How have digital media and social networking changed the consumer's buying behavior?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The Answer is Today's social networks offer a multitude of consumer benefits, including music downloads, apps, forums, and games. Marketers are thereby using these sites and their popularity with consumers to promote products, handle questions and complaints, and provide information to assist customers in buying decisions. Consumers now have a greater ability to regulate the information that they view as well as the rate and sequence of their exposure to that information. The Internet is sometimes referred to as a pull medium because users determine which websites they are going to view; the marketer has only limited ability to control the content to which users are exposed, and in what sequence. Today, blogs, wikis, podcasts, and ratings are used to publicize, praise, or challenge companies. Digital media require marketers to approach their jobs differently compared to traditional marketing. However, most companies in the United States do not routinely monitor consumers' postings to online social networking sites. In many cases, this represents a missed opportunity to gather information.
On the other hand, some companies are using the power of the consumer to their advantage. While negative ratings and reviews are damaging to a company, positive customer feedback is free publicity that often helps the company more than corporate messages do. Because consumer-generated content appears more authentic than corporate messages, it can go far in increasing a company's credibility. Additionally, while consumers can use digital media to access more information, marketers can also use the same sites to get information on the consumer-often more information than could be garnered through traditional marketing venues. They can examine how consumers are using the Internet to target marketing messages to their audience. Finally, marketers are also using the Internet to track the success of their online marketing campaigns, creating an entirely new way of gathering marketing research.

How Have Digital Media and Social Networking Changed the Consumer's