Marketing products on social media
Posted by Frances van den Berg on 14 Jan 2009 | Tagged as: Social Media
After reading Paul Jahn’s article about how he decided to buy a camera after he received a reply from Kodak’s chief blogger, I decided to do some social media product searching of my own to see if it would influence my decision to buy a product. As you know, social media is just one way of making the most of search engine marketing, but I’m not sure becoming a fan of a product on facebook, for instance, would actually inspire me to buy that product or buy more of that product.
Reading up on the psychology of marketing, I’ve come to learn how important trust is, in motivating consumers to buy products. Most of us have been ‘had’ at least once, and in this age of aggressive marketing strategies, which quite frankly leaves the consumer reeling, we can become a little cynical and hold onto our credit cards in a scrooge-like manner. Paul Jahn spoke about how interacting with Kodak’s blogger instilled trust in the product for him, so the selling point was ultimately trust. Now the fact that facebook and twitter are a free-for-all definitely does not give me the element of trust. I wouldn’t go on a blind date organised via facebook for instance, although I know many people who would and have.
In my product search, I went through Paul Jahn’s link to the Kodak facebook page, and then clicked on ‘browse more products’. The pages that I went into tended to be about products that were familiar to me, again showing the savvy consumer’s desire for security (well, I aspire to be a savvy consumer at least). I will say this however, when I started seeing pictures of a nice cold coca-cola and awesome new stripy converse shoes, I believe the neurons did start firing away and I will probably buy one more coke than I normally would, and I’ll definitely investigate those stripy converses.
I also had a few ‘what’s that?’ moments and if something looked really cool or insane or colourful, I would have a quick look. There again, someone isn’t likely to buy a product they’ve never heard of before and start publishing their credit card details for all to read. But imagine this – you see an ad for a hand-gliding bicycle, and it grabs your attention. But of course, being the savvy consumer that you are, your first emotions after surprise and interest are doubt and curiosity. So you write to some marketing person selling these hand-gliding bikes. If they write back with solid information and advice you are more likely to trust them and ultimately the product. And of course if you connect with other consumers who have brought the product then ‘wham’, doubt makes a hasty departure, and curiosity is quickly replaced by desire.
That is my theory at least— take it or leave it; but if you use social media for marketing purposes and give a friendly, informed face to a product, it certainly isn’t going to hurt.
