Page 29 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

doesn’t fit your needs. On the other hand, buying a new car is typically a high-
consideration purchase (a purchase that includes a large risk).

The price of the car, the maintenance costs, and its reputation for its safety all
contribute to making it a high-consideration purchase, not to mention the fact
that you want to identify with a certain brand versus another one. Social influence
plays a much bigger role in car purchases than in toothpaste decisions. Mercedes-
Benz has used social media marketing time and again to leverage influencers in
motivating consumers to purchase its cars. The Mercedes-Benz Take The Wheel
campaign for which they hired five top Instagram photographers to each take the
wheel of a new Mercedes CLA was a standout example. (Figure 1-2 shows the
webpage for this campaign.) Whoever got the most likes on Instagram when pub-
lishing about the car and their roadtrips got to keep the car. So as you can imagine,
the photographers really worked hard!

FIGURE 1-2:
The Mercedes-
Benz Take The
Wheel campaign.

Social influence matters with every purchase, but it matters more with high-
consideration purchases than low-consideration ones. Most consumers realize
that when they’re making high-consideration purchases, they can make better
and more confident purchasing decisions when they take into account the advice
and experience of others who have made those decisions before them. That’s how
influence works.

CHAPTER 1 Understanding Social Media Marketing 13