Watching our online and social spendingWritten on the 3 August 2020 by Arrow ![]()
The changes to our daily lives of late have caused us to reframe our views on 'screen time', an activity that now more than ever takes up a significant proportion of our day. However, as we spend more time online we are also spending more online and it pays to be mindful of the ways our browsing habits impact our hip pocket. With the average Australian spending over six hours on social media every week, it's safe to say we're affected by what we consume online.i This can happen consciously, from actively looking up brands and products, or subconsciously, through viewing advertisements directed at us.
Social networking to selling Similarly, Instagram has developed from simply sharing photos. A 2019 survey showed that 81% of respondents use their accounts to research products and services, and 130 million users view shopping posts every month.iii,iv
Easy social shopping
Hard to resist targeted advertising
Influencing our buying behaviours
Fear Of Missing Out With financial anxiety on the rise, JOMO is much better for our hip pocket than FOMO.vi Watching your hip pocket when it comes to your social spend can be challenging. If you are concerned about your spending, set a budget which allows for the amount of online shopping you are comfortable with. It's a good idea to keep track of your purchases to ensure your spending is not to the detriment of your day to day needs as well as your longer-term financial goals. Finally, just having a greater awareness of how social media influences your behaviour will help you to resist the subtle enticements of social marketing. i https://www.genroe.com/blog/social-media-statisticsaustralia/13492 ii https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-statistics/ iii https://business.instagram.com/blog/how-to-sell-yourproducts-on-instagram/ iv https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-statistics/ v https://www.wired.com/story/whats-not-included-infacebooks-download-your-data/ ![]() |