Archive: May 2008

When it comes to shopping for a car, few things are more influential than the opinion of an actual car owner. A trusted opinion can instantly crush or inflate a consumer’s confidence in a vehicle. Third-party automotive sites recognize this influence by prominently featuring the opinions of car owners through features like user reviews, ratings and discussion boards.

Recent research from the Journal of Advertising Research highlights that offline brand advocacy is significantly impacted by online word of mouth for the automotive product category. We also know that a significant amount of the online word of mouth happens at social media destinations. So how can an auto manufacturer take advantage of social influence marketing, which is about leveraging social media at every stage of a marketing campaign and beyond, to harness the peer and anonymous influences?

A PR manager for a major electronics manufacturer once told me he was deathly afraid that members of a popular bulletin board would figure out that his firm was monitoring the forum. The company had already introduced a major product innovation that had been inspired by activity on the board and he feared a backlash if members connected the dots.