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C-Suite executives have long been reluctant to let go of the paper world and plunge into the digital, but a new study from Ipsos MediaCT shows that the slow-but-steady adoption of digital media is taking hold at the C level, and executives are coming around. According to the Ipsos study, executives are still using a great deal of traditional media, but more and more are using video streaming, blogs, podcasts, etc. The most noted media being left behind for more time online? Television.
Of the 36.2 million women who are active in the blogosphere each week, 15.1 million of them publish posts of their own, and 21.1 million read and comment, according to new research from BlogHer. As evidence of their passion for blogging, 55% of the women surveyed reported that they would give up alcohol in order to keep their blogs, 50% said they would give up their PDA, 42% said they'd give up their iPod, 43% would give up reading newspapers or magazines -- but only 20% said they'd part ways with chocolate.
Nearly half (48%) of all U.S. internet users report belonging to a hobby-based online community, 41% say they are members of an online social community, and a third belong to an online professional community, according to the 2008 Digital Future Project, which is being compiled by the USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future. These numbers are up dramatically from the data gathered regarding online community use in 2005.
Retailers can't afford to ignore social media, according to a report put together by analysts from Gartner, Inc. The report, which includes a list of the top ten thing retailers need to know about social networks, delves into the differences between social networks and social networking platforms, consumer trends in social network use, and the kinds of word of mouth insights that can be gleaned from social networks -- as well as what retailers can do to best leverage online social networks for their business.
Marketing and advertising aren't the most influential forces in the creation of consumer-generated media, according to new research from Nielsen CGM/Homescan Buzzfacts. Fifty-five percent of consumers said they posted CGM content because they liked a product, 28% said they posted because they had tried and disliked a product, and 27% said they'd read a comment about a product on a site, blog, or message board and posted in response to it. According to the research, significantly fewer respondents reported that they posted CGM based on causes related to marketing and advertising.
According to this article from eMarketer, more than twice as many 10- to 12-year-olds reported using social networking sites in 2007 as in 2006, and according to Harris Interactive's April 2008 "Youth Trends," more than half of girls aged 13 to 15 used social networking sites in 2007. Social network usage among girls was significantly higher than for boys (57% of 13- to 15-year-old girls compared to 38% of boys), and blog use among teen girls was also reportedly higher than among teen boys.
This blog post from Forrester senior analyst Jeremiah Owyang takes a look at several different research sources, all of which address the idea of trust. According to research from Forrester, Edelman, and Pollara, consumers still trust recommendations from friends ahead of all other sources -- from traditional media, to bloggers, to, as Jeremiah quotes "strangers with 10,000 MySpace 'friends.'" The boiled down take-away message from the post is that honest, authentic word of mouth is still the best way to spread the kind of information that impacts consumers' purchase decisions.
According to new research from search marketing consultancy Tamar, banks and credit card companies are missing a major reputation-improving opportunity by ignoring the things that people are saying about them on social networking sites. The study found that just 30% of the major financial brands it investigated had an online social media presence, while a whopping 80% of them were being discussed by customers in unofficial groups on the sites.
This podcast with Paul Dunay and Mike Spataro from WOMMA member company Visible Technologies takes a look at what to do beyond simply tracking online conversations about your brand. Once you've got an ear to the social media ground, what next?
According to last month's Internet Trends Report from Morgan Stanley, "social connections" are garnering a large portion of consumers' time spent online -- a total of 16%, which isn't bad for a category that didn't exist three years ago. According to the report, YouTube has 258 million users, more than half of which visit the site at least weekly. The study also found that more than half of Facebook users log in to the site daily, and more than 95% have downloaded at least one third party application.
According to recent research from Hitwise, social networking sites drive more than 28% of traffic to online video viewing websites, almost identical to the amount of upstream traffic coming from search sites. A year ago, significantly more online video traffic came from social sites -- which indicates that either online video creators are getting more crafty with their SEO, or more consumers are going online in search of online video.
According to a new study from the Society for New Communications Research, 72% of consumers use social media resources to research a company's reputation before making a purchase decision. Seventy-four percent of consumers report basing their decisions to do business with a company on their social media research. The study also found that 59% of those surveyed say they use social media as a place to vent their customer service frustrations.
Trendpedia, new blog search tool that is currently launched in beta, is a free way to track and compare how your brand, your name, or your competitor stack up in the blogosphere. It's a great way to find out your trend line over time, as well as to see who, when, where, and how often your search term is being blogged about.
According to new research from WOMMA member company The Keller Fay Group and BabyCenter, new and expectant mothers engage in one-third more word of mouth conversations than average consumers, and more than two-thirds of their conversations include brand recommendations. The WOM itself, according to the study, is generally positive, and is considered extremely reliable by other moms.
To learn more about the insights uncovered in this study, tune in to this webinar:
BabyCenter Insights: Moms and Word of Mouth Marketing
Wednesday, Apr. 23, 2008, 2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. EST
To learn more or register, visit:
http://www.babycentersolutions.com/events.php
Twenty-six percent of adults say that they blog regularly, according to a study from BIGresearch. This slice of the online world tends to skew younger than the average population, and bloggers are more likely to be African American or Hispanic -- and a Democrat. More than half (53.7%) of all bloggers are male and nearly half (44.7%) are married. This article contains a slew of other stats about bloggers, as well as other insights and take-aways from this Bigresearch study.
According to this report from eMarketer, the number of consumer-generated media creators is expected to rise from 77 million in 2007 to 108 million in 2012. Concurrently, consumers of CGM are on the rise. There were 94 million users/viewers/listeners of CGM in 2007, and that number is predicted to reach 130 million in 2012.
According to Marketing Charts, the number of social network users in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico more than doubled between Jan. 2007 and Jan. 2008. During the same year, U.S. Hispanic and Puerto Rican online social network users increased 48%.
According to a new research study from Canadian firm Pollara, which is covered on the Macalua blog, the opinions of even the most widely read bloggers still don't garner the same trust as opinions from family and friends. The study found that while 80% of respondents said they were very or somewhat more likely to consider making purchases based on the recommendations of real-world friends and family, only 23% reported being very or somewhat likely to consider a purchase recommended by "well-known bloggers."
According to data from ZenithOptimedia's Touchpoints ROI Tracker, which was just made public this month, WOM recommendations from family and friends was the highest-ranking consumer touchpoint. On a scale from 1 to 100, WOM recommendations scored an 84, compared to second-ranking T.V. ads at 69, and internet ads at 67. This Advertising Age article quotes Bruce Goerlich, President of Strategic Resources at ZenithOptimedia, as saying: "Word of mouth is incredibly powerful, but we as an industry are not doing as good a job as we could do in generating it."
This article from eMarketer reiterates the idea that consumers trust information from sources that they perceive as being a "person like themselves." A prime example of this mentality in action is the proliferation of social shopping platforms, which pairs social interaction, ranking and recommendations, and point-of-purchase advice.
If you've been thinking about getting more involved in WOMMA activities, now's the time. WOMMA's Research Council is gearing up to start some exciting new research-related projects, and we'd love to have you on board.
On the docket:
- Measuring the Value of the Conversation: Create a standardized set of metrics to value a conversation
- Measuring Word of Mouth, Vol. 4: Join the MWOMv4 Editorial Board and get involved in molding the only collected volume of word of mouth research
- Research Conference: Voice your opinions on what should be included in future word of mouth marketing research events
All WOMMA members are welcome (and encouraged!) to get involved in the Research Council. It will be of particular interest to market researchers and marketers who deal with data and measurement.
A call is scheduled for Tuesday, April 22, 2008, 11:00 a.m. CDT. To receive the dial-in information to participate on this call, email membership@womma.org.
Customers that spend the most money aren't necessarily your most valuable, according to this article in Portfolio. Customers that spread the word about your product or service, and in doing so bring in loads of new customers, are bigger boosts to your organization's pocketbook. This article investigates the methodology that V. Kumar, J. Andrew Petersen, and Robert P. Leone detail in their Harvard Business Review article for finding and communicating with the customers who have the most WOM potential -- and how to get the most WOM action from them.
On his blog, Web Strategy by Jeremiah, Jeremiah Owyang discusses the wealth of information available about social media users via the sites they populate -- especially teens, the majority of whom are active social media users. According to the post, these sites house everything from demographic data to information and likes, dislikes, and tastes, their technology uses and preferences, and their social networks. At the same time that this creates an enticing wealth of data, it also raises questions about privacy and what parents and teens should do to keep their private information private.
According to the 2008 PRWeek/PR Newswire Media Survey, 73% of journalists report that they either "sometimes" or "always" turn to the blogosphere to inform their research, and often use blogs as a way to measure public sentiment. Other findings from the survey showed that 39% of journalists are expected to contribute online content to their publication and 56% say they are expected to contribute to publishing mediums outside of their "official duty." The survey also found that 86% of bloggers receive pitches from PR people, and 24% say these pitches never result in a story.
According to a recent study from The Luxury Institute, wealthy consumers are upping their online community participation in a major way. The WealthySurvey conducted this year showed that 60% of wealthy consumers participate in online social networks. This percentage has increased dramatically from 2007, when just 27% of those surveyed indicated that they participate in online social networking activities.
WOMMA member company Satmetrix announced a new study, titled "Net Promoter Economics: The Impact of Word of Mouth," which highlights the impact of positive and negative WOM in the BtoC computer hardware industry. The study valued each computer hardware Promoter at $2,634 and stated that Promoters spend $203 more than the industry average and account for nearly half of new customers acquired via word of mouth.
In this ClickZ interview with WOMMA Board member Sam Decker, CMO of Bazaarvoice, Decker discusses some of the latest ROI findings around consumer-generated media, including an examination of some of the different measures used to determine a CGM's success. Decker also talks about how companies are slowly being won over to the idea that the consumer voice and consumer influence are important to their business -- whether they choose to leverage them pro-actively or not.
In 2007, it's projected that more than one billion dollars was spent on word of mouth marketing -- and this without having a definitive value placed on the worth of conversation. So what would happen to the industry if a tangible measure of WOM was declared? That's just what WOMMA member BzzAgent is aiming to find out with a newly released whitepaper that takes a stab at finding an effective CPM for word of mouth.
On the Communities Dominate Brands blog, Alan Moore takes a look at what companies can do now to bridge the communications divide between themselves and their customers. The blog post, which pulls research from a recent Ketchum study, references the idea that companies are out of touch with the way consumers use media, and makes some suggestions for how to sync back up and get -- and stay -- on consumers' radars.
Ninety-five percent of senior marketing executives believe social media's importance is set to soar over the next five years, according to new research from WOMMA member company TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony. Nearly half of the marketers surveyed believe social media to be an integral part of corporate communications -- one that should be monitored at the executive level and allocated significant resources.
According to new research from WOMMA member company TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony, marketers aren't pleased with their agencies' grasp of social media techniques. The marketers surveyed claimed that their vendors treat social media channels like traditional media and that many times they lack practical skills -- including evidence of experience using social media tools and techniques for their own purposes.
WOMMA member company Nielsen Online's inaugural Consumer Generated Media Report analyzes the uptake of CGM among internet users in Australia and New Zealand. According to the report, content sharing is generally the first step into CGM. The study found that 84% of Australian and 88% of New Zealand internet users use Web 2.0 tools to share and consume CGM content and that as consumers become more comfortable with CGM tools, they graduate to higher-level CGM activities, such as content creation.
Sixty-two percent of marketers say traditional television advertising is losing effectiveness, according to a study from Forrester Research and the Association of National Advertisers. More than half of the marketers surveyed reported that they are experimenting with "new media" forms of advertising as an alternative.
The heaviest viewers of online video watch substantially more video than their lighter-viewing counterparts, according to recent research from WOMMA member company comScore and Media Contacts. According to the study, the top 20% of viewers watched an average of 841 minutes of online video month, the next 30% of viewers watched an average of 77 minutes, and the bottom 50% of viewers watched an average of six minutes of online video monthly. This gap in viewership could have major significance for marketers who are considering online video as part of a marketing campaign.
According to an article from Travolution, the latest series of investigations from the Kaizo Advocacy Index has the low-down on word of mouth that's happening online about British airlines. The companies that work to create positive word of mouth about their services, such as Virgin Atlantic, score much more positive online chatter than their competitors with controversial policies that incite consumers and spur negative buzz.
According to a recent study from WOMMA member company PowerReviews and the e-tailing group, nearly 90% of online shoppers read customer ratings and reviews at least "some of the time" before making a purchase decision. The study found that 22% of shoppers always read reviews, 43% read reviews most of the time, and 24% sometimes read reviews before making a purchase decision.
According to research from WOMMA member company BIGresearch, of the 26% of U.S. internet users who blog, 53.7% are male, 44.7% are married, they bring in slightly less income than the average adult, and are slightly more educated than average. Bloggers are also younger, with an average age of 37.6 compared to 44.8 -- which is the average age of the rest of U.S. adult population.
On his blog, Jeremiah Owyang discusses some of the findings from Forrester's Online Community Best Practices report. According to Owyang, companies that couldn't loosen their control often had trouble making their online communities successful. Companies that had the best luck with their online community efforts "acted more like a host, rather than a policeman." Another major problem encountered: attracting users, and thereby getting the efforts off the ground.
Want to know what's being "tweeted" about your brand? The twittermeter allows you to do a quick word or phrase search and graphs how many times this particular word or phrase was mentioned via Twitter. A great way to get a quick look at Twitter buzz around your brand -- or any other topic.
According to research from WOMMA member company comScore, December 2007 marked a record-breaking month for online video views. More than 10 billion videos were viewed by more than 141 million unique U.S. viewers in that month. The spike in online video views, according to analysts, was most likely fueled by the Writers Guild of America strike.
A new study from NYU Stern professor Vasant Dhar and student Elaine Chang, titled "Does Chatter Matter," marks the first of its kind to effectively quantify the impact of online buzz on the music industry. The study found a correlation between blog posts and album sales, and also found a link between the number of friends on a band's MySpace profile and sales.
According to recent research from Aberdeen Group, Best-in-class companies are 680% more likely than Laggards to use social media for actionable consumer insights. Sixty-five percent of these companies also have a formalized process for monitoring CGM, 52% have personnel on staff whose job it is to monitor CGM, and 42% use CGM for reputation monitoring.
[Disclosure: WOMMA is one of the sponsors of this research.]
While males aged 18-24 are still the most frequent viewers of online video (one-third of them view online video daily), views are on the rise across all demographics, according to BurstMedia's "Online Insights" report. Overall, 70% of U.S. internet users have viewed online video -- including more than half of respondents aged 65 and older.
On her blog, Krishna De outlines some of the qualitative benefits that can act as measures of success when applied to a social media campaign. She also notes that, while hard metrics are available to measure many of the finer points of a social media campaign, having qualitative expectations can help hone your objectives.
According to a recent survey from Jack Morton Worldwide, more than 75% of marketers report that they will increase spending on experiential marketing in 2008. Ninety-three percent of those surveyed reported that they believe experiential marketing practices generate word of mouth for a brand.
Accustream iMedia Research's "UGV 2005 - 2008: Mania Meets Mainstream" report shows that more than 22 billion consumer-generated videos were viewed worldwide in 2007, a sharp 70% rise over 2006 figures. According to research from Harris Interactive, in the U.S. adults 25-29 comprise the largest demographic for consumer-generated video viewership.
According to BIGresearch's 11th Simultaneous Media Survey, T.V.'s influence on product purchases has declined, while the influential power of instant messaging and blogging have increased. Also, the survey found that people are doing more and more blogging; blogging activity increased over every day part.
According to a report, titled "Harnessing the Power of New Media Platforms," from Guideline, 23% of BtoB companies have used viral video marketing, 21% have used podcasts, 17% have used blogs, 14% have used wikis, and 10% have used social networks. While BtoB companies still lag behind their BtoC counterparts in embracing new media, this study shows they are warming up to WOM.
According to a new report from Experian, titled "The Impact of Social Networking," not only is growth in online social networking expected to continue, but companies can get the most from their efforts by targeting "super advocates," a highly-influential and active group of users.
According to a new whitepaper from the Association of National Advertisers, titled "The Use of Digital Media for Multicultural Marketing," 38% of multicultural marketers reported using social networks for marketing versus 28% of general market advertisers.
According to a recent survey from Deloitte & Touche USA LLP, nearly half of all U.S. consumers frequently create and post content online. This figure rose 12 points from Deloitte's spring survey, showing that CGM is on the rise.
Seventy percent of consumers do research before making purchases, even on products such as packaged goods. And 86% say they're not relying on brand websites for the information they seek, which means they're getting it from other sources.
According to a new study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 64% of online users aged 12-17 create online content of some kind. That figure is up from 57% in 2004.
Want to get consumers buzz about your brand this holiday season? Word of mouth will help make it happen. According to research from WOMMA member company BIGresearch, 22.7% of consumers say hearing about something via word of mouth will influence their holiday shopping store-choice.
On the Chief Marketer, Jeff Zabin discusses the many terms for online social media monitoring and analysis, including: brand monitoring, buzz monitoring, social media monitoring, market influence analytics, online consumer intelligence, and even online anthropology. Settling on an industry-wide, standardized term that encompasses all of what this practice entails is no easy task. What do you think?
On his blog, Forrester analyst Peter Kim discusses Twitter's measurability. According to Kim, since Twitter has standing usage/reach metrics and a valid "reputation score," the only thing missing in assessing a Twitter user's influence is a measure of authority.
Twenty-four percent of marketers have a word of mouth marketing strategy in place according to a new report from Ketchum and the USC Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center. According to report analysts, this underscores the fact that marketers need to re-evaluate their communications in order to best meet consumer needs.
According to a recent study by the American Marketing Association, this holiday season 47% of consumers report they would use a social networking site to hunt for coupons or gift ideas, 45% would use a social networking site to shop around for deals and discounts, and 22% would read or write a product review online.
According to new research from WOMMA member company BzzAgent, "buzz" from the company's more than 630,000 agents reached 34 million consumers in 2007. This is a significant increase over last year, where 10.5 million consumers were reached.
According to Nielsen Online's latest social networking and blog site rankings, MySpace still boasts the highest number of unique visitors, with more than 57.4 million checking out the site in November. This number is down from October's count, which had the social network giant topping out at 58.8 million unique visitors.
Online social networks are set to surge, according to a new eMarketer report, titled "Social Network Marketing: Ad Spending and Usage." In 2007, 37% of adult U.S. internet users visited social networks at least once a month. That number is expected to rise to 49% in 2011.
According to a study conducted by WOMMA member company Millward Brown and sponsored by the Newspaper National Network and the Newspaper Association of America, people who read web versions of newspapers are 52% more likely to share their opinions than people who don't. Online newspaper readers on average share their opinions with 16 other individuals, according to the study.
According to research from Miami University, the findings of which were published in the December 2007 issue of the "Journal of Advertising Research," word of mouth marketing is more valuable than was previously thought, especially when it comes to digital media.
According to recent research from the Society for New Communications Research, titled "New Media, New Influencers and Implications for the PR Profession," 57% of survey respondents indicated that an increased consumer interest in social media is increasing its value as a marketing application, and 27% said social media is a core element of their communication strategy.
Customers turn to family and friends as their first source for information when they're making a purchase decision, yet only 24% of communicators have a word of mouth marketing program in place, according to a recent research report, titled "Media, Myths & Realities," from Ketchum and the University of Southern California Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center.
A recent report from eMarketer, which highlights data from WOMMA member companies Bazaarvoice and the Keller Fay Group, tells marketers to drop their fear of consumer ratings and reviews. More than half of the data's respondents reported that they leave predominantly positive reviews.
"A Glimpse of the Next Episode," a recent study from Nokia, predicts that by 2012, 25% of all entertainment will be engineered and shared within social groups rather instead of coming from traditional media outlets.
WOMMA member companies Bazaarvoice and the Keller Fay Group recently announced the results of a study that takes a deeper look into what makes consumers write reviews and what they hope those reviews to accomplish. Reviewers, according to the study, are motivated primarily by "goodwill and positive sentiment."
In light of strong interest in word of mouth marketing, Forrester Research is revisiting data from the 2006 NACTAS Benchmark Survey, delving deeper into what makes the consumers who spread word of mouth tick.
Is there a correlation between a person's propensity to spread word of mouth and their level of optimism? According to WOMMA Board member Virginia Miracle, "60% of the population share recommendations. Of that group of talkers, 90% 'always tried to make the best of every situation' compared to 50% of the non-talkers." So what does it mean?
At WOMMA's Word of Mouth Marketing Summit on Nov. 15 in Las Vegas, PQ Media presented its Word of Mouth Marketing Forecast 2007-2011. Now, WOMMA members can save $100 when they purchase the full report from PQ Media.
WOMMA members, don't forget to take advantage of this great research deal, brought to you by WOMMA. Visit the WOMMA Member Center to get details on how to save.
Getting the metrics and measures around their social media expenditures is something marketers are still struggling with. Here are a few tips on how to focus a program's real goals (whether it's sales, clicks, or page views) to get the best ROI picture.
According to a recent Coremetrics survey, titled "Face of the New Marketer," 78% of marketers indicate that social media initiatives give them a leg-up over the competition. Fifty-eight percent of marketers have implemented CGM or reviews in the past 12 months, and 31% have launched a blog.
It's one of the biggest questions in WOM, and PQ Media is set to present never-before-seen data, analytics, and forecasts on the key trends driving the various WOM marketing industry segments, including media, WOM marketing agencies, and WOM research at the Word of Mouth Marketing Summit Nov. 14-15.
On his blog yesterday, Dr. Walter Carl, co-chair of WOMMA's Research Council, started a conversation about the Net Promoter Score, which is one of the topics we're delving into at this year's WOM Research Symposium. Join us in Las Vegas on Nov. 13 to continue the conversation!
According to the study "Social Shopping Study 2007," which is set to be released by PowerReviews on Nov. 12, 65% of online buyers are identified as "social researchers" and actively seek out online review information before making a product purchase. Seventy-eight percent of this group spend more than ten minutes reading customer reviews, and 86% of them say reviews are "extremely" or "very" important.
Marketers predict that their social media spending will increase dramatically over the next five years, according to a study by TWI Surveys Inc. Eighty-one percent of marketers surveyed say their social media spending will meet or exceed their spending on traditional advertising, with a full 57% predicting that their spending on social media will trump their other media buys.
Thirty-three percent of online European advertisers plan to launch profiles on online social networks, according to a new report, titled "Social Marketing in Europe," from Jupiter Research
Forty percent of people surveyed for the "Classified Intelligence Real Estate Advertising 2007" study claimed they are overwhelmed by advertising options. Sixty-seven percent were uncertain about the positive advertising effects of blogging and social networking sites, while just 5% questioned the value of WOM, which was deemed the most effective advertising method by survey respondents.
Consumers aren't just watching more online video, they're taking it with them. Eight million Americans watched video on their handheld devices in August, according to a study by M:Metrics. The number is up 36% from January 2007.
Consumers are populating the far reaches of the web with their consumer-generated media in the form of blog posts, videos, ratings and reviews, and social media profiles. But they're not just sharing their opinions. When consumers contribute, they're also sharing their metadata -- which can help target messages and make content more relevant.
Focusing on disease symptoms increases the likelihood that healthcare messages will be spread via online social media, according to a new study from MedTrackAlert and Miami University's Interactive Media Studies Program titled, "Influencers and Health Advertising." The study also found that the average person can communicate health information to a 50-person network over the course of 30 days.
Want to know the impact that online social networking has on users' technology ownership, mobile phone features, digital media consumption, and online and mobile behavior? A new study from Ipsos Insights highlights the differences between social networkers and the rest of the population across these categories.
Social network chatter is leading to enormous amounts of retails traffic, according to Hitwise. The company claims that popular social networking sites are driving traffic to online retailers, and even eBay claims that more than 31% of its traffic comes directly from social networking sites.
The numbers are in, and according to Nielsen//NetRatings, Facebook's unique visitor count has grown more than 133% since September 2006 with 18.1 million visitors this past September, but MySpace is still on top with 58.6 million visitors. Google's Blogger site increased visitors by 50% and Six Apart Type Pad was up 46% with 11 million visitors.
Online social networks are projected to gain more than 230 million new, active users by the end of the year, and growth is expected to continue into 2009, according to a recent report from Datamonitor titled "The Future of Social Networking: Understanding Market Strategic and Technological Developments."
If you need another reason to keep your word of mouth marketing ethical, here it is: 57% of influencers are less likely to buy a product if they suspect the company selling it has faked or paid for a positive review, according to a recent study from WOMMA member company Burson-Marsteller.
Spending on social media and other forms of conversational marketing will surpass traditional media by 2012, according to a recent study from TWI Surveys Inc. According to the study, 81% of marketers indicate that their social media spending will soon surpass dollars spent on traditional ads.
Nine in 10 marketers are planning to increase their ad spending in social media, according to a new report from Prospero Technologies. Fifty-nine percent said 2007 social media performance met or exceeded their marketing objectives -- in spite of a lack of ROI measures.
Senior marketers weighed in, and according to a recent ANA and Booz Allen Hamilton study, the key factors for great leadership in marketing include a lot of WOM-focused traits, including: Make your consumer an advocate.
According to a recent study from Enquiro Research, B2B buyers turn to implementation testimonials, as well as comparative pricing and product information, when making purchase decisions. More than 89% of B2B buyers visit vendor websites and use search engines and industry information websites -- all potential sources of WOM -- to gather pre-purchase information.
Companies are spending lots of dough on online video, which is a relatively new ad platform that marketers are still trying to master. A recent Adweek Media Digital Special Report offers some insights on what marketers can do to best utilize online video ads -- without jeopardizing their offline marketing efforts.
A recent study sponsored by Deloitte Consumer Product Group found that 62% of internet users read customer reviews, and 99% of those who read them find reviews "somewhat" to "very" trustworthy.
A new study from a group of physicists in Italy shows that, when it comes to their votes, people are more likely to listen to their friends than politicians' policies.
According to a recent study from WOMMA member company comScore, three-fours of British internet users visited social networking sites in August, and they spent an average of six hours on social sites throughout the month.
According to eMarketer, folks all around the globe are tuning into (and trusting) word of mouth marketing. All the more reason for a marketing professional to turn to (and trust) word of mouth as a part of their marketing mix.
The WOMMA Word
