Marketing For The Future November 2016 | Page 25

SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE BUYING BEHAVIOR OF THE “SMALL STORES” CUSTOMERS DEANNE BREGITA BSC, PAMELA RUSCH MSC AND MONIQUE EMELINA-PIETER MBA Social Media has been playing an important role in our lives; this is not a phenomenon that is noticed only on the island of Curaçao, but all around the world. Everything that we do nowadays revolves around or has a link somehow with social media. Social Media has a powerful role and great influence around the world, and this keeps growing as the years pass by. The presence of it is everywhere. Social Media is a very popular and influential way to interact, share and communicate with friends or for business matters (Katona & Sarvary, 2014). According to Mount & Garcia Martinez (2014) the use of social media to connect, communicate, and participate with consumers has expanded in recent years (Mount & Garcia Martinez, 2014). With time this brings new innovations and influences. All these are things that we can notice and also feel. The question is what kind of influence this brings and what are the overall consequences. According to Andzulis, Panagopoulus & Rapp (2012) Social Media does not have a very specific definition. Verheyden & Goeman (2013) also agree that Social Media is a vague term with different types of views. Social media was defined by Zsolt & Mitklos (2014) as the way in which people interact to create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. Social media differs from traditional/industrial media and advertising in many ways, such as immediacy, permanence, cost, quality, frequency, and reach. Likewise, without defining social media clearly, there was an argument about all customers now being “social customers” and every communication being part of a new association between business and customer, an integral part of CRM (customer