Are You Listening To What Consumers Are Saying About Your Brand? by Ken Bernhardt Regents' Professor Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University Atlanta Business Chronicle - September 24, 2004 The decline in consumers' trust and use of traditional media has been widely reported in the media. So where do consumers go for their information about products and services? The answer is word-of-mouth generated from other consumers.  The new book The Influentials by Ed Keller and Jon Berry cites research that shows use of word-of-mouth as an information source has increased from 67 percent of consumers in 1977 to 92 percent in 2003.   I had the good fortune last week to attend a presentation on the latest trends in word-of-mouth advertising by Chris Hart, President of The Spire Group in Brookline, MA.  He discussed how technology has dramatically changed the playing field for marketers in many ways, but perhaps none as important as Consumer-Generated Media.  The technology consulting firm Intelliseek defines Consumer-Generated Media or CGM as the variety of new sources of on-line information that are created, initiated, circulated and used by consumers intent on educating each other about products, brands, services, and issues. In effect, CGM is turbocharged word-of-mouth. It includes any number of on-line word-of-mouth vehicles including consumer-to-consumer email, postings on public Internet discussion boards and forums, consumer ratings web sites, blogs (short for web logs), and individual web sites.  The key is that consumers, not marketers, control each of these, and, as a result, they often carry significantly greater credibility than traditional, marketer-controlled media.  Prior to the Internet, word of mouth was primarily done orally, with consumers sharing experiences with products and services with friends and relatives, often one person at a time.  The advent of email enabled consumers to share these experiences more widely, especially through the use of "reply to all" and "forward" buttons, address books and distribution lists.  The rise of instant text messages and blogs has supercharged the ability to share one's experiences.  Blogs are self-published, online diaries or commentary sites on various topics, typically updated frequently by individuals who want to be recognized as authorities. These "connectors research other blogs and websites and embed links to them on their sites, creating blogs that are Òthe source."  Blogs are very easy to set up (see Blogger from Google, Livejournal.com or Typepad), and the rise of broadband has made it very easy to post photos, audio, and video on the sites. As Time magazine said in its June 13, 2004 issue, "In a way, blogs represent everything the Web was supposed to be: a mass medium controlled by the masses, in which getting heard depends solely on having something to say and the moxie to say it."  Livejournal.com, one of the largest blog communities, has 4.3 million user accounts, 1.9 million of which are active (have been updated recently).  Research published by the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported that nearly one-third of Internet users had participated in on-line chats/discussions or posted content on the Internet. Over 1 billion posting were made in 2004 to online discussion boards, review (opinion) sites, Usenet forums, or blogs, and these are expected to increase by more than 25 percent per year for the next several years.  Have you ever typed your brand name, product or company name into a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, or the newest one, www.a9.com?  You are just as likely to find a consumer-owned website or online forum about the product as you are to find the official corporate or brand website.  An obvious question is why should I care?  Intelliseek (www.intelliseek.com) has developed a white paper entitled Consumer-Generated Media 101, available for downloading from their website, that answers this and a number of other questions about CGM.  Marketers are accustomed to controlling all the messages for consumers.  That is not the case today.  I suggest you visit the following websites; you may be surprised at what's posted there, positive and negative, concerning your organization or your competitors: www.planetfeedback.com, www.complaints.com, www.consumer-revenge.com, www.squeakywheel.com, www.mythreecents.com, www.eopinions.com, www.bizrate.com, www.livejournal.com, or www.usenet.com.  Research done in 2004 by Forrester and Intelliseek shows that CGM is the most trusted, impactful form of advertising with 85 percent of consumers saying they trust completely or somewhat recommendations from other consumers, vs. just over 70 percent saying they trust brand websites. Adverting in traditional media was rated much lower, and search engine ads were rated the least trusted.  Consumers apparently trust corporate websites because they are seeking factual information about the company's products. While they are there, are you inviting them to post questions and comments and making it easy to do so?  If they do post a problem or complaint, are you responding quickly so that they are not tempted to post their complaint elsewhere (or "everywhere")?  If you respond well, these consumers may "spread the word" through these same vehicles.  In addition to learning what consumers are saying about you about your products, you can learn what they are saying about your competitors, using these postings as intelligence gathering. You can learn what features consumers value and dislike and use the information to develop new products.  You can track changes in the marketplace.  Note that your competitors, at least the smart ones, are probably already using this information to try to stay ahead of you.    Like it or not, consumers are turning to the Internet for influence, good and bad.  They trust other consumers who have "been there, done that."  These "viral" consumers love to spread the word about their experiences.  The Intelliseek white paper describes how online word of mouth leaves a digital trail, making CGM measurable, which is an important factor for marketers today.  Have you initiated your Internet-monitoring program yet? If not, I hope you do so soon. It will become an increasingly important marketing tool, a radar or advance warning system that can help you gain competitive advantage.