WOM offline prevalence vs online

Keller Fay, along with OMD, produced this challenging study showing that offline WOM is still more powerful than the online one.

This should not come as a surprise (and it is not to me, as I mentioned in my WOM and its metrics workshop) because, even if our lives are more and more entangled in the Web 2.0 context, a vis-a-vis chat with a friend or a relative is far more credible and positive.
And positive is the crucial word in this research.
Because when we talk vis-a-vis with someone we care about, most of the time is in a positive way and our advice are directed towards positive experience with a brand or a product.
Online conversation are far more a wall of shame. We get online to cry to the world our disappoint for a bad experience.

That's why the two worlds, online and offline, should be tackled with a global view.
And that's why this research should not be read as a good reason to postpone any online activity.

Sales are a false goal

Yes, that's my point.
If you get into Web 2.0 pratices to generate sales, you may be on the wrong track.
I do not mean that at the end of the day, you are not generating sales, but this is not the goal you must have in mind when tackling this world.

We do not forget that sales are and will be more and more related to a brand or a company image, to the post sales experience, to several other factors that are influenced by the customers opinion.
An opinion crucial as never before because it travels across the web all over the world in few seconds, crushing space and language barrier.

So, set up your goal in a different way.
This is the thought I tried to deliver in the workshop about WOM and this is something I can see in this interesting post from Mediapost.

Metrics

Don't rely on metrics to claim your community is successfull.
Use metrics to understand your community better.

WOM and its metrics

On April, there was in Milan the first Wom Summit, organized by Reed Business Information.
I gave the workshop about Wom and its metrics.
These are my slides.

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