SNS affects people's thinking and behaviors in both positive and negative ways. It changes how relationships are formed by encouraging more openness and social interactions. However, it also allows negative rumors to spread widely. While SNS helps people learn about products through marketing, reviews from both friends and strangers, it also causes some to seek fame online without truly knowing many of their online connections.

1. 1.1. How does SNS affect and change people’s mind?
Social networking service now becomes a part of our life and one of the most important tools for
getting knowledge and reaching external world. In some ways, it converts psychologically
people’s ways of thinking, habits, or purchasing attitudes. Nevertheless, it also has both positive
and negative sides that will be discussed in following passages.
Firstly, social networking service change the manners of how we treat each other and how we
look at our relationships. People nowadays turn to be more social in terms of frequently
connecting with friends, being more open in their relationships by spending leisure time on going
to clubs, bars, festivals, or attending social meetings. Furthermore, our demands on getting new
knowledge and networking in daily life or business is huge. For that reason, they seems to be
involved much more in product’s marketing activities such as a trend that can be called fan-made
video clips or fan-made marketing messages about a brand the consumers love.
Secondly, Facebook or Twitter users expect to continually create and maintain both of their own
and potential friendships. O n the word of a previous study on eMarketer web page, “41.6%
percent of Internet users who used Twitter did so to keep in touch with their friends.”
(Gordhamer, 2009).
Last but not least, social networking service has the ability to lead people’s thoughts with a more
positive or negative attitudes. For instance, the good point is that through actions of PR
departments, consumers will have a chance to understand the meaning of the product as well as
of the organization. However, it also has negative word-of-mouth - the power of rumors
(negative feedbacks). Another point is that despite we have a lot of online relationships such as

2. Consumer Behavior January 3, 2014
friends or followers on Facebook, we do not actually keep in touch with a number of them or
even hardly know who they are. More and more people now put pressure on “being famous” in
virtual world because they know the vast range of information transferring on the Internet. For
example, a status or photo is liked or shared on Facebook can be broadened within the online
society. Thus, if a person do not have good impression on a company’s image, he can say
something negatively and it will definitely affect other consumers’ thoughts through comments
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on social network pages.

3. Consumer Behavior January 3, 2014
1.2. How does SNS affect and change Vietnam’s consumer behaviors?
As a result of the fast and huge development of social media, consumers’ behavior is affected
and changed significantly. Vietnamese are not only in the effect zone, but also in the change
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zone.
This phenomenon has altered the consumer’s purchasing process. For better understanding about
this, Dentsu, a Japanese advertising and public relations company developed a consumer
behavioral model. Before the digital marketing appeared, people go through 5 steps until they
buy a product: Attention, Interest, Desire, Memory and Action, AIDMA for short. Attention is in
the Awareness stage. Interest, Desire and Memory are in Emotion Stage. Action is in Action
stage. Then social media “jump into” our world and change almost everything. The first stage
stay the same, but the second stage change into Interest, Search, Action, which means if
consumers have a “crush” on that product, they look up on the internet and then make the
purchase. After that they Share it with their friends, which is also the third stage.
Dentsu’s consumer behavioral model also shows that consumer, nowadays, are getting more
active than before due to the mutual network environment. Instead of receiving good and bad
information, advertising, they can choose what they want to see. Moreove r, they can get many
suggestions, opinions, and recommendations from their friends, family, even from strange people
or share their experiences about a product for other people. For example, foody.vn is a website
where everybody may find a good place for dinner without knowing it before. This site also
allows people posting their comments, rating the place and introducing a place to their friends.
Additionally, consumer may become a fan of company, brand just by a very simple step:
clicking. For instance, “Like” on Facebook, and then every information, new discount, product,

4. Consumer Behavior January 3, 2014
promotion…will be to the customers. It is much more convenient, faster, more precise and
effective than in the past. Furthermore, social media provides customers a way to interact with
the company. If you need anything such as product support, or complaining, there is always a
place for you to do on the company website and there is no need for go to the office. Apple
established a “Community site” and “Support site” where customers can ask or complain
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whatever they want.
In overall, not only consumer behavior has changed but also life style has changed significantly
since social media appeared. It has changed the making decision process and how we interact
with others. This is happened because of the development of social networks, internet and they
still are improving. Soon, social media will be essential to every business.

5. Consumer Behavior January 3, 2014
2. Coca-Cola and SNS
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2.1. What does Coca-Cola do on SNS?
Today, with the development of internet, a lot of brands use SNS as an important tool to
advertise their products and get closer to the consumers. Coca-Cola is now one of the biggest
soft-drinks brand in the world so they are not an exception.
Coca-Cola uses many social network sites such as: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+.
According to our research, this company has changed from “Creative Excellent” to “Content
Excellent” as their method of marketing so “Content” is the most important issues for them to do
advertises in social networks from now on.
This essay will discuss about two main social network pages: Facebook and Twitter.
With Facebook:
Coca-Cola Facebook page in Vietnam is now having “78,144,982 likes” and “743,350 talking
about this.” This is a huge number which another brands what to have. Joining Facebook in
2008, Coca-Cola use Facebook to show their images to the consumers, they update their statuses
frequently, posting many photos about their public relation campaigns to show how peop le
around the world interacted with those campaigns. These actions of Coca-Cola has attract many
attention from community. They usually get nearly a thousand “liked” and “comment”. Beside
the main page, Coca-Cola also has many pages for another products like: Coca Zero and Diet
Coke which followed by many people.

6. Consumer Behavior January 3, 2014
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With Twitter:
Coca-Cola has more than 700,000 followers and tweeted over 75,000 times. These numbers
show that Twitter is very effective to Coca-Cola and their consumers. By using Twitter, the
company can answer to a large number of questions, accuses from the consumers which make
Coca-Cola get closer to the customers. Unlike Facebook, Coca-Cola using Twitter to connect,
communicate to the consumer rather than to advertise their marketing.

7. Consumer Behavior January 3, 2014
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Negative sides of SNS
Social media becomes essential means of marketing nowadays. It brings effectiveness, fast
and the most important things: providing information at the right time. In addition to the benefits,
there are a lot of risks, disadvantages that marketers need to consider carefully:
Time Consumption
Updating social media accounts really takes time and effort. A person has wide range of
knowledge about the company and its products is crucially required for maintaining the brand
presence. It is an “on-going work”, so the content must be created, edited, approved and
published continually. The information on the sites only “lasts” for a shot time because of the
appearance of new posts. Moreover, there are questions need to be answered, comments need to
be replied. Therefore, marketers must present new information or they will lose followers.
Delay of ROI
Social media helps to build relationships and brand loyalty but it is a long haul strategy. It could
take months or years, before social media bring customers, sales revenue to the company.
Therefore, marketers must be willing to spend much time on it if they launch marketing
campaigns.
Lack of control
Social media is an open space for everyone. People can freely criticize and comment about a
product or a company. Moreover, there are no tools to control the comments. Bad things can go
viral as easily as good news and do some damage to your business. According to the report made
in June 2010, viruses and malware, brand stealing, shortage of controlling over the business

8. Consumer Behavior January 3, 2014
content, impractical customer expectations and rejection to management regulations are the top 5
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risks of social media.
Not only marketers but also consumers have to face a lot of troubles when using social network
media.
First of all, there are many people addicted to social media although no disease or disorder
related to social network has been found. Experts said that someone addict to social network will
ignore real life and let it interferes daily activities such as always checking Facebook status
updates, stalking people’s profiles for hours. A research from Chicago University stated that
twitter is much harder to refuse than cigarette and alcohol.
Secondly, posting something on social network sites that means you are letting your colleagues,
employers see your personal life. That is sometimes really tricky. What if you offend someone
without knowing it? If it is your future boss who you offend at? It is true that we all want to have
more friend by posting interesting things about you on the internet, but the price for it might be
too high. Therefore, balancing personal life and professional life is required but it is not going to
be easy.
Thirdly, although we make friends much easier with social media, but it also impact how people
make friends nowadays. Despite the fact that Meeting face-to- face is good in many ways such as
you will not miss anything about what people say or express your emotions fully so that other
can understand, but it is replaced by scrolling list personal information and chatting through a
small box on the screen which usually cannot cover all the meaning we want to deliver.
Finally, a majority of kids, teens and adults is having experience with cyber bullying. Social
media is an open area for everyone. They can say whatever they want without facing most of

9. Consumer Behavior January 3, 2014
serious consequences. That is why rumors from a gang or person may easily attack others. In
Viet Nam, many kids or teens try to kill themselves just because they cannot handle the rumors
from the internet. Parents of those cannot recognize it until it is too late. Moreover, social media
provides opportunities for predator to use personal information against people. Young people are
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usually the easy target for those frauds.
We have seen how huge advantages that social media has brought for us but the risks for using it
is not small. It impacts marketers any many ways and affect enormously consumers’ life.
Additionally, the problems are not still easy to control and in the near future it is hard to figure
out how much it will damage our life.

10. Consumer Behavior January 3, 2014
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References
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