>Consumers & Online Buyers Are Tapping Into the ‘F-Factor’ of Social Networking

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Consumers are increasingly tapping into their online social networks of friends, fans, and followers to discover, discuss and purchase goods and services, according to analysis from Trendwatching.com. The consumer trend analysis firm calls this trend the “F-Factor,” with the “F” standing for friends, fans and followers.

Social Sources Become Trusted

As a result of social networking and other online communication technologies, consumers can now use trusted sources they know to obtain information about products and brands, rather than rely on third party advertising or perform extensive first hand research.

Trendwatching.com advises that consumers have always relied on word-of-mouth advice from friends, relatives and associates, but modern technology is greatly accelerating its development as a major influence of purchase decisions.

Facebook Dominates the F-Factor

The F-Factor is currently dominated by Facebook, according to Trendwatching.com.  As of April 2011 Facebook has 500 million active users spend more than 700 billion minutes a month on the website and every month more than 250 million people engage with Facebook across more than 2.5 million external websites.

2010 Facebook data shows the average user clicks the “Like” button nine times each month and February 2011 Ad Age/Ipsos data shows 3/4 of Facebook users have liked a brand.

Consumers ‘F-Discover’ Best of the Best

Trendwatching.com has broken down five key ways the F-Factor influences consumer purchasing decisions. The first, ‘F-Discovery’ involves consumer desires to own or experience the best of the best and their desire for serendipity, excitement, interaction and community. People are curious and interested in what their friends and contacts think, do, eat, read, listen to, drive in, travel to and buy, because this will often be similar to how they want to think, act and buy.

Thus consumers are embracing communities, tools and apps that allow them to dive into and discover selections from friends, fans, followers, and so on.

Consumers Want ‘F-Rated’ Products

Consumers sometimes enjoy finding the best of the best through discovery; they are increasingly able to access personalized recommendations and reviews on something they know they want to purchase. Research from trendwatching.com shows more and more websites will automatically serve up friends’ recommendations, ratings and reviews next to goods and services that people are researching.

‘F-Feedback’ Makes Recommendations Personal

Anonymous reviews aren’t always what consumers need or want; they can lack relevance and context, and consumers with many options sometimes just want an unambiguous or finite opinion. F-Feedback involves consumers actively disclosing their purchasing intentions and reaching out to their friends and contacts for personalized feedback.

Trendwatching.com further advises that with more and more consumers increasingly viewing their online reputation as something to enhance as well as just protect, the quality of answers on Q&A services is rapidly improving.

F-Together Makes Shopping Social

While group buying platforms such as Groupon are revolutionizing local, consumers typically do not know the other members of the group that they are buying with. So, while consumers get to leverage the power of the web to benefit from better deals, the actual shopping experience frequently lacks the F-Factor. Consumers have strong incentives to share certain purchases, especially for F-Factor-friendly experiences such as buying event tickets where consumers can now automatically invite friends to a concert or movie right after purchasing a ticket.

F-Me Individualizes the F-Factor

Trendwatching.com refers to the trend of personalized products and services based on the activities and output of one’s social network as ‘F-Me’. This includes services that turn a user’s Facebook page into a daily newspaper and a user’s Twitter feed into a published journal.

Look for ‘Twinsumers’ and ‘Social-lites’

Both of these types of online consumers were identified by Trendwatching.com in December 2010 as critical to spreading positive word of mouth recommendations. Twinsumers are consumers with similar consumer patterns, likes and dislikes, and who are valuable sources for recommendations on what to buy and experience while  ‘Sociallites’ are consumers who consistently broadcast information to a wide range of associates online.

Social Networking and the integration of social factors with websites, online marketing and eCommerce are imperative in any Internet Initiative today.  Contact Internet Builder Consulting and the Social Marketing Builders social networking experts to build a BETTER website or Social Media Marketing solution today at 816-842-7774.

Robert ‘Dot Com’ Jackson
Internet Builder Consulting – Building BETTER Websites, Social Marketing & Consulting since 1995

Size DOES Matter

Last week a new client came to Builder Consulting asking for help updating the 3 year old website built by another website company. The customer shared they were impressed that every time they contacted Builder Consulting someone was able to instantly assist them and the completed project of transferring the website was done in a day. Discussing this further the customer said he had been calling and emailing the current website company for more than two weeks never once reaching anyone, having a return call or email response.

The customer elaborated further that the other website company had four (4) full time sales people and only one (1) full time website developer with no programmers, no website hosting staff, no project managers and no customer service staff. Apparently the few people who worked at the other website company were all out of town trying to sell more websites at a trade show leaving nobody to help customers or make updates for websites already built. The inherent problem with companies like this is they will sell far more than they are capable of completing to pay salespeople commission and keep closing new business without any regard to service or results after the sale.

If a website company only has a handful of website developers the chance is they are busy building websites for new customers the salespeople are selling without any time to assist current and past customers. Any company selling websites or online marketing without a full time staff (NOT a single person or two trying to keep up with new work) is not going to be capable of properly servicing, updating, developing new systems or solutions and researching the constant changes in online technology for customers. Builder Consulting builds websites with a team of 8 to 10 experts working together in addition to the full time support and website updating staff to handle most requests within 24 to 48 hours.

When asked why the other website company was selected years ago the customer simply said they had a great sales pitch and a list of companies they had worked with….but he had never verified any of the information and only found out after the fact that the website company was unable to support him after the initial sale. When it comes to online solutions there is no capacity for any single person or even two or three people to design, develop, program, publish, support, update, manage and plan for future needs of customers. It takes a team of experts and when it comes to online development, if you want it done right, size DOES matter.

Consider if someone was attempting to build a home along out of the back of a pickup truck and then decided he could make more money by hiring 4 people to go sell homes for him. If the 4 salespeople were successful it would matter little how good the lone builder was because he would be unable to properly build the foundation, frame the home, do all plumbing, frame the home, complete the drywall, electrical, roofing, paint, lay the driveway then decorate the home alone or even with 1 or 2 people helping – the same thing applies to building a website – it cannot be done properly without a team of experts. After the home or website is built there MUST BE a strong experienced support team to follow up, assist and maintain everything otherwise it is like having the best billboard in town hidden in your basement!

The Builder Consulting teams of experts typically complete 20 websites each month with an average start to completion timeline of 4 to 6 weeks. Once the websites are completed and published Builder Consulting markets, manages, updates and maintains each website with a priority for CURRENT CLIENTS above new business resulting in a 93% customer satisfaction and retention rate unheard of in the website industry. Find out how true customer service and results can work for your company and contact Builder Consulting today for an expert consultation.

Robert ‘Dot Com’ Jackson
BuilderConsulting.com – Building Better Websites and Online Solutions Since 1995
913-814-8844 Offices

SEO, SEM, PPC What the Heck?

In the past few months it seems that anyone and everyone has become experts at Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). One such website designer shares that they are the SEO Experts because anyone looking for homebuilder websites will find their website design company listed #1. A strange idea since the people searching for homebuilder websites are more likely looking for someone to build a home than a website company. This example illustrates an extremely valid yet often overlooked point that not all traffic is good traffic online.

Website companies offer Search Engine Marketing (SEM) services such as Pay Per Click (PPC) using Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and other paid advertising with the same lack of understanding costing customers thousands of dollars in worthless marketing. Search online for Atlanta New Homes and a builder from Oklahoma (does not build in Atlanta) was listed in the top 3 paid listings for a cost of nearly $4 a click because their SEM company did not setup the marketing properly. When the monthly reports come in the Search Engine Marketing company shares with the customer that they spent the budget and gained whatever number of visitors to the website. What was missed by the SEM company and the customer is the fact that the budget was spent bringing unqualified traffic to the website. The website company managing the Search Engine Marketing may never realize the mistake and the customer is likely satisfied at the increase in traffic to the website.

The inherent problem with companies claiming they ‘do SEO‘ is that Search Engine Optimization is not something you can just ‘do’. To properly Optimize websites for Search Engines there are literally dozens of key aspects that must be properly completed, many outside of the website development process. Just because everyone is familiar with the term and every website design company claims ‘they do SEO’ does not mean they even understand what the terms mean much less how to provide the results. If you are considering hiring someone for SEO or SEM ask the prospective companies what their target audience is and go search for them online, ask for and check referrals, verify the provider has multiple websites using the very same SEO and SEM services they offer and understand that not everyone is able to provide what they claim.

Robert ‘Dot Com’ Jackson
http://www.BuilderConsulting.com
913-814-8844 Corporate Offices