Digital Industry Statistics

Thanks Bazaarvoice for this great online stat rundown (mixed markets, dates, etc)

Power of Word of Mouth

• "Person like me" still most trusted source for information about a company and, therefore, products. (Edelman Trust Barometer, November 2007)
• Recommendations from family and friends trump all other consumer touchpoints when it comes to influencing purchases, according to ZenithOptimedia. (AdAge, April, 2008)
• Recommendation is the number one reason for choosing a particular site. (Royal Mail's Home Shopping Tracker Study, September 2007)
• Users who contribute product reviews or post messages visit sites nine times as often as noncontributors do. Contributors also make purchases nearly twice as often. (McKinsey & Co./Jupiter Media Metrix study, January 2002)
• Review users noted that reviews generated by fellow consumers had a greater influence than those generated by professionals. (comScore/The Kelsey Group, October 2007)
• Adult Internet users surveyed chose recommendations from friends as the one type of promotion they consider most worthwhile. (DoubleClick, May 2007)
• Consumers trust friends above experts when it comes to product recommendations (65% trust friends, 27% trust experts, 8% trust celebrities). (Yankelovich)
• Consumers say that word of mouth is still the number one influencer in their apparel (34.3%) and electronics (44.4%) purchases (Retail Advertising and Marketing Association/BIGresearch Study, November 2008)
• According to a global Nielsen survey of 26,486 Internet users in 47 markets, consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising among 78% of the study's respondents. (Nielsen, "Word-of-Mouth the Most Powerful Selling Tool", October 2007)
• The two leading reasons people contribute content to social shopping sites are the need to feel part of a community (31%) and recognition from peers (28%). (IBM Institute for Business Value, August 2007)
• Online social network users were three times more likely to trust their peers' opinions over advertising when making purchase decisions. ("Social Networking Sites: Defining Advertising Opportunities in a Competitive Landscape," JupiterResearch, March 2007)
• 86.9% of respondents said they would trust a friend's recommendation over a review by a critic, while 83.8% said they would trust user reviews over a critic. (Marketing Sherpa, July 2007)
• Two thirds of UK social networkers (66%) are more likely to buy a product as a result of a recommendation, compared to 52 per cent of non-social networkers. (Royal Mail's Home Shopping Tracker Study, September 2007)
• Tech decision makers give user-generated sites equal importance to traditional media sources when considering tech purchases. Decision makers consider their personal experience (58%) first when short-listing tech vendors, followed by word-of-mouth and industry analyst reports, tied at 51%. Advertising (17%) and direct marketing (21%) were listed as the least important information sources when short-listing possible vendors. (Study: "Tech Decision Maker," Hill & Knowlton, January 2009)

Consumer Demand for Ratings and Reviews

• Online reviews are second only to personal advice from a friend as the driver of purchase decisions; user reviews are more influential than third-party reviews. ("Web users and web community," Rubicon Consulting, Inc. October 2008)
• 81% of online holiday shoppers read online customer reviews (Nielson Online, December 2008)
• 86% of consumers read online business reviews before making purchasing decisions; 90% of whom say they trust these reviews. (Kudzu.com survey of 600 users, December 2008)
• The Trust in Advertising survey of 26,000+ found that Consumer Recommendations are the most credible form of advertising. ("Social Media Marketing: The Right Strategy for Tough Economic Times" Awareness, 2008)
• Nearly 49% of shoppers have made a purchase based on a recommendation through a social media property; respondents most relied on the following sources when making a purchase decision: 60.53% user reviews; 20.48% comparison charts; 15.41% editorial reviews; 3.58 shared shopping lists. (Razorfish, October 2008)
• Almost two-thirds (62%) of consumers read consumer-written product reviews on the Internet. (Deloitte & Touche, September 2007)
• When asked what sources of information they are "very likely" to consult before making a decision about their entertainment options, 62% named Web sites with user reviews as their top choice, even beating out a knowledgeable friend (59%). (Marketing Sherpa, July 2007)
• 46% of Britons now read online reviews or recommendations on a specific product before buying it and 32% are willing and able to publish a review online - but only 19% would be prepared to write a letter to a retailer. (1&1 Internet survey of 1600 consumers, December 2008)
• Seven in 10 (69%) consumers who read reviews share them with friends, family or colleagues, thus amplifying their impact. (Deloitte & Touche, September 2007)
• As of October 2008, almost half of US online adults read ratings and reviews at least once a month, and 19% post them. Nearly twice as many read reviews compared with 2007. (The Growth Of Social Technology Adoption, Forrester, October 2008)
• Nearly half (49%) of shoppers intend to do their holiday gift buying online (versus in-store), and 72% are planning to research products online prior to purchasing (vs. 65% in 2007). ("Mindset of the Multi-Channel Shopper Holiday Survey," e-tailing group, October 2008)
• 74% agree-including 14% who strongly agree-that they choose companies and brands based on what others say online about their customer service experiences, the survey shows. (Society for New Communications Research, May 2008)
• 58.7% of shoppers said they used product reviews to make decisions. Reviews rated higher than clearance sale pages (56.4%) and featured sale pages (51.3%). (Shop.org, November 2007)
• Compared to a base group that didn't read or contribute product reviews at all, people who read a review were 30% more likely to purchase a product and visitors who wrote a review were 80% more likely to convert, based on analysis across several Coremetrics clients. (Coremetrics, reported in BtoB, March 2007)
• Among the 46% of respondents who had posted or planned to post reviews about their online shopping experience, 88% said those reviews either were, or would be positive. (Nielson, 2007)
• More than eight in ten (82%) of those who read reviews said that their purchasing decisions have been directly influenced by those reviews. (Deloitte & Touche, September 2007)
• 55% of surveyed Internet users consulted other people's opinions online, making reviews the #1 resource for product research. (Avenue A/Razorfish "Digital Consumer Behavior Study," October 2007)
• In a study of 2,000 shoppers, 92% deemed customer reviews as "extremely" or "very" helpful. (eTailing Group, 2007)
• 59% of their users considered customer reviews to be more valuable than expert reviews. (Bizrate, October 2007)
• 63% of consumers indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has product ratings and reviews. (Major consumer electronics retailer/iPerceptions study, January 2008)
• 81% consider the availability of customer reviews to be "very important" (33%)"somewhat important" (48%). (Major consumer electronics retailer/iPerceptions study, January 2008)
• 86.9% of respondents said they would trust a friend's recommendation over a review by a critic, while 83.8% said they would trust user reviews over a critic. (MarketingSherpa, October 2007)
• 84% of consumers earning more than $150,000 annually visit sites where customers review and rate products and services including restaurants. (The Luxury Institute, April 2007)
• 71% of UK online shoppers seek out ratings and reviews. (NetExtract, 2007)
• 70% of online consumers said they use the Internet to research everyday grocery products. (Prospectiv, January 2008)
• 67% of UK consumers research products via the Internet before shopping in a store. (Accenture, April 2007)
• 91% of millionaires say they always or often look at reviews before buying luxury goods; 68% of ultra-affluent shoppers use consumer reviews. (Unity Marketing/Google study, reported in AdAge, October 2008)
• Mobile user-generated content will generate $5.7 billion worldwide in 2012, up from $576 million in 2007. ("Mobile Social Networking: Opportunities & Forecasts 2008-2013," Juniper Research, October 2008)
• Satisfaction for those who recalled customer reviews on the retailers' site is 10% higherLoyalty increases, too: 7% higher likelihood to purchase online, 8% greater likelihood to purchase from the retailer next time they're buying similar merchandise and 11% greater likelihood to recommend the site to others. (30 UK Online Retail Satisfaction Index, ForeSee Results, January 2008) than those who said there were no reviews offered.
• 83% of shoppers said online product evaluations and reviews influenced their purchasing decisions. (Opinion Research Corporation, an infoGROUP company, July 2008)
• In an online survey of 4,000 consumers, 70% said they had done internet research on "everyday grocery products," and 63% said they had done so for health and beauty products. (Prospectiv, 2007)
• 57.2% of U.S. toy purchasers are influenced by product reviews online. (Ad-ology Media Influence on Consumer Choice, Fall 2008)

Marketer Demand for Ratings and Reviews

• 79% of online UK retailers surveyed reported that the main benefit of consumer-generated rating and reviews was that they improved site conversion rates. (eMarketer, 2007)
• 68% of online marketers believe "media is in big trouble and will lose dollars to user-generated content." (iMedia Connection, February 2008)
• 58% of the E-Commerce Guide 100 retailers implemented ratings and reviews in 2008, up from 50% in 2007; 24 percent sell by top-rated products. (e-tailing group's 11th Annual Mystery Shopping Survey, January 2009)
• 84% of marketers agree that building customer trust will become marketing's primary objective (1to1 Media survey of the 1to1 Xchange panel, April 2008)
• 43% of retailers have reviews - double in one year. (Marketing Sherpa, February 2007)
• 76% of US retailers said user-generated content would have a greater impact on their marketing goals in the near future. (SLI Systems/Zoomerang, November 2008)
• Of merchants who adopt customer reviews, 58% said improving customer experiencecompetitive advantage was the most important reason for adding reviews to their sites, followed by building customer loyalty (47%), driving sales (42%), and maintaining a (37%). (eTailing Group, June 2008)
• By 2020, 84% of marketers agree that building customer trust will become marketing's primary objective, and 82% agree that collaboration with customers will prevail over marketing. (1to1 Media survey of the 1to1 Xchange panel, April 2008)
• 11% of retailers reported a 20% or more overall increase in conversions as a result of adding reviews to their sites, 21% reported an 11% to 20% increase and 5% reported a 1% to 10% increase. (eTailing Group, June 2008)
• 81% of marketers surveyed say that their social media spending will meet or exceed their traditional advertising spending within the next 5 years. (TWI Surveys/Society for New Communications Research, November 2007)
• 56% of UK website owners say that user-generated content lifts conversion levels; 77% say it increases traffic; and 42% say it increases the average spend on site.(eConsultancy survey of 360 website owners across all sectors, November 2008)
• Dave Seifert of Bass Pro Shops noted at a Shop.org round table discussion that Top Rated Products were "the #1 merchandising technique ever utilized on their site." (Bass Pro Shops, June 2008)
• After their order, PETCO asked customers, "What online tool most influenced your purchase decision?" The #1 answer was product ratings and reviews, with site search coming in a distant second. (PETCO, June 2007)
• The Shop.org State of Retailing Online study, conducted by Forrester Research, found only 26% of the 137 top retailers surveyed offered customer ratings and reviews, but 96% of them ranked customer ratings and reviews as an effective or very effective tactic at driving conversion. (Forrester, 2007)

Consumer Demand for Ask & Answer™

• 76% of online shoppers surveyed report that content is insufficient to complete research or purchase online "always, most often or some of the time." (eTailing Group, June 2007)
• Online businesses lose as many as 67% of consumers due to a lack of online product information. (Allurent, January 2008)
• 83% of online shoppers would make purchases if sites offered increased interactive elements. (Allurent, January 2008)
• One in four (24.5%) shoppers said they left a store because of a lack of assistance. (Shop.org, November 2007)
• 90% of UK shoppers surveyed said they wish they could communicate directly with businesses - using live chat, forums or call-me-back facilities - via their websites; one in three require it from the UK businesses they currently use. (1&1, October 2007)
• 42% of consumers said they prefer being able to find the answers they need online on their own if they had a question or wanted help while shopping online. (Harris Interactive, May 2007)
• The share of traffic to question-and-answer Web sites has more than doubled from 2007 to 2008 (HitWise, 2008)
• Yahoo Answers had 25.3 million visits in February 2008 (comScore Media Metrix, March 2008)
• 68% of consumers trust "people like me" first for product advice. (Edelman Trust Barometer, January 2007)
• 42% of 1,179 online consumers surveyed have left a site without purchasing multiple products because they couldn't get a question answered about one of the products in their shopping cart; 41% decided not to make a planned purchase because they couldn't readily find a piece of information about the product or service. (JupiterResearch, September 2007)

Conversion Results

• MarketingExperiments tested product conversion with and without product ratings by customers. Conversion nearly doubled, going from .44% to 1.04% after the same product displayed its five-star rating. (MarketingExperiments Journal, July 2007)
• 79% of online UK retailers surveyed reported that the main benefit of consumer-generated rating and reviews was that they improved site conversion rates. (eMarketer, 2007)
• Online shoppers who look at TripAdvisor reviews on the Hayes & Jarvis site book trips at double the rate of online shoppers who have not seen the TripAdvisor reviews, based on first four months after launch. (TripAdvisor, January 2008)
• Shoppers who browsed the site's new "Top Rated Products" page, which features products rated most highly by customers, had a 59% higher conversion rate than the site average and spent 16% more per order than other browsers of products. (Bass Pro Shops, June 2008)
• Shoppers who browsed the site's "Top Rated Products" page, which features products rated most highly by customers, had a 49% higher conversion rate than the site average and 63% more per order than other site shoppers. (PETCO, June 2007)
• Giving shoppers the ability to sort products within a category by customer rating led to a sales increase of 41% per unique visitor. (PETCO, June 2007)

Average Order Value Results

• Consumers were willing to pay between 20 to 99% more for a 5-star rated product than for a 4-star rated product, depending on the product category. (comScore/Kelsey, October 2007)
• Top-rated products site navigation path featuring 4- and 5-star products in each category delivered 35% higher conversion and 40% higher average order value. (Bazaarvoice, June 2007)
• Reviews usage drives higher spending: 27% of users report an increase of 5-10%; almost 7% report an increase of 20%+. (Avenue A/Razorfish "Digital Consumer Behavior Study," October 2007)

User-generated Content Beyond the Web

• 64% of Social Researchers (those who refer to user-generated content when shopping) research products online more than half the time, no matter where they ultimately buy the product (store, Web, catalog, etc.). (eTailing Group, June 2007)
• Online consumers are becoming precision shoppers. For every $1 in online sales, the Internet influenced $3.45 of store sales. (eMarketer, 2007)
• 90% of those surveyed say they have a better overall shopping experience when they research products online before shopping in-store. (Harris Interactive, October 2007)
• 92.5% of adults said they regularly or occasionally research products online before buying them in a store. (BIGresearch, November 2008)
• Nearly one out of every four Internet users (24%) reported using online reviews prior to paying for a service delivered offline. (comScore/The Kelsey Group, October 2007)
• More than three-quarters of review users in nearly every category reported that the review had a significant influence on their purchase, with hotels ranking the highest (87%). (comScore/The Kelsey Group, October 2007)
• 97% of those surveyed who said they made a purchase based on an online review said they found the review to have been accurate. (comScore/The Kelsey Group, October 2007)
• Consumers who shop online for digital cameras and TVs spend 10% more on in-store purchases than consumers who do not search online. (ChannelForce for Yahoo Search Marketing, July 2007)

Email Campaign Results

• Email study: PETCO realized a 5X increase in email click-through rates by including relevant ratings and reviews content in the campaign promotion. (PETCO, June 2007)
• Top rated product email drive 46% higher revenue per email in A/B test. (Golfsmith, June 2007)

Search Engine Optimization Results

• In a study of a major electronics retailer site of 30,000 monthly natural language search visitors, converted 60% more often, spent 50% more, and viewed 82% more pages than search visitors to other pages. (Bazaarvoice case study with major electronics retailer)
• In a study of online UK retailers, 59% reported that the consumer-generated activity leads to better search engine optimization. (eMarketer, 2007)

Return Rates and Customer Satisfaction

• During the 2007 holiday season, consumers who recalled seeing customer reviews on a Web site reported 9% higher customer satisfaction levels, were 9% more likely to make a purchase and 8% more likely to purchase the next time they came to that site. (ForeSee Results, January 2008)
• Reviews drive 21% higher purchase satisfaction and 18% higher loyalty. (Foresee Results Study, January 2007)
• Online UK retailers reported improved customer retention and loyalty by 73% once they implemented consumer-generated rating and reviews. (eMarketer, 2007)
• Products with reviews have a 17% lower return rate than those without reviews. (Bazaarvoice PETCO Case Study, 2007)
• Products with 50+ reviews have a return rate that is half of those with fewer than five reviews. (Bazaarvoice PETCO Case Study, 2007)
• One study from IBM Institute for Business Management shows that while those adults in the UK who use social networking do so to attain a feeling of community, 17% of the adults surveyed say they do so because they like to participate with brands they favor. (IBM, August 2007)

Evolution of Advertising and Media

• 75% of people don't believe that companies tell the truth in advertisements. (Yankelovich)

Search

• SearchVoice study: of 30,000 monthly SearchVoice visitors, they convert 60% higher, spend 50% more and viewed 82% more pages. (Major electronics retailer case study, August 2008)
• The ability to refine site search results by customer rating led to 22% more sales per unique visitor on a same-session basis and 41% more sales per visitor on a multi-session basis. (Bazaarvoice)

Syndication

• RSS study: Burpee measured a 43% higher click-through on RSS feeds with reviews than without. (Burpee, December 2007)

Industry Articles

Positives About Negative Product Reviews. Worried about opening your company to consumer reviews? Don't be. (iMedia Connection)

Getting a Handle on Customer Reviews
These days, what the customer thinks is hardly a secret. Consumer reviews and ratings are popping up on a growing number of Web sites, sites on which users treat brands like contestants on American Idol. (Brandweek)

Online Influence Tied to Search, Social Media Use
According to a new research report by Yahoo! and Comscore, not only is social networking's influence on marketing growing, but particularly vocal individuals are having more of an effect than ever. (ClickZ)

CGM Changes Minds of Online Auto and Travel Buyers
Consumer Generated Media not only influences online consumers, it can get them to change their minds. (ClickZ)

How To Make Twitter Sound Like Music To Your Ears

Thanks TechCrunch for this list of twitter music apps. Cool stuff

by Robin Wauters on February 22, 2009

People generally love sharing things, and Twitter has made broadcasting updates to anyone who cares to care on what you’re doing, wearing, reading, commenting on, eating, using, etc. a breeze; in 140 characters or less, even. It’s only natural to see so many users also share which music they are listening to at any given moment on Twitter, as this has been a fairly popular use of status feeds on other social networking and communication services for years (Facebook, Skype and Windows Live Messenger leap to mind).

Here’s a number of ways to use Twitter for just about anything related to music:

* Blip.fm - dubbed the “Twitter for Music” when we first reviewed the service, it got its own API in late 2008. Blip.fm enables anyone to start their own music station and broadcast tunes to Twitter and other status sharing services where people can interact with the choice of music.

* Twiturm does much of the same - upload music and share it with all your Twitter followers in a heartbeat. Intended for artists who want to share their own music, hence the name (”Twitter Ur Music”).

* Twisten.fm - Escape Media Group linked its music discovery service Grooveshark and its URL shortening service TinySong with an application that crawls Twitter for messages about music (and “then you listen to them”).

* Twt.fm (anyone see a naming pattern here?) - type in an artist, track, and your twitter username. Twt.fm will then generate a track page for you using your twitter page design and you’ll be able to tweet it to your followers.

* Tweetj - include a #tweetj tag in your tweets when you’re listening to music and it’ll be posted to a public playlist. The playlist allows you to discover new music and immediately purchase tracks on Amazon.

* A similar service is WiiZZZ (yes, that’s the actual name) - it allows you to listen to entirely random songs that have been posted and shared by Twitter users on any given day.

* Play Twitter - allows you to easily play mp3 files directly on Twitter or Identi.ca. MP3 links will automatically become playable right on the page.

* Tra.kz - this “URL shortener for all things music” was cooked up by MixMatchMusic and does exactly what you suspect it would do and therefore competes with the above mentioned TinySong and alternatives like Song.ly.

* TwittyTunes - Firefox extension that comes with another Firefox extension, Yahoo’s FoxyTunes, and allows you to instantly post your currently playing songs to Twitter with just a click.

* LastTweet - enables you to embed a widget with your latest tweets into your Last.fm profile

* Update: LastFMLoveTweet is a mashup that automatically pushes a tweet from you carrying a track’s artist and name that you’ve indicated as a tune you loved on Last.fm

* Update: Tweekly.fm will get your weekly artist data from Last.FM and send a tweet to your profile listing your top 3 listened artists for the week plus their respective play counts.

* Update: this site tracks the top music being listened to on Twitter

Also worth checking out, even if not directly related to Twitter: Nabbit (”connects your cellphone to your radio”), MuseBin (music news and reviews in 140 characters, like BlipprTwones (the “social music feed”). but music only) and

Did I miss any other apps, tools and websites worth noting?

Share them in the comments and I’ll be happy to update the post.

Update: it’s not Twitter-specific, but you can use Favtape to put together your own playlists / online mixtapes and share them on Twitter.

Kachingle Coordinates Microdonations to Get Content Creators Paid

Thanks again PSFK

February 19, 2009

Kachingle is a new service that looks like it could bridge the gap between scattered micropayments and free content. Many old media pundits have been suggesting micropayments as a solution to monetizing dying newspapers and other online content, but historically, micropayments don’t do as well as they should. It’s a hassle to pay every time you want to read an article, and you can often find the same content for free elsewhere.

Kachingle acts as a distributor of microdonations. Member sites would sign up and place a Kachingle badge on their page. Readers pledge to send a monthly payment to Kachingle - $5.00, $10.00, $100.00 or whatever they want. Then, Kachingle distributes that money proportionately amongst the partner sites you’ve visited over the month. So, if you visited PSFK 50 times, and The New York Times 50 times, your pledge would be split evenly, and so on.

It’s a smart concept that simplifies the act of micropayment, or micropatronage. With one payment and a once monthly transaction, you can support your favorite sites. Though critics don’t think Kachingle will make a ton of money for its member sites, it could - combined with advertising - make for a healthy revenue stream.

[Editor and Publisher & Steve Outing via Klintron]

Talks Sylvia Earle: Here's how to protect the blue heart of the planet

OK.... it's not digital stuff, but it's much more important

Thanks Damo

Building Online Communities by the Numbers

Thanks ClickZ for these simple community rules

By Heidi Cohen, ClickZ, Feb 23, 2009

Online communities are growing in this expense-conscious business environment because they provide companies with a cost-effective means to provide presales support, enhance customer loyalty, support the post-purchase process, and gather customer insights. These forums work for a wide variety of product, retail, and small media sites. Here's a set of guidelines to help your company build an active and effective online community.

Three Online Community Planning Rules

When building an online community, there are three important planning milestones to track to assess your community's initial growth trajectory. Joe Cothrel, chief community officer at Lithium, a white label community provider, presented them at the recent Online Community Unconference in New York:

• 90-9-1 rule. Of your audience, 1 percent will actively answer questions and post, 9 percent will comment and ask questions, and 90 percent will passively read the content on your community.
  
  
• 30-10-10 rule. In general, during any 30-day period, about 10 percent of the traffic that sees your community promotion will visit your community area. Of this 10 percent, about 10 percent will register and participate in your forum. (Note: Most sites only require registration to post. Adding registration requirements will lower your participation rate.) It's critical to note that this indicator will vary based on several factors, such as the type and placement of your promotion. Also, the percentages tend to be lower for highly trafficked sites, such as major media destinations. Business-to-business communities by their nature attract smaller, more targeted audiences.
  
  
• 5-to-10-posts-per-day-per-forum rule. To reach critical mass, visitors must feel that a community is vibrant enough to merit return visits. You need roughly 5 to 10 posts per day per forum to achieve this goal. In the early stages, either a core of fans or company employees may be needed to help get the community going. For a healthy community, there should be about 10 percent to 20 percent growth per month in the number of posts during the community's first year. Over time, this trend tends to flatten out.

What if you aren't able to generate sufficient traffic to build an active online community? A blog may be a good an alternative for marketers considering building a social community where there isn't a large enough visitor base.

Five Ways to Drive Community Participation

Ongoing marketing is needed to build your online community and help it grow over time. To this end, utilize your ongoing marketing to continually drive new visitors to your site. Also, use community-developed content to enhance your marketing.

• Leverage onsite advertising. Promote your online community by placing visible, persistent links on highly trafficked areas of your Web site. Link from all nonpurchase pages, since users may enter your site in a variety of ways.
  
  
• Use your e-mail. Use your existing e-mail marketing to promote your online community and drive visitors. Also, leverage the content from your community in your e-mailings to provide added benefit to your readers.
  
  
• Deploy other forms of online marketing. This can include social media or contests to entice new visitors to your community.
  
  
• Extend your search marketing. Use both paid and organic search engine marketing to support your community as well as other marketing efforts. If your community content is open, ensure that it's set up to encourage organic search. Also, buy search terms related to topics of interest to your community to drive more visitors.
  
  
• Integrate offline collateral. Promote your online community in offline collateral where it's relevant. Use content from your community to provide useful information in your packaging and bills to answer product-related questions more cost-effectively.

Two Types of Community Metrics

When building an online community, track both the health of your community and the financial impact of hosting the community.

Five Community Health Indicators

• Page views. Indicates the growth of the total community and amount of content being viewed.
  
  
• Registrations. Gives insights into the number of people who post and comment on your site since registration is usually required to contribute content. Track how this group grows over time. Where possible, assess the conversion rates for different marketing efforts.
  
  
• Posts. Examine what the 1 percent of your audience who post roughly 30 percent to 40 percent of the total content is doing. Look at the number of posts as well as the content of the posts. What trends emerge?
  
  
• Searches. Monitor the internal community searches to find out the types of information visitors want. This should give you insights into important trends and help you gather information about the people who don't register.
  
  
• Time to response. Track the time between a posting and the initial response. Users tend to expect this to take a day. If it's longer, consider having someone within the company respond. Also, monitor the number of responses to specific posts.

Three Financial Impact Indicators

• Depending on your forum's goal, does it generate sales or leads directly or aid in preselling complex products? For many companies, the benefit of online communities is measured in terms of cost avoidance from customer service, sales support, and market research rather than revenue.
  
  
• Costs include direct costs for the technology and support as well as related personnel and marketing.
  
  
• ROI (define) is generally positive because the benefits of the community in terms of revenues generated and/or the costs avoided are less than the direct costs for the forum�s technology and support.

Online communities can be a useful addition to your site. They can help you extend your relationship with your customers and prospects cost-efficiently while developing content that can be used to reduce customer service and content creation costs. Remember, online communities require care and feeding to continue to thrive.

Social Software Building Blocks

An old, but great post. Thanks nForm

by Gene Smith on April 4, 2007

There are lots of definitions of social software out there, ranging from the clinical ("software that enables people to connect through computer-mediated communication") to the pragmatic ("stuff that gets spammed").

While doing research for a recent workshop, I came across a useful list of seven social software elements. These seven building blocks--identity, presence, relationships, conversations, groups, reputation and sharing--provide a good functional definition for social software. They're also a solid foundation for thinking about how social software works.

The original list was assembled by Matt Webb (who was expanding on a list created by Stewart Butterfield). Here's a brief definition of each element:

• Identity - a way of uniquely identifying people in the system
• Presence - a way of knowing who is online, available or otherwise nearby
• Relationships - a way of describing how two users in the system are related (e.g. in Flickr, people can be contacts, friends of family)
• Conversations - a way of talking to other people through the system
• Groups - a way of forming communities of interest
• Reputation - a way of knowing the status of other people in the system (who's a good citizen? who can be trusted?)
• Sharing - a way of sharing things that are meaningful to participants (like photos or videos)

Not every social software system has all of these, but most of them have three or more. And the most popular social websites implement many of these building blocks, but focus on just one or two. For example,

• Flickr is for sharing photos
• Slideshare lets you share Powerpoint presentations
• Twitter aims at presence
• Instant messaging applications like AIM and MSN are about conversation
• LinkedIn tracks relationships

For the workshop, I borrowed an idea from Peter Morville's user experience honeycomb and created a social software honeycomb. I put identity--the most basic requirement of any social software system--at the center with the other elements grouped around the outside.

Underneath the main honeycomb are examples of three social websites and how they use the building blocks. The dark green hexagon is the focus of the system; the light green hexagons are the supporting elements.

Once you dig into Digg, Flickr, Slideshare or Twitter you'll find that the actual implementation of each piece will be different. And not just different, but nuanced in a way that helps establish the overall ambience of that system. For instance, it's interesting to observe how the ease of interaction in Digg drives the swarming behaviour of its users.

The challenging thing about designing for group interaction is that people bend the tools for their own social purposes. I've found these building blocks to be a good conceptual framework for understanding social software. With these in hand we can start to look at how people use these systems to satisfy their personal and social goals.

More reading

• Tracing the Evolution of Social Software (Christopher Allen)
• On Social Software (Matt Webb)
• Social Software and the Politics of Groups (Clay Shirky)
• Communities, Audiences, and Scale (Clay Shirky)
• A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy (Clay Shirky)

ChaCha Launches H&R Block’s First SMS Mobile Advertising Campaign

Thanks Business Wire for thsi on H& R Block's further foray into mobile/social. Great stuff!

Free Online Tax Prep is Gaining Attention with New Audiences Through ChaCha’s Innovative Ad Solutions

INDIANAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ChaCha, the fastest growing SMS mobile search service in the industry, today announced the launch of a new SMS mobile advertising campaign for H&R Block. As the world’s preeminent tax services provider, H&R Block understands all too well that tax season is, for many, a time of dread, uncertainty and overall confusion. Teaming with ChaCha and its expert guides to disseminate tax-related answers combined with advertising about the company’s Free Online Tax Prep service is an ideal entry into the SMS mobile advertising space.

“ChaCha’s uptick in volume this time of year made them a logical choice to work as we help consumers navigate this tax season,” said Paula Drum, vice president of marketing for digital tax services. “I think the program not only provides H&R Block with another connection point to consumers at a critical time of the year, but also provides consumers with easy access to much-needed free answers to their difficult tax questions. And, as an added benefit, taxpayers can also learn about H&R Block’s Free Tax Prep service on-the-go from their mobile devices.”

Last year ChaCha experienced a massive 24.6 percent increase in tax-related questions leading up to Tax Day, April 15. Partnering with ChaCha and linking its messaging to the myriad of queries the mobile search provider receives in 2009 gives H&R Block an advantage and allows them to get its message out in ways the competition hasn’t yet pursued. With 263 million mobile subscribers in the U.S., H&R Block knew what direction it needed to take during the 2009 tax season, and chose ChaCha to host its inaugural SMS mobile advertising campaign.

“ChaCha is honored to be a part of H&R Block’s first ever SMS mobile campaign,” said Scott Jones, CEO of ChaCha. “Our innovative ad delivery platform gives companies like H&R Block the opportunity to extend their messages and increase awareness by new mediums they may not have considered before.”

As one component of a fully integrated campaign, H&R Block’s SMS ads will run in tandem with additional online advertising initiatives. Upon making tax-related inquiries, ChaCha users will receive SMS ads from H&R Block, promoting and directing users to its WAP site (m.hrblock.com) where they can learn more about H&R Block’s Free Online Tax Prep service.

About ChaCha

ChaCha, a free mobile answers service, allows users to call 1-800-2ChaCha™ or text questions to ChaCha (242242™) on mobile phones and receive answers within minutes. Its unique advertising solutions provide pay-for-performance opportunities for advertisers to precisely target and embed their messages within millions of text conversations. Unlike traditional media, ChaCha’s advertising platform is simple and measurable.

About H&R Block

H&R Block Inc. (NYSE:HRB) is the world’s preeminent tax services provider, having served more than 400 million clients since 1955 and generating annual revenues of $4.1 billion in fiscal year 2008. H&R Block provides income tax return preparation and related services and products via a nationwide network of approximately 13,000 company-owned and franchised offices and through TaxCut® online and software solutions. The company also provides business services through RSM McGladrey. For more information visit our Online Press Center at www.hrblock.com.