By: Kari Rice
Social media has become a huge catalyst for brands and their marketing efforts in recent years. The reason that social media has been such a huge resource is because it allows you to reach so many people. Social media is a regular and daily thing for so many people to use now and it is great for brands and companies when they are wanting to reach their customers. Social media marketing is great for creating a platform to reach customers and create customer awareness for the brand. However, recent studies have indicated that brands should not only be relying on commercial-oriented aspects but should also make sure that they are equally, if not more, social-oriented and involve active interaction between users. When brands and companies are making an effort to create deeper relationships and communication between customers, they have a better outcome.
What is the Impact of Interaction With Consumers?
Using social media for your brand or company is important for creating connections and relationships with users. “A social media marketing strategy refers to an organization’s integrated activities that turn social media communication (networks) and interactions (influences) into useful strategic means to achieve desired marketing results” (Wbowo, Chen, Wiagin, Ma, Ruangakanjanses 2021). When social media is utilized correctly, users feel more of a personal connection to the brand. When brands are actively interacting with their consumers, brands have better success. It has become necessary to have that interaction instead of just posting regular content. In order to have the results you want, you have to go the extra step to make sure you are consistently having those interactions through your social media.
What are the Benefits of Social Media Marketing?
When you use social media as a form of marketing, there are a few benefits that other marketing strategies (printed advertising, billboards, etc.) don’t have. If you are using social media for marketing, your customers are going to be far more entertained with anything on social media rather than printed advertising or billboards, therefore will produce social network activity. Social media is used for “research” nowadays. Customers are able to customize the information they are searching by either using the default search feature through social media, hashtags, or direct custom searching services from companies (Wbowo, Chen, Wiagin, Ma, Ruangakanjanses 2021). Since social media is such a major thing in this day and age, social media is constantly changing. When it is changing, it is real-time and fast updates. This allows users to access the most recent trends and information put out there by the company. (Wbowo, Chen, Wiagin, Ma, Ruangakanjanses 2021). Social media makes it so easy to generate interactions directly between users. When you initiate those interactions with your consumers, it leads to a great resource: word-of-mouth! When you have customers that willingly share your brand and information, that becomes free marketing for your brand.
How Does Social Media Impact Customer Experience?
Customer experience can be defined as a “multidimensional construct that reflects on cognitive, emotional, behavioral, sensory and social responses of the consumer to the enterprise’s products or services during the customer’s buying journey’ (Wbowo, Chen, Wiagin, Ma, Ruangakanjanses 2021). Traditionally, online companies get a bad reputation with online services because of the poor experience compared to buying something in person. When you’re in person, usually you have interactions that make your experience better than online where you have no interactions. However, many people still use online as a source to buy things. Making sure that you are giving your customers the same experience is extremely important because your customer’s experience is important.
Five Different Types of Customer Experience
There are five different types of experiences the customer experiences. The first experience is sense. This includes all of the primary senses (view, sound, scent, taste, and touch). Since social media marketing lacks the ability to appeal in some areas, they have to really focus on the visual and sound aspects to reach their customers. The next experience is felt. When a customer experiences experiential texts, music, and photographs, they help appeal to the customer’s inner sensations and emotions. When this happens, it creates a direct interaction between the brand and the customers, which helps initiate positive emotional feedback. Think is the next customer experience. Thinking allows the customer to come up with their own perception of the experience. When this happens, they can improve their participation in the marketing campaign (Wbowo, Chen, Wiagin, Ma, Ruangakanjanses 2021). Act is the fourth customer experience. This experience includes different choices for behaviors. That includes physical activities, patterns of life, and engagement (Wibowo, Chen, Wiagin, Ma, Ruangakanjanses 2021). A customer’s activities help create a permanent impression of the company or brand. Finally, relate is the last customer experience. When a customer is able to translate their intimate and human feelings to a brand, it helps form a relationship between the brand and the consumer.
With social media marketing growing more and more by the day, you have to make sure that your brand is going above and beyond to stand out. The way brands are standing out is by creating relationships with the consumers. Creating relationships can really make a difference in the success of your social media marketing. It can have so many benefits if used correctly and those relationships are formed. When relationships are formed, your consumer’s customer experience is going to be higher.
References
Munguía, J. (2020). Happy face signal. Unspach. Retrieved March 20, 2023, from https://unsplash.com/photos/1pAwJiCD60c.
VectorMine. (n.d.). Five Senses. Adobe Stock. Retrieved April 23, 2023, from https://stock.adobe.com/search?k=five+senses&asset_id=365862906.
Transparency toward your customers is a must. (2022). Layerise. Retrieved April 23, 2023, from https://www.layerise.com/resources/blog/post/transparency-toward-your-customers-is-a-must.
Wibowo, A., Chen, S.-C., Wiangin, U., Ma, Y., & Ruangkanjanases, A. (2020). Customer Behavior as an Outcome of Social Media Marketing: The Role of Social Media Marketing Activity and Customer Experience. Sustainability, 13(1), 189. MDPI AG. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su13010189
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