Companies are rapidly adopting web 2.0 technologies as they see consumer opinion affecting their brands and marketing campaigns. When 41% of bloggers post about brands they love or hate, companies sit up and take notice. Their efforts to engage in the dialogue—from J&J’s Motrin Mom babywearing campaign to Chris Brogan’s sponsored blog post for KMart—are heavily reported on as large brands and consumers struggle to define the appropriate terms of engagement.

Comparatively little attention is being paid to the government’s move to engage with citizens using similar technologies. The new administration is interacting with citizens online as a logical extension of the Obama campaign’s successes with new media outreach. Recent developments include Change.gov’s eliciting citizens’ stories of giving back to communitites,  implementing Open ID for commenters, switching to a permissive Creative Commons license, and creating an iPhone app.

These activities are breaking new ground for the private and public sectors, and the drastically reduced cost of web 2.0 technologies has the effect of leveling the playing field. It will be interesting to see the successes and inevitable missteps as corporations and the government use new media to encourage and measure constituency engagement.

Tags: customer voice, politics by admin
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According to Universal McCann, we’re all relying a lot more on the kindness and influence of strangers when we make purchase decisions based on information received online. Their September report entitled When did we start trusting strangers? is based on research into 17,000 internet users in 29 countries — and concludes that strangers are trusted:

• almost as much as a face-to-face recommendation
• more than any paid-for communications (presumably infomercials, advertorials and the like)
• more than advertising
• far more than a celebrity endorser

Read the full report for some terrific insights into the rise of social media and democratization of influence — and the resulting impact on your business.

Tags: customer voice, research by admin
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I stayed up too late last night reading (and then thinking about) Seth Godin’s Tribes. Lots of thought-provoking vignettes about groups and leadership, and the past hierarchies imposed on information that the internet has effectively blown up.

Godin provides an example of Ronald Reagan’s “secret” to leadership: listening.

The secret, Reagan’s secret, is to listen, to value what you hear, and then to make a decision even if it contradicts the very people you are listening to. Reagan impressed his advisers, his adversaries, and his voters by actively listening. People want to be sure you heard what they said– they’re less focused on whether or not you do what they said.

As we talk to brands listening to opinion online, we hear concerns about listening to the negative opinion, and then needing to react to every negative voice. I’m with Tribes on this one: the value of a brand leader’s listening is not only the knowledge you gain to fix every problem — it’s also the the cultivation relationships to make your constituents feel heard.

Tags: brand monitoring, customer voice by admin
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When consumer research giants like P&G and Unilever announce an impending industry shift, it’s time to take notice. It’s no surprise that consumers are tiring of solicited feedback: lately it seems that every online purchase I make from movie tickets on up merits an exhaustive survey. Even a call to a mutual fund company yields an intrusive follow up call to see how the first call went. Phew.

Wouldn’t it be better to minimize the endless questioning, and limit the solicited research to the highest value settings and interactions? That’s the thinking behind this Advertising Research Foundation initiative. ARF is bringing together industry giants to  engage with this consumer research crisis.

We’re hearing about the challenges of finding qualified participants on the solicited research side, and on the monitoring side, a concern around sampling vs. statistically significant results. As the barriers to online content fall one Tweet at a time, we’re thinking we’re closing in on the ability for consumer brand discussions to consistently generate statistically significant insights.

Tags: research by admin
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Seth Godin ponders listening to and engaging with high-volume customers — not the bulk buyers, but the loud kind.

It’s a question we bat around when developing monitors to gauge online opinion. Weighting results for authority and relevance is vital for brand marketers. But how important is it to track the insights in ALL the opinion, and not just the opinion that you subjectively (”everyone reads x”) or objectively (rank, link analysis, etc.) assign?

We see companies starting to do what Seth Godin talks about: amplifying some voices over others by giving them a platform. Whether that’s monitoring and integrating inbound customer messages, opening up blog comments, or hosting a community depends on the level of engagement companies are prepared to offer.

Tags: brand monitoring, customer voice by admin
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