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Look Smart, Be Smart: A daily compendium of what you need to know to be effective as a word of mouth marketer
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.
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.
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.]
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."
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.
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.
Ninety-five percent of "heavy" online social networkers also visited online retail sites in August, according to a recent report from WOMMA member company comScore. This is compared to a significantly smaller portion (80%) of the general U.S. online population.
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.
What's a Passionista? According to a recent Yahoo! and MediaVest study, "Passionistas: The New Empowered Consumers," these influencers are passionate about their interests and spend a lot of time online keeping informed.
WOMMA is always hard at work trying to get our members the best data to drive their word of mouth efforts. With that in mind, we are pleased to give you an exclusive offer from member company Vizu Answers, which...
Marketers are being encouraged to consider connectivity when targeting potential new customers. According to a recent study co-authored by Shawndra Hill, Wharton professor of operations and information management, consumers are more likely to buy a product if they have "network...
The SPI Report is hot off the presses. SPI stands for Social Persuaders and Influencers. It is a collaborastive effort by Start Sampling, and Larry Burns is CEO of Start Sampling and McElroy Interactive.. The SPI data comes from the...
Peter Kim from Forrester Research moderated a panel on Brand Monitoring that was noteworthy for the different opinions of how to measure word of mouth...Josh has a great write up of the specifics. Peter Kim presented a wonderful introduction and...
We all know that blogs are growing exponentially. But who exactly is doing the blogging? Recent research conducted by Environics Research investigated this very question. This online research was conducted between October 5 to 9, 2006, with a sample of...
If you have a stake in measuring word of mouth, WOMMA's Word of Mouth Research Symposium, on Dec. 11 in Washington, D.C., is the event you've been waiting for! Check out these data-packed presentations: * Rating, Reviews & ROI: How...
Could be. A fresh look at the research nets an upsetting conclusion: the experiment largely failed. But...it may not really matter. From the article: It is just as likely, though, that Milgram was wrong. But if we don't live in...
Clearly, the interest on behalf of both managers and scholars regarding WOM and WOM marketing has increased recently. This is for a variety of reasons, including issues with traditional marketing media (fragmentation, lack of credibility, cost, and PVRs) as well...
There's a fascinating article this morning on Aaron Swartz's blog, examing the question of who writes Wikipedia. I love this kind of stuff. As more communities are built online, we get a new opportunity to monitor and understand how communication...
There's a new site called SellaBand. The concept is defiinitely interesting. Visitors to the site can browse through a number of musicians who have posted up their music (for free). If you like a particular artist, you can invest in...
An article in the NY Times today talks about Web search queries and their repurcussions on privacy. What's really interesting about this unfolding story is the perception that our identities are easily revealed via our search history. The article discusses...
I recently read an article where the researcher implicitly assumed that consumers engage in WOM to persuade others that their opinion is correct. Based on others’ research as well as interviews I have conducted, this assumption may be flawed. Certainly,...
The Holmes Report's decision to summarize the concepts in Fred Reichheld’s The Ultimate Manifesto this Monday might be an indication of the growing value of WOMM (and, therefore, its measurement) in public relations. As PR professionals continue their quest to...
A recent research paper on the Dynamics of Information Access on the Web finds that 36 hours is the average amount of time it takes for half of the total readership of a given article to have read it. This...
When we think about what drives WOM, we might also consider phenomena that are similar, but not quite WOM (which we can define generally as C2C communication regarding products, services and brands). What I am suggesting is considering established research...
David Leonhardt wrote an interesting column about the value of Google Trends in the Business Section of last Wednesday's NY Times. He comments on the ability of this powerful source of CGM (Google searches) to serve as a "real economic...
Some folks may have missed this due to the 4th of July holiday here in the States, but Matt Creamer over at Advertising Age wrote an article entitled "Do You Know Your Score?" [print edition, cover story and p. 24...
Suresh Vittal has joined Forrester, from SPSS it seems, and wades right into the deep-end, asking the critical questions about the measurement of consumer-generated media: Will CGM increase in relevance as a customer insight forum? Who, within the organization, will...
This new article just published by the Marketing Science Institute explores how two dimensions of innovation—originality and usefulness—affect consumer word-of-mouth and, hence, the adoption of a new product. By Sarit Moldovan, Jacob Goldenberg, and Amitava Chattopadhyay...
(this is not exactly about a research project, but rather a few thoughts on Paul Rand's hypotheses on why WOM has become such a hot topic. I imagine this may be a good project, however. I'd be happy to hear...
Something has been bothering me lately about all of this WOM research that touts the power and impact associated with the phenomenon. Before I go any further, I should clarify that I certainly think WOM is a significant force in...
A new global study by GfK Roper Consulting reveals that people are considered to be the most “trustworthy” source for consumer information. Around 70% of consumers across the world trust friends, family or other people when searching for information or...
Christopher Carfi, who blogs over at The Social Customer Manifesto, has a really interesting post on this notion of Familiar Strangers and Pogressive Trust. The concept is fascinating and has some real clear ties to WOMM, especially online. Here's the...
I was recently asked via e-mail about the connection between WOM and the youth demographic and if I had any insights from my academic research in this area. The specific questions were as follows: does WOM travel differently among youth? Does technology acceptance impact connections? Are there more conversations happening online vs. live for youth? Are their networks wider, deeper or have no difference to the average 40 year old? Are there different categories of discussions?
As some of you that may have already read it, an interesting and provocative article about the value of Consumer Generated Media Research posted recently at Marketing Profs (Is there something rotten in CGM Research?), rather than posting my personal...
I had lunch the other day with a friend who started an online rating website for home renovations, building, maintenance, etc. She told me that a significant majority of the reviews on the website are overwhelmingly positive, and she was...
Rob Braun of Masstricht University is looking for some help to complete his thesis regarding WOM in offline and online environments and its influence on consumer attitudes. He has prepared a short questionnaire and will share the results with WOMMA...
Great new report out today from (my alma mater) Jupiter Research on Word of Mouth practices. Brand new Ad Analyst Emily Riley found that large companies generally lag behind small companies when it comes to WOM, both in terms of...
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