The Buyer Group PR + SEO News

A study released this week titled “Communications Industry Forecast” from the private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson, indicates that despite all the bad news swirling about the media industry, it is expected to be the third-fastest-growing economic sector over the next five years, according to The New York Times article by Stephanie Clifford.

“Almost none of that growth is forecast to come from shrinking traditional media, however,” Clifford wrote. “Instead, it will be drawn from areas like word-of-mouth marketing and public relations (with a 9.2 percent compound annual growth rate from 2008 through 2013), branded entertainment (9.3 percent) and the Internet and mobile devices (10.2 percent).”

Word of Mouth PR Replaces Old School Ads

According to The Buyer Group’s online pr team, the old adage of spending money to make money isn’t necessarily true. How is this possible you ask? Well, the New York Times has the answer, and they’re called Yelpers. (Yel * Perz: n. def: an individual who uses www.yelp.com to create product and service reviews, to spread the word about quality businesses.)

In a recent article, NY Times business writer Dan Frost profiles several business owners who have increased their profits and decreased their ad spending simply by utilizing Yelp and other social media sites.  The Buyer Group can attest to the increase in online visibility that our clients receive with the simple addition of social media networking to their business model.

When participating in Yelp, business owners can also join in on the conversation by responding to user reviews and encouraging patrons to review them on Yelp in their physical business locations.

Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst with Forrester Research contributes to the article with this important fact: 83 percent of consumers trust the opinion of their peers when making product and service choices. Yelp allows consumers to reign supreme over advertisements, as they should.

To read the article in full about how Yelp can be a valuable interactive public relations tool click here.