This is person to person communication or opinions exchanged online in forums, blogs, web sites, customer advisory panels or online brand communities, social networking sites and anywhere online that someone can comment on a brand experience and someone else can read it and be affected by it.

How many?

• Well there is an estimated 1,596,270,108 people going online. Yes that’s 1.6 billion. (Miniwatts)
• And 81% look for information online about a service or product that they are thinking of buying (Princeton Survey Research Associates Intl)

It has various guises. To some its Socially Generated Media (SGM) or Consumer Generated Media (CGM), online consumer reviewing or even plain buzz - but it is changing the way that brands and consumers interact with each other.

In our new ever-conversing world where consumers actually create the message and rapidly share the knowledge, finding out what and why is being said about your brand and by whom becomes quite complex. These conversations, whether they come from a blog entry or from Twitter have turned the marketing process on its head, some would say. The power has shifted to the consumer, who as Jeff Jarvis has said, ‘spit back’.

Here at Amplified State, we firmly believe that it is a vital facet of marketing and indeed most business operations to monitor and make sense of what is being said about your brand or company.

The fundamental marketing process has changed, its two-way now and not only can your audience help increase marketing effectiveness, it can spread the message for you.