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There's no question that Toyota is in deep trouble with its current recall crisis. But could these issues actually be helping its brand? Shockingly, an analysis of Toyota shows that its Social Influence Marketing (SIM) Score shows this. Who'd have thought that a crisis of such significant magnitude could actually help a brand's perception? This seems to be true, at least in the short term, even though sales may be dropping. Let me explain how.
The SIM Score incorporates reach and like-ability using conversation data sourced from the major conversation monitoring vendors (in this case Radian6). In the month of January, Toyota saw an uptick in its SIM Score relative to its direct competitors. Counter intuitive? Yes, most certainly. And there are two explanations for this. Read my Mashable guest post that explains the SIM Score formula and why the graph looks the way it does.
Two weeks ago I was on a panel at Tony Perkin's AlwaysOn OnMedia 2010 summit held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in NYC. Below is the clip. I was invited to sit on my panel given my focus on social media and broad digital strategy.
With all due respect to Ad Age and Edelman, I feel the analysis of the Edelman Trust Barometer 2010 maybe a little misleading. The headline "In Age of Friending, Consumers Trust Their Friends Less" obviously implies that people are trusting their friends less when making decisions. While that makes great copy, when you click on the chart what you really see is that trust in all forms of media (the alternatives were TV News, Radio News, Newspapers and Friends/Peers) has dropped dramatically by approximately the same percentages. Trust in Friends/Peers hasn't dropped considerably more versus those other categories.As we debate (again and again) the value of influence from friends and peers, lets keep two extremely important factors in mind.
- The subject being discussed makes a big difference. For example, I'm not going to trust my friends very much when I'm deciding whether to get open heart surgery. However, if I'm buying running shoes (as I did yesterday), advice from my friends will make all the difference. I'll of course be asking the friends who are runners for advice and not the ones who don't.
- And secondly, lets not confuse trust in companies with trust in products and services. They are two separate categories (with of course connections to one another). This research was about trust in companies versus trust in products. As we talk about friending and trusting peers, it matters most with products that people have experienced and less so with the companies behind them.
This is the paragraph that I'm struggling with the most -
If consumers stop believing what their friends and the "average Joes" appearing in testimonials say about a product or company, the implications could be significant not just for marketers but for the social networks and word-of-mouth platforms selling themselves as solutions to communicating in a jaded world. The influence of peers has been considered the leading rationale for brands' shifting marketing dollars to social media.
If the coverage focused just on information about the company, then that would be fine. But generalizing to products doesn't seem fair.
Disclaimers - I work for Razorfish and my company research shows that trust in peer recommendations around purchasing decisions is not dropping but rising. My analysis is also based on reading the Ad Age piece and the Edelman executive summary only. I do not have access to the whole research report
FEED, The Razorfish Digital Brand Experience Report was just published. Primarily authored by @gschmitt who shares the credit for it generously, FEED focuses on how consumers are engaging with brands in an increasingly digital world. Here are my favorite findings. The full report is available here.
- 65% of consumers report having had a digital experience that either positively or negatively changed their opinion about a brand. Yes, we all talk about social monitoring but I'd argue maybe not even enough as yet. You need to understand your consumers beyond the perspectives that they share publicly but as they interact with you digitally.
- 73% of consumers have posted a product or brand review on a website like Amazon, Yelp, Facebook or Twitter. Talk about social influence marketing being real! The reality is that no website can exist now without enabling product reviews. Customers share their opinions and learn from each other.
- 44% of those that follow twitter do so for exclusive deals. They're not looking for conversations from those brands. This is similar to the Fluent research and isn't surprising at all. It shows that brands have a lot of work to do.
- And finally, 64% of consumers report making a first purchase from a brand because of a digital experience. Wow that's a huge percentage. Are you paying enough attention to your digital experience?
You can find FEED in its entirety here. Don't miss it. Its great work and if I may add, gorgeous design.
This Tuesday I'll be on an 8:00am panel discussing how the social media worlds are beginning to collide. On the panel with me will be Todd Defren, (CEO, Shift Communications), Adam Hirsch (COO, Mashable), Mike O'Toole (President, PJA Advertising) and Emily Riley (Senior Analyst, Forrester). This should be a good panel as we're quite a mix of people - from analysts and agency types, to PR and publishers.
You can bet I'll be discussing the different types of influencers and lamenting the fact that we don't pay enough attention to them. This is part of the BMA (Business Marketing Assocation) Leading Edge Series.
I'll be speaking next Monday (11/16) at 9:00am at the Web 2.0 Conference in NY. I'm on a panel with Jennifer Zeszut (Scout Labs), Peter Kim (Dachis Group), James M Smith (Disney Online), Randy Ksar (Motorola) and Aaron Dignan (Undercurrent). Here's the panel description.Social media isn't just for community managers anymore. The rise of Web 2.0 content and community is changing marketing operations - making marketers more efficient, customer-centric and prepared to make strategic decisions like product and service enhancements, feature prioritization, pricing and customer segmentation. And, the best part? It's free and available in real-time so any size company with any size budget can leverage it.
Real-time marketing means understanding and responding to the movements of the market on both individual and strategic levels. This session will show you how to apply the instant, unprompted customer feedback from Web 2.0 to media buying, campaign optimization, creative development, customer community management, CRM, PR and promotions.
Hear from companies that are operationalizing their use of social media feedback as a source of strategic advantage, and walk away with 6 new ways to integrate real-time marketing practices into your organization.
I hope you can join. And whether you can or can't, I'd still love your thoughts on this. If I use your insights, I promise to give credit where its due.
This is an absolutely must view presentation from Morgan Stanley's Mary Meeker. The theme for her this year is mobile and the internet. I'm starting to agree that mobile's time in the sun may have finally arrived.
Mary Meeker's Internet Presentation 2009
Mary Meeker's Internet Presentation 2009
Before you make the decision to purchase a book, it is always good to scan the table of contents. Here's the detailed table of contents (it follows the Contents at a Glance) and a sample chapter (the introduction) for Social Media Marketing for Dummies.
Social Media Marketing for Dummies You'll notice that the book makes some very strategic and academic concepts actionable and easily understandable while still helping the reader with the fundamentals.
My five idea theme for presentations continues. Organized by Chris Brogan each year this conference attracts some pretty amazing speakers (think Gary Vaynerchuk and Brian Solis) and I was flattered to be included in the group.
If you're interested in more on this, buy the book! And don't be turned off by the fact that its titled Social Media Marketing for Dummies. That just means it has a lot of thought provoking, strategic concepts explained in simple, easy to digest and practical terms. It does not mean that its for dummies.
If you're interested in more on this, buy the book! And don't be turned off by the fact that its titled Social Media Marketing for Dummies. That just means it has a lot of thought provoking, strategic concepts explained in simple, easy to digest and practical terms. It does not mean that its for dummies.
