Entries Tagged 'Blogs' ↓

Very interesting post from WOMMA of an article that I missed from Jack Loechner last week from the Center for Media Research. 36.2 Million Women Actively Participate in the Blogosphere Weekly. 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.

 Blake Cahill

Visible Technologies 

Just arriving in Sonoma for the start of a three day conference organized by the Society of New Communications Research. Attending the advisory board meeting that is comprised of Fellows, Board Members, and Researchers as we speak. An incredible collection of individuals involved in this association. I am really looking forward to contributing at the conference and being part of the board. A shout out to Jen McClure who manages this organization, connects everyone, and pulled this event together for another year.

Blake Cahill

Visible Technologies

Peter Kim, a lead analyst at Forrester, is kicking off a session on Word-of-Mouth Marketing with Janet Eden-Harris from Umbria and Dave Balter from BzzAgent. Pete opens with some updated stats about the decline of mainstream media consumption and the increasing amount of time consumers are spending on the Internet. The time consumers are spending is increasingly spent around creating, sharing and consuming content in ways they hadn’t before. With respect to content that is passed along not all content is equal - it is important to remember it is a reflection of the sender.

Janet from Umbria, now a division of JD Power & Associates, shared a variety of case studies from SC Johnson and a major jeans manufacturer - some interesting insights around some of their client engagements. Dave shared what his definition of WOM is “the sharing of an honest opinion between two people”. He then explained their “BuzzAgent” process which is consumer enrollment, campaign invite, product/service shared with folks invites, then feedback reporting for the agents. Everything is transparent and non-scripted. An interesting stat - “40% of WOM interactions include another media form”. WOM is a high-effective in compliment to traditional media - you need a mix. Also, remember a large portion of WOM actually takes place offline verses online. Very interesting stats as measured by BzzAgent about the effectiveness of WOM’s viral nature. The example provided was that when they start a program with say 10k agents they then reach out to 12 individuals on average who then speak to 4.14 individuals for a total WOM effect/factor of 628,000 conversations. Naturally, these happen over a period of time and generate the equivalent of 1.4M hours of conversations.That is pretty impressive but results scaled down a bit as you move away from B2C and tangible products. Some solid questions and audience participation about whether it can really work in B2B or for services verse tangible products.

Good session - Pete, Janet, Dave.

Blake Cahill

Visible Technologies

Business Week’s 2008 Customer Service Champs edition contains a variety of interesting rankings, facts and sidebar articles that underscore the new media challenges faced by those in corporate America today. Although we’ve all heard most of these customer service horror stories before, it’s still good to learn about the progress some brands made from last year to now. The trend for many brands to do more is definitely up from last year.

Unfortunately, Business Week plays the scared tactic card again (like many publications have done in the past) in its Consumer Vigilantes piece - profiling angry out-of-control consumers smashing their products to gain attention and rebates. While there is no question that some companies deserve such wrath and need to listen more closely to their customers, the vast majority of brands have exceptional customer service. If you’re in the business of honest measurement of consumer sentiment about brands like we are, then you know most companies do a pretty good job at taking care of their customers. I doubt we really need to constantly profile out-of-control consumers to gain the attention of most brands today.

Business Week was smart though to balance its coverage with a more realistic view from Jeff Jarvis called “Love the Customers Who Hate You,” that points out how and why customer service is fast becoming the new marketing of this century. Lots of others, like John Bell and Pete Blackshaw also offer their views on the new rankings.

Mike Spataro

Over on Seattle 2.0 today, the Seattle Startup Index for January 2008
has been posted. It’s great to see Visible Technologies listed among other top startups in the Seattle area.

Thanks Marcelo for putting this together.

Blake