Social Media in decision making process or Power of Word of Mouth.

How much are we dependent on other’s point of view? My guess is.. a lot! Do we buy a product or service that we never used before based on a recommendation? That of someone we trust, a friend or colleague? Or do we research how people respond to this product or service online?

Do you trust TV ads? I don’t think so. Research showed that only 18% of TV advertising campaigns brining positive ROI; 90% of people would prefer to skip TV ads if they have a chance.

Social media plays huge role in people’s decision making process. This allows us to conduct market research about product or service of interest, and make an informed decision. Social media is a dialogue, an online conversation, its transparent, informative, honest, dynamic and most important its driven by customers! 78% people trust the recommendations of other people!

Social media is beneficial for both customers and marketers. Customers obtain desired product or service by participating in online conversation thereby create online activity around marketer’s products which is increasing leads and respectively rising sales.

The most powerful social media tools which are mainly influencing people’s decision making process are: product rating and reviews, blog comments, discussion forums and blog posts. The research conducted by Bernoff stated that people making 250 billion influence impressions to each other every year using this kind of social media tools.

According to a research conducted by social networking site myYearbook, 81% of respondents said they would like to received advice from friends and followers regarding to a product purchase through a social media site; 74% of those who received such advice found it to be valuable in their decision.

Over 50% of people seeking advises in blog posts before making a purchase. A study “Inbound marketing best practices” by Hubspot shows that blogging B2C companies have by 88% more median monthly leads than those companies who don’t blog. In B2B companies the median monthly leads of blogging companies is by 67% more than those who don’t blog.

Moreover, 90% of consumers online trust recommendations from people they know; 70% trust opinions of unknown users.

Consumers say that word of mouth is still the number one influence in their electronics (43.7%) and apparel (33.6%) purchases.

74% said "After interacting with companies or brands via new media, I generally have a more positive impression of the company or brand".

69% of companies using Web 2.0 have gained measurable business benefits.

By 2020, 84% of marketers agree that building customer trust will become marketing's primary objective, and 82% agree that collaboration with customers will prevail over marketing.

For Middle East market where internet penetration rate exceeds the global by 300% building online conversations with customers is vital; especially for technologically advanced country like UAE with a wide range of products and services.

Are you still thinking? Time to make a decision.

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http://www.hubspot.com/
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