I found a really interesting article this week on Tech News Daily about how bloggers are surpassing celebrities as sources consumers trust to recommend products. A new survey conducted by the Nielsen Company found that “20% of women who use social media are motivated to consider products promoted by or with a blogger they know, while only 13% are motivated by celebrity endorsements” (Mulvey ¶ 2). When these decisions to take blogger advice pay off, the consumers are more likely to return to blogs and other social media for further recommendations. According to the article, the top three types of products that the “general population” looks for recommendations on blogs are consumer electronics (35%), computer hardware/software (33%), and movies (33%) (Mulvey ¶ 5).
The end of the article discusses some intriguing implications regarding consumer engagement. In order to take advantage of this new desire for people to seek out other consumer’s recommendations, marketers must invest more in a “two-way conversation” between producers and consumers (Mulvey ¶ 8). The article concludes that “marketers must seize these opportunities now or risk falling behind their competitors in the race for online consumer engagement” (¶ 8).
A change in producer/consumer relationship is definitely occurring as a result of social media. Marketers are trying to engage with the consumer in terms of what they actually want instead of trying to sell them a product by arguing that they want or need it. Will this actually result in better products that people actually want to buy, or will the marketers find a way to turn this form of consumer engagement against us? They have certainly done it before. After marketers in the 1970’s found that they could divide consumers into groups while still catering to their “individual” needs, we began to slide down the slippery slope that led us to our current consumer culture. Who’s to say that they won’t find a loophole that will allow them to regain control of the producer/consumer relationship?
I am interested to see how producers would use social media to "lie" to us about their products. I have found myself using customer reviews when deciding what store to go to/what product to buy.
ReplyDeleteYelp! is a really good example of such a site. I find myself going there about once a week to look at nearby nail salons, restaurants, and boutiques. It is interesting to see the positives and negatives that people have to say about different places/products. I have started to not even look at places with less than four stars.
After reading your blog, though, I realize that there are probably people associated with the business (waiters/managers at restaurants, PR staff for clothing store, etc.) bolstering the reviews with positive ratings and reviews. This may be one way that we are already seeing the manipulation by the producer on the consumer.