“You don’t have to buy from anyone. You don’t have to work at any particular job. You don’t have to participate in any given relationship. You can choose.” – Harry Browne

Anyone who has taken a formal marketing course knows all too well the traditional consumer decision making model depicted below.

Here’s how it works…

• Consumers recognize a void between their desired and actual states (problem awareness)

• Seek information on products that will fill that void (information search)

• Form a consideration set of products they believe will solve the problem (evaluation of alternatives)

• Make a decision/purchase from that pool of alternatives (purchase)

• Evaluate the purchase and determine if it truly solved their problem or if there is still cognitive dissonance present (post-purchase evaluation)

The steps of this model haven’t changed since the introduction of social media, but what has changed are the ways consumers seek information, form their consideration sets, and give feedback about those products after purchasing.

Marketing is no longer strictly between the brand and the consumer; it’s now between the brand, the consumer, and hundreds or thousands of the consumer’s friends and followers.

All with a few keystrokes and a click of the mouse, or tap of the phone.

It would be a gross understatement to say social media is a game-changer with respect to consumer behavior.

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While social media impacts all levels of the consumer decision model, there are two parts in particular that it disproportionately affects:

• Information Search

• Post-Purchase Evaluation

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