What is the role of social media on our purchasing decisions?
A TripAdvisor survey conducted in December 2013 by PhoCusWright shows how users used TripAdvisor when it came to planning their trip. In fact, an astounding 83 per cent from the 12,225 respondents feel more confident of their travel purchases after referencing content on TripAdvisor and reading reviews made by other travellers.
Some other interesting statistics from this survey:
• 77 per cent of the respondents claimed to refer to TripAdvisor reviews before selecting a hotel.
• 87 per cent said that an appropriate response to a bad review from the hotel management helps in keeping a good impression of the hotel.
• 62 per cent agreed that it helps seeing management respond to reviews. Compared to 2012, the response was 57 per cent.
• 80 per cent read about six to 12 reviews before making a booking, paying more attention to the latest reviews.
• 53 per cent claimed that they will not book a hotel until they read reviews about that hotel.
• 70 per cent of users are less likely to book a hotel with an aggressive or defensive response to a bad review. Compared to 2012, the response was 64 per cent.
The above statistics clearly demonstrate the extent to which users are influenced by social media sites and, in the meantime, influencing other users using the site. Compared to 2012, in 2013 the impact of buying decisions from social websites was even higher and is expected to continue to rise throughout 2014.
What do we learn from all of this? First, it is clear that businesses must not neglect social media. On the contrary, they must engage accordingly with these communities to encourage positive influences and also to minimise or resolve negative influences.
Businesses may be confused as to which social sites to use as there are various options such as Facebook, Twitter and You Tube.
Take into consideration whether some sites are dominant in some niches, such as TripAdvisor for the hospitality industry which makes it a must for hotels. However, other social media websites are more general and also offer better features to engage with users, such as Facebook.
Recently, a new term has been coined – that of human-to-human (H2H) interaction as opposed to the communication being business-to-customer (B2C) or business-to-business (B2B). Since people are not listening anymore, marketeers are using more targeted communication and even personal communication by interacting directly with customers. Facebook is a platform that enables two-way communication and shows the ‘humane aspect’ of a business since a customer can directly interact with it.
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Conrad Bugeja is a search engine optimisation consultant and pay-per-click consultant at Alert eBusiness Internet Marketing Division.