Bazaarvoice: Social Media Setting the Agenda for Marketing

Now this time it’s the report by Bazaarvoice. The Social commerce innovator, has, in its Social Commerce Trends Report for this year, identified four factors that will drive social commerce growth in the coming year.

According to this report, marketers now need to take into account the following:

Social media has crowned the customers

While earlier the marketing message was broadcast and controlled by the advertisers and brand managers, with the advent of social media, the consumer has taken greater control of the message. This “consumer renaissance”, as rightly said by JP Rangaswami, the Chief Scientist for Salesforce.com, requires a new way of acquiring, interacting with, and retaining customers. The customer is truly a king now as they can immediately voice their opinion of a product or service and influence the buying decisions in their circle.

As social media use has increased dramatically, marketers have to engage with customers via this medium. Brands that offer a cohesive experience across stores, online sites, social media, and broadcast are more likely to succeed in acquiring and retaining customers.

Insights from social media

Brand managers can benefit by using social media to understand customer preferences. A savvy marketing manager can analyze social media data to understand customer wants and dislikes. This can help increase conversion rates dramatically. Unlike traditional research where customers are contacted at the convenience of the marketer, social media provides opinions soon after an experience. While the data is easily available, marketers need to put in effort to analyze the data and come up with the right answers. By responding to consumer preferences as soon as they are obtained, a business can modify its products and services to increase sales.

Building customer-centric businesses

The closer interaction with customers and faster awareness of customer opinion can be converted to sales only if the entire business becomes customer centric. A hub and spokes model where the data is analyzed and relayed to the various departments in an efficient manner can help increase sales. Now the product or service has to meet the requirements of the customer and delight the customer to ensure a sale or a further purchase. The entire organization, not just the marketing department, needs to change their view of the customer and understand that the customer is no longer a passive consumer but a consumer who drives the design of products and services.

Importance of context

While social media data can be analyzed, this can be used only if it is presented across the enterprise in the right context. By realizing that social media is ultimately about people and consumers and their needs, the context of the data can be understood better.

We  now ask our Daily Deal Media readers. Do you think this report is offering something new to the marketers? Yes, No, whatever! Or, would you like to add some of your own trend-opinions? Daily Deal Media welcomes your views!

Here is the link to the full report.

Source: Econsultancy