More than 3,000 Comments about Sugar Cookies? Seriously?

America being a free country, we’re all entitled to our own opinions about Democratic vs. Republican, dogs vs. cats, bacon vs. chocolate. Cheap and easy-to-use digital technology also means that we can now upload our preferences and share them as blog posts, Facebook updates, tweets or YouTube videos. But sites that aggregate individual opinions, from TripAdvisor to Allrecipes, are becoming one-stop resources for consumers making choices of all sorts. So how does this affect businesses that must reach these consumers?

Consumer-generated reviews help people make better choices

Whether it’s ratings for plumbers on Angie’s List, restaurants on Yelp or virtually anything on Amazon, consumer-generated reviews now help people make better informed choices when purchasing products or services. An expert’s opinion might provide lots of context and background information, but if you’re looking for a new cast-iron skillet, say, you’d probably be inclined to buy the one on Amazon that got a five-star rating from 1,013 reviewers. (On the other hand, the 1,364 “reviews” for Tuscan Whole Milk, One Gallon, would suggest that some people just have way too much time on their hands.)

Millions of ordinary people freely contribute their opinions about everything under the sun, and their eagerness to share is astonishing. Let’s say that in honor of the holidays, you decide to bake some cookies. Searching Allrecipes.com for a simple recipe, you find Easy Sugar Cookies. Not much room for opinion here, you might think. But at last count, 3,120 comments – earnest, enthusiastic, thoughtful, heart-felt comments – were posted about what is little more than the standard sugar, butter, flour, eggs, and a little vanilla.

social, mobile and crowd-sourced media fuel the Contribution Revolution

It’s been called the “contribution revolution” and it has the potential to revolutionize the way companies – and countries – do their business. This revolution, whether it’s taking place in the streets of Cairo or at a product launch in Cupertino, may not be televised but it will certainly appear on countless screens. Public opinion now sidesteps traditional top-down channels and emerges, instead, from a much broader array of personalized channels, including social, mobile and crowd-sourced media.

The proliferation of media channels today challenges anyone working to promote a business. Brands can no longer be defined primarily through ads and publicity campaigns. Though ads continue to entertain, intrigue and seduce, they’ll always elicit skepticism – consumers know they’re being sold to, after all. Publicists like to say that editorial coverage provides greater credibility than ads, since the reviews come from third-party sources. But consumer-generated reviews are even more persuasive: they come from lots of people who are presumably just like me, rather than from one or two experts. And digital media massively amplifies the reach of all those reviews across multiple devices and platforms.

Consumers respond to other consumers’ content

Consumer-generated reviews increasingly determine consumer choices in products and services. This self-perpetuating circle can leave PR and marketing teams out of the loop. In order to get back in the game, those of us who work to promote or publicize anything must engage audiences with content that mirrors the best of social media: our work must be more agile, more responsive and more personalized. Great content remains the cornerstone to successful communications. With great content, we can educate audiences, build communities and inspire people to action – to view, download, donate, join or purchase. And then, perhaps, to share their comments.