How Effective Is Social Media in Consumer Decision Making and Purchasing Process?
Social media is now the right place to influence the decision-making processes of its users. Social media offers endless possibilities for people. It is almost impossible for people to spend a day without using social media. Whether used for communication, entertainment, learning or decision making, social media is permanent and will continue to affect societies.
While some saw social media as a tool to stay in constant contact with their friends and loved ones in the first days of its emergence, many brands today see social media as a critical marketing tool that can increase brand awareness and influence the decision-making process of online communities.
In recent years, especially in the process of Covid-19 and closure, which affected the whole world in 2020, online purchasing has increased significantly. Online shopping is expected to grow exponentially as the number of Internet users grows and technology companies develop more ways to integrate the online world with shopping. As many consumers started to make their purchasing decisions online, they started to spend most of their time online on social media. According to GlobalWebIndex, 54% of social media users use social media to research products, and 71% are more likely to purchase products and services based on social media recommendations.
For this reason, social media has become one of the most important tools for brands to connect with customers. When a brand uses social media, it should create content that will engage its target audience and encourage it to share with others. The most important role of social media for the brand is to connect people who are interested in their brand and to build a community for their businesses on social media networks. Social media is one of the most important tools for brands to establish and maintain communication with both existing and potential customers.
The Effects of Social Media on the Purchasing Process
1. A Shorter Customer Journey
In the past, buying a product used to take at least a week or two. First of all, the consumer has to wait for the next week to see a product he sees in a television advertisement, on the spot, in the store, visit a few stores where the product is sold and compare the prices. Today, he can reach the online store in seconds from the social media link and complete his shopping in minutes.
According to the Deloitte report, 29% of social media users are more likely to make a purchase on the same day they use social media. This means that when they see a product, they click the link and buy: They don’t have to wait before they go shopping. In addition, the same report states that social media-influenced consumers are four times more likely to spend on their purchases.
2. The Impact of Social Proof
Recommendations reach more people thanks to social media. A person who shares a cafe he visits or a beauty product he uses on social media can instantly mobilize hundreds of thousands of people for this experience. According to Forbes, 81% of consumers are influenced by their friends’ social media posts in their purchasing choices.
3. Influencer Effect
Influencers are reliable social media users who have a specific audience and are close to the relevant areas of the follower. Influencers are very effective on the buying behavior of their followers. For this reason, businesses allocate huge budgets to their marketing strategies, influencer marketing, to increase the awareness of their brands and reach wider audiences.
According to a study by Influencer Marketing Hub, almost 50% of Twitter users have made a purchase as a direct result of a Tweet from an influencer.
Micro-Influencers are particularly effective at persuading their audience as they are often experts in a particular subject, making them a natural source of advice for that topic. If you’re selling a niche product, finding social media influencers (Instagram bloggers, vloggers, TikTokers or Facebook group admins) in your niche is a great way to reach your target audience.
4. The influence of Stories
Although temporary content is a new trend, it has been adopted by social media users and brands. Stories created by Snapchat became popular thanks to Instagram, which has 500 million daily users. Instagram Stories allows businesses to more closely tell their brand’s story, teams and culture to their followers.
Social Media Platforms Influencing Consumer Decisions
The purpose of social media was to connect people. One of the most important reasons why social media has become so important today is people’s desire to share their interests and passions with others and to connect with them. However, the fastest way to reach potential customers, not only for individuals but also for brands, is through social media.
Brands often wonder which social media platform they should focus on.
According to the Digital 2022 Global Overview Report, there are 4.62 billion social media users in the world. Facebook is still the most-used social platform with 2.91 billion users. Along with its popularity, Facebook offers a variety of ways for brands to interact with their target audience. Facebook users share a lot of personal and group content with their friends on the platform. This makes it an excellent asset for commercial purposes as well.
It includes advertising options that allow them to promote Facebook services through paid advertisements. It is almost impossible for a business that does not benefit from Facebook’s advertising services to deliver its products to its target audience.
Facebook is a powerful tool for communicating, collecting feedback and building relationships with your audience. But it may not be the social network you should use for everything. Some networks are more powerful than others at creating a unique experience, but it’s important to know which network to use and when.
Facebook continues to increase its leadership both in the number of users and as a social commerce platform. Still, Facebook accounts for 50% of total social referrals and a further 64% of overall social revenue, shows Buseiness Insider. The changing demographics of the site can make older consumers a strong target for retailers who take advantage of the platform.
Used by millions of people every day, following people is attractive on Twitter, and almost everyone has a strong desire to be recognized. When you follow someone, many people on Twitter can see your tweets. Following this public opinion gives you credibility in the market. This type of reliability and trust factor can have an impact on B2C buyers and B2B buyers. With its fast nature and ability to connect with anyone, it is the best place to seek advice. SproutSocial shows that 53% of consumers recommend businesses or products in tweets and 48% follow them to buy those products or services.
Instagram is the most attractive platform for brands for several reasons. In addition to photos, stories, videos, filters, its use by all generations all over the world shows that Instagram is the most popular social media platform. Instagram is also the showcase of small businesses and new companies, as well as brands with high awareness. The reason why Instagram has become important for business marketing is the growing popularity of Instagram. This causes brands to see this platform as the most important promotional tool.
Instagram allows brands to reach wider audiences, interact more comfortably and make difficult marketing strategies easier for businesses. With more than half a billion monthly users, Instagram allows thousands of companies to present themselves on social media. Instagram can build brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, and increase engagement. It provides a unique opportunity to interact with customers, promote products and build customer loyalty while increasing brand awareness. The platform also makes shopping easy by adding shopping tags and payment options to posts.
It is a complete exploration area for beginners. Pinterest is the most popular and useful website on the internet. Using rich content created by users as a source of inspiration is again an effective social network when users decide what they want to buy on another social media site. Pinterest is a good reference for brands to create their own marketing strategies and see what others are doing. It can offer interesting ideas, especially for startups. Pinterest, which women use 30 points more than men (46% vs 16%), yields thousands of results for a simple search. It’s the right place for small businesses that don’t have the time or staff to manage their social media channels, and bloggers who want to grow their brand but don’t know who to sell to.
TikTok
TikTok, a rapidly growing platform with short and entertaining videos, has over 1 billion users worldwide. Especially preferred by the Z generation, 41% of TikTok users are between the ages of 16–24. For brands that want to reach a younger audience, TikTok is definitely the right place. TikTok algorithm is within the app, the main feed is a stream of content selected for individual users each day. It’s literally called the “For You” page and it’s where 99% of people spend their time on TikTok. As a marketer, this gives you a ton of real estate to showcase relevant content and drive high engagement.
TikTok algorithm pushes engaging content to the top of its feed, which gives trending videos more frequent and more exposure. Based on how often a video is watched, views, shares, comments, and likes determine the distribution on TikTok, not the number of followers. Momentum builds up quickly on this platform and can persist for several days.
Yoorbit Reverses Pre-Purchase Decision Process
Product promotions of brands reach the user in the simplest way thanks to social media. It now has the feature of being the best like channel. As of January 2022, there are 4.62 billion social media users worldwide and they spend an average of 2 hours and 27 minutes a day on it. Global social media advertising spending exceeded $150 billion in 2021, and social media ads account for about a third (33.1%) of total digital spending, which means an increase of +17.4% each year. Your rating doesn’t matter on the Social Media Planet. The user is at the center.
On This User Centered Planet, YOORBIT Has Developed an Inverted Mechanism That Will Be the Center of The User’s Likes!
Positive reviews lead to a significant increase in the sales of the brands. The customer makes thorough research before making a purchase. Usually, the reviews of other people who have bought and used the product before affect the customer’s decision. The level of satisfaction increases when you’re in touch with the customers and respond to their feedback in no time. Bad reviews, on the other hand, have a devastating effect on the brand’s credibility. Businesses are at risk of losing 22% of their potential customers if the customers come across a negative review. If three negative reviews appear in a search query, the potential for losing that customer increases to 59.2%.
Advise allows customers to tell their buying stories. The more people who use or like one product, the more likely others will follow. 93% of customers read reviews online before they buy a product. Like it or not, in the confusing and busy world of online shopping, people ask for assurances before making a purchase. Potential customers are turning to review sites to learn everything they can about your service or product.
A Mechanism That Will Be Possible with YOORBIT Where All Brands Are Rated by The User and Will Be Directly Connected to The User. Imagine! There’s More to That
The rates that users will give to the products they use on Yoorbit become very important for both brands and other users. Now it’s easier to understand the reasons for recommending or not recommending a product from the ratings and reviews. Yoorbit technology allows it. When a user shares a product, they give it a point value. For example, a shampoo. Now you don’t need an influencer’s share to buy the shampoo. It is not possible to reach real values in product promotions. Because a person who has reached a high number of followers cannot have a chance to say bad about a product he shares. Because he has an agreement with the brand while sharing that product and he cannot say it even if he has a negative experience. Today, most social media users do not like this type of advertisements. Because it is highly likely that the same influencer will praise the products of different brands that are similar to each other. But Yoorbit allows for real user experience. In other words, the average of the score given to a product by an ordinary and non-follower person and the score given by a person with a high follower is the average value of that product in Yoorbit. That’s why user experiences are important for brands. The ratings given to their products on Yoorbit allow a brand to clearly see the degree of satisfaction with its product. To understand this, it is enough to look at the rate of the product.
Yoorbit is a unique social network where brands can understand product marketing dynamics, develop their products, and understand customer experiences.
Data on the internet and our daily experiences show that it is difficult to argue that social media influences purchasing decisions. The impact of social media on customer purchasing decisions can be explained by many factors: social proof, penetration of social media, and usability of online retail. As the first and only social platform with features that offer all of these together, Yoorbit will be an important channel for both user purchasing decisions and for brands to develop products and reach consumers.
Sources:
https://blog.gwi.com/chart-of-the-day/social-browsers-brand/
https://influencermarketinghub.com/influencer-marketing-statistics/
https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2022-global-overview-report
https://www.businessinsider.com/social-commerce-2015-report-2015-6
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/04/07/social-media-use-in-2021/
