UKNetMonitor

Consumers are increasingly turning to online reviews when booking holidays according to new research from Nielsen//NetRatings.

The findings could have implications for a whole range of industry sectors. If if applies to travel, then why not retail, or finance, or technology. People power is taking over.

Some 62 per cent of Britons online use search engines when booking holidays and 36 per cent use travel agents’ own websites, however, sites posting user reviews are considered the most trustworthy.

When asked which online source do you trust to give you ‘the most reliable information of all’ user generated content sites like TripAdvisor were cited by 21 per cent of respondents ahead of 15 per cent each for review sites like TimeOut.com and official local information sites such as Visit Scotland.com.

Travel agents’ own sites such as ThomasCook.com were considered the most reliable by 12 per cent of Britons online compared with just 11 per cent who selected search engines.

Planning Director at Harvest Digital, Mike Teasdale, comments, “This research shows that user reviews are not just one of the factors that consumers use to decide between different holidays, but are the most trusted information source of all.

“Recent moves like the Guardian’s new travel portal featuring user generated content and the launch of WAYN suggest that the industry is waking up to the importance of consumer opinions to travel choices.

He adds, ”This has implications for all kinds of non-generic services and not just travel. For example, students choosing between different colleges are now very likely to look for the opinions of current alumni before making a decision.”

User-generated content sites are more likely to be seen as trustworthy by women than men and, when it comes to age, are most trusted by 25-34 year olds.

However, the validity of user reviews are truly championed by the travel industry’s most important group - frequent travellers.

One half of Britons online who take more than five week-plus holidays each year, regard user generated reviews the most reliable – making this group two and a half times more likely than the average online holidaymaker to do so.

Some 33 per cent of frequent travellers regard review websites as the most reliable source of information as do one third of respondents who take four holidays per year.

Travel agents will be concerned to hear that nobody taking more than three holidays per year considered them to be the most reliable source of information.

Their advocates are most likely to be those who take just one holiday per year - one fifth of this group considering travel agent sites to be the most reliable source – a group that is unlikely to rely most on user reviews.

Although the reliance on user reviews decreases with age, it is still valued by the older generation with 21 per cent of Britons online aged 45-54 and 18 per cent of those aged 55-64 citing it as the most reliable source.

The over-65’s view online tourist guides as the most reliable online source and this group is the only one more likely to consult a newspaper or magazine article than use a search engine to research their holidays.

European Corporate Development Director at Adviva, Fiona McKinnon, adds, “The research reveals that consumers are not only using a variety of online sources when researching holiday destinations, but they are also becoming more informed in deciding who they want to travel with.

“It is important, therefore, that travel companies advertise to a wide reach to encompass the young and old, men and women and also the frequent traveller alongside those who’s holiday is a major annual event’

The final word goes to European Internet Analyst at Nielsen//Netratings, Alex Burmaster, who continues, “It is absolutely vital for the travel industry to understand and embrace the revolution of peer-to-peer content online.

“Whether you refer to it as user-generated content, the ‘people’s Internet’ or Web 2.0, travellers are turning to the collective knowledge and opinion of people they trust the most when booking holidays – each other, not you.’

The research cross referenced trusted sources of information against type of holidays people book online. People booking long-haul, fly-drives or city breaks were more likely to trust online review sites compared with those booking a beach holiday or activity break.

Sites with reviews by other travellers were considered reliable by all Britons online, especially 22 per cent of beach holiday-makers and 20 per cent of long-haul travellers.

The research was commissioned by Adviva and online marketing agency Harvest Digital and conducted through Nielsen//NetRatings and Adviva. 863 completed questionnaires were collected.

http://www.utalkmarketing.com/Article.aspx?id=1169

Just picked this up from The New Statesman. A poll conducted by NOP World Consumer in March last year found that 50 per cent of bloggers express opinions about a company or product at least once a week, while another survey, for Hostway, showed that 77 per cent of online consumers viewed blogs as a useful way to get insights into the products they were looking to buy. With all these opinions reaching their customers, companies felt like a boxer attacked by thousands of children - staggering from tiny blow to tiny blow, unable to hit back but sure that, at some point, damage was being done.

UKNetMonitor I am still frequently asked "but who is reading all this blog stuff?"  This is largely by the same people who dismissed text messaging as something for kids, rather than a serious business tool. In Corporate Communications these days the focus persists on the mainstream media. Why?  Well certainly because old PR hands know how to handle that, but also because of the view that what is on TV and in newspapers drives public opinion, rather than the other way around - if anyone still believes that then it is understanable they would have trouble conceiving that their are completely different routes by which opinion is being created and disseminated.  Probably the easiest way to demonstrate "who is reading" is simply to look at the tried and trusted measure of page views.  Those great people at Alexa provide just the tool.  The graph below compares page views from the websites of The Times, and Financial Times, with hits on blogger.com and Livejournal (using MySpace takes it off the graph!) and for good measure I have thrown in the BBC.  Note hits on blogger now surpass the Beeb!

One of the things that is often difficult for companies to get a handle on is the breadth of consumer generated material that impacts on corporate reputation. An understanding of this is critical for companies to respond effectively. Many see blogs as simply another channel for customer complaints, others dismiss them as simply repeating news and views already in the mainstream media. Both of these are true, but there are other types, and they all matter and require response:

Personal experiences
Relaying news beyond usual channels
Expressing influential opinions
Incitement to activism
Raising new issues and concerns
Reflecting reputation
Responding to events

The personal experiences of customers (good or bad) provide any company with valuable intelligence as to how they are doing. Most companies are prepared to spend a fortune of market research, focus groups, and so on, but personal blogs of customers, employees and other stakeholders, provide insights often tempered in other research channels. Monitoring personal blogs provides a company with the opportunity to listen – unmoderated, unfiltered, and in real-time.

Yes, much of what is found on personal blogs, is newsfeed generated, but just because it has already been in The Times doesn't mean that it doesn't matter anymore. The manner in which blogs relay information to new channels is very significant because of the speed, reach and depth of the web. If a company issues a press release, it will be faithfully reported in the next issue of the mainstream media (daily, weekly or monthly). Bloggers will have it within minutes, and it spreads virally to others, typically reaching an audience that is quite distinct and often bigger, from the newspaper reading. More importantly, this information will quickly surface in special interest blogs that a general mainstream PR campaign could to hope to reach.
Of the millions of blogs and personal websites out there most are probably only read by a small circle of friends and aficionados of the blogger. Whilst the reach is small, the influence, particularly when reporting a bad experience, will be felt among that group. No-one in communications can afford to under-estimate the impact of word-of-mouth on reputation. Many blogs are indeed more widely read than mainstream media, and have the stature and influence that goes with it. For me, however, the most significant way in which bloggers are exerting their influence is within the special interest Forums and Groups. If I am deciding what new car to buy, I am just as likely to solicit the opinions of other members of my Golfing forum, as I am to read "What Car". Why? because I trust the opinions of my fellow golfers.

And then there are the activists. The web provides an ideal mechanism for single-issue pressure groups to disseminate information, and calls for action. Whether it is Greenpeace calling for a boycott of a supermarket, animal rights activists demanding violent action against a mobile phone company, or simply a parent campaigning for better school dinners, companies cannot afford to wait until an activist campaign is underway (or worse, reported in the mainstream media) before responding.

Individual stakeholders are using the web, their blogs, their websites, discussion forums, news groups and so on, to raise new issues and concerns. This is where corporate communications professionals really have to change their game. The loss of control over the messaging (http://uknetmonitor.blogspot.com/2006/05/web-20-and-corporate-communications.html) is replaced by a conversation going on around them. This can be listened to, or engaged with, but not ignored.
Ultimately, any company that claims to be customer-centric and then puts the opinions of mainstream journalists above those of its customers is going to have a rather distorted understanding of its corporate reputation. Any company that waits until an issue surfaces in the press before acting, will be behind the reputation curve.

Using skilled people not just automated search engines UKNetMonitor maintains close watch across the web, blogs, and newsgroups, for mentions of client organisations helping them manage reputation at risk by identifying new issues, public concerns, and complaints. 

Visit us at www.uknetmonitor.com

Some thoughts on Web 2.0 following a Demos seminar

Companies have clearly lost their ability to control the news agenda, their message set, and thus their reputation.  After 20 odd years in public affairs, these were the mantras by which reputation was managed.  Directly managing the outflows of information gave companies the ability to influence the buzz around them.  

New skills are now required – persuasion, competence, and trustworthiness will be essential to maintaining goodwill from all stakeholders, along with understanding, empathy and responsiveness – to generalise somewhat – these are all female traits that many of the “warrior” types who have succeeded in getting to the higher echelons of business will find difficult to come to terms with.

What does it mean for the way businesses behave?  Much vaunted transparency will have to mean more than just being “open”.  Transparency will require light to be shed on internal decision-making processes for their validity.  Corporate Communications professionals will need to throw away their command and control structures that allowed them to vet messages simply for reputational impact, in favour of structures that test messages by reviewing the credibility of the process by which they were arrived at.   So, no more “we can’t say that, let’s put it another way…”  No more, “who can we get to endorse this decision”, but “who did we talk to before actually deciding to do this?”  

A consequence of this is that corporate communications professionals must ensure they are embedded through the decision-making processes of a business, from top to bottom.  They can no longer be relied upon to do their jobs properly by being involved at the end of a process.

Interesting to note a BBC survey that shows how the public trusts blogs more than they trust television, newspapers or radio as sources of information:
Talking specifically of media, which form of media do you trust the most?

A. Newspapers
B. Radio
C. Television
D. News websites
E. Internet “blogs” or weblogs

To visit our website go to www.uknetmonitor.com

From this morning’s Guardian.

Amazing how whenever the mainstream media (MSM) talk about blogging they only see it in terms of how it will influence them. Not a word here about peer-to-peer influencers.

·Online pundits ‘influence businesses and opinion’·

Companies are falling foul of negative net buzz
Bobbie Johnson, technology correspondent
Tuesday April 18, 2006

The GuardianBloggers and internet pundits are exerting a “disproportionately large influence” on society, according to a report by a technology research company. Its study suggests that although “active” web users make up only a small proportion of Europe’s online population, they are increasingly dominating public conversations and creating business trends.More than half of the internet users on the continent are passive and do not contribute to the web at all, while a further 23% only respond when prompted. But the remainder who do engage with the net - through messageboards, websites and blogs - are helping change the national conversation, say researchers.”We’re seeing this growing,” said Julian Smith, an online advertising analyst with Jupiter Research and author of the report. “The strongest part of their influence is on the media: if something online suddenly becomes a story in the local press, then it matters.”Although unprompted contributors are generally younger and more vocal than the wider online population, they are increasingly important as opinion formers and trend-setters. Mr Smith says businesses, media organisations and advertisers reading blogs should be wary of making assumptions about their wider significance, but that their muscle cannot be ignored.”They’re not representative of the larger audience, but what they’re saying does matter,” he said. “It’s a good straw poll - a snapshot of the verbal conversations going on that we can’t measure.”"That’s exactly right,” said Glenn Reynolds, author of An Army of Davids, which explores the explosion in web punditry. “Bloggers and blog-readers are ‘influentials’ - the minority that pays attention to events outside of political and news cycles. They also tend on average to be better off, better educated and, more importantly, employed.”There are now more than 35m blogs around the world, according to search engine Technorati. While most bloggers only write for small audiences, they can sometimes achieve wider fame or become the focus of consumer campaigns.Companies like McDonald’s, lock manufacturer Kryptonite and computer firm Dell have all fallen foul of internet buzz in recent years. Because search engines like Google can allow grassroots campaigns to become highly visible, industry insiders agree decisions can be shaped by a small number of activists.”It’s always been the case that vocal minorities are listened to by media organisations, brands, advertisers and marketers - normally because they’re thought to represent a wider swath of opinion,” said Tom Coates, a technologist with Yahoo! and prominent blogger.”TV and radio programmes are censored or pulled on the green-inked letters of a few hundred people, products removed from shelves because of less than 100 complaints.”On that basis, these figures start to sound like a pretty large number of people, and probably a much more representative sample than perhaps before.”Mr Reynolds admits the idea of small groups being able to pressurise wider decisions is nothing new, but those who ignore online buzz do so at their peril: “You can bury your head in the sand, but very quickly you’ll look like a very old-fashioned company.”

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If companies are worried about their reputations they should get in touch with us at www.uknetmonitor.com