Consumerism and social media

Last updated

Between 2020 and 2024 social media use has increased, with user engagement becoming normal for a variety of social media users. [1] Platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram are well-known forms of social media that provide platforms for users, and allow them to gain followers. Through this flow of followers, "influencers" are then able to promote products and services to their audiences. For general background, influencers make a name for themselves on social media through the content that they create and put out there. From their content, they begin to gather a following from social media users who tend to feel more connected to them through their mutual interests. [2]

Contents

Defining social media

Social media is a social medium, in the form of technology, that moderates, initiates, or influences communicative processes. [3] It not only allows users to build a page or platform on each specific website, but also encourages content creation of their choosing. Not only that, but social media is another relatively "new" wave of communication. Social media creates a sense of people coming together virtually and a way of communicating. [4] Some popular social media applications consist of TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. However, there are also many others that are becoming more popular. When these social media sites were created, they were mainly used as a way to share information about one's life to friends, family, and other followers of the creator. The sites themselves were also competing with each other early on in their development, but have recently shifted their efforts toward capturing audiences' time and attention. [5] With this push to engage their audiences, social media platforms have now started to pay those who have a large influence (follower count) on their platform, or those who promote sponsored products to viewers.

Influence of public figures

Kylie Jenner, youngest self-made billionaire through social media Kylie Jenner in 2021.jpg
Kylie Jenner, youngest self-made billionaire through social media

Those who have the ability to persuade potential buyers of a product by promoting these items on social media are known as influencers. [6] These individuals often become popular due to their impacts on beauty standards or lifestyle content, as well as how these habits can apply to the general public. [7] Additionally, their prevalence on mainstream media makes their faces more recognizable, and more likely to obtain a larger platform following. According to research on 2023 social media influencers, Cristiano Ronaldo, Charli D'amelio, and Kylie Jenner are among the top ten, seen promoting various products through their platforms. These content creators, on average, have over ten million active followers. They are also exposed to each of their paid promotions. [8] Because of this exposure, over 54% of social media users utilize these platforms to research and validate online purchases, with 71% of these individuals being more likely to purchase a given product. [9] Moreover, the exposure that influencers have on people all comes back to the sense of trust that has been built between the consumer and the influencer. In simpler terms, the more trust the consumer has in the influencer, the more of a role the influencer plays in consumerism. With that being said, there is a down side to all of this. Influencers may think that they are satisfying the brands needs for their influencer role, but they might not even realize that this may be the case. Things like humblebragging for example, may actually make the consumer think more negatively about the liking of a product. [10] In simpler terms, the way an influencer goes about their business definitely has an effect on the consumer's point of view.

Social media is known for having short-lived trends relating to topics such as beauty, lifestyle, physical fitness, fashion, and many more. Furthermore, many of these fads encourage consumptive behavior, which promotes various material items and making name-brand products desirable to the public. [11] Some of the more recent trends in 2023 consist of hygiene and wellness products such as snail mucin, sea moss, stylish tote bags, insulated water bottles, as well as a myriad of eco-friendly products for those what are trying to take a more sustainable route to consumption. [12] Because these trends don't last too long, they are often replaced by a newer trend, and often forgotten about within a short period of time.

Data behind the spending

In general, positive correlations have been found between materialism, consumption, and social media engagement. [13] One of the main reasons for this is due to the fact that the process of shopping, from the introduction of a product to the point of purchase, happens in minutes. [14] Social media has made it very easy for users to find new products on the market, and provide them with online options of payment and delivery. Additionally, because social media users usually follow the content of those who are similar to them, their opinions carry more weight for consumers, and make products more desirable. With the introduction of more influencers, comes more possible products to sell, reaching a larger audience and motivating viewers to purchase. Therefore, this whole process and way of using social media is just getting started.

Expert critiques on observed relationship

There has been found to be a generally negative relationship, which is shared between high levels of materialism and overall life satisfaction. [15] Since high levels of consumptive behavior also have to do with social media use, this suggests that social media platforms and the influencers who use them, likely contribute to the rise in consumerist lifestyles. One critique of this observed relationship is that influencers should recognize the impact they have, and consider the ethical authenticity of the products they're promoting. If the content they are putting out is untrue to their brand and untrue to their audience, it may be morally and ethically wrong to engage in these paid promotions. [16] If influencers recognize this conflict of interest, and only endorse those that are true to their values, social media users may think about their purchase intentions more, resulting in less compulsive purchases. Another critique made by experts in the field has to do with the idea of verification, which is essentially a social media term that refers to a person's account being certified or authentic by the platform itself. [17] This verification often carries another meaning of high status when obtained, and is sought after by many influencers who are trying to gain a larger following. Critics argue that because verified users are viewed as more original, those who follow them are much more likely to purchase any products they promote through their page. [18]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Testimonial</span> Statement extolling the virtue of a product or person

In promotion and advertising, a testimonial or show consists of a person's written or spoken statement extolling the virtue of a product. The term "testimonial" most commonly applies to the sales-pitches attributed to ordinary citizens, whereas the word "endorsement" usually applies to pitches by celebrities. Testimonials can be part of communal marketing.

Viral marketing is a business strategy that uses existing social networks to promote a product mainly on various social media platforms. Its name refers to how consumers spread information about a product with other people, much in the same way that a virus spreads from one person to another. It can be delivered by word of mouth, or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet and mobile networks.

In marketing, promotion refers to any type of marketing communication used to inform target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or issue, persuasively. It helps marketers to create a distinctive place in customers' mind, it can be either a cognitive or emotional route. The aim of promotion is to increase brand awareness, create interest, generate sales or create brand loyalty. It is one of the basic elements of the market mix, which includes the four Ps, i.e., product, price, place, and promotion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">User-generated content</span> Online content created by users

User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), emerged from the rise of intelligent web services which allow everyday users to create content, such as images, videos, audio, text, testimonials, and software and interact with other users. Online content aggregation platforms such as social media, discussion forums and wikis by their interactive and social nature, no longer produce multimedia content but provide tools to produce, collaborate, and share a variety of content, which can affect the attitudes and behaviors of the audience in various aspects. This transforms the role of consumers from passive spectators to active participants.

The target audience is the intended audience or readership of a publication, advertisement, or other message catered specifically to the previously intended audience. In marketing and advertising, the target audience is a particular group of consumer within the predetermined target market, identified as the targets or recipients for a particular advertisement or message.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parasocial interaction</span> Type of psychological relationship

Parasocial interaction (PSI) refers to a kind of psychological relationship experienced by an audience in their mediated encounters with performers in the mass media, particularly on television and online platforms. Viewers or listeners come to consider media personalities as friends, despite having no or limited interactions with them. PSI is described as an illusory experience, such that media audiences interact with personas as if they are engaged in a reciprocal relationship with them. The term was coined by Donald Horton and Richard Wohl in 1956.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Influencer marketing</span> Type of social media marketing

Influencer marketing is a form of social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, people and organizations who have a purported expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field. Influencers are someone with the power to affect the buying habits or quantifiable actions of others by uploading some form of original—often sponsored—content to social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok or other online channels. Influencer marketing is when a brand enrolls influencers who have an established credibility and audience on social media platforms to discuss or mention the brand in a social media post. Influencer content may be framed as testimonial advertising, according to the Federal Trade Commission in the United States. The FTC started enforcing this on a large scale in 2016, sending letters to several companies and influencers who had failed to disclosed sponsored content. Many Instagram influencers started using #ad in response and feared that this would affect their income. However, fans increased their engagement after disclosure, being happy that they were landing such deals. This success led to some creators creating their own product lines in 2017. Some influencers fake sponsored content to grain credibility and promote themselves. Backlash to sponsored content became more prominent in mid-2018, leading to many influencers to focus instead on authenticity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital marketing</span> Marketing of products or services using digital technologies or digital tools

Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online-based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services.

Customer engagement is an interaction between an external consumer/customer and an organization through various online or offline channels. According to Hollebeek, Srivastava and Chen, customer engagement is "a customer’s motivationally driven, volitional investment of operant resources, and operand resources into brand interactions," which applies to online and offline engagement.

Social commerce is a subset of electronic commerce that involves social media and online media that supports social interaction, and user contributions to assist online buying and selling of products and services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Content marketing</span> Form of marketing focused on creating content for a targeted audience online

Content marketing is a form of marketing focused on creating, publishing, and distributing content for a targeted audience online. It is often used in order to achieve the following business goals: attract attention and generate leads, expand their customer base, generate or increase online sales, increase brand awareness or credibility, and engage a community of online users. Content marketing attracts new customers by creating and sharing valuable free content as well as by helping companies create sustainable brand loyalty, providing valuable information to consumers, and creating a willingness to purchase products from the company in the future.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Targeted advertising</span> Form of advertising

Targetedadvertising or data-driven marketing is a form of advertising, including online advertising, that is directed towards an audience with certain traits, based on the product or person the advertiser is promoting.

Social network advertising, also known as social media targeting, is a group of terms used to describe forms of online advertising and digital marketing that focus on social networking services. A significant aspect of this type of advertising is that advertisers can take advantage of users' demographic information, psychographics, and other data points to target their ads.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet celebrity</span> Person who has become famous through their use of the Internet

An Internet celebrity, also referred to as an Internet personality, is an individual who has acquired or developed their fame and notability on the Internet. The growing popularity of social media provides a means for people to reach a large, global audience, and internet celebrities are commonly present on large online platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, which primarily rely on user-generated content. Some Internet celebrities are known as social media influencers, or simply influencers, due to their social influence online.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social media marketing</span> Promotion of products or services on social media

Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, social media marketing is becoming more popular for both practitioners and researchers.

Social media in the fashion industry refers to the use of social media platforms by fashion designers and users to promote and participate in trends. Over the past several decades, the development of social media has increased along with its usage by consumers. The COVID-19 pandemic was a sharp turn of reliance on the virtual sphere for the industry and consumers alike. Social media has created new channels of advertising for fashion houses to reach their target markets. Since its surge in 2009, luxury fashion brands have used social media to build interactions between the brand and its customers to increase awareness and engagement. The emergence of influencers on social media has created a new way of advertising and maintaining customer relationships in the fashion industry. Numerous social media platforms are used to promote fashion trends, with Instagram and TikTok being the most popular among Generation Y and Z. The overall impact of social media in the fashion industry included the creation of online communities, direct communication between industry leaders and consumers, and criticized ideals that are promoted by the industry through social media.

The wanghong economy refers to the Chinese digital economy based on influencer marketing through social media platforms. Wanghong is the Chinese term for internet celebrity. Chinese wanghong celebrities attract the attention of internet users, which can translate into profit through e-commerce and online advertising.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fashion influencer</span> Person who influences fashion through social media

A fashion influencer is a personality that has a large number of followers on social media, creates mainly fashion content and has the power to influence the opinion and purchase behavior of others with their recommendations. Brands endorse them to attend fashion shows, parties, designer dinners and exclusive trips and to wear their clothes on social media. If a salary has been involved, the influencer may be required to label such posts as paid or sponsored content. Before social media "they would have been called 'It girls'".

Livestream shopping is used by brands to promote and sell products through livestreams on digital platforms, often in collaboration with influencers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Influencer</span> Person who is influential on social media

An influencer is an individual who builds a grassroots online presence through engaging content like photos, videos, and updates, using direct audience interaction to establish authenticity, expertise, and appeal, and standing apart from traditional celebrities by growing their platform through social media rather than pre-existing fame. The modern referent of the term is commonly a paid role in which a business entity pays for the social media influence-for-hire activity to promote its products and services, known as influencer marketing. Types of influencers include fashion influencer, travel influencer and virtual influencer, and involve content creators and streamers.

References

  1. ↑ Cho, Hichang; Li, Pengxiang; Ngien, Annabel; Tan, Marion Grace; Chen, Anfan; Nekmat, Elmie (September 2023). "The bright and dark sides of social media use during COVID-19 lockdown: Contrasting social media effects through social liability vs. social support". Computers in Human Behavior. 146: 107795. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2023.107795. PMC   10123536 . PMID   37124630.
  2. ↑ Kim, Jihye; Kim, Minseong (January 2022). "Rise of Social Media Influencers as a New Marketing Channel: Focusing on the Roles of Psychological Well-Being and Perceived Social Responsibility among Consumers". International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 19 (4): 2362. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19042362 . ISSN   1660-4601. PMC   8872418 . PMID   35206553.
  3. ↑ Carr, Caleb T.; Hayes, Rebecca A. (January 2015). "Social Media: Defining, Developing, and Divining". Atlantic Journal of Communication. 23 (1): 46–65. doi:10.1080/15456870.2015.972282. ISSN   1545-6870.
  4. ↑ Obar, Jonathan A.; Wildman, Steve (2015-10-01). "Social media definition and the governance challenge: An introduction to the special issue". Telecommunications Policy. SPECIAL ISSUE ON THE GOVERNANCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA. 39 (9): 745–750. doi:10.1016/j.telpol.2015.07.014. ISSN   0308-5961.
  5. ↑ McIntyre, Karen Elizabeth (2014-12-31). "The Evolution of Social Media from 1969 to 2013: A Change in Competition and a Trend Toward Complementary, Niche Sites". The Journal of Social Media in Society. 3 (2). ISSN   2325-503X.
  6. ↑ "Meanings & Definitions of English Words". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 2024-03-22.
  7. ↑ Nouri, Melody (2018-09-12). "The Power of Influence: Traditional Celebrity vs Social Media Influencer". Pop Culture Intersections.
  8. ↑ Bertoni, Steven. "Top Creators 2023". Forbes. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  9. ↑ Barysevich, Aleh (2020-11-20). "How social media influence 71% consumer buying decisions". Search Engine Watch. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  10. ↑ Feng, Wenting; Chang, Dihui; Sun, Hongjie (2023-01-19). "The impact of social media influencers' bragging language styles on consumers' attitudes toward luxury brands: The dual mediation of envy and trustworthiness". Frontiers in Psychology. 13. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1113655 . ISSN   1664-1078. PMC   9893890 . PMID   36743651.
  11. ↑ Colella, Giuseppe; Amatulli, Cesare; Martínez-Ruiz, María Pilar (2021-01-01). "Social media interactions and brand luxuriousness: the role of materialism". Journal of Consumer Marketing. 38 (4): 434–444. doi:10.1108/JCM-02-2020-3650. hdl: 11586/359690 . ISSN   0736-3761.
  12. ↑ Admin (2023-04-03). "Promotional Product Trends Being Witnessed in 2023". Business and Marketing Blog. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  13. ↑ Pellegrino, Alfonso; Abe, Masato; Shannon, Randall (2022). "The Dark Side of Social Media: Content Effects on the Relationship Between Materialism and Consumption Behaviors". Frontiers in Psychology. 13. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.870614 . ISSN   1664-1078. PMC   9096894 . PMID   35572231.
  14. ↑ Barysevich, Aleh (2020-11-20). "How social media influence 71% consumer buying decisions". Search Engine Watch. Retrieved 2024-03-25.
  15. ↑ Lind, Andrea; Rindfleisch, Aric; Ahuvia, Aaron (2014), "Materialism", Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, pp. 3868–3871, doi:10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_1743, ISBN   978-94-007-0752-8 , retrieved 2024-03-25
  16. ↑ Wellman, Mariah L.; Stoldt, Ryan; Tully, Melissa; Ekdale, Brian (2020-04-02). "Ethics of Authenticity: Social Media Influencers and the Production of Sponsored Content". Journal of Media Ethics. 35 (2): 68–82. doi:10.1080/23736992.2020.1736078. ISSN   2373-6992.
  17. ↑ "What does Verified mean online?". later.com. Retrieved 2024-04-05.
  18. ↑ Dumas, Jazlyn Elizabeth; Stough, Rusty Allen (May 2022). "When influencers are not very influential: The negative effects of social media verification". Journal of Consumer Behaviour. 21 (3): 614–624. doi:10.1002/cb.2039. ISSN   1472-0817.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.