![]() ![]() Consequently, retailers are increasing their involvement in the Facebook community and creating their own Facebook pages. This SNS grew from 21 million members in 2007 (Ellison et al., 2007) to over 1.2 billion active monthly users as of 2013 (Facebook, 2014). Retailers must provide compelling propositions that attract consumers to their organizations and must understand consumers’ motivations to interact with companies using social media.įacebook is one of several Social Networking Sites (SNS) (e.g., YouTube, Twitter) where consumers can interact with other consumers and is the second most visited website with 10% share of all websites visited (Experian, 2014). Now considered an essential addition to retail marketing, social networking is a pivotal technique in the current retail environment as today׳s postmodern consumer seeks individualistic and communal brand experiences. Harris and Dennis (2011) identified four stages of social commerce for retailers: (1) Testing social media sites, (2) recognizing the need for infrastructure, (3) selecting products, and (4) creating consumer-centric experiences. Social media represents a substantial change in communication for retail operations. In fact, the 500 retailers ranked in Internet Retailer׳s 2014 Social Media sold an estimated $2.69 billion in 2013 directly from social media networks (Dusto, 2014). Thus, it is no surprise that retailers are integrating social media into their marketing strategies. Additionally, consumers are willing to pay more to receive only marketing that resonates with them, and they are receptive to marketing messages that are short, focused and personally communicated by friends and trusted experts (“Marketers Must Change”, 2005). Social media is an innovative communication tool for retailers to interact with consumers.
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