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The State of Online Word of Mouth Marketing [STATS] In a session yesterday at Forrester's Marketing Forum, Forrester analysts Josh Bernoff and Augie Ray presented research findings on peer influence and word of mouth marketing.

Some of the statistics were surprising, and the presentation was rife with practical tips for marketers we thought worth sharing. Influencers are Diverse Ray said that when marketers think about targeting influencers, they tend to think of them "like a stew": tasty, but undefined. He advises thinking about them instead as a "delicious 3-course meal" in which it's important to savor the flavors of each.

He outlined a Peer Influence Pyramid that breaks down influencers into three types: Social Broadcasters (at the top), Mass Influencers (middle), and Potential Influencers (bottom of the pyramid). The Decline of Traditional Advertising and the Rise of Social Media. InShare0 Forrester Research released its five year forecast that estimates interactive marketing spending from 2009 – 2014.

Forrester predicts that interactive marketing in the US will near $55 billion and represent 21% of all marketing spend by 2014 and will include search marketing, display advertising, email marketing, social media, and mobile marketing. More significantly however, overall advertising in traditional media will continue to decline in favor of less expensive, more effective interactive tools and services. My First Forrester Report: Tapping The Entire Online Peer Influence Pyramid. Three months after starting at Forrester, my first report for Interactive Marketers is now available: Tapping The Entire Online Peer Influence Pyramid.

Forrester subscribers can click the link to read about the Peer Influence Pyramid, which describes and shares recommendations about three types of online influencers: Social Broadcasters, Mass Influencers and Potential Influencers. Each of the three types of influencer is important to marketers, and each must be engaged in a different manner.

Social Broadcasters are appealing because of their large followings, but they tend to assist more with awareness than with preference. Mass Influencers is a new category of influencer--28 million in number in the U.S. alone--created thanks to the scale afforded consumers by social media tools. MediaPost: 2010: The Year Social Marketing Gets Serious. How Turner's Classic Became The Comic-Con Of Hollywood's Golden Age HOLLYWOOD -- "Exorcist" director William Friedkin told his Linda Blair crucifix masturbation story. Mel Brooks explained why he couldn't have made "Blazing Saddles" today, because of its use of the "N-word. " A low-key Jerry Lewis described ...

Web Standards Group Moves Forward With Do-Not-Track Effort The Internet standards group World Wide Web Consortium took a small but significant step forward this week with its 3-year-old initiative to implement the do-not-track requests that users can send through their browsers. ... Interpublic Ups U.S. Citing "an improved economic outlook in the U.S.," as well as the incremental stimuli of the Olympics, The World Cup, and the Affordable Care Act, Interpublic's Mediabrands Magna Global unit has boosted its outlook for U.S. ... Rivalries Emerge, Submerge In Media Measurement: Within Industry And The Household Video Propels Mobile Ads For Entertainment Industry. The Forrester Blog For Interactive Marketing Professionals. Marketers have paid lip service to customer-centric marketing for a long time.

But consumers and business buyers have flipped the conversation from "Oh, they think they know me" to "They better know me, or I'll find someone who does. " For brands to be truly competitive in the Age of the Customer, companies must become customer obsessed – or risk losing market share to the competition. Fifty Things I Will Miss in Milwaukee. My Paid Blog Post on the Forrester Blog. My opinion of "sponsored conversations" (aka paid blog post advertising) is well established.

I feel paid blog posts are wrong for brands, wrong for bloggers, and wrong for consumers. But Forrester, the respected and renowned research firm, disagrees and has unequivocally stated that paid blog posts are fine. So, I am extending a financial offer for a "sponsored conversation" on the Forrester Blog--one that thoroughly abides by Forrester's own guidelines. I trust Forrester will accept my offer and tell me where to send the check.

Twitter 101, Part 1: What Twitter is. This is part one of a four-part series on Twitter.

If you already use Twitter, this post may not be of much interest, but as more people are drawn to the service, I find I am getting more questions about what it is, what value it provides, and how to be successful on Twitter. To those of us who’ve made Twitter part of our daily lives and have built extensive networks of friends and associates, it seems hard to believe that just 3.2 million people use the service (according to TwitDir).

Compare that to Facebook’s 110 million active users, and you get a sense of how small Twitter is at this time. Still, considering the number of Twitter users has grown around 500% in the past year, there is reason to believe Twitter is going to get quite common in the future. To the uninitiated, Twitter seems like an odd, time-consuming, and valueless habit.