This blog post examines the journal article which was written by Mr. Darel, regarding the impact of viral marketing through Instagram. To understand impact of social medias on the brand knowledge of consumers, the author had distributed 100 questionnaires with structured questions to the clients of the fashion designer clothing line Maartin Shakir, who are users of both Instagram and Facebook.
The sample of the surveys encompass both genders from the age of 17 to 40 years old that are either taking up professional role at work or still studying as students, so that the results acquired from the survey are more reliable and representative of the larger population. However, before the surveying process started, the author ensured that the sample had been exposed to Instagram application before, and had seen the promotional posts posted by Maartin Shakir regarding their products.
After the data collection process, the author had found that most of the participants agreed that Instagram is a good platform to enhance the impact of viral marketing on consumers, because the higher number of followers of Maartin Shakir on Instagram allows higher number of clients to be exposed to the messages that Maartin Shakir release. Moreover, the social media platforms allow customers to freely talk about the products, which acts as a forum for consumers to share their own experiences and attract more customers to try out Maartin Shakir’s products if those are positive comments. However, even if the comments are complaining about Maartin Shakir’s products, it is still a great opportunity for Maartin Shakir to carry out service recovery by understanding the issues that consumers faced, and the company can try to compensate the customers and gain customers’ loyalty.
Above all, the data collection through the use of questionnaires can be better improved by having in-depth qualitative research such as focus groups and individual interview to further understand the different insights of the sample group. In my opinion, the use of structured questions in the questionnaires may cause the problem of inaccurate results, because the participants may simply circle or tick the established answer without further consideration. Therefore, I believe that the questionnaires may be enhanced by adding some unstructured questions like open-ended questions to dig deeper into consumers’ behaviours and preferences.
MBA 