Web 2.0 and Consumer Generated Media

Since Web 2.0 has started, it has become very easy for people to publish websites, write about their experiences with Brands, buzz about their opinions and promote their favourite products or to put up hate sites for companies they don’t like.

This so called Consumer Generated Media is becoming more and more powerful, since Google’s search algorithm makes it easy to find word of mouth at the top categories. The other fact is that people belief more in what other customers have to say about a brand, then what a brand has to say about itself with advertising (of course this is depended on how powerful your brand image is, but most of the time it is true). This makes it crucial for a brand to interact with its Influential Customers.

Just to give you a short list of Consumer Generated Media:
- Blogs enable everybody who can use the Internet to publish his / her own websites
- New mobile technology enables (mostly younger) customers to produce videos with almost no effort
- YouTube enables these people to publish their videos online
- Word of Mouth in Online Communities - before buying a product a lot of people look into the internet in order to see what users have to say about the product

Today Consumers are generating even more marketing messages then the companies itself. Companies have no other choice then to connect and communicate with their customers, otherwise the marketing will happen without them.

Ressources:
If you want to know more about CGM and how to manage it – take a look at the Blog.
Read about how Web 2.0 has changed Marketing.
There are some very interesting studies of the Keller Fay Group about Internet Word of Mouth and Consumer Generated Media - highly recommended.