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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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ten percent of tech journalists report that changes in social medial have dramatically impacted they way they work, indicating, "I feel as if I have a new job now," according to recent research from Fusion PR. Seventy-eight percent of tech...
Due in large part to a big push from social networking growth, revenue from mobile user-generated content is expected to jump to 10 times its current rate by 2012, according to a report released from Juniper Research. The company projects...
The proliferation of social networks and blogs has made it even easier for college students to keep tabs on what their friends are doing. And this has grander applications than knowing where the next big party is taking place. According...
It seems like a no-brainer: On retail sites that include customer ratings and reviews, a high number of positive reviews will positively impact product sales, while a high number of negative reviews will negatively impact sales. This conclusion comes out...
Fifty-one percent of the Inc. 500 companies are utilizing RSS feeds, web stats, video download tracking, and online activity from their competition as ways to monitor social media, according to a recent study from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth's...
BtoB companies are quick to embrace new media techniques, according to a new joint study from BtoB magazine and the Association of National Advertisers, titled "Harnessing the Power of New Media Platforms." According to the study, more than half of...
Between June 2006 and June 2007, major social networks -- including MySpace, Facebook, Hi5, Friendster, Orkut, Bebo, and Tagged -- garnered major site traffic growth, according to recent research from WOMMA member company comScore. Social networking site Tagged grew its...
Eight out of 10 U.S. shoppers trust brands that use customer ratings and reviews functionality more so than their review-free counterparts, according to a July survey from WOMMA member companies Bazaarvoice and Vizu Corporation. The survey also found that 75%...
Teens talk about brands twice as much as their adult counterparts, according to recent research from WOMMA member company the Keller Fay Group. Of the 145 conversations per week teens have about brands, advertising and marketing comes up in over...
The number of word of mouth influencers is expected to jump from 26.8 million in 2007 (17.5% of the U.S. population) to 34.4 million in 2011 (20.0%), according to a June 2007 report from WOMMA member company eMarketer. In an...
With recent findings that more than 29,000 sex offenders have registered on MySpace, parents and politicians are in a scramble to put measures in place that protect social networking teens. But, according to recent research from the Journal of Adolescence,...
According to WOMMA member company comScore's Video Metrix report, U.S. internet users viewed more than 8.3 billion video streams online in May. Of the 75% of U.S. internet users who watched online video, each logged an average of 158 minutes...
Most people are used to a "broadcast" model of disseminating media, where one or a handful of appointed, professional people generate the content that is consumed by the masses. WOMMA has championed the use of consumer-generated media, the growth of...
In spite of the pervasive -- though unsubstantiated -- claim that women utter a whopping 20,000 words per day to men's measly 7,000, new research from the University of Arizona finds that the gap between men's and women's speaking patterns...
Marketers' fear of surrendering control to consumers and their lack of understanding of new media is keeping them from fully embracing consumer-generated media, according to the fifth annual Marketing Management Survey, conducted by PRWeek and WOMMA member company Manning Selvage...
When it comes to customer trust, peer reviews come out ahead of all other sources, including newspapers and magazines, according to a recent study by the JC Williams Group. The study, which was sponsored by Visa and Yahoo! Canada, investigated...
In 2006, 23.7 million U.S. adult internet users were identified as opinion leaders, and in 2007 that number rose to 26.8 million, according to the June 2007 report, "Word-of-Mouth Marketing: Winning Friends and Influencing Customers," from WOMMA member company eMarketer....
Nearly 100% of influencers aged 10 to 18 claim they sway their friends' decisions about clothes and music, according to a survey released in June by WOMMA member company Burson-Marsteller. More than 80% of these "Youth-fluentials" say they influence their...
Digital "uploaders," by their very nature, have the tools and the reach necessary to be extreme influencers, according to a study released this month by WOMMA member company Agency.com and research partners Brand Genetics and Hall & Partners. The study...
Think the online video craze has reached its peak? Think again. Weekly online video viewing has grown 18% from 2006, and daily use of online video rose 56% in the same period, according to a March 2007 survey from Magid...
IT decision-makers spend an average of 3.5 hours per week participating in social media, so it's no surprise that a May survey found that two-thirds of IT executives say social media and user-generated content informs their purchase decisions. The survey,...
While the majority of podcast listeners are young, male college graduates, that doesn't mean 23-year-old degree-holding dudes are the only ones downloading. According to an October 2006 comScore study, sponsored by Ad Infuse, half of all podcast listeners are between...
While some online shoppers are goal-oriented, a May Gartner study indicates that an equal or larger pool of online shoppers crave a social experience -- even if they are shopping from the comfort of their computer desk. Social shoppers seek...
Business professionals have joined the stampede to social networking sites, with 65% signing up and logging in, according to a recent survey from the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp). A whopping 47.4% claim they use social networks for professional purposes,...
Savvy online shoppers can peruse user reviews in a variety of ways, from reading message boards and doing blog searches to utilizing ratings and reviews functions on retail sites. Now, though, shoppers are getting choosey about the format of those...
Based on the mass proliferation of social networks -- from "mega mall" sites like MySpace to targeted niche sites -- eMarketer recently upped its projection of the U.S. advertising dollars that will be spent on social networking sites in 2007...
This is the last time you'll receive WOM Research as a stand-alone newsletter. But don't fret. We're rolling all of our great word of mouth marketing research content into our Womnibus Weekly newsletter. This way, you get everything about word...
When it comes to making purchase decisions, BtoB business executives are most influenced by word of mouth, according to a research report that was released last month. Sponsored by WOMMA member company Jack Morton Worldwide and conducted by WOMMA member...
In a recent global study conducted by WOMMA member company Weber Shandwick, 45% of consumers were identified as advocates. A top 9% of advocates were dubbed "high-intensity advocates," identified based on their ability to more actively influence others and their...
Millennials, people ages 13-24, spread rapid-fire word of mouth, especially when it comes to things they like, according to the "State of the Media Democracy," a research report commissioned by Deloitte and Touche and conducted by the Harrison Group. Part...
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