Blog Yes & Know

Influential Not Influencers

There’s been a heated online debate about the ways consumers are influenced to buy things and adopt new social trends. Some people say a small group of Influencers drive most …

Marketing in a Social World

The business equivalent of making sausage is the marketing of marketing. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (November 29-30, 2008), Tom Hayes and Michael Malone explain the new world of marketing in a Web-based world. They have a provocative name (“Marketing 3.0”) and a new concept (the business meme or “beme”). In the end, they sound like apologists trying to make a pitch for why advertising agencies are still relevant and reminds me of this humorous video imaging what would happen if a modern advertising agency designed the stop sign. In short, they are marketing marketing.

Online Communities: Ignore at Your Peril (I)

In the strategy work I do with tech companies, I’m frequently asked about web communities — how they operate, what they can and can’t do, and how a company should …

Online Communities, How They Work (II)

This is Part II of a series of posts on online communities (that is also available in PDF form: Rubicon-web-community) originally done at Rubicon (the company I led/founded). To return …

Online Communities, Why They Matter (III)

In strategy work with tech companies, my team and I are frequently asked about web communities — how they operate, what they can and can’t do, and how a company …

Online Reviews Second Only to Word of Mouth as Purchase Influencer in US

A broader investigation into how business can exploit online community underlines the importance of online information in driving purchase decisions, but the most influential information is beyond the direct control of companies selling products and services. Courting the small fraction of Internet users who write online reviews and comments is a very important task for many companies, but one they often neglect.
Many companies downplay the importance of online communities because only a few percent of all Internet users contribute to them heavily. What they don’t understand is that most other Internet users read those reviews and rely on them heavily when making purchase decisions. Taking good care of online communities can be a huge money-saver for companies trying to get more marketing impact from limited budgets.