignore the recommendation given. 1/3 of all the respondents said straight on that they would buy the recommended brand for that product. More than half (53.3%) said that they would consider the recommendation and do more research themselves. This again proves the high impact of social media marketing on the consumer’s decision to buy a product or a brand. An overwhelming 86.6% basically agreed that the recommendation given by a focused forum for example would make them to at least consider it (53.3%) or to directly buy it (33.3%).
From Stelzner 2012 the main benefit for using social media marketing was increased brand awareness. Because this aspect has already been clarified by a more complete research I approached it from a different angle. I asked them how many new brands or products they previously had no contact with, have they discovered.
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Figure 22: Brand awareness levels
33.3 % 33.3 %
16.7 % 16.7 %
None A few Some A lot
16.7% said that they have not discovered any new brand/product while using social media. This means that the rest of 83.3% have. However the actual percentage is probably higher because some people may not even realize they know a particular brand or product from social media.
Therefor this question is meant to give an idea about the actual brand awareness phenomena from the consumer’s perspective.
Figure 23: Targeted advertisements opinion
60.0 %
26.7 %
13.3 %
It's better, because at least i get relevant advertisements
I don't really care It's worse, because they have access to my personal data
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When asked how they felt about advertisements according to their profile 60% said they don’t really care. Only 13.3% believe it is worse because it is clear they have access to their private data. More than ¼ actually think it is better because the advertisements will be there anyway; this way at least they get relevant ads. The fact that most social media platforms offer targeted advertisements, is a huge bonus for companies who can now target their own target groups. From a marketing perspective this is a huge plus for any marketing activity and now, from the consumer’s perspective it is pretty clear most of them don’t care about the targeting aspect.
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In this part I will present some things to consider while looking at this research and the conclusions that will follow.
First of all, because of the low number of respondents, the conclusions that derive from this research should only be used as guidelines. The research is meant to give an insight in the consumer’s mind when he comes in contact with social media marketing. For a better understanding of the phenomena, companies willing to investigate more can do a more complete research since they have more resources than I have available. The idea of this research was that it should be used as a foundation for future research.
Secondly, the questionnaire and the research didn’t contain Google+. The main reason behind the decision to leave it out was that Facebook is clearly used by more people, Google+ although is catching up, is still a “new-comer” and they are both social networks. The motives for using
Facebook and Google+ would have been similar, as well as the respondents reaction to marketing activities. For the reasons above mentioned and because the purpose was not to see which social media tools are most used or preferred, Google+ does not appear in the questionnaire.
The questionnaire could have had more questions for a better understanding, but even with 20 questions, the feedback left by the respondents clearly indicated that more than 20 questions would have meant random data from bored people wanting to finish it faster; therefore being a waste of time for both me and them.
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The main reasons people use social media is to keep in touch with friends and family and to discover new things (books, products, movies, videos, images …). Almost all of them (93.3%) chose these 2 reasons for using social media. Meeting new people comes after with 76.7% of votes and sharing photos, videos and other media with 73.3% follow. Surprisingly, only 33.3% said they also use social media to make business contacts while only 13.3% said they were using social media to promote a business.
Predictably, more than 60% consider advertisements on social media channels annoying.
However almost ¼ of the respondents said they bought something as a result of a social media advertisement.
When it comes to using social media to get information about products, brands or companies, only 23% said they never use social media for this. This means that the rest of 77% uses these channels to get information about products.
Forums are the preferred choice when it comes to finding out what other people think about a certain product. More than 70% of the people chose forums. They also consider forums, along with specialized review sites the most trust-worthy in terms of accuracy of the information they provide. A little over half chose either forums or review sites as being trust-worthy. About 17% still consider that social media channels are not trust worthy in terms of the accuracy of the information they provide.
How does negative feedback influence the consumer’s image of the product/company/brand?
96.7% of the people said that negative feedback affects their image of the product/company/brand to various degrees. 16.7% said that they would change their image of the company according to what others say, while almost 60% said that negative feedback would make them doubt the product/company/brand and do more research. This clearly shows the high impact of social media on consumers.
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It is also important to see how positive feedback influences the consumers. When asked if they would consider buying a recommended brand from a specialized social media channels like a forum, when they already planned on buying a product, 1/3 said they would buy the recommended brand, while 50% said they would consider the recommendation and do more research themselves. Only 13.3% said that they would ignore the recommendation all together.
From a business perspective, the main benefit of social media marketing is increased brand awareness. My research and findings also backs it up. 83.3% of the people who answered the questionnaire said that they had found out about new brands/products, which they had previously no contact with. The main advantage of using social media advertising is that it allows marketers to target precisely who they want. For example a company making clothes for young males can easily choose to show their advertisement only to males in between a certain age group. This saves a lot of time and money for the company. From this research it appears that targeted advertisements don’t have a significant impact on consumers. Most of them don’t care about the fact that they are based on their profile. Just over ¼ actually think it’s better because they get relevant advertisements at least.
It is clear from these findings that social media marketing does have a significant influence on consumers.
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1.
Alan Bryman, Emma Bell, 2011 “ Business Research Methods 3e “
2.
Brogan C. 2010, “
Social Media 101: Tactics and Tips to develop your business online
”,
Wiley Publishing Inc., New Jersey, United States.
3.
Creswell, JW. (2003), “ Research Design: Qualitative and Quantitative and Mixed-
Method Approaches
“. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
4.
Evans, D. 2008, “
Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day
”, Wiley Publishing Inc.,
Indiana, United States.
5.
Evans, L.L. 2011, “ Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Engaging in Facebook,
Twitter and Other Social Media
”, QUE Publishing, Indiana, United States.
6.
Kuada 2011, “
Research Methodolog
“,Aalborg Denmark
7.
Mark N. K. Saunders, Philip Lewis, Adrian Thornhill, 2009, “ Research Methods for
Business Students
“
8.
Nichole, K. 2010, “
4 ways to Measure Social Media and Its Impact on Your Brand
”
9.
Stelzner, M.A. 2012, “ 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report: How marketers are using Social Media to grow their businesses
”
10.
Wayne D. Hoyer, Deborah J. Macinnis, Deborah J. MacInnis 2008, “ Consumer
Behavior
“
11.
www.Fredcavazza.net – Social media landscape, last accessed on 25.11.2012
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Please specify your gender
Male
Female
Please specify your age
Under 18
18 - 23
24 - 29
30 - 35
36 - 41
42 - 47
48 - 53
54 - 59
Above 60
What is your race/ethnicity
Caucasian white
Asian
Black or African-American
Hispanic or Latino
American Indian
Please specify your marital status
Single
In a relationship
Married
Divorced
Other
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How many hours do you spend online each day?
0-1
1-2
2-3
3-4
4-5
5-6
More than 6 hours
Which of the following social media tools do you use/read ?
Facebook
Twitter
Youtube
Linkedln
Skype
Digg
Flickr
Reddit
Blogs
Forums
Virtual Worlds (Sims, Wow, ..)
Why do you use these social media tools?
To keep in touch with friends and family
To meet new people
To make professional and business contacts
To share photos, videos and music
To play games
To discover new things like music, books, films, events
To find and share information about brands and products
To promote a business
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How do you feel about advertising on social media channels?
Very annoying
Somewhat annoying
Indifferent
Somewhat useful
Very useful
Have you ever purchased a product or service based on an advertisement on a social media channel?
Yes
No
In comparison to other online advertising, social media advertising is
Much more effective
More effective
As effective
Less effective
Much less effective
How often do you use social media tools to obtain information about products and services?
Frequently
Sometimes
Rarely
Never
Companies that use social media tools to interact with their customers are more likely to have a significant competitive advantage over those that do not?
Strongly agree
Somewhat agree
Neither agree nor disagree
Somewhat disagree
Strongly disagree
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If you were looking for information about a particular product/brand where would you look first?
Facebook
Youtube
Blogs
Forums
Official product/brand website
Other
If you have decided on buying a new product and you look on some reviews or opinions on youtube/blogs/facebook/forums and they all provide a negative feedback, would you still buy it?
Yes
Yes, but i would have some doubts which i will ask the salesman
No, i would have serious doubts and do more research first
No
If you would like to see what people think about a certain product where would you go?
Yotube
Facebook
Blogs
Forums
Other
Which of these social media channels do you consider the most trust worthy in terms of the accuracy of the information about products or services?
Facebook
Youtube
Forums
Blogs
Review sites
I do not consider the information from these sites relevant
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How would negative feedback on social media channels affect your image of a company or product?
I would change my image of the company/product according to what people say
I would do more research and start to doubt the company/product
With some small doubts, i will still maintain my own image of the company/product
I wouldn't change my image of a company/product based on what other people say
If you plan on buying a new product and you go to a product related forum/blog where people are recommending a particular brand would you buy the recommended one instead of your choice?
Yes i would
I would consider the recommendation and do more research about it
No, i wouldn't
How many brands/products/services that you previously had no contact with, have you discovered while using social media?
None
A few
Some
A lot
How do you feel about social media targeted advertisements (according to your profile)?
It's better, because at least i get relevant advertisements
I don't really care
It's worse, because they have access to my personal data
53