The Buyer Group Recommends Social Media Bestseller, “Groundswell”
Friday, October 31st, 2008
Deerfield Beach, FL – October 31, 2008 – Hanging out online is not just for kids anymore. Customers are writing about products on blogs, reviewing businesses on Yelp, joining fan clubs on Facebook, and cutting up corporate commercials on YouTube in record numbers! It’s a social phenomenon – the groundswell – that is creating a permanent shift in the way the world works, plays, lives, and thinks.
As search engine savvy, online PR gurus, The Buyer Group knows the tactics that work best in this industry.
Published in 2008 by the leading company in online research, “Groundswell” is the number one recommended book by SEO/SEM professionals. Authors Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, lead analysts at Forrester Research, define the social media groundswell as “a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other rather than traditional institutions like corporations.”
With clients ranging from non-profit advisors to bioidentical hormone therapy physicians, The Buyer Group has mastered the channels of the groundswell. Whether you’re an online marketing newbie or a new era genius, “Groundswell” offers something for all.
“We recommend that each one of our prospects and clients take the time to read “Groundswell,” said Lisa Buyer, The Buyer Group President. “This is the most informative book available on the ins-and-outs of the social media revolution. A revolution that we are implementing now with our clients to augment their existing marketing strategies”
This “new era” of the groundswell is created by three trends: people’s desire to connect, new interactive technologies and online economics.
The numbers speak in volumes when it comes to social media growth:
• 25 percent of Americans report reading a blog regularly
• 44 percent participate in a social media network such as Facebook, MySpace or Twitter
• 132 million unique users can be found on Facebook, more than double since 2007
• 30 percent watch user generated video on sites such as YouTube
• 25 percent of online users read ratings and reviews
• 11 percent write ratings and reviews
“Groundswell” gives marketers a way to look at their audiences’ social media participation through social technographic tools, allowing them to see the profile of a target market including demographics and psychographics with a stong focus on technology behaviors. The social technographic profile divides individuals into these categories:
• Creators – These people publish blogs and Web sites, upload video, write, and post articles
• Critics – Post ratings/reviews, comment on other blogs, and contribute to online forums and articles
• Collectors – Use RSS, vote for Web sites, and mark or tag pages and photos
• Joiners – Maintain profiles on social networking sites, visit social networking sites
• Spectators – Read blogs, online forums, customer ratings, and watch videos. or listen to podcasts
• Inactives – none of these activities
Where do you fit in? Where do your customers fit in? Groundswell helps you profile your own customer with a free tool at http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html
“Groundswell has become the bible in our office lately, we use it as a reference point for ways to tap into the groundswell using public relations and social media strategies – strategies that must be added to your current marketing mix,” said Buyer.
The groundswell interacts in peculiar ways. No matter which angle the system maneuvers, three common denominators drive its force: people, technology, and economics. The first common factor is people. Throughout history, people have always depended on each other, rebelling against institutional power. Technology is the second force driving the groundswell, allowing people to communicate on new levels through the spread of social technologies. Finally, the third factor is as simple as online economics: on the Internet, traffic equals money.
Take the example of the movie, “Snakes on a Plane.” Word got out that the movie was in production and before long, “Snakes on a Plane” was owned by the Internet. Fans created t-shirts and started an unofficial blog called, “Snakes on a Blog.” The online visibility and community created around this blog attracted thousands of fans, who insisted on adding a line – a very popular line – to the movie. The producers, knowing they had to please their die-hard fans in order to succeed, changed the movie, added the line, and lost the film’s PG-13 rating in the process.
“If you can’t beat ‘em … join ‘em,” said Sarah Van Elzen, Interactive Producer at The Buyer Group. “The online world has shifted to a place where corporate brands are redefined by the public, distribution channels are modified, and relationships are built upon and retained. The best way to get ahead in this sector is to just join, learn, and reap the social media benefits.”
For more information about The Buyer Group and it’s interactive public relations programs contact Lisa Buyer at lbuyer@thebuyergroup.com. See what social media can do for your company.
