Conversational Media Marketing

My latest article on Practical Ecommerce...

Trust in word-of-mouth recommendations is at an all-time high. Public relations firm Edleman says in its 2008 Trust Barometer study that “a person like me” is still the most trusted source for information about a company and its services or products.

While the most influential form of word of mouth recommendations come from those you know personally, such as family and friends, online ratings and reviews can have significant influence as well.

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Last week I received an email from Practical Ecommerce publisher Kerry Murdock regarding some changes he was making to the magazine, specfically as it pertained to the way in which it would be published going forward. For me, the news came as a mixed bag of good and bad.

The good news is that PE now has a dynamic, newly redesigned and developed Web site. It's built to function specifically as an online magazine and contains a number of social networking elements (shared user profiles, comments, ratings, reviews, etc).

The bad news (for me at least) is that the July/August edition will be the last one published in print form.

Kerry was willing to sit for an interview, which is available as a podcast. (It's about 29 minutes long, but is well worth the investment of time. Plus, it's tagged so you can pick and choose the sections you'd like to listen to.)

I'm fortunate to write a monthly article for Practical Ecommerce magazine. This month I chose as the topic, Online Reputation Management.

Like it or not, people are talking about you online. They're talking about your brand, your products, industry and competition. Do you know what they are saying? If not, why not? Can you afford not to listen?