With the great influence social media is supposed to be wielding in the online world, many are in the opinion that its influence extends over gadget choices. Some social media news appear to support this thinking. To what extent is it happening in the real world? We can answer this by looking into the factors that actually play a part in decision making specifically in gadget purchases.
Factors Considered in Buying Gadgets
Based on more recent surveys conducted on how consumers choose the gadgets they buy, there are several factors consistently considered when buying. One is price which will always play a big role in any purchase decision, more so it appears on gadget purchases. The reason is simple, gadgets do not come cheap. Generally, high quality gadgets come at a high price. While there are many low-priced gadgets available, such price may come at the cost of inferior quality or very limited features. Buying something and still being unable to do what you need to do using the purchased gadget turns out more expensive at the end.
The advantage of having so many choices today is that there there is bound to be something that can be found at a lower price minus the features that the user will not actually need. The other factors are technical specifications, compatibility, look and feel, and brand loyalty. There is another factor that plays a big role in purchase decisions – the source of influence.
Source of Influence
Unless a person lives on some deserted island with no human contact or communication whatsoever, everybody is presumed to be influenced by another person’s opinion or view. The higher the authority or respect commanded by a person, the greater the influence. In everyday life, there will be the parents, siblings, other relatives, work superiors, and peers who will constantly be wielding influence in some form.
There are other sources of influence such as product reviews, tech shows, online forums and even the store personnel who will be assisting in the purchase. Many have been known to make last minute decisions upon the recommendation coming from them. So where does social medial media influence fit into all these?
It is a given that social media exerts a certain degree of influence on consumers through tweets, Facebook posts, and other social media communication. Studies show however that social media does not exert that much influence on regular gadget purchase decisions. However, the power of social of media has been manifested in exceptionally news-worthy issues like misrepresentation of product capabilities or product defects that may have been purposely hidden or have just been discovered in the course of use. In which case, expect social media to wield greater influence.