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Consumer Behavior: Building Marketing Strategy 13th Edition by Delbert Hawkins, David Mothersbaugh
Edition 13ISBN: 978-1259232541Consumer Behavior: Building Marketing Strategy 13th Edition by Delbert Hawkins, David Mothersbaugh
Edition 13ISBN: 978-1259232541 Exercise 52
Online Social Media, Consumer-Generated Content, and WOM
Social media are part of an ongoing revolution online, sometimes referred to as Web 2.0, which involves technologies that allow users to leverage the unique interactive and collaborative capabilities of the Internet. These technologies and formats include online communities, social network sites, consumer review sites, and blogs. Online social media allow users not only to form, join, and communicate with groups and individuals online, but also to create and distribute original content in ways not possible in the past. Such consumer-generated content is changing the marketing landscape. Marketers no longer completely control the communications process but now are both observers and participants in an ongoing dialogue that often is driven by consumers themselves. 31
An example of consumer-generated content in online social network sites is a video titled "Fully Submerged Jeep." It shows an amateur video posted on Metacafe of a Jeep event in which someone takes his Jeep into a pit of water that covers the vehicle completely and comes out the other side unscathed. The video has had over 350,000 views! Jeep is not in control of this content. On the other hand, one Jeep enthusiast provided not only vicarious learning about Jeep but implicit positive WOM about the qualities of Jeep. Others then joined in and posted comments about the video and about Jeep, which kept the "conversation" going. This is the positive side, and for Jeep derives from the devoted members of its brand community.
On the negative side was the Chevy Apprentice Challenge, in which Chevy invited consumers to create their own Tahoe ads with online components and tools provided by the company. The problem was that one in five ads was negative, focusing on the gas guzzler aspect and coming from environmentalists. As one expert noted, the mistake was not in the use of new media but in the mass approach that the company took:
A much better approach would have been for GM to approach all owners of Tahoes-from soccer moms to hip-hop artists. They could have asked those loyal fans to create commercials using the same material Chevy provided. Or better yet-GM could have allowed them to use their own videos, images, and music to create truly personalized commercials. 32
When consumer input is requested by firms online, it is called crowdsourcing. 33 However, crowdsourcing goes well beyond consumer-generated advertising, which was the focus of the Chevy Apprentice Challenge. Crowdsourcing can involve setting up a forum in which customers can help other customers with their problems, something both Dell and Microsoft have done. It can also involve specific requests by firms for consumer input into product and service design decisions. Illustration 7-5 shows an example.
The statistics presented earlier suggest that nearly 40 percent of social media users would like companies to ask for their input on such decisions. It is important to note, however, that not everyone is highly engaged in generated content online. Different types of consumers generate different types of content at different levels as follows: 34
• Creators. These folks create content of their own-web pages, blogs, video, and video uploads to places like YouTube. Creators tend to be in the teens and early 20s.
• Critics. These folks are bloggers and post ratings and reviews. Critics tend to be a bit older than creators-more in the late teens and mid-20s.
• Joiners. These folks utilize social networking sites. Joiners range mostly from teens to late 20s. Joiners are a much larger proportion of the population than creators and critics.
• Spectators. These folks consume other people's content by reading blogs, watching videos, and so on. Spectators trend young as well, but also garner more members of the older generations.
• Inactives. These folks are online but don't participate in social media. Inactives trend older.
Creators and critics are the true leaders of conversation and opinion in Web 2.0. They are, in essence, the opinion leaders and e-fluentials, which we discuss shortly, whose influence cannot be underestimated. Marketers are finding that in this new world of social media, they must think more in terms of joining and participating in the conversation rather than controlling it.
How do online social media change marketers from controlling communications to participating in and observing it
Social media are part of an ongoing revolution online, sometimes referred to as Web 2.0, which involves technologies that allow users to leverage the unique interactive and collaborative capabilities of the Internet. These technologies and formats include online communities, social network sites, consumer review sites, and blogs. Online social media allow users not only to form, join, and communicate with groups and individuals online, but also to create and distribute original content in ways not possible in the past. Such consumer-generated content is changing the marketing landscape. Marketers no longer completely control the communications process but now are both observers and participants in an ongoing dialogue that often is driven by consumers themselves. 31
An example of consumer-generated content in online social network sites is a video titled "Fully Submerged Jeep." It shows an amateur video posted on Metacafe of a Jeep event in which someone takes his Jeep into a pit of water that covers the vehicle completely and comes out the other side unscathed. The video has had over 350,000 views! Jeep is not in control of this content. On the other hand, one Jeep enthusiast provided not only vicarious learning about Jeep but implicit positive WOM about the qualities of Jeep. Others then joined in and posted comments about the video and about Jeep, which kept the "conversation" going. This is the positive side, and for Jeep derives from the devoted members of its brand community.
On the negative side was the Chevy Apprentice Challenge, in which Chevy invited consumers to create their own Tahoe ads with online components and tools provided by the company. The problem was that one in five ads was negative, focusing on the gas guzzler aspect and coming from environmentalists. As one expert noted, the mistake was not in the use of new media but in the mass approach that the company took:
A much better approach would have been for GM to approach all owners of Tahoes-from soccer moms to hip-hop artists. They could have asked those loyal fans to create commercials using the same material Chevy provided. Or better yet-GM could have allowed them to use their own videos, images, and music to create truly personalized commercials. 32
When consumer input is requested by firms online, it is called crowdsourcing. 33 However, crowdsourcing goes well beyond consumer-generated advertising, which was the focus of the Chevy Apprentice Challenge. Crowdsourcing can involve setting up a forum in which customers can help other customers with their problems, something both Dell and Microsoft have done. It can also involve specific requests by firms for consumer input into product and service design decisions. Illustration 7-5 shows an example.
The statistics presented earlier suggest that nearly 40 percent of social media users would like companies to ask for their input on such decisions. It is important to note, however, that not everyone is highly engaged in generated content online. Different types of consumers generate different types of content at different levels as follows: 34
• Creators. These folks create content of their own-web pages, blogs, video, and video uploads to places like YouTube. Creators tend to be in the teens and early 20s.
• Critics. These folks are bloggers and post ratings and reviews. Critics tend to be a bit older than creators-more in the late teens and mid-20s.
• Joiners. These folks utilize social networking sites. Joiners range mostly from teens to late 20s. Joiners are a much larger proportion of the population than creators and critics.
• Spectators. These folks consume other people's content by reading blogs, watching videos, and so on. Spectators trend young as well, but also garner more members of the older generations.
• Inactives. These folks are online but don't participate in social media. Inactives trend older.
Creators and critics are the true leaders of conversation and opinion in Web 2.0. They are, in essence, the opinion leaders and e-fluentials, which we discuss shortly, whose influence cannot be underestimated. Marketers are finding that in this new world of social media, they must think more in terms of joining and participating in the conversation rather than controlling it.
How do online social media change marketers from controlling communications to participating in and observing it
Explanation
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Online social media do change marketers ...
Consumer Behavior: Building Marketing Strategy 13th Edition by Delbert Hawkins, David Mothersbaugh
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