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The 3 U's of Word of Mouth Discussion: Unfiltered, Unsolicited and Unaided

Yesterday's Boston Herald ran a story on how companies like Cymfony track blog postings and other consumer generated content for marketing intelligence. I spoke with reporter Jay Fitzgerald last week about this topic and explained, as Jay put it, how "companies have been tracking information available over the Internet, such as monitoring message boards or discussion sites, to gauge consumer sentiments toward products, from computers to new cars to toothpaste." The article provides a good introduction on how companies are using technologies and services to understand the perspectives of online consumer discussion as unfiltered focus groups (although the title "Dogging Bloggers" is not how we would put it).

However, in recent discussions with customers, I think the universe of content that companies can use to gather this type of intelligence is not aptly described. It is much more than consumer generated media. It involves industry discussion groups, B2B forums. This content is really a combination of three key factors: Unfiltered, unsolicited and unaided on-line word of mouth discussion.

Together, these three u’s provide an interesting mix that is different than focus groups. When one joins a focus group, you are normally doing this because you are getting some sort of incentive. Online, you often do this on your own time because you are passionate and want to share your views with others to help them avoid mistakes or make better decisions. Is this an easy source of content to understand and analyze? Of course not, but because of variegated nature, we are finding critical information to help companies quickly understand new trends, service problems and other issues that have significant impact on their businesses.

Additionally, there has been a lot of discussion regarding the role of marketing and communications in developing a proactive program for interaction with the blogosphere. In order to best understand this new media channel, we believe companies must actively monitor the blogosphere, but also understand trends and opportunities through analysis. Some companies know how to do this, some don't. Online consumer discussion is having a direct impact on all facets of the corporation -- from reputation and sales to product marketing and market research.

Posted by Andrew Bernstein on July 18, 2005 at 01:12 PM | Email this post Permalink

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