Latest Updates: WOM Trends RSS

• A Return to Real Life: The Future of WOM
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 11:39 am on February 8, 2012 | 1 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Content Marketing (38), Offline WOM (52), WOM Trends

  

  By Amy Taylor, Lead Copywriter, Brains on Fire

  Reports indicate millions of Americans are logging offline for good. They’re putting down their smartphones, silencing their ringers and stepping away from their Twitter streams - in order to rejoin their real lives.

  For years, brands have been putting their eggs in various online baskets. Some were early adopters, others waited for the water to warm up a bit before they hopped in. Many jumped on the bandwagon in search of a quick fix and a magical marketing bullet.

  But there is no quick fix. There is no magic bullet. Why? Because consumers live in the real world where real life is complicated. And real life happens offline.

  Unlike the latest shiny new media tool, widget or app of the day, true word of mouth marketing is founded on real relationships between brand and consumer. It celebrates transparency, trust and community – things that can’t be bought, rushed or manufactured.

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• Super Bowl Ad Trends: Integration is here to stay
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 11:19 am on February 6, 2012 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Research (498), WOM and Social Networks (683), WOM Trends

  For those of you that enjoy the commercials as much as the game, Altimeter whipped up some analytics on this year’s crop of Super Bowl ads. They found five trends:

  Main Destination: Traditional Websites

  The dot com era is certainly not over. A clear 57% of ads directed viewers to a website or microsite. Perhaps more interestingly, 32% didn’t include any online resources

  

  URLs Stay Corporate

  The ads relied heavily on destination, not conversation. Corporate URLs dominated the field, appearing in 49% of the ads. Twitter, surprisingly, came in last – even losing to hashtags.

  

  Unanswered Questions: While only 7% of the ads included hashtags, I’d be really interested to see the data on the conversations generated. Who used them? What actions did they take later?

  If you see anything that answers these questions, we’d love to know! Please comment the link.

  Read all of Altimeter’s takeaways at Web Strategy

  

  

   

• Pinterest: The Inspiration Network
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 11:53 am on February 3, 2012 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Content Marketing (38), Pinterest (2), WOM and Social Networks (683), WOM Trends

  Get ready to start hearing “Pinned it” in the lexicon. This week, we’ve taken a closer look at Pinterest, which has enjoyed 8000% year-over-year user growth. Today we found two more perspectives on Pinterest.

  360i Declares it the Inspiration Network

  If Twitter and Facebook are great for sharing content, Pinterest excels at helping people find content. Many of the users curate their boards based on what they need inspiration for. Weddings, recipes, do-it-yourself and fashion ideas fill many boards, and with good reason.

  Traditionally, social media have followed a stream of consciousness flow – newsfeeds populating as new content is posted. But Pinterest is different. Since users are searching for inspiration, not updates from friends or those they follow, their board is really more a visual representation of where they want to go. Call it an inspiration network if you will.

  Monetate Crunches the Numbers

  Monetate released a very informative infographic about Pinterest’s growth, influence and brand users.

  Growth:

  

  Influence:

  

  Brand Users:

  

  Key Takeaway: If your brand inspires (and/or is in eCommerce), you should be on Pinterest. Get visual with your products and see how you can inspire your customers to do great things (that will inspire great word of mouth.)

  Read 360i’s perspective and see the whole Monetate infographic.

  360i is a WOMMA member.

  

  

   

• Pinterest Refers Nearly as Much Traffic as Twitter
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 12:09 pm on February 1, 2012 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Content Marketing (38), Pinterest (2), Research (498), WOM Trends

  Shareaholic analyzed data from 200,000 publishers that reach 260 million unique monthly visitors monthly. In terms of referral traffic, Pinterest rose from 2.5% in December to 3.6% in January. One percentage point – no big deal right?

  

  If influence is judged by the actions you can get your community to do, then Pinterest is highly influential. And brands are taking note. Already, social all stars like Whole Foods, Gap and Nordstrom have set up pinboards.

  Key Takeaway: Pinterest is young and there’s still some space on the ground floor. Consider integrating it into your content strategy.

  Read more about Pinterest at Brian Solis’ blog

  

  

   

• QR’d Out?
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 12:07 pm on February 1, 2012 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Creative WOM Ideas (244), QR Codes (4), WOM Trends

  In 2011, QR code exploded in marketing materials. The scaleable little boxes fit onto billboards and business cards alike. Yet unlike putting your company website or social links, QR codes never achieved market-wide understanding.

  In an October 2011 study, strategic marketing firm Russell Herder found that 30% of consumers didn’t even know what QR codes were. Of those who had scanned one, 57% did nothing with the information.

  With augmented reality and near field communication technology growing so quickly, QR codes may fade away.

  But for all the doubters and haters, QR codes can really ramp up engagement when done right, like this case study:

  

  Read more about QR Codes at 1000heads

  

  

   

• Curation Drives Pinterest Growth
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 11:00 am on January 30, 2012 | 5 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Content Marketing (38), Curation, WOM Trends

  

  Facebook has done its best to keep content relevant with EdgeRank, but newcomers like Pinterest have pulled quite a bit of attention away. From Oct. 2010 to Oct. 2011, the site grew from 40,000 to 3.2 million monthly unique visitors. That’s 8,000%.

  

  Content has long been a drive for the social web, but it keeps changing how it looks. Early on, blogs and YouTube grew. Then sites like Facebook and Twitter took off. Each of these starts fresh and exciting, but then succumbs to saturation. Newcomers like Pinterest, or before it, Tumblr, put an emphasis on simple and visual curation. That is why they’re now standing out.

  Key Takeaway: Content may no longer be king. There’s simply too much of it. Curation is what drives users to read, engage and share.

  Read more about Pinterest at Grown-up Thinking, Mr Youth’s blog

  

  

   

• Future Tech: Radio-Frequency Identification is Gonna be Cool
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 11:34 am on January 27, 2012 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Creative WOM Ideas (244), WOM Trends

  Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) allows two devices to share data at a close range. Also referred to as Near Field Communication (NFC), the tool has the potential to change the customer experience from point-of-sale to loyalty programs.

  Adam Kossoff of Affinitive wrote a nice post outlining how a few different companies have already used this technology. One was Vail Resort’s Epic Mix, a 2011 Gold WOMMY Winner. Their ski passes have a small sensor that helps snow bums track their runs and upload that information to their social media. At each ski lift, a sensor can tell who is riding. The technology was integral in creating a seamless and overwhelmingly simple online experience to complement their customers’ trip.

  This year they integrated a photo function that automatically uploads photos onto Facebook. Pretty cool stuff. Check out the video explaining the new feature:

  

  Read more about the case study at Affinitive

  Affinitive is a WOMMA member.

  

  

   

• 4 Community Management Predictions
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 11:40 am on January 18, 2012 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Community Management (123), WOM How-to (575), WOM Trends

  Meghan Peters at Mashable wrote a very helpful post about where she thinks Community Management will go in 2012.

  1. Perfecting Post Timing – The data that pours out of social media can be intoxicating. Once you have spent some good time engaging with your community, go through the data. You’ll find peak posting times and the best keywords to use. Tools like SocialFlow and Page Lever can help with this.

  2. Community-Driven Content and Products – Content development is perhaps one of the most time consuming aspects of Community Management. 2012 could bring an end to the content call-to-action. Simple interfaces within communities can generate oodles of content. Just look at the BuzzFeed community. They have pros and community members posting, each getting an equal shot at exposure.

  3. Niche is Back – What started with sites like Ning is being continued by Pinterest and Paper.li. The quickly generated and highly visual content on these sites has exploded in popularity. Community Managers have a huge opportunity to use these outlets to develop and show their brand’s content.

  Read more predictions on Mashable

  

  

   

• Search+: Google Adds Social to Search
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 11:14 am on January 16, 2012 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Google+ (14), Search (2), WOM and Social Networks (683), WOM Trends

  Since its inception, Google has strove to bring the most relevant search results for its users. The latest iteration, “Search Plus Your World,” blends their traditional search with Google+.

  What Changed?

  For those who have a Google+ account, searching Google will now draw both personal and non-personal results. When you’re logged in and perform a search, the results might look like this:

  

  (Click to enlarge)

  The orange arrow points to where you decide whether you want to view Your World results. With it on, Google finds photos, links, videos and other content that your network has shared.

  So will it work?

  Search + Social has been a talking point for some time already. Google has released several properties that nudge the process along like the +1 button. This represents the clearest combination of the two, but there remain a few hurdles to widespread adoption:

  1. People need to share on Google+ - A lot of Google+ users signed up because they used other Google Apps like Gmail, Docs, or Reader. But a lot have undeveloped networks without a high volume of sharing. Without that sharing, search results won’t pull relevant Your World results.

  2. Intrusion on Google Search – Clearly, a lot of people like Google Search. Messing with the results that people expect threw some for a loop. Though users can easily turn off the Your World option, many will be left wondering why they got back personal results.

  3. Forced Hands – Your World further forces brands to get involved on Google+. Having a presence is now a very important part of SEO.

  Read more about Your World at Edelman Digital and Google’s Official Blog

  

  

   

• Optimism on Agency and Brand Sides
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 11:31 am on January 9, 2012 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Research (498), WOM Trends

  A recent report by RSW/US surveyed over 100 senior level marketers and over 100 agency principals during December 2011.  It found different types of optimism on both sides:

  

  And agencies are expecting more staff growth than their brand counterparts:

  

  What’s your outlook? Please comment below with your predictions and which side you work on.

  Read more about the survey at AdWeek

  Download the full survey at RSW/US