Consumer Skeptism About Online Advertising

I am currently reading the book, The Digital Handshake by Paul Chaney, I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get more insight into the social media world. The first chapter is about the consumer skepticism about online advertising and social media.


What Paul Chaney and the Edelman PR firm state below in Chapter One below is true, I see it everyday at work:

1. There is a 3 to 1 margin of people who are far more likely to trust "average people like me"
2. Consumers trust word-of-mouth recommendations far more than traditional marketing or advertising.
3. They wanna hear about real experiences rather than marketing speak


I work with a lot of SMB's that say the majority of their business is from word-of-mouth referrals. Luckily, my job is to get them to put their business on Kudzu.com, a local search site, where word-of-mouth is found online. So, social media is a game that I have to explain every day to my potential clients.


I have noticed that the SMB's that I have came across lately have started to create a online presence. The majority have done the following:

1. Created a website with all biased testimonials
2. 30% of those have invested in SEO placement
3. 60-80% are doing some type of SEM bidding
4. 10% have created a Facebook business page
5. Less than 10% have created a Twitter page



Here is what I see is the problem with the above stated observations:
1. Less than 10-15% have a dedicated person managing their online reputation
2. 75% just put it up online and do not know what steps to take next

My recommendations for my clients have been to have their customers drive their reviews/word of mouth comments to national or local sites like Kudzu or Yelp. That will allow other people to see their responses in a non-biased location, that holds more weight when consumers make a buying decision. Other suggestions have been to pay attention to their online reputation and spend time on social media; it will pay off. At least once a month Google their company name- see what comes up.

Paul states in Chapter one that, "by, re-instituting the conversation, social media can help companies reconnect with consumers, rebuild with bridge of trust, renew customer loyalty, re-energize brand evangelism, and re-humanize the company." Imagine, if you are a customer and you feel that company X cares about you, that you are not just a number, you will share that positive feeling with all of your neighbors.

I have seen this happen several time at Kudzu for example, if a merchant gets a negative review, and they reply to it. The consumer who reviewed the company gets notified that they got a response to their review. We have had clients call and email us saying that customers have chosen them for their service provider because of the way they handled the negative review. This example just proves that if a company pays attention to what their customers are saying, they can win the "hearts" of other potential customers.