Social Media is Changing the Landscape for Marketers who will

Face new ChallengesJune 2007

• Benefits

• Entirely unaided

• Large sample sizes

• Real-time

• Niche and mainstream

• Audiences naturally segment according to psychographics, life stages and affinity

BlogsMessage BoardsSocial NetworksNewsgroupsDiscussion ForumsProduct ReviewsPersonal Web Pages

44% of U.S. online adults are content creators”(Pew Research)

Consumer Generated Media Defined

Any type of message, communication or media that is created by individuals and freely accessible to anyone for informational or

entertainment purposes

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New Communications Landscape

The New Challenge for Marketers

Bloggers ConsumersAdvertisers

Publisher

Media BloggersEditors

Journalists

Consumers Are Now Actively Consumers Are Now Actively Participating in Electronic Participating in Electronic

Word-of-mouth Evangelism and ActivismWord-of-mouth Evangelism and Activism

"The power shift from media institutions to consumer communities means that marketers must track a diverse and growing range of influential voices."

Peter Kim Forrester Research The Forrester WaveTM: Brand Monitoring, Q3 2006

Millions of new posts every day

Timely monitoring of consumer opinions

Analyzing impact on brands and products

Identifying online influencers

Participating in online discussions

Tracking potentially harmful issues

Coordinating message control

Interpreting content in multiple languages

The Influencers

“Consumers turning to each other online is not a fad anymore. Consumer opinions are the most valued consumer tools in a crowded marketplace.”

Forrester Research

CGM is the fastest growing segment of the Web, with more than 1 million new articles of content posted every 24 hours.

Consumers Trust Other Consumers

Consumers online are the most trusted source of information about brands.

The Challenges

The growth in the number of blogs and the influence of social sites like MySpace and YouTube have companies scrambling to figure what it all means to their bottom line

The Challenges

Brands have no meaningful way to track or understand the impact of consumer comments in these sites

The Challenges

There is no effective solution for collecting content in real time to help clients influence perceptions and protect their brand

The Challenges

There is no way to understand how PR campaigns are perceived in blogs to gauge results

“… you cannot afford to close your eyes … they're simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself. And they're going to shake up just about every business -- including yours.”

The Challenges

It’s impossible to quickly access in-depth information about who are the most influential bloggers in each area

The Challenges

Responding and participating in online communities is a manual process with no way to manage consistent messaging across teams

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The time to pay attention is Social Media is now