Tuesday, March 11, 2008

What User Generated Video Means to Word of Mouth Advertising


Have you ever read a review on Amazon and had a sneaking suspicion that it was written by the manufacturer? Have you ever gotten something from eBay and been disappointed to find out that it wasn’t what you thought it was going to be? This presentation talked about word of mouth advertising and what it means. As someone who who regularly uses Yelp!, Facebook, Myspace and eBay this was of particular interest to me. I hate when I am sold to, or especially lied to, on sites that I trust.

According to the presentation, the main way that advertisers F*** up when it comes to word of mouth on social sites is by not being truthful with their consumers. Advertisers should always identify themselves as such and remember that in this realm consumers control the brand. It is always better to play it straight. (i.e.- don’t pay people to review your product or censor testimonials.)

The panel also introduced ExpoTV.com which is a site created to provide consumers an unbiased user generated video platform to talk about products. Think of this as basically a commercial made by your Average Joe about a product they love (or hate) and then hosted online at ExpoTV.com. Maybe Mom’s from Minnesota will be taking all our jobs!

Over 50% of the panels this year at SXSW Interactive were about social networking. It made me happy to think that with the Glad 1000uses.com website among the most popular Clorox sites last year, our clients seem to be receptive to this kind of word of mouth advertising. And we aren’t F***ing it up!

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