Social Media to Turn Fans into Customers

By: Emma

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The article “Social Media to Turn Fans into Customers” discloses one of the increasingly growing
trends in consumption, consumers are not only shopping online via the retailer’s corporate website but
also via social media portals such as Facebook and Twitter. The article states that in 2010 more brands
will go beyond generating conversations about the brands and begin using social media as another sales
channel. These companies are also expected to analyze trends across their social channels to figure out
what people want and then deliver relevant promotions and deals to get sales dollars. The need for
retailers to use social media as a sales channel is quite important as studies show that 79% of women
use social networks to research products and services that are important to them and research done by
Razorfish finds that promotions and discounts displayed in social media networks were the primary
drivers that created brand attachment for the consumers.

I believe that consumers will show a lot of interest in consuming products via social media
networks as this will allow for them to tweet or facebook with their peers about relevant product
information and purchase decisions. For instance, young teenage girls and instantly send a picture of the
dress she wants to wear to the upcoming party to her friends for immediate feedback. I believe this will
reduce buyer’s remorse as a shopper is allotted with sufficient time in an online shopping scenario to
conduct relevant product search by using price comparison shopping apps such as pricegrabber and
-especially if shopping via a social network – seek feedback from ten, twenty or more friends, therefore
allowing them to be more ‘sure’ about the product they are purchasing and not be stuck on the product
forgone to purchase that product.

Furthermore, retailers can now use behavioral targeting, presenting people with advertisements
based on their internet use, to provide a better customized online shopping experience for its
consumers. Companies can conduct lifestyle research to track societal consumption preferences and
also to position specific products to different segments. For instance, a user of Microsoft search engine –
Live Search- automatically has his or her search result and the specific words used to do that search
saved in Microsoft’s behavioral targeting system thus enabling its advertising clients to send specific
advertisements to consumers who are looking for that product (Solomon). It’s apparent that such
technological advancements are designed with the innocuous interest of making a consumer’s online
shopping experience simply more convenient, customized and pleasurable. However, do these
increasing technological trends and such an increased involvement of retails and consumers in a social
networking channel pose a threat to consumers? I think in my opinion it does. First of all, although many
consumers are willing to provide personal information in order to get a customized online shopping
experience, there are however many consumers who express serious concern regarding cookies and
search engines that store their personal information. Second of all, many consumers will love tweeting
with their friends about a product and then purchasing it from that website immediately, however the
argument that social medias were once a place for friends and families to connect and express
themselves still remains, and therefore many consumers may feel bombarded with the frequent
advertisements and possibly even annoyed by the invasion of retailers in an environment that was solely
designed for socializing.
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