Want to catch up with the latest online diversion? Then, check the video below.
chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.
If you saw the video until the end, you now know a bit of Chat roulette, a website that randomly links users to one another through web-cam conversations -- and attracts some of the strangest people in the world.
For me it seems very weird to go to a website to talk to people you’ve never heard before and if the person thinks you are not good looking or don’t have an nice conversation, they can easily press the “next” bottom to spin the wheel to connect to the next random stranger. Obviously, the chances you find someone with whom you wish to actually speak are incredibly small…
And despite its weirdness, Chatroulette is in the roll. According to TechCrunch, the young website quadrupled in size in a month, attracting 3.9 million visitors worldwide in February, up from 944,000 in January, 2010.
I didn’t have the guts to try it myself, but I would love to know your thoughts if you ever decide to try it…
Monday, March 29, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The importance of product reviews
While programming my Spring Break trip to California, I realized how important the reviews are today. In my experience they were very influential if not determinant of my choices of hotels and car rental companies.
As we all know, the Internet has become a key information source for researching products. According to Nielsen Online when making purchase decisions, North American Internet users trust recommendations from people they know and opinions posted by unknown consumers online more than advertisements on television, on the radio, in magazines and newspapers, or in other traditional media.
People read reviews because they try to get the most out of what they pay for and they want to know all the “secrets” about the product before they make a purchase. If the product page by itself does not make customers want to make a purchase, they will certainly look for more information before they go ahead and make the final decision.
Customers are looking for an honest opinion from someone they trust because money is tighter than it has ever been for many people and consequently, they want to make an informed decision. Reading reviews online can help strengthening a customer’s trust and belief on the product or brand.
So, it’s definitely very important for companies to pay attention to that and not to be afraid of the negative reviews. In fact, the majority word of mouth is positive. As said by BazzaarVoice, across all of Bazaarvoice US clients, 80% of product ratings are 4 or 5 stars out of 5. And across all of Bazaarvoice UK clients, 88% of product ratings are 4 or 5 stars out of 5.
While it is truth that people reading good reviews tend to sway towards the product because of the established trust other people have on that particular product or service, customers are also looking for negative reviews.
Negative and sincere reviews establish credibility. Customers know that if there aren't dissenting opinions about a product, then the opinions aren't real. If all they see are five-star reviews, they're reading testimonials, not authentic, credible customer reviews to help make a purchase decision.
As I said, reading customers’ reviews made a huge difference on the purchase decisions for my trip to California and it helped me to be more confident about my choices. So, as a customer and as a marketer I truly believe that reviews can help retailers to improve conversion rates, drive sales and increase customer satisfaction, since customer will know what to expect of the product or service they are about to purchase.
As we all know, the Internet has become a key information source for researching products. According to Nielsen Online when making purchase decisions, North American Internet users trust recommendations from people they know and opinions posted by unknown consumers online more than advertisements on television, on the radio, in magazines and newspapers, or in other traditional media.
People read reviews because they try to get the most out of what they pay for and they want to know all the “secrets” about the product before they make a purchase. If the product page by itself does not make customers want to make a purchase, they will certainly look for more information before they go ahead and make the final decision.
Customers are looking for an honest opinion from someone they trust because money is tighter than it has ever been for many people and consequently, they want to make an informed decision. Reading reviews online can help strengthening a customer’s trust and belief on the product or brand.
So, it’s definitely very important for companies to pay attention to that and not to be afraid of the negative reviews. In fact, the majority word of mouth is positive. As said by BazzaarVoice, across all of Bazaarvoice US clients, 80% of product ratings are 4 or 5 stars out of 5. And across all of Bazaarvoice UK clients, 88% of product ratings are 4 or 5 stars out of 5.
While it is truth that people reading good reviews tend to sway towards the product because of the established trust other people have on that particular product or service, customers are also looking for negative reviews.
Negative and sincere reviews establish credibility. Customers know that if there aren't dissenting opinions about a product, then the opinions aren't real. If all they see are five-star reviews, they're reading testimonials, not authentic, credible customer reviews to help make a purchase decision.
As I said, reading customers’ reviews made a huge difference on the purchase decisions for my trip to California and it helped me to be more confident about my choices. So, as a customer and as a marketer I truly believe that reviews can help retailers to improve conversion rates, drive sales and increase customer satisfaction, since customer will know what to expect of the product or service they are about to purchase.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Nokia - Changing Context
Great presentation about "Conversational Marketing" - by Arto Joensuu, Head of Digital Marketing at Nokia.
Conversational Marketing
View more presentations from Arto Joensuu.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Some thoughts about Twitter
Despite the belief that brands use Twitter only as a channel to support customer service and PR activities, some brands are actually making money using Twitter.
After Dell reveling last year that they have generated a total of $6.5 million in revenue from their Twitter presence, now Sony announced that they made over £1m in sales through Twitter.
It’s good to observe this examples and what’s the strategy that companies are adopting for Twitter. Unfortunately, many companies don’t actually have a strategy. They have a Twitter or Facebook account because someone thought it was nice to have a presence on social media sites or they just felt the pressure to get involved and hoped something would come from it.
But this lack of strategy can be very dangerous as the channel is open and the impact can be extremely negative if the company doesn’t have a structure to respond to customers that contact them through Twitter, for example. We have seen recently cases of customer complaints that became public because of social media, damaging companies’ reputations and costing them a lot of money.
I believe that if the company is not willing to have a team dedicated to social media and take it seriously, it’s better to be out of it.
After Dell reveling last year that they have generated a total of $6.5 million in revenue from their Twitter presence, now Sony announced that they made over £1m in sales through Twitter.
It’s good to observe this examples and what’s the strategy that companies are adopting for Twitter. Unfortunately, many companies don’t actually have a strategy. They have a Twitter or Facebook account because someone thought it was nice to have a presence on social media sites or they just felt the pressure to get involved and hoped something would come from it.
But this lack of strategy can be very dangerous as the channel is open and the impact can be extremely negative if the company doesn’t have a structure to respond to customers that contact them through Twitter, for example. We have seen recently cases of customer complaints that became public because of social media, damaging companies’ reputations and costing them a lot of money.
I believe that if the company is not willing to have a team dedicated to social media and take it seriously, it’s better to be out of it.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Movies go social
I was reading an article about How Lionsgate Plans to Take on 'Twitter Effect' for 'Kick-Ass' and I think it’s interesting to observe how a film success is increasingly dependent on social media efforts nowadays.
After Avatar’s massive box office success being attributed to all the word of mouth generated through their use of social media, I believe that we will definitely see more and more use of social media to help build online buzz around independent movies, television shows and DVD releases of blockbuster.
To promote the launch of the movie “Kick-Ass”, for example, Lionsgate is putting together their brand pages on YouTube, Facebook and MySpace under one unique platform. They said that the platform will allow them to integrate user comments, video streams and tweets (via a branded hashtag) on one place, with real-time metrics to show isolated and combined traffic statistics.
I’m curious to see if their tactic will pay-off, but it will surely be very hard for them to bit Avatar, which was ranked #2 highest grossing film of all times.
After Avatar’s massive box office success being attributed to all the word of mouth generated through their use of social media, I believe that we will definitely see more and more use of social media to help build online buzz around independent movies, television shows and DVD releases of blockbuster.
To promote the launch of the movie “Kick-Ass”, for example, Lionsgate is putting together their brand pages on YouTube, Facebook and MySpace under one unique platform. They said that the platform will allow them to integrate user comments, video streams and tweets (via a branded hashtag) on one place, with real-time metrics to show isolated and combined traffic statistics.
I’m curious to see if their tactic will pay-off, but it will surely be very hard for them to bit Avatar, which was ranked #2 highest grossing film of all times.
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