Social networking sites as a new intermediary

Abhishek Singh

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES-A NEW INTERMEDIARY?-A STUDY

MARKETING CHANNELS

Project Report

on

Submitted By:

AcknowledgementWe would like to place on record our deep sense of gratitude to

Prof. H K Dangi for his generous guidance, help and useful

suggestions. We are thankful to him for his continuous

encouragement and supervision throughout the course of present

work.

We also wish to extend our thanks to the respondents of survey

for our study who helped us in building the concept in a better

way by sparing their time and filling the form for our study

purpose. We are grateful to them for their insightful comments

and constructive suggestions to improve the quality of this

project work.

We are extremely thankful to our classmates and friends for

supporting and guiding us throughout the project work and helping

us in all possible ways without which this work would not have

been possible.

Signature(s) of Students

Vinita Hatadia || Abhishek Singh || Aashima Dhankhar || Abhijeet

Singh || Arpit Maheshwari || Asif Muhammed || Brij Singh ||

Chandan Kumar || Deepanshu Yadav

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary....................................................4Objective............................................................5Scope of the project.................................................5Introduction.........................................................6Literature Review....................................................7The history and evolution of social media............................9Social Media-Its Reach and significance.............................11REACH OF VARIOUS PLATFORMS.........................................11

Research Methodology................................................14Results and discussion..............................................15Takeaways from project.............................................15

Conclusion..........................................................16refrences...........................................................19Appendices..........................................................20Appendix 1: Social Media Usage Pattern: Secondary Research.........20

Appendix 2: Survey Questionnaire...................................21Appendix 3: survey responses.......................................22

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

There are total of 1.06 billion users on Facebook and 1 out of

every 3 person in the world is using one of the social networking

sites. On an average a person spends 1.5 hours daily on these

sites. Keeping these statistics in reference SNS have been

considered as one of major marketing channel by the marketers to

effectively communicate and reach out to the target customer

group. These sites have data about the users which can also be

used by the marketers to efficiently concentrate their marketing

promotions on the target group. The LinkedIn has redefined

process of hiring. The twitter has fuelled revolution in

political communication, entertainment and democratic movements

around the world. Online networks display in general a rich

internal structure where users can choose among different types

and intensity of interactions. The project is focussed towards

the evolution of SNS as marketing channel and how the marketers

can use these as opportunity to communicate with their target

segment effectively and efficiently with respect to product and

service marketing.

Research methodology consists of primary research through

questionnaire designed to reveal consumer behaviour of SNS users.

Consumers insights from conclusion has helped to predict

trends with Social Media Sites as new intermediary like Invest

the resources required to implement a measurement strategy that

defines the cause and effect, Treat social media as a cost of

doing business like customer service and maintain status quo .

From a promotional point of view, Social Networking Sites have

become a very important aspect which means no marketer can

neglect it now. However on an aspect regarding sales, it still

has to evolve in a country like India and is evolving slowly. The

cost involved is the major reason why marketing companies are

really looking for social media marketing as a potential tool.

The maintenance and updation of say a Facebook page will cost

much less than the margin you are paying to a single distributor

for a typical firm. Hence companies want to leverage on full use

of it. However tracking of ROI is still an issue. Secondary

research consists of literature review and data from internet

with respect to consumer behavior over internet.

OBJECTIVE

To discover the attitudes of customers towards brand and

their social media interaction

To find the impact of SNS on customers

To explore the perception of customers towards SNS

To predict the trends involving SNS in service and product

marketing

SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

The project tries to explore the concept of social media sites as

new intermediaries between consumers and brands. Though we have

e-retailing giants like Amazon, Flipkart, Groupon etc. Yet,

Facebook and Twitter has disrupted the way consumers perceive and

interact with brands. Almost all FMCG, white goods and electronic

brands etc also have selling platform on their website, yet they

are forced/ cajoled to have their presence on Social networking

sites. BPO units in developing countries have started to take

care of social media presences of brands.

INTRODUCTION

On an average a person spends 1.5 hours daily on social

networking sites. There are total of 1.06 billion users on

Facebook and 1 out of every 3 person in the world is using one of

the social networking sites. Keeping these statistics in

reference SNS have been considered as one of major marketing

channel by the marketers to effectively communicate and reach out

to the target customer group. These sites have data about the

users which can also be used by the marketers to efficiently

concentrate their marketing promotions on the target group. The

LinkedIn has redefined process of hiring. The twitter has fuelled

revolution in political communication, entertainment and

democratic movements around the world.

Our project shall be focussed towards the evolution of SNS as

marketing channel and how the marketers can use these as

opportunity to communicate with their target segment effectively

and efficiently with respect to product and service marketing.

Social media marketing is the most cost effective channel and

convenient element a company can use for marketing. It also helps

in building a brand image by positive comments and consumer

approach on social media.

Using Social networking sites as marketing channels in company’s

business strategy has tremendous advantages, be it low setup

costs, lesser resource wastage, freedom of choosing any location,

faster and wider reach, affordability to do business 24 hours or

the opportunity to go global. In fact, whenever history will be

written, the creation of Internet will be ranked alongside

printing press and radio as one of the major advancements in

human communication.

Next we present the literature review, where we examine the

contribution made by other researchers in this field. The

literature review is followed by our research methodology and

design. The findings of the research and the analysis are

presented after that, which are followed by the conclusion of

this study.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Social networking sites are an emerging platform for people to

build their social networks/relations among people who, for e.g.,

share interests, real-life connections, backgrounds or

activities. Social networks operate under an autonomous business

model, in which social network's members usually serve dual roles

which are suppliers as well as consumers of content. This is in

contrast to a traditional business model, where the suppliers and

consumers are different entities. Revenue is typically gained in

the autonomous business model via advertisements, but

subscription-based revenue is possible when membership and

content levels are sufficiently high (Flor et al, 2000).

Now, discussing the aspect of social networking sites as an

intermediary; it can be observed that nowadays more and more

brands, products and even companies with their complete portfolio

are moving towards social networking sites. Taking the e.g. of

Facebook; even banks, telecom providers and well-known brands are

creating their Facebook page to engage with consumers.

Applications for social networking sites have extended toward

businesses and brands are creating their own, high functioning

sites, a sector known as brand networking. It is the idea that a

brand can build its consumer relationship by connecting their

consumers to the brand image on a platform that provides them

relative content, elements of participation, and a ranking or

score system. Brand networking is a new way to capitalize on

social trends as a marketing tool (Fraser et al, 2008). Companies

are using their brands in brand networking to create special

communities which serve as an interactive platform to leverage

and incentivize brand participation online.

Several companies are already using social networking sites to

support the creation of brand communities (Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001)

or for marketing research (Kozinets, 2002). To promote the movie

“Fred Claus,” a 2007 Christmas comedy film, Warner Brothers

created a Facebook profile via which visitors could watch

trailers, download graphics, and play games. Likewise, the Adidas

custom soccer community on MySpace allows visitors to associate

themselves with one of two brands of elite soccer cleats produced

by the German sports apparel manufacturer, and to access product

reviews and information on professional soccer players who play

using “their” shoes. Some firms even go one step further and use

Facebook as a distribution channel. For example, U.S.-based

florist 1-800-Flowers .com, which offers a widget on Facebook

called “Gimme Love” whereby users can send “virtual bouquets” to

friends or, with a click of the mouse, be directly transferred to

the company's website to send real flowers(Andreas M. Kaplan et

al, 2010). This level of user participation with the brand

creates strong relationships with consumers & leverages sales and

generates fan equity. Companies are investing heavily on Digital

media especially social media to be in the minds of consumers all

the time and be available with just one click. Creating brand fan

pages on social networking sites fosters relationship with

customers. The customers liking and commenting on brand posts

reflects brand post popularity. The positioning the brand post on

top of the brand fan page enhances brand post popularity. The

most important factor here is that the interactive brand post

characteristics is responsible for likes and number of comments

(Lisette et al, 2012).

Research have also been done to find out the brand loyalty of the

customers towards these brands which was found to be positively

affected when the brand appears on various platforms and offers

applications on social media. Apart from following their brand,

customers do prefer to share music, technological-related

contents on social media platforms (İrem Eren Erdoğmuş et al,

2012).

Social networking sites can be used as a marketing communication

tool in areas where people are less aware. For example, National

governing bodies(NGB) of sport which are not-for-profit

organizations and therefore seek alternative methods to increase

brand awareness and reach fans and stakeholders. Their fan base

grew as the fans started following their favorite teams on social

networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. It overcomes

previous challenges - low interest levels from fans in non-

Olympic years, less media coverage during non-Olympic years,

lower marketing budgets than other sport organizations (Andrea N.

Eagleman, 2013).

Social networking sites are highly cost effective during economic

crises. It allows anybody to become a producer of such content

and deliver it through interactive communication in the form of

pyramid based on relationship is recognized as the most

potentially powerful tool in business practice (Kazım Kirtiş et

al, 2011).

Companies have to keep few things in mind to be available online

through social networking sites. First of all, it is always

advisable to take the lead and to be active if we want to develop

a relationship with someone. Social Media are all about sharing

and interaction, so companies has to make sure that their content

is always fresh and that they engage in discussions with their

customers on regular basis. The next step would be to listen to

the customers. Companies need to find out what the consumers

would like to hear/talk about/find interesting/enjoyable or

valuable. Then, they should develop and post content that fits

those expectations (Andreas M. Kaplan et al, 2010). Last but not

least, companies should be honest and respect the rules while

being present online. Companies need to make sure that the

interface is secure enough for the customer to engage themselves

with full confidence and trust in the social networking site as

well as company’s Brand network.

THE HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL MEDIA

The history of social media is very long. It has evolved through

a lot of phases since its inception in 1979 with User net

systems. It allowed users post articles or posts to news groups.

User nets had no centralized server or dedicated administrator.

They led to the development of newsreader clients, which are the

precursor to RSS feed readers so commonly used to follow blogs

and news sites today. Group sites such as Google Groups and

Yahoo! Groups use many of the conventions established by the

original user net systems.

Next in line were the BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems). The first

BBSs came online in the late 70s. Only one person at a time could

gain access to the BBS. After BBSs came online services like

CompuServe and Prodigy. These were the first real corporate

attempts at accessing the Internet. CompuServe was the first

company to incorporate a chat program into their service. Prodigy

was responsible for making online service more affordable

(CompuServe had been prohibitively expensive for many, with

charges of $6/hour plug long-distance fees that often made the

service run $30/hour or more)

The next age was of the Internet Relay Chat (IRC). It was

developed in 1988 and it was used extensively for file sharing,

link sharing and keeping in touch. It was really the father of

instant messaging as we know it today. However, IRC was mostly

UNIX-based, limiting access to most people.

The next wave was of early social networking sites like dating

sites and forums. Dating sites allowed users to create profiles

usually, with photos and to contact other users. Online forums

were really descendants of the BBSs popular in the 70s and 80s,

but usually came with a more user-friendly interface, making them

easier for non-technical visitors to use various forum platforms.

Forums remain a popular part of online culture, and many have

made strides to add more social networking-type features like

profiles.

The early 2000s brought some huge developments in social

networking and social media. A lot of sites came into being and

cleared ground for the better ones. Friendster was really the

first modern, general social network. Founded in 2002Friendster

is still a very active social network, with over 90 million

registered users and 60+ million unique visitors each month. Most

of Friendster’s traffic comes from Asia (90% of it). Hi5 is

another major social network, established in 2003 and currently

boasting more than 60 million active members according to their

own claims. However, these are not very popular these days.

LinkedIn was founded in 2003 and was one of the first mainstream

social networks devoted to business. They work on the assumption

that you should personally know the people you connect with on

the site. It is the most popular professional network presently.

Facebook

While Facebook started out as a Harvard-only social network back

in 2004, it quickly expanded to other schools, then to high

schools, businesses and eventually everyone

In 2008 Facebook became the most popular social networking site

and continues to grow. Facebook has added a number of features

over the past few years, including instant messaging/chat and

apps.

While we might see new websites coming up in future, one thing

remains the same, the need of such websites. This establishes the

longevity of any marketing effort directed to these channels.

SOCIAL MEDIA-ITS REACH AND SIGNIFICANCE

Social media has reached middle age. The fastest growing segment

of social media users is now adults aged 45-54%. 55% of this age

group now has a profile on at least one social network. Facebook,

Twitter and Google+ are the most popular social networks with

search engine marketers. The second-most popular tier includes

YouTube, blogging and LinkedIn. The least popular major networks

are Flickr, Tumblr and Stumble Upon. 93% of marketers use social

media for business. Marketers aren’t like ordinary people. While

86% of marketing professionals have “liked” at least one brand on

Facebook, just 58% of consumers have done so. And the gap is even

more dramatic on Twitter, where 61% of marketers but just 12% of

consumers follow at least one brand. (Thought Reach)

Furthermore 75% of social media users “object to major companies

and platforms using their personal information for commercial

purposes.” And just 12% admit to having their purchases

influenced by Facebook “Likes” or Google “+1s”.

REACH OF VARIOUS PLATFORMS

Facebook

There are now over 1.15 billion active Facebook users. That is

the main fact you need to know. This is a 21 per cent increase in

12 months. Facebook is still the social media network of choice

and its numbers are huge no matter where you look.

Google+

Google+ has become the second biggest network during the last 6

months and continues to grow rapidly. It seems to have reached a

tipping point in consciousness and people are curious about how

to use it. It is based upon the crowd voting with retweets,

shares and traffic. The latest statistics indicate that there are

343 million active monthly users.

Twitter

Twitter is a platform that is bridging the mass media and social

media gap. Television is using the social network to obtain

feedback and comments. Its power lies in its simplicity, real

time feed and news breaking capabilities. The latest numbers on

Twitter indicate that it has over 288 million monthly active

users. This is according to Global Web Index Study. The number

registered currently sits at over 500 million.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has been working on making its platform more social and

is social media’s quiet achiever. According to some reports it

has now reached 238 million users.

YouTube

YouTube is the giant of online video and this social media giant

now has over 1 billion unique visitors every month.

How big are these networks?

As of January 2013, the five largest social networks based on

ACTIVE monthly users were: Facebook (1 billion), YouTube (800

million) and Google+ (343 million) followed by Twitter and

LinkedIn with 200 million active monthly users each.

Social media users are more social than non-social-media-using-

internet-users in real life too. Social networkers are 18% more

likely to work out at a gym or health club, 19% more likely to

attend a sporting event, and 26% more likely to give their

opinion about politics and current events. Half of all social

media users are under age 35 follow their online friends’ product

and service recommendations.

Three-fourths of marketers planned to increase strategic efforts

on social media and social networking sites this year, with 68%

also focusing more on SEO and 63% on blogs. As universal as

business use of social media can seem to be, 26% of companies

still block access to social media sites in their workplaces and

31% have no social media policy in place. 54% of consumers say

that “smaller communities have greater influence on a topic than

larger ones.”

70% of brand marketers (and 60% of agency professionals) view

social media advertising as more valuable for building brand

awareness than for driving direct response. But contradicting the

statistic above 66% of brand advertisers want to see a measurable

sales bump from social media advertising.

Here are some findings that help in benchmarking the impact of

social media on Ecommerce.

Looking at the volumes of traffic from these 3 sources shows the

dominance of direct (not shown) and search with Social and Email

as a relative low proportion. The apparently declining proportion

of social and search traffic may be partly explained by increased

use of mobile devices where visitors clicking through from apps

may not be tracked from these apps.

Amongst social media services, Facebook delivers much higher

conversion rates than Pinterest or Twitter in terms of social

commerce sales, but the average order value is highest for

Pinterest users. The Top 3 referrers by conversion rate are AOL

Search, Bing and Yahoo for e-commerce sites.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Our research methodology required gathering relevant data and

compiling databases followed by analysis in order to find out and

understand the scope for a Social Networking Site as a new

intermediary or marketing tool.

The research carried out consisted of primary research and

secondary research both. An online questionnaire was floated to

collect the responses from the users of social networking sites.

Total 108 responses were collected. The questions asked in the

survey tried to gather responses from users about the following

parameters:

1. The level of engagement of users with the products/brands

via social media

2. The frequency of these engagements

3. The reliability and credibility of such engagement

4. The differential impact of social media impact compared to

other media

Via Secondary research, we tried to find out the penetration of

social media, the relative importance and market share of the

popular social media, the demographics of usage pattern and also

the growth prospects of these social networking websites. Some

research papers and published analytics results were consulted

for the same. Our research methodology required gathering

relevant data and compiling databases followed by analysis in

order to find out and understand the scope for a Social

Networking Site as a new intermediary or marketing tool.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

After completion of our primary and secondary study, thefollowing results are obtained:

TAKEAWAYS FROM PROJECT

From our research, we found that consumers spend 83% of their

social networking time on Facebook. The average visitor to the

social network spent only 6 minutes 47 seconds on Google+

compared to 6 hours and 44 minutes on Facebook. Clearly, this

establishes Facebook as the leading medium. The penetration of

social media usage is the highest (92%) in the age group 18-29.

It is interesting to note that even among the age group 65+

years, the penetration is 38%. For a detailed statistic, please

refer to the tables and graphs in the appendix.

a) From a promotional point of view, Social Networking Sites

have become a very important aspect which means no marketer

can neglect it now. However on an aspect regarding sales, it

still has to evolve in a country like India and is evolving

slowly.

b) Even though, it is taking time, we can see a positive trend

among customers as many customers (especially in metros and

Tier I cities) really looking forward for the same. Maybe

because of the lifestyle changes or higher income they are

having nowadays, but the winds are getting stronger.

c) The cost involved is the major reason why marketing

companies are really looking for social media marketing as a

potential tool. The maintenance and updation of say a

Facebook page will cost much less than the margin you are

paying to a single distributor for a typical firm. Hence

companies want to leverage on full use of it. However

tracking of ROI is still an issue.

d) The authenticity of the information or the customer

perceiviance of the authenticity of the authenticity of the

information is a big headache. Since this is an evolving

channel in India and thanks to the dubious mentality of

Indians we still don’t trust the customer reviews and all

fully. However as the market and economy develops this is

surely gonna change.

CONCLUSION

Five years ago, corporate social media was in the early adoption

stage. A few forward thinking companies were testing it. The rest

were watching from the sidelines, skeptical about anything that

wasn’t proven to generate revenue and profitability. The economy

was presenting tough challenges. Investments needed to deliver

revenue. The first impression of the baby channel wasn’t good.

Anyone who dared to mention a return on investment was chastised

for not understanding that it was “all about the conversation.”

This made people who understood business uncomfortable.

However things have changed. Social media is increasingly

becoming a cost of doing business. And, measuring the return from

social media is similar to measuring the return from customer

service. It isn’t easy or simple but it can be done. Companies

participating in social activities have three choices when

considering quantification. They are:

Invest the resources required to implement a measurement

strategy that defines the cause and effect.

Treat social media as a cost of doing business like customer

service.

Maintain the status quo.

The conclusions which came out from out survey also suggest the

same.

Dig 1: PERCENTAGE OF PEOPLE WHO FOLLOW ATLEAST 1 COMPANY/PRODUCT

Percentage of people who follow atleast 1 company

or product: 77%

Percentage of people who dont follow any company

or product : 23%

A staggering 77% people say that they follow some product/company

through social media which indicates the penetration levels of

the media.

And out of this 77%, a further 64% suggested that they are

potential buyers and wants to know more about the product for

their consumption. This suggests the importance of the media and

highlights the fact that a majority (almost 2/3rd) of the persons

who follows the product/brands pursue social media as a tool to

analyze the product. So it poses a very great area for

opportunity as well as a threat for the marketing geniuses of

various brands. They have to be very proactive and clear customer

queries regarding brands & products as a lot of potential

customers are always looking into them. Also any

unwanted/biased/negative opinion about the product severely

hampers not only the product alone but also affects the entire

brand-line as such. Hence it is of utmost priority by any of the

marketer who handles the social media with maximum care.

Dig 2. PERCENTAGE OF PEOPLE WHO ARE POTENTIAL BUYERS FROM THE

PEOPLE WHO FOLLOW PRODUCTS/BRANDS

Potential Buyers: 64%

Non- Buyers: 36%

However another issue which comes here is that the number of

persons who believe in the authenticity of the information. In

much evolved economies (read developed economies), where the role

of social media is very high, owing to the fact that the

awareness levels are pretty high due to improved education

facilities, the authenticity of information is very high. People

used to post excellent reviews and comments about each and every

aspect of a newly launched product which very much helps the

brands. Moreover there have been instances (eg, the you tube

videos regarding making of burgers in McDonalds), who

successfully tackled the negative campaign against them. So, in a

less-developed country like India, the authenticity of

information is a question mark. There were many issues in the

past where companies who deliberately cooked up and posted

stories about themselves to gain that extra advantage in

customer’s mindset. Maybe because of a reflection of this,

majority of the people in our survey said the belief levels are

quite normal as against the word-of mouth.

The concept of blogs and all were quite familiar with the Indian

crowd, but as the emergence of Facebook as a social networking

site, it diminished (to a very large extend). This is quite

evident from our survey as most of the people don’t trust the

customer forums and all much. And in addition, the involvement of

the customers in the sites is also very low. Almost all of the

customers never take up the pain of giving any fruitful

suggestions to the customers and just go through the earlier

comments posted by others.

Dig 3. CUSTOMER RESPONSE ON AUTHENTICITY OF INFORMATION

1 23

45

0%5%

10%15%20%25%30%35%40%45%50%

Very Authentic : 3%

Good, not great: 19%

Average : 45%

Can't trust that much : 21%

Absolutely, nonsense: 11%

And the last but the most alarming part about the survey is that,

in our country not a single ever person ever bought anything

through social media. But looking to the fact that hardly 1 or 2

companies offer their services directly through social media

(even in worldwide), this is not an alarming statistic. We can

hope that once companies start providing services through social

media, people will have more motivation to buy them through

social media.

REFRENCES

1. Flor, Nick V. (2000). Web Business Engineering: Using Offline Activities

to Drive Internet Strategies. Addison-Wesley

2. Fraser M. &Dutta S., (2008). Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom. John

Wiley and Sons

3. Muniz, A. M. Jr. &O’Guinn, T. C. (2001), Brand Community,

Journal of Consumer Research, 27 (March), 412-32.

4. Robert V. Kozinets (2002) The Field Behind the Screen: Using

Netnography for Marketing Research in Online Communities.

Journal of Marketing Research: February 2002, Vol. 39, No.

1, pp. 61-72

5. IremErenErdogmus, MesutCiceka(2011), “Online Group Buying: What Is

There For The Consumers?”, Procedia Social And Behavioral Sciences

24(2011)308-316.

6. Kirtiş, A.K. &Karahan,F.K. (2011).To beornottobein Social Media

Arena as theMost Cost- Efficient MarketingStrategyafter the Global Rrecession.

Procedia Socialand Behavioral Sciences 24, 260–268.

7. deVries, L.; Gensler, S.; Leeflang, P.S.H., (2012).Popularity of Brand Posts on

Brand Fan Pages: An Investigation of the Effects of Social Media

Marketing,Journal of Interactive Marketing

APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1: SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE PATTERN: SECONDARY RESEARCH

APPENDIX 2: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE

1. What all information do you share on social networking sites

(e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Orkut etc.)?

2. Do you put all correct information on the social networking

sites?

3. Do you follow any company/product on the social networking

sites?

4. What makes you like/follow any product or product community on

social networking sites?

5. How actively do you participate in the product/company

communities?

6. Do you believe in the authenticity of the information

given/put on the communities?

7. Do you read the reviews of the other users given on the

communities before buying the product?

8. What all activities do you participate in the communities?

[Voting Questions about the product preferences]


[Suggestions over product development/changes]


[Comment in discussions/posts by other users]


[Complaints about bad services or product failures]


[Fill Survey forms]

13. Please rate the following on the scale the scale of 1 - 5

( 5 being the highest and 1 lowest) [Your complaints are taken

seriously and action will be taken on them.]

14. Please rate the following on the scale the scale of 1 - 5

( 5 being the highest and 1 lowest) [Your suggestions about a

product is considered valuable by the company]

15. Have you ever bought or ordered anything through social

media websites?

APPENDIX 3: SURVEY RESPONSES

What all information do you share on social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Orkut etc.)?

Do you follow any company/product on the social networking sites?

Analyzing the activities of users on communities

What makes you like/follow any product or product community on

social networking sites?

My interes t in product as a potential buyer.

61 74%

I already own the product. 50 61%

Want to know m ore about the product.

52 63%

Becaus e m y friends are following it.

5 6%

Becaus e lot of people are following it.

4 5%

Jus t like that!! 8 10%

How actively do you participate in the product/company

communities?

Never active Very Active

Do you believe in the authenticity of the information given/put

on the communities?

Never Perfectly Yes

Do you read the reviews of the other users given on the

communities before buying the product?

Never Always

What all activities do you participate in the communities?

[Voting Questions about the product preferences]


[Suggestions over product development/changes]


[Comment in discussions/posts by other users]


[Complaints about bad services or product failures]

What all activities do you participate in the communities? [Fill

Survey forms]

Please rate the following on the scale the scale of 1 - 5 ( 5

being the highest and 1 lowest) [Your complaints are taken

seriously and action will be taken on them.]

Please rate the following on the scale the scale of 1 - 5 ( 5

being the highest and 1 lowest) [Your suggestions about a product

is considered valuable by the company]

Social networking sites as a new intermediary

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