Every morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is grab a cup of coffee, open up my laptop, turn on my desktop, flip on the TV and wait for my Personal Computer to kick on so I can catch up with what is really going on in the world. Not just 5 years ago, newspapers where one of the most viable resources for gathering world news along with the BBC, CNN, World News and good ole word of mouth marketing.
Today those numbers have decreased drastically as folks get up and sign on too plentiful communities like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Ning to capture the most up to date news on life, love, business, war, politics and all of this is edified by people that you like and trust instead of a face only familiar to the television. What is more astounding is that Social Media is not the most prevalent in the United States, US comes in at #9, where Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook and Jack Dorsey the creative genius behind Twitter reside. Interesting enough the leader in engagement of social networks is clear across the globe with the average user viewing over 1,200 pages a month and spending over 6 hours a day online is in Russia. Brazil and Canada don’t trail far behind and countries such as Spain and Puerto Rico are outweighing online time to Americans according to comScore data. In 2009 alone social networking sites are up a piercing 65% according to MarketingCharts.com.
What is more interesting is that Social Networking sites that Americans are knowledgeable about are not even the hottest networks on the market. In Russia, Vkontakte.ru: Russia’s Largest SocNet Site is a giant and has its country activated and communicating one click at a time.
So why social networkings are sites dominating so brilliantly across the globe? Big business is likely to be trusted, advertisement doesn’t quite work like it use too and people are fed up with being told what and how events are going to unfold to find out hours later that it was only a farce or “miscommunication of facts” . Today it is much easier to log on, find someone with commonality and respect that is considered an authoritative source on their topic and embrace their belief system or thought and ideas over hyped up reporters and loud mouthed radio hosts looking or ratings. Word of mouth marketing is still is strong as ever it is just being translated a little differently these days. Global Consumer and market research company Mintel share how consumers are different today than 5 years ago. Polling, research, ask, and ask and ask, try before we buy is the model more people have adopted. Due Diligence has taken over in tough times when branding and a funny commercial just don’t cut it.
word of mouth marketing
Haven’t quite jumped on the train of Social Networking? Planning on bucking the system like when cell phones and computers came out? You will get left behind! Don’t fret, you don’t need to get a social networking account in every country, language and neighborhood, find someone across the globe, down the street or a friend you already know and start a conversation online about what really matters to you, you might be surprised how much you learn from sharing.
