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August 01, 2005
The science of word of mouth
In our last podcast, we chatted with Dr. Walter Carl, an assistant professor at Northeastern University who is researching organized word-of-mouth programs and whether they alter the medium's natural ecosystem.
BzzAgent provided Walter with a big chunk o' data to study and today, the company released some of his findings in a six-page whitepaper. (We're mirroring the 229kb PDF here.)
Some of the key findings:
* Nearly 80% of word of mouth happens face to face
* WOM resulting from a managed program tends to be as spontaneous as natural WOM
* WOM programs managed by third-party agencies tend to attract volunteers who are more socially connected and spread more buzz than the average person
* People in WOM programs usually do not oversell their networks to the point of losing credibility
* WOM program volunteers nearly double the number of recommendations they provide than those who aren't part of a program
That's all good news for companies like BzzAgent that manage WOM programs for clients, but there are questions to be answered with additional research, as Walter told us last month, including:
* How do managed WOM programs affect sales?
* Do people in managed WOM programs have greater, lesser, or the same level credibility in their social networks as their peers?
* The 80/20 rule: If 80% of WOM is happening offline, is the 20% of online WOM influencing the larger group? Or vice versa?
* Does managed WOM differ by industry or product type? Is WOM the same or different for B-to-B companies vs. B-to-C companies?
* What's the variance of managed WOM programs managed by agencies vs. programs managed in-house?
Carl's paper will arrive next year in Management Communication Quarterly. Let's hope more companies volunteer their data for academics to dissect.
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SOme interesting data on word-of-mouth. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm really big on WOM - it's what I did in the past year. But, thinking a bit, I am really also advocating companies participating in the conversation of the [Read More]
» Church of the Customer: The science of word of mouth from Lifeblog
Some interesting data on word-of-mouth. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm really big on WOM - it's what I did in the past year. But, thinking a bit, I am really also advocating companies participating in the conversation of the [Read More]
I just have a hard time with any research done by a company where the results pretty much back up their business model.
Cyncial? Sure.
Hi Jake,
I recently noticed your comment to Ben's post about BzzAgent's white paper and my research. I appreciate your comment and I wanted to reply. The academic journal article on which the white paper was based went through a blind, peer-review process by a well-respected journal in the field of Communication Studies. This is consistent with standard academic practices so I think the integrity of the results are sound. To help address your concerns it may be helpful to see a fuller context for discussion of the results that appears in the academic journal article. Since the article won't be publicly available for some time I am happy to send you a pre-press version of the manuscript (I would just ask that you do not distribute it or post it due to the contractual arrangements with the publisher of the academic journal). If you are interested please feel free to e-mail me. You can also visit my blog where I am discussing some of the results in more detail at http://www.wom-study.blogspot.com. The same offer applies to other interested readers.
Walter Carl
D'oh! My mistake. I should have paid more attention - I didn't realize that the research was being done away from BzzAgent. I'm still curious about the data pool (if it was mostly coming from BzzAgents), but I'm not making any more assumptions until after I see more about the overall research.
Thanks for the course correction, Walter!
i too am intereated in this research. i have my assumptions for sure about BzzAgent. enjoyed reading this.
Interesting research angle ... looking forward to the results.
Stephen Jones
http://www.accjobs.com
I agree with you. We can make a lot with our words and mouth
