Captivating Connections.

social media's role in shopping.

According to Knowledge Networks and MediaPost Communications, "as more consumers access social media via mobile devices, it changes the way they research and shop for products and services offline."

What's does that really mean?

According to the “The Faces of Social Media” study completed by the two firms:

- 40% of respondents accessed social media via their mobile phones (a 28% increase from September 2010)

- 37% of US social media users trust what their friends and family members say about a brand or product on social media (compared to 10% who trust what strangers say

- 26% trust what friends and family members say in blog posts

- 25% trust their posts on social media sites and 20% trust their tweets (compared to 7% who trust the blogs and posts of strangers, and 5% who trust strangers’ tweets)

What does this mean for marketers? "As more consumers access social media on the go, their in-store shopping decisions will be affected by these same influential brand discussions."

when it comes to women, influence begets influence.

According to a study by Marina Maher Communications and Keller Fay Group, "influential women are themselves more likely than other women to have their purchases influenced by everything from online reviews to expert endorsements. But they're not always as swayed by the big names you'd expect and often give more weight to media and media brands than to individuals."

What does that mean for marketers?

"The strong showing for such media properties as HGTV, Parents magazine and Johnson & Johnson's Babycenter.com suggests that even in word-of-mouth campaigns that don't directly involve advertising, media brands and their associated talent can play a substantial role."

And who exactly are these women?

"Besides having a larger social circle, they also tend to be more actively engaged with brands. The Influence-Hers are 38% more likely than typical women to 'like' brands on Facebook or to provide personal information to brands they like on Facebook. They're also 105% more likely to post positive experiences and 125% more likely to post negative experiences about brands online."

 

consumers are cutting back on everything, including sharing their opinions.

According to Colloquy, "consumers who previously freely shared their opinions about companies are turning into shrinking violets."

What's up with that?

"Research shows a severe decline in word-of-mouth opinion sharing about companies and products since 2008.

Of 3,295 U.S. consumers surveyed by Colloquy in December, 58% said they often have conversations with family, friends and coworkers about products and services they have used. That's down from 73%, when Colloquy posed the same question in a 2008 study.

In addition, 57% of respondents in the latest study said they often recommend products and services to others, compared to 75% in 2008 -- a 24% decline."

That means your content, brand, or product REALLY needs to be share-worthy.

women & online communities.

"Women are well known for their high usage of social media sites, where they make an attractive target. They like to socialize with friends and family, share information and give advice. But social media is about more than just traditional social networking sites, and according to research from women’s community site iVillage in conjunction with Burke Research, Facebook may not be the best place for marketers to find women.

Asked about their attitudes toward online communities designed for women, like iVillage, CafeMom or BabyCenter, vs. web portals and social networking sites, female internet users preferred online communities for a variety of reasons. They trusted the sites most, especially for information on brands and products, and they felt the people on women’s sites were most qualified to understand their needs.

Social networks like Facebook, by contrast, were seen as less useful, less trustworthy and more of a waste of time.

Women appear to be compartmentalizing their social media habits on different types of sites. Earlier research from iVillage and BlogHer found that women thought social networks were best for keeping up with friends and family, as well as entertainment. Online communities did not serve these functions as well. But they did help respondents find out about new products and make purchase decisions."

 

which restaurant had the biggest buzz in 2010?

Drumroll........................Subway (eeeaaat fresh!)

According to BrandIndex, which tracks consumer brand perceptions, "Subway led the list of restaurant brands with the highest 2010 scores, at 41.7, followed fairly closely by Olive Garden, at 36. (Olive Garden also came in #9 among all consumer brands.)

Other Top 10 performers included Outback Steakhouse (28.6), Applebee's (26.9), Dairy Queen (26.8), Wendy's (26.7), Dunkin' Donuts (26.2), Red Lobster (25.3), Pizza Hut (24.9) and Papa John's (24.3)."

WOM & moms.

According to Keller Fay, Moms "are more responsive to word-of-mouth than other adults and more likely to help pass on brand messages.

Nearly two-thirds of mothers studied in September 2010 said they typically thought word-of-mouth was credible, 2 percentage points ahead of females in general and 10 percentage points ahead of men. They were also more apt to take action, including passing the information on to others, making a purchase or doing more research on a brand. Across all metrics, while females were more receptive than males, moms were even better disposed to listening to brand conversations.

These characteristics, along with the wider social circles of mothers compared with other adults, help moms overindex as drivers of brand or product conversations."

believe it or not, postive WOM exists.

Most people recognize WOM in its negative form (trash talking, venting, etc.), but, according to Keller Fay, "most brand-related chatter, both online and offline, is positive. And positive buzz carries more weight with consumers."

Do tell!

"The firm found about two-thirds of word-of-mouth brand references were 'mostly positive.' Those can be powerful.

Two-thirds of study respondents thought positive word-of-mouth was credible, compared with fewer than half who believed negative buzz. Positive information was also more likely to be passed on to others, more than twice as likely to get people to look for more information, and had nearly four times the chance of pushing consumers to make a purchase.

Overall, word-of-mouth is generally positive, but some industries do get better buzz than others. Children’s products and food brands tended to get the most positive mentions, while net advocacy on behalf of companies in the telecommunications, financial services and healthcare industries was lowest. But even for those brands, the majority of word-of-mouth was still upbeat."

do your consumers trust you?

Everyone wants to be trusted (by their friends, their family, and by their consumers). However, trust, as you know, is hard to earn, hard to maintain, and, if you lose, nearly impossible to get back. So, how has social media impacted the notion of trust among brands and companies?

"The rise of social media has reinforced the importance of trust. Successful and enduring social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn are built on a foundation of trust and transparency. But social media has also distorted the notion of trust and put an emphasis on the size of a person’s network and connections."

What does this mean? People (who, ironically, drive social media usage) rule when it comes to trust. It's simple: who do you trust more to look out for your best interests, your computer or your mom?

“'Most people’s decisions are shaped by word-of-mouth input, whether online or offline, from a tight circle of close friends and relatives,' said Paul Verna, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report 'Word-of-Mouth Marketing: Leveraging Trust Online and Offline.' 'Marketers seeking to maximize their reach should focus on the quality of social network connections rather than their sheer size.'

According to Invoke Solutions, quantitative measures such as the volume of content and participation, the length of time people have been fans or followers, or the raw number of followers or fans mattered far less in inspiring trust than the openness of the dialogue, the quality of the comments, and the responsiveness of the sponsor or author.

And Vision Critical found that among US consumers overall as well as daily social network users, friends and family were trusted for product recommendations far more than brand-originated content or people consumers did not know."

what kind of WOM doe women really trust?

"It turns out women aren't all that mouthy. A new study from Harbinger, a firm in Toronto that specializes in marketing to women, finds that the way women use word-of-mouth varies sharply by product category, as well as by life stage.

But perhaps the biggest shock is that even the most techno-savvy would rather not learn or talk about products online: Women are still three times as likely to talk to friends and family as they are to go to their computers. And 92% say they prefer face-to-face communications over online research, Deborah Adams, Harbinger's SVP, tells Marketing Daily."

Wait, what??

"'That's not to say they're not spending a lot of time online, because they are. But the distinction is that while they go online to get information, they prefer to share it in the traditional way,' she says.

Women do seek advice before shopping: Only 28% decide what to buy without looking for some kind of help.

Not surprisingly, she says, the bigger the price tag on a purchase or the more important personal experience is, the more actively women discuss it. And those categories involving strong personal tastes or lifestyle preferences are less likely to be a topic of conversation. For example, 71% of women actively talk about restaurants, while just 41% use WOM for fashion. Automobiles and entertainment are also high on the list of talked-about categories, while jewelry is low, at 30%.

But the biggest surprise, she says, is how strongly life stages predicted the way women used word of mouth."

do you have a herding instinct?

"A new study shows that consumers are more likely to show interest in a product if they see that it is already very popular.

The research, from Oxford University, shows that consumers have a herding instinct to 'follow the crowd' once a clear winner is established. However, this instinct appears to switch off almost entirely if the product fails to achieve a certain popularity threshold.

The findings have implications for the retail online world. Online book retailer Amazon and the online DVD rental service Netflix already allow their users to rate the products, and as a consequence, influence their future popularity. The study concludes that while some books and films are highly advertised by their producers, that element is only a small fraction, leaving the great majority of books and films exposed to the forces of social influence.

The study is based on an analysis of how millions of Facebook users adopted software, known as apps, to personalize their Facebook pages. The researchers analyzed data that tracked 100 million installations of apps adopted by Facebook users over two months in 2007. The data allowed researchers to observe on an hourly basis the rate at which 2,700 apps were installed by 50 million Facebook users.

They discovered that once an app had reached a rate of about 55 installations a day, its popularity then soared to reach stellar proportions. A typical app was installed by 1,000 users, but the most popular app 'Top Friends' was in a different league, being adopted by almost a fifth (12 million users) of the entire Facebook population.

The study concludes that social influence had a key role in whether apps became flops or hits."

Very interesting.