A recent study by Deloitte & Touche LLP not surprisingly shows that consumers read and heed online reviews. What was surprising was the number of consumers.
The Deloitte study found that 62% of respondents said they read consumer-written product reviews online. Of those, 82% said those reviews directly influenced their buying decisions and 69% passed reviews on to family and friends.
The results were consistent across most age groups. For instance, 57.6% of those aged 17-21 said they had ever read an online consumer-written review, compared with 68.4% of those 22-29, 65.5% for those 30-44 and 63.2% of those 45-60. That response rate dropped off to 51.8% for those 61-74. In every age group from 17 to 74, at least 97.8% rated consumer reviews as credible, dropping to 93.3% for those 75 and older.
Dan and Jennifer run the extremely popular askdanandjennifer web site. They have been featured in magazines, newspapers and radio programs, and have appeared and/or consulted with the Television programs like Dr. Phil and CNN Headline News
Dan and Jennifer, your site has really taken off over the last twelve months Can you tell me about your decision to launch a relationship advice web site?
We ran an online dating web site for over 3 years and in that time saw that so many people are having deep issues not only finding someone, but in their real life relationships.
Pablo Palatnik is someone that I met at Elite Retreat in San Francisco earlier this year. Pablo has a really good blog called the Palatnik Factor that covers SEM, SEO, Social Media, Branding, Marketing. Pablo’s blog is on my daily must-read list so I was really excited when he told me that he had written an eBook on how to Advertise, Monetize, & Drive Traffic Through Myspace.
MySpace is a difficult market for many advertisers to break into, but the massive size of it makes it so attractive to many markerteers. What I like about Pablo’s his eBook is that he takes you through his experience and tactics (very simple & easy) that he used to market businesses on MySpace.
I have written several times in the past about Borders foray into social media. Borders has been modestly successful with its partnership with Gathers.com, so I was not surprised to read that Barnes & Noble is launching a new site with social media features built in.
“We are introducing many new interactive content and community features that our customers expect,” says BarnesandNoble.com CEO Marie Toulantis.
The new site features “One on One” Podcasts hosted by public radio veteran Katherine Lanpher, “One on One” interviews are in-depth conversations with today’s leading writers, musicians and filmmakers. Hermione Lee, Robert Dallek and Frances Kiernan launch the “One on One” podcasts. Updated weekly, future podcasts will feature Amy Bloom and Ann Patchett.
After my The Future of Social Networks post I have been watching to see what sports teams are doing online. So I was interested to hear about the refurbished Dallas Cowboys social networking site. The Cowboys site is home to blogs and discussion forums for fans and team staff. The Cowboys also hope that the social media site can be an outlet for fans to express themselves and meet others.
Advertising Age reported about a company called Competitrack that tracks the success of viral marketing campaigns. I believe that Competitrack is the only company doing this so I was curious to see what who they consider to be the most viral brands.
According to their web site Competitrack classifies viral marketing as:
We look for online messages that are aimed primarily at attracting and engaging an audience, and secondarily at supporting a brand or product. The brand or product message is often quite subtle-sometimes even indiscernible. We also seek out negative messages that are circulating virally-user generated spoofs, parodies or satires which poke fun, or are critical of a brand.
The Ice.com and Neiman-Marcus YouTube advertising campaigns got me thinking about what it takes to put together a successful video advertising campaign. I am sure that this is a question on many marketing executive’s minds especially as Advertising Age reported recently that online video advertising could be worth more than $775 million in 2007.
A recent study by Google and AOL showed unsurprisingly that online-video viewing steadily increases throughout the day, peaking in the evening. The study also identified six steps to successful online video advertising. Those steps are:
