Essay on Unlimited Potential of Technology: The Modern Business' Marketing Tool

Introduction

Modern businesses have a focus on the widespread use of technology as a marketing tool. Technology has unlimited potentials that can be exploited by the business enterprises for promotion as well as advertisement. Arguably, technology is currently a vital means of market expansion because the majority of the globe can easily access technology. Moreover, technology has vital ingredients that make it a perfect tool for influencing the decisions of the consumers. Technology can appeal to consumers emotionally, psychologically, and socially (Saluja, 2016).

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One of the aspects of technology-based marketing that has the most considerable influence on consumers is social media. Through social media, businesses can influence the decisions of the consumers regarding the price, the product itself, together with the use of the product. Therefore, the majority of businesses are currently using social media as a tool for creating brand awareness. Through social media, businesses have the potential of not only building a relationship with potential consumers but also increasing customer base. Nevertheless, social media has been proved beneficial to business enterprises in several ways (Voramontri, 2019).

However, most of the business enterprises still have doubts about whether social media can influence the decisions of consumers. Moreover, the most important thing for any business individual is marketing the products regardless of the type of marketing strategy employed. Apart from social media marketing, the other available marketing strategies that a business can utilize incorporate traditional marketing or content marketing. However, of all the marketing mentioned above strategies, social media has the most significant impact of influencing the decision of the consumers to buy a product (Saluja, 2016).

Consumers go through different stages before deciding to purchase a product. Saluja, (2019) outlined these stages as need recognition, searching of information, decision-making, together with the post-purchase evaluation. Besides, Sulja, (2019) also emphasized that social media has the capacity of influencing consumers to follow the steps highlighted above. Some of the ways through which social media influences the decisions of the consumers are discussed below (Kasemsap, 2018).

Social Influencers

Social influencers are individuals having a large number of followers on social media. Such individuals possess a considerable significant influence on his or her followers. Social influencers are always celebrities such as sports personnel, musicians, politicians, comedians among the rest. Besides, social influencers are very active social media users with multiple social media platforms. They post different items on their social media accounts and followers like and comment on them. Such individuals are often targeted by the business to promote their products. It implies that the content that they post can either be sponsored or not. Therefore, the content that they post on their social media platform has a significant influence on the purchasing decisions of the followers. Consequently, social influencers contribute immensely to the establishment of the bandwagon effect (Power & Phillips- Wren, 2016).

In case an influencer shares a post regarding a product on any of the social media platform such as Facebook or Instagram and comment positively about the product, the followers will most likely develop, interest, and learn more about that product. Through this, the social media influencer will create product awareness on that particular product and chances are high that most of the followers will likely to purchase the product. The survey conducted by the PwC in the year 2016 revealed that over 45% of the global respondents admitted that reading reviews, feedbacks, and comments from those they follow on social media influenced their shopping behaviors (Kasemsap, 2018).

Therefore, any business organization wishing to utilize social media as one of the marketing strategies should reach out for the social influencers with a large following of the target market. Consequently, any business organization to employ social media as a marketing tool should improve their social media presence. It is possible through posting contents about their brands that are likely to appeal to their followers. Through this, the organization can connect with consumers, grow their brand awareness, and influence their purchasing behaviors (Power & Phillips- Wren, 2016).

Reviews from Family and Friends

Another possible way through which social media can influence the purchasing decisions of the customers is the reviews from either family members or friends. The primary role of social media is to connect with both friends and family members. Therefore, friend and family members are always sharing information in nearly all aspects that affect their lives. Moreover, it is common for friends and family members to share the information concerning a product that they find useful. It implies that family members and friends through social media can create awareness of a brand and recommend it to others. In most occasions, people tend to believe in what friends and family members tell them (Power & Phillips- Wren, 2016).

Therefore, if a friend or a family member recommends a product, the chances are high that buying of the product will take place. It has been established that about 80% of the customers tend to purchase products recommended by either a friend or a family member. Therefore, when a customer is undecided on whether to purchase a product, the chances are high that suggestion from a friend or a family member will most likely results in buying. Consequently, any business organization intending to maximize the use of social media as a marketing tool should always encourage their followers to join in the conversation concerning the product posted on social media. The chances are that family members and friends of the followers will join the chat and decide to purchase the product (Kreutzer, 2018).

The Organization's Presence on Social Media

Apart from organization reaching out for the social influencers as a way of creating consumer awareness of their brand, the organization must also build on their social media presence. It implies that the presence of an organization on social media is more likely to affect the purchasing decisions of the consumers. It is because when an organization has a lackluster presence on social media; it will be challenging to convince the social media users of its credibility. Therefore, a business that is continually providing feeds on their social media accounts that showcase their products in terms of price, usage, and benefits will always turn their visitor into followers that will then become buyers (Kasemsap, 2018).

Therefore, the presence of an organization on social media is more likely to attract and influence the purchasing behaviors of the consumers. Moreover, new followers will gain confidence with the organization together with the products they deliver. It is because the new followers will have the impression that since the organization has massive followers on social media, the followers are not only entertained with their posts but also satisfied with their products. Consequently, the more active a business is on the social media platforms, the more likely that it will influence the purchasing decisions of the consumers positively. It can be summarized as an active social media presence leads to numerous followers, which translates to higher chances of purchase (Kreutzer, 2018).

Risks in Involving In Social Media Marketing

Even though a business organization can, experience the positive influence of social media as far as brand awareness and product purchase is concerned, social media can also influence the purchase decision making negatively. It is because some social media responses are harmful and can result in a negative influence on the potential purchase. In most of the situations, new customers rely on the reviews from the old customers before deciding to buy the product. Therefore, any negative review is more than possible to scare away potential purchases. Therefore, it is essential for the organization to preempt how the customers are likely to respond before engaging in social media marketing (Power & Phillips- Wren, 2016).

There are some cases where the competitors have infiltrated the social media account of the rival companies and posted negative reviews. Negative reviews translate to negative influence and potentially harmful sales. Therefore, an organization intending to take advantage of social media as a marketing tool must put measures in place to avoid infiltration of their competitors. Moreover, the organization should also put measures of controlling negative reviews from rogue followers as one of the ways of mitigating the negative influences of social media marketing (Kreutzer, 2018).

References

Kasemsap, K. (2018). The Roles of Social Media Marketing and Brand Management in Global Marketing. Social Media Marketing, 3(2), 425-453. doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-5637-4.ch021

Kreutzer, R. T. (2018). Social Media und Social-Media-Marketing. Social-Media-Marketing kompakt, 5(4), 1-19. doi:10.1007/978-3-658-21147-9_1

Power, D. J., & Phillips-Wren, G. (2016). Impact of Social Media and Web 2.0 on Decision-Making. Journal of Decision Systems, 20(3), 249-261. doi:10.3166/jds.20.249-261

Saluja, D. (2016). Impact of Social Media Marketing Strategies on Consumers Behavior. International Journal of Virtual Communities and Social Networking, 6(2), 1-23. doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-5637-4.ch021

Voramontri, D., & Klieb, L. (2019). Impact of Social Media on Consumer Behaviour. International Journal of Information and Decision Sciences, 11(3), 1. doi:10.1504/ijids.2019.10014191