MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS IN ONLINE MARKETING

Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist who was best known for

creating Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, was of the idea that every man is motivated by
five basic needs in his lifetime. The principle is simple. From the time you are born,
you have needs that have to be met for your overall well-being. As you grow, needs
will change and when they are not met accordingly, that motivates man to work
harder and smarter towards attaining them. Here is an example of the hierarchy of
needs:
The start of every man’s need is PHYSIOLOGICAL, consisting of food,
warmth(clothes etc) and shelter. These underlie your most common needs that
man cannot live without. This is a very straight forward theory that can resonate on
different platforms of man’s life. However, Maslow insists that the top of the needs
cannot be met if the lower level needs are not satisfied. The ultimate assumption is
that SELF-ACTUALIZATION is the highest level of need that man propels toward.
According to Maslow, self-actualization “refers to the person’s desire for self-
fulfillment, namely – the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is
potentially”. In other word’s, the highest level of being possible.
The Hierarchy of needs in business
We already know that certain needs have to be met to ensure self-actualization right?
Suggestively, it is not too far off to equate the needs hierarchy to the needs of
consumers in marketing products and services. The needs on the lower (bottom block)
level of the hierarchy are the most basic human needs therefore appealing to those
needs will instigate potential success. The same goes for the remaining levels of the
hierarchy. It has always been said that when trying to start a business, the first place to
start is by finding the need for a market. If you are given a task to analyse consumer
needs, they will all differ respectively. According to Psychology Wiki, African
countries are typically made up of collectivist societies where individuals are taught to
be active in society and that societal needs come before those of your own.
Therefore if a business model has to be drafted for a collectivist group in South
Africa, most likely it would be in rural/high density areas. Their needs would be the
physiological, safety and belonging levels on the hierarchy. However, with the rapid
growth of mobile devices and social media activity, more and more societies in South
Africa are becoming knowledgeable. By implication, it means that more people are
educating themselves beyond their orientated environments. It is estimated that of
the 51.8 million people living in SA, 11 million of them make use of smart phones.
What does this mean for online/ social media marketing?

The above infographic was created by John Antonios who structured how social
media marketing can be integrated within Maslow’s hierarchy. He believes in
Maslow’s theory that basic needs such as creating a social media profile on any one of
the available platforms must be met before the social interaction stage can
proceed, “ultimately reaching our social optimization”, i.e. self-actualization.

Câu hỏi:
1. Dựa vào lý thuyết tháp nhu cầu, có thể sắp xếp các ứng dụng mạng xã hội hiện nay
tương ứng với các cấp độ nhu cầu của tháp Maslow như thế nào?
2. Người sử dụng có nhất thiết phải đi theo thứ tự của tháp nhu cầu trong việc sử dụng
các ứng dụng mạng xã hội nói trên hay không? Giải thích lý do?