A great deal of successful marketing today depends on closely understanding consumer behavior. As a marketer, you may always be curious to understand what excites or motivates your customers into buying either your products or those of your competitor.
For a long time in the history of marketing communication, media remained the stronghold of newsmakers and advertisers and communication was mostly one way from the marketer to the reader.
At this very moment, you may be reading this article on your laptop or desktop. Remember the day when you had decided to buy your first computer. You must have considered many factors before finalizing which computer to purchase. One of the important decision points for a buyer is his circle of reference. It is natural for you, as a buyer, to discuss with your informed friends about the best brand. Positive references from friends and acquaintances help one make a decision.Research has shown that buyers do a great deal of product research on the Internet and most of the time choose to purchase the product either online or offline. The power of the Internet as a research and information resource has been realized to a great extent by customers worldwide.
Facebook Opportunity for Your Brand
Word of mouth happened on a one-on-one basis, where the conversation would begin and end around a small group of people.Today, a search on your favorite brand on Facebook may reveal many conversations about the brand, which may depict user’s positive or negative experiences with the brand. Unlike the clandestine brand gossip of earlier days, the Facebook era ensures that conversations are documented and made easily available through social networking sites.
The fact is that whether you are there on Facebook, it is very likely that someone or the other from your customer base may be making a mention about you. Your brand presence during such a situation is important to either thank the customer for any accolades or gracefully respond and address any grievances posted by the customers and win back their confidence in your brand.
This is where online reputation, primarily on a widely accepted medium like Facebook, matters.In a nutshell..
This information can be readily accessed freely floating on a social networking platform, such as Facebook. All the answers that a brand may want to seek are hidden in the conversations happening through wall comments, photographs, tags, fan pages, and many such avenues through the same platform of Facebook.
All of this information is first hand, with honest responses.
For a long time in the history of marketing communication, media remained the stronghold of newsmakers and advertisers and communication was mostly one way from the marketer to the reader. However, the trend of this inequality of voice was broken with the advent of the Internet and further developments within that medium itself.Internet and Quantum Change in Media.The Internet brought about a sea change in the science and practice of mass communication and hence the process of marketing itself. But much before common users could take control of the content on the World Wide Web, the way we see it today, there was a time when content creation was the forte of those well-versed in HTML programming and web scripting languages. However, with the advent of services, such as blogs and social networking sites, the power of mass communication moved to the common user on the Internet.
There have been instances where brand owners trying to enforce rules and guidelines of discussion on Facebook fan pages have faced the immediate wrath of users, which had an adverse impact on the brand.
Creating a Fan page: If you are confident that your brand has the capability of attracting positive response and drawing fans, it is time you create a fan page for your brand and watch users “liking” the page and enroll for the same. The fan page can serve as an excellent platform to directly engage with customers and create a strong bond.
Even before the first television spot or a newspaper advertisement goes live, any company serious about its brand spends a great deal of effort and money on gathering information and insight into what their customers really want and how they seek to accomplish those needs. A lot of money is spent on brand research that delves into the awareness levels of the brand vis-a-vis competition.
This information can be readily accessed freely floating on a social networking platform, such as Facebook. All the answers that a brand may want to seek are hidden in the conversations happening through wall comments, photographs, tags, fan pages, and many such avenues through the same platform of Facebook.
All of this information is first hand, with honest responses. Coming Face to Face With Customers.Users on Facebook form fan pages and groups pertaining to their interests and form conversations around topics and brands of their interests. Here are some tips with how a new age brand manager can keep a tab and also build his brand on Facebook.
Do not be a big brother – be a cheerful friend to your customers. The big brother attitude, which worked fine in traditional media, can kill your brand on Facebook. Any showdown of brand arrogance or one-upmanship is given a bitter response by its customers in the same medium. For a brand to succeed, it has to be a friend, who is fun to speak with.
Do not advertise, converse – Blatant advertising, or use of social networks for incessant spamming with interruptive advertising, is a sure recipe for disaster. You will find your brand page getting isolated on Facebook.
Create branded applications: Applications can range from entertaining games with your brand to useful tools related to your product.The possibilities provided by Facebook to reach out to customers are endless, and all of this can be done at minimal cost with maximum impact. But while doing all of this as a marketer, you need to remember that the customer and you are on a level playing field, with both having equal opportunity to express. The customer is free to share his positive as well as negative experiences with your brand, which can influence other customers watching your brand carefully.
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