Back in July, Get Satisfaction and the Incyte Group put their heads together and released a white paper titled: To Monetize Open Social Networks, Invite Customers to Be More Than Just “Friends” (Conspire coverage here). Essentially, the paper says that while networks like Facebook are indeed handy for making digital connections, real social revenue requires taking these digital connections to the next level: branded customer communities.
“Because a customer community is owned and managed by a company and contains valuable social knowledge that has been vetted by advocates and employees, marketers have more flexibility to address customer needs based on their stage in the customer life cycle,” reads the report.
If it’s a conversation that tickles your fancy, you’re in for a treat. An infographic illustrating the white paper’s messaging was kicked out just a few days ago. Statistic-y highlights include:
- 81.1 percent of consumers go to a company website to learn more about a product or service
- 32.1 percent of consumers participate in branded communities because they’re interested in receiving important information more quickly
- 42.1 percent of consumers would be willing to freely advocate a product or service on a branded community
Because consumer communities are still in their infancy, it remains to be seen whether they’re really the missing link. But in any case, now that customers are equally as loud as company messaging (if not louder) and certainly more influential, I think we’ll at least continue to see a resurgence in fair exchange. And a digital community is definitely a nice way to go about that.
Check out the infographic in full by clicking on the image below, or head over to Get Satisfaction’s blog post here.
