Research of socio-psychological characteristics of the modern young audience’s consumption via the Internet: regional aspect

Abstract

Developing effective strategies of the effects on consumer choice is a priority for any company presented in online environments. Today's Internet-consumers increasingly prefer virtual communication to face-to-face interaction with people around, at that, proportion of young people has reached the limit values. The main goals of the Internet-consumption are: socialization, self-presentation, entertainment, access to relevant information on request. To design the strategy of interaction, it is necessary to formulate the definition of the Internet-consumer, to reveal his (her) socio-psychological characteristics, which determine the choice of Internet products for achieving the desired objectives. A recent empiric study made it possible to identify the categories of the up-to-date Internet-consumers according to three attributes: sex (male, female), occupation (students, young people at work, those combining work and study); purposes of consumption (interpersonal communication, access to information, business, self-presentation and entertainment). The results obtained showed that the most important aims of Internet-consumption for the young people in the region are access to information and communication, whereas the least significant one proved to be self-presentation. It means that while promoting Internet-products for young audiences rational approach to describing a product should be used, in this case the notion "rational approach" contains focus on functional properties of a product and its ability to solve any problem. At the same time, it is important to pay attention to the environment of the target audience, the necessity of communicating with one another (including about the product), the need to share impressions; make the assessment about the used product. The strategies aimed at promotion focused on status, image or selfactualization through the use (possession) of a product seem irrelevant.