PJA Blog: The Complex Brand

A recent Network World survey supports what PJA’s second wave of original research with ITtoolbox showed late last year: IT professionals are increasingly taking up the tools of social networking – LinkedIn, MySpace, Digg, Stumbleupon, Facebook, etc. – and using them for business purposes. According to the new survey, nearly half of IT professionals use social networking for business. As the Forrester analyst put it, “We don’t really go to Toastmasters anymore.”

As available content becomes richer, especially on YouTube, I think we’ll see an even sharper rise in the number of business users making the site a go-to destination. MySpace activity may be dropping, as the recent BusinessWeek article “Generation MySpace is Getting Fed Up” pointed out, but that drop seems pretty closely linked to boredom with static profile pages and annoyance with ads. Which is precisely the point about why IT and life science audiences are using social media more these days: Content, not ads. Information, not self-promotion. YouTube remains a terrific way to get any technical content out to the world without the need for AAA production values. Anyone who has been sent the link for a live demo of root canal surgery knows the sky is the limit with sharing (maybe that should be over-sharing) and education using video online.

In our BtoB world, several of our clients are considering programs that are less focused on messaging themselves and more focused on a point of view about content – content that relates to their technology in action or to the larger lifestyle interests of their customers – so it’s no surprise that appreciation of these channels continues to grow as people discover their ease of use.

I’m happy to announce that we have just completed our first research study with BioInformatics, LLC, a PJA research partner with an online forum of more than 30,000 scientists.

The study topic? Life scientists and social media.

And what did we find? More than I expected, certainly. Here are some of the highlights: (more…)

If you’ve wondered why that old pyramid hierarchy slide continues to appear long after it’s been supplanted in many companies’ operations, CNET Business has just released some great research on word of mouth marketing and how everyone plays some influential role in spreading a word. As conversations with a number of CXOs over the last months have shown me, word of mouth remains the headiest elixir in marketing: it can’t be bought, it can’t be forced, but it moves people to act like nothing else. Everyone wants it, especially as social media channels proliferate, but it’s getting harder and harder to pin down.

As CNET Business notes in its new white paper, Understanding Influence, and Making It Work For You, several myths about word of mouth deserve to be called out:

“Myth #1: The Few Inform the Many
While the size of personal networks varies widely, with some individuals having 10 or fewer connections and some having more than 100, each person wields some influence. Viewing the model as a pyramid discounts the much larger number of moderately connected individuals who can help spread the work about your product or service.

Myth #2: They Share Because They Know More
Influencers aren’t driven to share information for the sake of appearing knowledgeable or to demonstrate their expertise. They’re primarily motivated by a basic desire to help others. They develop a stronger sense of self-confidence when it’s well-received, further motivating them to help and advise others.

Myth #3: A Single-Minded Focus
Influencers aren’t necessarily single-subject experts. Our research shows that influencers have diverse interests crossing a wide range of topics. On average, they are interested in 10 to 12 topics and they actively seek information on these topics. This is true whether they have large or small networks. There are two critical attributes for information to be valued by the influencer, no matter what topic they’re investigating: it must be both unique and trusted.

How to take advantage of word of mouth? Make your word of mouth fodder forwardable, place it in unique and trusted environments, and share your message with moderately connected users, not just the top of the pyramid (make that diamond) types.

My most recent inquiry shows that 30-second spots at the 2008 Super Bowl will run you about $2.7 million, up 4 percent from $2.6 million last year.

Coincidentally, $2.7 million represents the entire marketing budget for some of our B2B clients. Granted, if you don’t sell cars, beer, automobiles, movies, lingerie or mixed nuts, it’s probably not the best place to blow that budget.

Of course, the possibility of doing a Super Bowl ad is invariably tossed around in B2B marketing meetings as the ultimate dream: nearly 100,000,000 sets of eyeballs on your ad, especially if it airs in the first half, and all that follow-on Web activity as people make a mental note to / actually visit your site.

But let’s say that price tag is a bit steep. What can all we non-participants learn from the best features of the best Super Bowl ads, versus blowing off a lot of steam the morning after on which ones were the most effective? Here are a few ideas:

(more…)

In partnership with ITToolbox, We just released the second wave of our social media survey. I won’t bury the lead: the most interesting finding was that online networks were rated as the most important influence on the later stages of the technology purchase decision. And the related point that IT decision-makers are beginning to view online communities as credible extensions of their personal networks.

The first wave revealed the overall importance of social media as a technology purchase influence. We suspected going in that social media would serve an important role (after all, we were talking to members of an online community), but we were surprised at just how influential social media had become. Not only did respondents spend more time with social media than traditional editorial brands, they also trusted them more when it came to important purchase decisions.

In the second Wave, we saw a similar engagement level with social media vis a vis traditional media. Though for full disclosure, traditional media as represented by brands such as CNN and CIO fared better this time. More reinforcement, perhaps, for my colleague’s comment about the relative value of print advertising these days. The real purpose of Wave 2 was to take a deeper dive into the distinct stages of the purchase process.

Search, as is true in any purchase process research I’ve ever seen, is most important for early stage awareness. Topic based communities (such as discussion groups and blogs) were rated as the most important information sources during consideration and final evaluation. Personal networks (such as LinkedIn and ITToolbox Professional Networking) were also rated as influential. Next to topic based communities, they were the most important source during final evaluation.

In a way, these findings are not surprising at all. People have always turned to trust colleagues when they want a gut check on an important purchase. What is interesting is the implication that the notion of peer has become more elastic in the read/write world.

You’ll find the press release, access to data tables, and a highlights deck here. Let us know your thoughts.