Seminar Two: Social Consumers
Seminar Schedule
- Part A: Social Consumers
- Part B: Defining and Refining the Target Audience
- Part C: Build Your Web Presence [Lesson Three]
Part A: Social Consumers
Theory and Knowledge Development
“A means for consumers to share text, images, audio and video information with each other and with companies and vice versa.”
— Kotler and Keller 2012, p. 568
“A group of internet-based applications that build on ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.”
— Belch et al. 2020, p. 340
“The online means of communication, conveyance, collaboration, and cultivation among interconnected and interdependent networks of people, communities, and organisations enhanced by technological capabilities and mobility.”
— Tuten and Solomon 2017, p. 4
Social Media for Business
🎥 Watch: Social Media for Business
Brands and Selfies
Example: Dallas Pets Alive
- Dallas Pets Alive is just one of several brands, like Toyota, Mastercard, Disney, and Tarte Cosmetics, leveraging the popularity of selfies in marketing campaigns. Dallas Pets Alive decided to use the #selfie trend to find homes for homeless mutts.
- How? With its #Muttbombing campaign! The campaign features real dogs available for adoption. The dogs are featured in “photobombs” using selfies of area celebrities and local people grabbed from Instagram.
Market Segmentation
“The process of dividing a market into distinct groups that have common needs and characteristics.”
Bases of Segmentation:
The components or characteristics marketers and advertisers use when segmenting a market
- Geographic
- Demographic
- Psychographic
- Benefit
- Behavioral
Examples of Segmentation Bases
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Geographic | Region, country, market size, density, climate |
| Demographic | Age, gender, income, ethnicity, education, family cycle, occupation |
| Psychographic | Personality, motives, lifestyle, attitude, opinions |
| Benefit | Desired features/benefits |
| Behavioral | actions, including product research sources, the nature of the purchase, brand loyalty, usage level, frequency of purchase, or usage channels. |
Tools for Geographic Segmentation
- GPS Technology: Real-time location services
- Geofencing: Targeting within a defined virtual space
- Geotargeting: Broader targeting like “within 15km”
- Beaconing: Micro-location targeting (e.g., in-store)
Benefit Segmentation: The Power of Social Currency
Social currency: The ability of brands to fit into how consumers manage their social media-centric lives.
Social currency is the influence on social networks, online and offline communities, and the degree by which your business is shared by others.
Traits of the modern social consumer:
The modern social consumer is definedby a number of different characteristicsthat contribute to a desire for socialcurrency benefits:
- manage their lives and achieve theirgoals using technology across contextand culture
- make decisions with limited attention,time and effort
- use social media for information andentertainment, and
- comparison browsing for cheaperand/or more convenient alternatives
Social Media and Identity
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Self-concept | The image an individual has of themselves; the sense of who they are. |
| Social identity | From psychology - related to groups to which one belongs or is affiliated. The information about an individual available in social media, including profile data and ongoing activities – which is of use to marketers and advertisers when segmenting and targeting |
| Big social data (BSD) | Data generated from technology-mediated social interactions and actions online, which can be collected and analysed. |
| Social media touchpoints | Any contact between a customer and a brand on social media before during or post purchase. |
ACTIVITY: Social Media Daily Activity
What Your Business’s Digital Footprint Says About You
- Am I aware of my business footprint?
- Is it positive or negative?
- Is our business footprint consistently working for us?
- As a whole, does your footprint contain a straightforward consistent targeted message?
- Is the content of my digital footprint secure and protected?
- Does your business have old broken links that are non-functioning?
- Am I aware of what is being posted by employees and business managers?
Social Footprints and Identity
- Social footprints: Evidence of where you are and where you have been. The mark a person makes when they are present on social media.
- Lifestream: The journal of your digital life
- Together, these make up your social brand (also known as social identity)
Social Media Audit
5 Vs of Personal Brand
- Vision: Did I learn something?
- Validation: Am I accepted?
- Vindication: I am right
- Vulnerability: I am approachable
- Vanity: Look at me
Cultivating a Personal Brand Identity
- What goal am I seeking to accomplish?
- What do I want to be known for?
- What groups and people are active in my desired field and which social media channels do they use?
- What can I do to communicate my desired social brand identity while also differentiating myself from others?
- What visual elements will support the image I want to establish?
You are what you share.
Motives for Social Media Activities
- Affinity
- Personal Utility
- Contact Comfort & Immediacy
- Altruism
- Curiosity
- Validation
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Affinity | To acknowledge a liking or relationship with individuals and reference groups, such as using Facebook to stay in touch with school friends |
| Personal Utility | To gain individual (rather than group) benefits of information, incentives, entertainment and/or convenience, such as seeking out health-related information. |
| Contact Comfort & Immediacy | To feel psychological closeness to others. Contact comfort is the sense of relief one gets from knowing others in their network are accessible. Contact immediacy is the sense of relief that the contact is without delay. |
| Altruism | To do something good or express moral beliefs, such as donating during a crisis. Other key terms: hashtag activism and virtue signalling. |
| Curiosity | To satisfy curiosity – epistemic or prurient, such as following celebrities online |
| Validation | To feed one’s ego; gain validation, such as posting pictures and counting likes. |
Understanding Social Sharing Boundaries
Self-enhancement vs. self-verification
📖 Ollier-Malaterre et al., 2013
- Presentation of one’s self to others in a positive and socially desirable manner (self-enhancement) or to behave in a manner that confirms their own positive and negative self-views (self-verification)
Privacy Salience
Social privacy: the concern about disclosing personal information to others. Common strategies to protect one’s privacy include using privacy settings to restrict access, excluding personal contact information, untagging and removing photographs, and limiting contacts to known others.
| Concept | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Privacy paradox | The willingness to disclose personal information in social media channels despite expressing high levels of concern for privacy protection |
| Intuitive concern | An emotional gut reaction to a possible privacy invasion. |
| Considered concern | The identification of possible privacy risks, estimation of the potential costs of privacy invasions, and the decision of whether there are any benefits to offset the costs. |
Sharing Statistics
- 92% have posted their real name to the profiles they use
- 91% have posted a selfie
- 82% have posted their birth date
- 71% have posted the name of the school they currently attend
- 71% have posted the name of the town in which they live
- 64% who use Twitter have a public profile
- 53% have posted their email address
- 20% have posted their mobile phone number
- 16% have allowed sites to auto-post their location
Can’t We Just Quit Social Media?
Social identity suicide: the decision to not participate in social media by deleting social identities. This may not always be possible*
“I find I cannot pull myself away from Facebook and Twitter. To do so would mean resigning a meaningful volunteer position,losing an avenue for connecting with my scout troop moms, and cutting myself off from a wise and caring network of academic mothers. I would lose connections I have made throughout my nomadic life.
Social Media Segmentation Models
- Social Technographics
- Social Consumption/Creation Matrix
- Typology of Social Utility
- Pew Internet Technology Types
- Microblog User Types
Social Technographics
| Type | Score | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Social Stars | 60+ | Constantly use social media to connect with companies, brands and products |
| Social Savvies | 30–59 | Frequently use social media to connect with companies, brands and products |
| Social Snackers | 10–29 | Do not seek out or avoid branded social interactions |
| Social Skippers | 0–9 | Prefer to interact with companies through established channels |
Forrester’s Model of Social Media Use
| Concept | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Discover | Whether the target audience uses social media to learn about new brands, and how likely they are to spread the word about their favourite products and services |
| Explore | Whether social media can be used to create purchase intent |
| Buy | Whether social media is likely to be used to make purchases |
| Use | Whether social media can stimulate increased product usage. |
| Ask | Whether social media is a valued channel for customer support. |
| Engage | Whether social media will be useful to build customer relationships |
The Social Consumption/Creation Matrix
- Attention Seekers: have large networkshigh social capital, and the ability to createand promote social content.
- Devotees: are ideal brand ambassadorsbecause they want to interact with brandsand are eager to share their opinions
- Entertainment chasers: passive users withlow levels of both creation and consumption.
- Connection Seekers: the largest segmentof social media participants, are motivatedby the affinity impulse, connection seekerswant to socialize and build relationships
A Typology of Social Utility
Social media users can be categorised as passive or active information seekers or passiveor active participants.
| Category | Activity |
|---|---|
| Minimalists | Passive info seekers |
| Info Seekers | Active info seekers |
| Socialisers | Passive participants |
| Mavens | Active participants |
Pew Internet Technology Types
- Desktop veterans
- Drifting surfers
- Information encumbered
- Tech indifferent
- Off the network
Microblog User Types
| Cluster | Description |
|---|---|
| Tight crowds | High interconnectivity |
| Polarised crowds | Two big clusters |
| Broadcast networks | Media/orgs broadcasting |
| Community clusters | Isolated influence hubs |
| Brand clusters | Disconnected, low interaction |
| Support networks | Customer service focused |
Part B: Defining and Refining the Target Audience
Buyer Personas
- Buyer personas: a snapshot of the ideal customer that tells a story using the information used for segmentation (i.e., demographic, geographic, psychographic, benefits sought, and behaviour).
- With personas, marketers and advertisers are better able to identify, understand, acquire, engage, and retain the target audience.
A snapshot of the ideal customer
→ Combines: Demographic + Geographic + Psychographic + Benefit + Behavioural
🎥 Watch
Buyer/Audience Personas
- Semi-fictional character
- Day in their life
- Demographic & biographic behaviour
- Persona's goals
- Pain points
- Information search process
- Type of experience desired
- Common objections
- Story format
- Memorable name
- Image
http://https😕/blog.hubspot.com/marketing/buyer-personaexamples
Identifying the Target Market
- The buyer persona: A representation of a marketer's market segment. A BuyerPersona helps to give tangibles a face to the target market.
- A good buyer persona should include enough information to describe a reaperson. Keep in mind: the buyer persona should be based on real research(consumer insights!)
- Consumer insights: the information that will be helpful for making advertisingdecisions for the specific target market (i.e. consumer behaviour insights andmedia habits)
Target Audience Characteristics
Key elements of a consumer’s demographic profile that have been found to influence online behaviour include variables such as:
- Income, education, race, age (Hoffman et al., 2000);
- Gender (Slyke, 2002);
- Lifestyle (Brengman et al., 2005)
- Cultural and social influences (e.g. Shiu and Dawson, 2004).
Consumer Personas
- Demographic profile: Age, gender, education, income, location etc. (name your persona!)
- Occupation information: Industry they work in, role in their jobs, seniority level, etc.
- Tasks: Tasks and jobs they need to do in their role
- Values and goals: What do they value/care? What do they want to accomplish in their role?
- Pain points: Problems and challenges associated with their tasks. How do they feel aboutthese problems? How are they trying to resolve them?
- Information search process: Where do they go for information about their pains and expectedgains (e.g. friends, family, search, forums, social networks, offline)? What keywords are theyusing when searching online?
- Expected gains/Anticipated experience: What experience are they expecting? What benefitsare they looking for?
- Objections: Why would they NOT choose you? What types of content won't work for them?