For many
marketers the “blogosphere” might as well be the Bermuda Triangle. They hear rumors of digital lynch mobs and
consumer generated content gone wild. The
fact is that there are a number of organizations using blogs and other forms of
consumer generated media to more effectively gather market insights, spark new
users and promote innovation. Here are
some great resources to read-up on the topic and find ideas for your own
company or organization.
Word of Mouth Basic Training
Conference
The Word of
Mouth Marketing Association held its conference earlier this month. The conference site is chock-full of
presentations, as well as a live blog of the events. Topics ranged from the state of the industry,
to how to create effective programs as well as actual case studies. Reading through the extensive content on this site will give you a terrific grounding
in what’s going on with word-of-mouth marketing.
Cymfony is
one of the leading blog research and insight organizations. Their recent hire of Jim Nail, formerly of
Forrester Research, is obviously paying off. They have a terrific blog as well as a newly introduced Knowledge Center. The center is a good place for CGM 101 orientation, and while it is understandably
biased towards Cymfony solutions, it provides great general background
information as well.
This site
began as a collaboration between Chris Anderson, the Wired Magazine editor who
coined the term “the long tail”, and Ross Mayfield (Socialtext). It’s a list of Fortune 500 companies making
effective use of business blogs. While
this doesn’t appear to be a comprehensive index, it has a variety of listings
and provides great insights into what’s working in this category.
One of the
most interesting aspects of social media is that it is being widely embraced by
women. Women are terrific networkers and
this has extended to the digital platform. I’m sure some PhD in sociology is doing a sophisticated study on why
this is the case. As a working
wife/step-mother I can tell you the reason: we have to be good at networking or we’d never get everything done. In any case, I recently ran across this site
which is a wealth of information on women-authored blogs, whose topics range
from politics to business to Web 2.0 to relationship issues. The site is in beta, but expect it to have a
powerful impact in the months ahead.
Thanks for helping spread the word! I tried to keep the Cymfony stuff to a minimum to make this a truly educational resources. If you have any nominations for other pieces that I should include, I would welcome your thoughts!
Posted by: Jim Nail | January 31, 2006 at 17:54