Connect With Consumer Interests Transparently

Brands contemplating the value of social media can no longer be seen as optional.  Rather, it has constant openings to engage with current or target consumers, who are already participating within, to gain an understanding for how to groom as well as align the brand’s quintessence with their conceptualization (Eikelmann, Hajj, & Peterson, 2007).  Brands would then tweak social media focuses regarding interests to:

• Groom social media content, with the aid of advocates, so that it has a customized scent.
• Synthesize audience behaviors that facilitate advocate fielding.
• Fragment social media further.
• Generate distinctive social content, which communicates the one-on-one social atmosphere bestowed for each sui generis consumer.
• Dialogue with, to shed insight for how to put across the range of experiences that a consumer can come enjoy with a brand.  

As a result, advocates herald devoted confidence regarding satisfaction they receive; and in return, enjoy appended benefits that reinforce the relationship.



Concept of perks plus personalized satisfaction is analogous to how loyalty programs aid in a consumer’s buying decision exercise.  When brands embellish advocates, they are treated as ambassadors.  Their referrals [both online, and offline] proudly acknowledge who referred them. Intuitively, advocates understand their role well. Advocates are adjudged to be a brand’s capital; hence, attention to their idiosyncrasies is sanctioned which in turn confirms the social relationship.  Advocates though are different.  They may or may not use technology to advance triumphs. In whatever extent, glorious reviews are one thing; but personal word-of-mouth outweighs any online content message a brand can put out.

Consumers that receive services should be encouraged to join communities that brands hold presence, add personal content, and refer their friends or strangers.  With this positioning, every consumer is looked upon as having the potential to be an advocate for the brand, and is fostered as such.  By erasing consumers’ ambivalent self-views, it advances the odds that the consumers’ self-perceptions will manifest emotional regaining that could unfold into a brand advocacy role.

Thereupon, social relationships are the backbone of building a successful brand.  Social networks are the venue for consumers to vent or praise, and brands must engage. It spurs word-of-mouth recommendations from advocates, and is theorized consumers then appreciate that the brand is hearing them.  Once understood, brands can method online marketing designed to engage with consumers as audience behaviors update along with online marketing shifts. This structure of activity falls in with Vollmer and Precourt (2008) connecting consumer awareness to advertising innovation.


Reference reading:

Schmitt, G, Supe, M, & Lerch, B. (2008). Meet the connected consumer. (The Razorfish Consumer Experience Report/2008), http://www.scribd.com/doc/9631697/Meet-the-Connected-Consumer2008.

Vollmer, C, & Precourt, G. (2008). Always On. (pp. 54-69). U.S.:McGraw Hill.