When people make decisions many factors come into play. Many people can make decisions based off the ads a company shows them, but any PR professional knows that word of mouth is still one of the most powerful ways to influence someone. Word of mouth lowers a person’s message defense. People can be leery of messages straight from a company, but all ears when it comes from their best friend. This principle is the reason why sites like yelp and yellow pages exist. These review sites give people a chance to read honest to goodness, unbiased, reviews of different hotels, restaurants, and products.
As PR professionals, it can be controversial how you can influence these reviews. Some companies log on to these sites and generate false positive reviews. The key being; transparency is needed.
Consumer Reports just released a smart phone application that can scan barcodes and bring up reviews and details about the product. The application, Consumer Reports Mobile Shopper, can also do side-by-side product comparisons. The application is so brutally honest. The application does not even recommend the Iphone 4, because of an antenna failure that is common in the phone.
For PR professionals, this is just another step in people’s new ability to gain knowledge fast. Potentially, any and everyone will be able to voice their opinion. You can no longer trick the masses with fancy media messages and well thought out strategies.
The app even has a place for “Brand Reliability.” I see this affecting the world of PR because of the speed and the inability to influence the reviews. I could see at some point, an app that contains company profiles. Sections on what the company does for the community, how they treat their employees, scandals, CEO blogs, reviews and thoughts.
Completely honest and transparent views of all companies as people try to make decisions on where to spend their money.
I agree that word of mouth is the best method available to PR practitioners to spread their message quickly and effectively. Encouraging consumers to use sites such as Yelp is a way to accomplish this. Review sites also provide an efficient way for companies to personally respond to comments and to right any perceived wrongs.
ReplyDeleteThe term “going mobile” and having an “app” for everything is the next best thing for companies and businesses. With word of mouth having such credibility among other users and customers, I think that creating an app for people to instantly read reviews about products is great. Now when you’re at the store trying to decide what product to buy (say it is a new flat screen TV) you don’t have to deal with the pushy and annoying sales reps; instead you can just scan the item and get personal REAL reviews and then make your purchasing decision. I rely on apps like this when checking out a new restaurant. It’s fast, easy, and a great tool to get the real facts about a product or service.
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