For years businesses have strived to understand consumer’s purchasing behavior to better understand how to market to them. This has been no easy task and varied from industry to industry. Nelson media, for example, used to analyze how much TV consumers watched and what they watched, but the only way to do this at the time was by incentivizing viewers to keep a log with pen and paper and snail mail it to Nelson media. Before the internet, there wasn’t really a good way to study in detail consumers purchasing behavior on a micro level.
With the evolution of the internet, businesses can know track in real time where consumers are, where they are going, what they are purchasing and why they are purchasing it plus a lot more. Social media especially has opened up a window into the individual consumer’s mind. Now, more than ever businesses can use direct marketing tactics that relate to an individuals behavior to influence their purchasing decisions. Weixin, a popular Chinese social networking app understands this concept.
Weixin realizes that the more they allow their social media platform to do, the more the company can understand consumer behavior in different scenarios. For example, a consumer may think differently when reserving an Uber as opposed to purchasing something online or using currency to unlock a new level on a game. Weixin is essentially an all in one social networking app that combines the functionality of apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, eBay, and Uber all into one app (Solomon, 2021). The power of having so much capability into one app is not only mediums to market and collect money from consumers, but to understand them. This information is valuable, and the consumer behavior patterns learned can be applied across multiple industries.
Social Media & Digital Marketing 