Consumer behavior and purchasing

In years past, if you wanted to buy something like a treadmill for at-home workouts or a television for your guest room, you went to a brick-and-mortar store to see what they were selling, what was on sale and what you could afford. If you wanted to know how a product worked, you asked the salesclerk for her recommendation and used her input to form your decision. In the web 2.0 era, you’re more likely to research top products on websites like Amazon.com, price things out and read product reviews from the comfort of home or work before ever setting foot in a store. You might see a Facebook or Twitter photo of your friend’s new throw pillows and hop over to the company website to see what other colors they come in, possibly resulting in an order that takes place solely via the Internet. This process of researching your options online and deciding what you want to buy without visiting a store is what Google refers to as the zero moment of truth.

Influencing factors

When you see something on a social media site, it’s because someone else has thought the item was cool enough to share, blessing it with a sort of cache. Just like fashion magazines style their photo shoots to sell clothes and images, the socially shared objects become cool in their new context. You might have liked a dress if you saw it on the rack in a store, but it definitely catches your eye when shared socially. This is the influence factor. The trust factor goes along with influence and refers to the sharing part of the social media. If a friend shares something, such as pictures of their new home gym set-up, their purchases are vetted for you, resulting in the likelihood that you trust the product or service is good. If you’ve got cash to spare, you may purchase something like a book, DVD or piece of clothing without evaluating how much you want or need the product. Vetting can give you peace of mind you’re making a good decision, but can provide false security if you’re whipping out your credit card without a second thought.

To make an informed decision, consider combining impulsive social media shares with third-party or blog reviews to get a more accurate picture of the usefulness, quality and appeal of an item before purchasing, especially if it’s a big purchase. Social media has the potential to affect both impulse buying and carefully considered purchases, so draw on its power wisely to buy items you’ll actually use and to stay within your budget.

Jessica is interested in social media and marketing. She enjoys learning about new technology and writing on behalf of Sears and other brands she trusts.

Although staffing agencies can still be useful when businesses look to fill an open position, they are hardly the only option. Online job boards host postings for job openings and help these ads reach a larger, more specialized audience of job-seeking professionals. In a similar, but more direct way, businesses can also post job openings to their social media profiles as a means of inviting applicants.

With more and more employees working remotely for businesses across all industries, online interaction is coming to replace in-person office interactions as a key form of communication. Consequently, businesses are smart to develop virtual lines of communication as a way to reach their intended audience more directly and as a way to foster workplace engagement, particularly for workers spending most or all of their time out of the office. In all of these instances, social media can provide the solution.

When hiring managers seek out applicants through social media, often times the applications they are receiving come from people with an existing interest in the company, or a connection to the company through other individuals. This relationship can produce applicants who are more likely to be passionate and heavily invested in their work for the company.

At the same time, applicants received through social media often offer more insight into their personal and professional lives through the information published on their social medial profile. Applicant tracking software can help track these applicants and store their information automatically for the recruiting and hiring department.

Employee interactions through social media platforms can be very valuable to a business, improving workplace efficiency and morale. One of the best things an employer can do for a new hire is to set them up within the social network used by the business. Giving a new hire an introduction to how social media is used within the workplace should be a high priority for the employer, because it connects them socially right from the start and lets them explore and acclimate to the company’s communication infrastructure.

Over time, the employee will become familiar with their co-workers through the social media interaction, and he or she can contribute to workplace discussions, problem-solving, and other conversations carried on by other employees.

Remote workers can benefit in the same way — by communicating directly with their fellow employees throughout the work day, remote workers establish an increased sense of community and involvement in the business. Social media has a residual effect of encouraging collaboration and communication while also providing management with better tools for monitoring the workplace.

Social media, combined with applicant tracking software and other tools used to improve workplace efficiency, can prove very useful in helping companies find qualified applicants that can fulfill the duties of an open position. With the right implementation, it can continue to benefit both businesses and their employees by improving operations and keeping workers happy.

Jessica is interested in business and marketing. She enjoys learning about new technologies and social media.

Virtual networking is what today’s Internet is built upon. Social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have sprung up everywhere and for a range of purposes and specialties. People are connecting with one another in new ways all the time, and the shift toward community structures in the Web 2.0 has provided part of the movement toward cloud computing.

Cloud computing services flip the script on traditional computing, instead providing computing as a service shared with other individuals instead of as a product you purchase and house in your home. Not only is cloud computing a natural progression following the rise of social networking, but this new form of computing has been able to capitalize on social networks’ offerings to connect with customers, open lines of communication and develop brand loyalty and trust.

Although this utilization of social networking isn’t unique to cloud computing, it has created a market for the cloud computing industry wherein it can help other businesses capitalize on the information available through social networks.

Social Networking Tools Through Cloud Computing

These cloud computing tools will allow businesses to extract much more use out of their social media profiles through the use of various applications and tools. Some will use networks like Facebook to encourage the growth of a development community that utilizes cloud computing to create business applications accessible through Facebook.

Such applications would also increase the opportunity for businesses to extract more data about Facebook users, a valued commodity in the age of marketing and the public display of personal information. In other ways, customer management tools developed through cloud computing can use social media to find online posts relevant to a company’s interests, thereby identifying potential customers or targets for the business. This information can then be stored and analyzed via the cloud to provide a much more comprehensive picture of customer satisfaction and customer service issues.

Eventually, cloud computing should provide the greatest opportunities for businesses to collect and analyze social data, providing a wealth of information that wasn’t available to companies prior to the last few years. Cloud computing continues to become more functional and accessible through the development of new software and technologies that allow for easier information migration, providing individuals and businesses much greater latitude in terms of how and where they store their information — not to mention the ease with which they transfer the information. One such initiative providing this flexibility is vCloud, a proprietary cloud server from VMware that lets users migrate work and information at a moment’s notice from so-called “internal clouds” to remote clouds, providing more customization for users.

The Future of Cloud Computing

Ultimately, social media can be utilized by cloud computing to guide marketing efforts, improve customer service and satisfaction, and increase sales for businesses while providing a strong return on investment. Cloud computing services are expected to become much more prevalent among businesses in the coming years, and its ability to enhance the value of social media should not be ignored by any business. Over time, cloud computing and social media can be paired together to yield much more efficient operations in your business and a keener sense of how your products and services are being received by consumers.

Jessica is interested in social media and marketing. She enjoys learning about new technology.

First up is Murray Newlands who made a name in Affiliate Marketing and is now focusing on Social Media Marketing Events organized by Influence People.

Some of Murray’s recent posts include:

• San Francisco Social Media Blog Club Blogger Meetup Nov 15
• New York Nov 4-5 Social Media Monitoring Events
• Monitoring Social Media Event – Four live blog posts direct from San Francisco event
• Fraudlogix: Advanced Fraud Protection for Merchant Affiliate Programs
• Bloggers Invited to Earn Commissions Promoting Premiere Social Media Events

We will be introducing other bloggers who will be posting here and invite you to contact Gail if you would like to be invited to guest post.

Measuring and Monitoring Social Media – two of the most important challenges we all face today.

Fortunately there are best practices emerging for doing just that and Influence People has brought major sponsors, brands and speakers together at their Monitoring Social Media events including the  November 4th New York full day conference followed on November 5th by a half day “how-to” training event.

Mark Schmulen from Constant Contact is speaking on Social Media Monitoring for Small Business. While best known for their email marketing solutions, Constant Contact has serious Social Media Marketing Solutions and will be sharing their insights into Social Media best practices in their blog and at this event.

Brandwatch Social Media Monitoring is another major sponsor. They offer an online application that sends users summaries of what is being said online about their people, products and services.

Another lead sponsor is Synthesio, an international, multi-lingual web monitoring and research company helping brands and agencies find, collect, and make sense of the overwhelming data on the web.

The conference will be fully interactive with presentations from nine speakers including representations from our other sponsors including Radian6, Glide Technologies, and Compete.

There will also be an Exhibition Area including many of the leading social media monitoring and measurement tools and services plus formal presentations including panel discussions, case studies and Q & A sessions.

Save 10% when buying tickets to any Influence People event
Use Discount Code iem22

Full details including who can benefit from attending, speakers, specific topics and ticket availability are available on Monitoring Social Media New York.

Use hashtag #MSM10 to follow this event on Twitter.

Related articles

• New Social Media Conference to Focus on Measurement (adrants.com)
• New York Events: Monitoring and Measuring Social Media Conferences #MSM10 Nov 4-Nov 5 2010 (growmap.com)

A little history 

So Barry ( great guy) wanted to change the name and direction of what he was doing so he setup techMAP and good luck to him. I love the name Social Media Monday so I bought it. 

The Future of the site. 

Social Media Monday is going to be a multi author social media site discussing all things social media. If you would like to contribute please send me an email to mrn@murraynewlands.com 

Look for updates coming shortly! 

Murray Newlands