Think social media is only for the non-affluent consumer? Think the wealthy are not affected and swayed by the court of public social media opinion? Think again…
A while ago I answered the question Why Do Luxury Consumers Engage With Brands On Social Media? In doing so I explained that luxury consumers engage with brands via social media because of an affinity they have with a given brand(s), as opposed to most people who do so to get deals. I referenced an eMarketer article which spoke to this point.
Today, however, it would appear that the luxury consumer, while showing off his or her brand affinity, is also impacted directly, just as many others are – by what transpires in the social media space.
According to a recent survey from Unity Marketing, of those individuals classified with a high-net worth, as defined by having more than $ 1 million in investible assets, indicated that comments, tweets, Facebook posts and so on directly influenced what websites they visited (59%), what retail stores they patronized (56%) and also what designer brand they purchased (57%).
As for those classified as ultra-affluent – those who earn $ 250,000 or more per year, the numbers were very similar with 54% responding social media influenced website visits, 49% saying social media influenced their retail shopping and 47% stating social media affected their choice of designer brand.
Now in terms of age breakdowns, the younger crowd, those ages 24-44 were more influenced via social media than their older counterparts with 52% saying social media impacted their website choices, 45% saying social media impacted their retail store selections and 44% stating social media affected their designer brand of choice. Compare that to the 45+ crowd where the numbers were cut in half or more with 25%, 19%, and 13%, respectively, among affluents ages 45+.
So, now we know that if you’re a luxury marketer or the keeper of a luxury brand flame, particularly in the retail world, you need to be very pro-active in the social media space; you need to get yourself some brand ambassadors who will go the social media mountaintops and sing your praises because it would appear the luxury consumer is listening and is reacting to what they are hearing, er, reading.
Source: Unity Marketing, The Star Group, Social Media Impacts The Luxury Consumer, Too
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Oct 9th, 2011. 
Today I attended an event hosted by WOMMA UK which covered the ways that word of mouth is impacting search and looked at how search and social media are overlapping more and more.
Search and social are becoming increasingly intertwined, especially with the arrival of Google+, a clear indication of the search giant’s intention to further develop and improve the social nature of search results.
There are several important areas brands should consider when thinking about how word of mouth affects their performance on search engines. Here are three areas that brands should keep in mind when looking at their social and search strategies:
1. Word of mouth drives search traffic – be ready
- People that “hear” about your brand (online, face to face, or otherwise) will want to search for you, for convenience, for education and for learning about new opinions. This means you need to cater for all the various different ways people will search for your brand and cover all the possibilities that misspellings or misperceptions may cause.
- “Reviews” is a very popular search term, so hosting these on your own site is a great way to generate authenticity and long-tail search terms.
2. Social and your online reputation
- Consider the implications for reputation management. Is “scam” a prominent result on the suggestions for your brand in Google? Nobody wants to see that, but instead of covering it up, ask yourself why this is such a dominant sentiment. Maybe there is a miscommunication and customers are not fully informed as to what your provide? Treat this as an opportunity to intercede and communicate.
- You can be proactive by using third party sites such as Yahoo! Answers, which generally ranks well and gives you a neutral platform to respond to negative sentiment.
3. Conversions and social media
- Retailers – price is no longer a USP. Your customers will be seeking deep content, such as user reviews and friend’s recommendations. It is important for users to trust your site, or they will go elsewhere to research and/or purchase.
- Remember that peoples’ decision making can be rational, but is predominantly emotional. Having social recommendations appear in search results and on page will appease the latter.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Jul 12th, 2011.
