I came across a great article that covers everything you should know, if you are building or running a B-2-B site.It gives you a 10 best list as well as great direction on what you need to do. Click on the image to read the full article.
John Moore has provided us with three ways we can listen on-line for free. Here they are:
Use Google Blog search alerts to watch blog-related mentions for your company, its competitors, and the marketplace you are in. Simply do a search, click on Everything (on the left), choose Blog, and then at the bottom of the results page you will see a link that says “Create an email alert for…”. Set this up and you begin to shift into a listening mode.
Use Google’s Update search to get social media updates, in real-time. Again, do a google search, click on Everything (on the left), and choose Updates. You will get real-time updates from Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed and countless other social networks.
RSS Feeds still rule, in my opinion. Use Google Reader to track updates from various sites. Yes, your CIO might be blocking this if you are in that 38% group. However, give it a try, you may be surprised.
I thought I would share some intresting on-line WoM research findings, based on a survey conducted by YouGuv in the UK. (The link will take you to the full post.)
The top line findings of the research shows in the last 12 months:
• 81% of consumers have searched for or read a user review for a product or service they were interested in buying
• 29% have written a user review and 23% have discussed a product or service in an online forum/blog
• 37% say they are most likely to write a review when the product or service didn’t meet their expectations, with less – 28% - prompted by a great experience
• 48% of respondents who would write an online review say their motivation for writing a review is to try and change how the company services/deals with its customers with 56% saying it’s to ensure other people don’t make the same mistake
• 62% say they have come close to buying something and then changed their mind because of a bad review or warning
• Consumers are most likely to look for recommendations for electrical products (61%); hotels (55%) and gadgets such as MP3 players (38%)
• In terms of sectors, consumers who would write reviews online are more motivated to make an online recommendation or criticism on hotels (45% would write to recommend, 43% to criticise) and restaurants/bars/clubs (36% recommend, 36% to criticise). Broadband, telephony providers (9% recommend, 16% criticise) and cable/satellite TV (15% recommend, 26% criticise)are much more likely to attract negative reviews.
This is a quickie but still useful - Zuberance have provided us with a list of the Top 10 things Advocates will do for your brand. It is all about Engagement, Conversation, Recommendations & Collaboration.
- Rate & review your products
- Create testimonials
- Share content with their social networks like videos, white papers, how-to guides
- Share promotional offers with their social networks, driving qualified leads and sales
- Get friends to join loyalty clubs
- Recommend your brand, products, or services by clicking on “I Recommend This” badges
- Answer prospects’ questions, reducing shopping cart abandonment and increasing conversions
- Respond to blog postings about your brand, product, or service
- Provide feedback about why they recommend your brands, products, or services
- Give you valuable ideas on how to improve your products and services
Matt Granfield has put together a great presentation on Social Media/ Word-of-Mouth and uses some interesting Case Studies to get his point across. From about slide 22 it gets interesting. Worth the watch.
Jeanne Bliss opened day 2 of School of WOM. Her presentation was focused on the customer, their love and how a brand can earn it. All brands want their customers to love them yet few truly focus on building that love. Like any other relationship, brands need to communicate, respond to problems and, perhaps most importantly, apologize when expectations are not met. These actions create an emotional bond, leading not only to purchases but also advocacy. To do this, you need a customer focused mentality. Don’t hire employees. Hire partners. Don’t give excuses. Offer an apology coupled with a solution. The customer isn’t a resource, asset or number. They are a human, just like the people running your company. Be human and they will love you. More info on Jeanne’s latest book, I Love You More Than My Dog, here: http://ww2.customerbliss.com/beloved.html
(This is an exert from an article published by Tremor, written by Steve Knox)
The brain is designed not to think. Did that line disrupt your thought process? It happens to be true. Our brains are designed to try to remain in a static state, to reserve their processing power for true emergencies or survival. A mechanism the brain uses to remain in this static state is the use of schemas, mental models that we use to make the world work. They enable us to assume things and use the model to fill in the missing details.
Disrupting a schema turns out to be at the core of all word-of-mouth. The brain cannot live in a state of disequilibrium. One way it gets back to its static state is by talking about the disruption. Significant disruption causes sustained talk. Word-of-mouth on brands uses these same cognitive principles. Consumers talk about brands when we disrupt a schema. They talk when we give them a piece of surprise that does not fit inside their mental model.
Effective word-of-mouth disrupts schemas that are tied to the core of your category and brand. We call this the foundational truth. Disruption can never stray too far from the foundational truth or the consumer rejects it. Effective word-of-mouth that drives consumer advocacy disrupts mildly, not wildly, from the consumers' foundational truth.
Bringing the world of cognitive science into your marketing can pay huge dividends. Before you become enamored with the latest technology, stop and ask yourself, "What are the core schemas at play and how are we disrupting them?" Understanding why a consumer wants to talk about your brand is one of the breakthrough areas of marketing.
The title of this quote is thank to Jeff Bezos and I love it because it is so true. Sarah Hofstetter (with a very impressive and a very American job title of SVP of Emerging Media & Client Strategy at 360i) expands on this quote in the short splurb below:
"People talk about your brand when brands can't scale to listen - the playground, the water cooler, the supermarket, the coffee shop. Using the Internet as a real-time focus group, we can see deeper understanding of how our brands are talked about online - who is talking, what they're saying, where they're saying it, and what motivates them to say it. This allows us as brand marketers to then figure out "What do I want people to say about me" and then work from there to develop compelling product and associated marketing that will elicit that response.
But we dont only need the internet. If consumers know you are truly interested, they will tell you exactly what they tell their friends. As a brand manager you just need to be able to take it - because most of the time it isn't what you want to hear!
This is brilliant and well worth watching! Imaging the power of this for a brand. Come on now - we have thousands of sheep in the Karoo - who will do it first?