The new currency of online consumerism
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Blog, Internet, e-commerce on
According to Will Beresford, the strategy director at social web experts Beyond Analysis 2008 could well be the year of social media for business. He predicts that the traditional models which consumers use to research products and services will not only start to change but will fundamentally so courtesy of social media. Think social networking sites, think user feedback and review sites, think consumers that are ready and willing to interact with each other in order to get the best deal. “Traditional search engines will become increasingly less relevant to the consumer and businesses will need to re-think their online strategies” Beresford insists.
Certainly it would appear that social media as a content creation genre will impact upon the way that search engines do business, thanks to the growth in the amount of data available. Beresford suggests that “search engine providers will look to introduce tiered services providing more accurate results to those willing to pay” which could mean tiered search services bundled into ISP packages as well as the more obvious provision of search services to the business sphere. Businesses looking to research consumers could also find themselves having to reappraise their strategies. “As more businesses realise the value inherent in their customer data and the strategic role it plays for the future, reliance on traditional qualitative research will fall into terminal decline” says Beresford. With customer data being enriched by that to be found on the social web, traditional research tools such as focus groups and questionnaires could find themselves in danger of extinction.
However, the greatest change looks like being firmly in that ‘how consumers make their purchasing decisions’ camp with feedback and influence from immediate social networks playing a much more important role than branding or advertising reach. Personal recommendations could become the new currency of consumerism online…
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