PR types don’t understand how consumers use media

When consumers want to buy a flat-screen TV, take a vacation to a place where they’ve never been, or see a movie at the local theater, who do they turn to for advice?

Their friends, family and experts.

Yet only one in four communications professonials have a word-of-mouth program in place. An article in the February issue of PR Tactics includes results from a survey called Myths & Realities, conducted by Ketchum and USC’s Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center.

It says that despite strong evidence that friends, family and experts play a key role in influencing decisions, only 24 percent of communicators have a word-of-mouth program in place.

Those programs might include:

• A company blog.

• Posting comments at other blogs that discuss a company’s product, service, cause, issue or interest. (See “Let bloggers create publicity for you.”) 

• Content sharing sites like Squidoo and HubPages.

• Social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.

• Something as simple as a “tell a friend” box at your website.

• A contest in which consumers create a clever video of how they use your product or video, upload it to YouTube and compete for prizes.

• Encouraging customers to write a product review and post it at your website

There are dozens more ideas. Let’s hear yours.