Last night at Third Tuesday Vancouver Nate Elliot (http://nate-elliott.com), a market researcher and Principal Analyst at Forrester, gave a great presentation on social media and “influence”. He covered many interesting points, but the one thing that stood out above all others for me:
“People trust other consumers more than they trust ads OR third party reviewers.”
Once you hear this you might think, “yeah, it makes sense.” Now think about the places where people voice their opinions – a lot of them are social media sites.
If you’re not out there giving the chance to your customers to speak about your products, you’re missing out.
If you’re not out there commenting, as a authority in your field, about current issues, you’re missing out.
If you’re not out there responding to the comments about you or your business people make in other sites , you’re missing out.
This is a basic adage of influence, it’s called “social proof”.