How online behavior affects your bottom line

It's the power of voice. Now we are able to talk to others online and get their opinions.

For hundreds of years we lived in a world that was not connected and was out of communication. We relied on mass media to tell us the news.

"The way people bounce from home to work to lunch with friends to dinner with family and on to the mall is a behavior replicated online. Jointly, an entire system of relationships is a system of influence that directly impacts consumer behavior. The power the online social network yields, then, is staggering. Expect the next generation of Internet users to embrace social networks the way the present one has embraced search," writes Miller.

Too many marketers are missing the power of social content to drive traffic and sales. There is a pattern developing that shows web users go from search and social networks to trusted blogs that direct them on to products, ideas or services.

MySpace already drives more traffic to other sites than MSN search. According to the recent HitWise study, over 6% of UK surfers leaving blogs head off to shopping and classified sites. The cycle gets a 'rinse and repeat' as they circle back to search and social networks or go to other blogs, their email accounts, or news and media sites.

In the US, the percentage is much higher: online communities and chat drive nearly 60% of blog traffic, followed by search engines at 9.5%, and email with 8.4%. And where do they go after the blogs?

• Social networks (17%)
  
• Entertainment sites (15%)
  
• Email (11%)
  
• Lifestyle sites (9.8%)
  
• Search engines (6.2%)
  
• News sites (6.1%)
  
• Blogs (5.9%)
  
• Photography sites (5.2%)
  
• Portals (4.5%)
  
• Shopping sites (4%)

Nielsen Buzzmetrics reports that recommendations from consumers is the most trusted source of content at over 80%. How does this affect your marketing and PR?

There are many touch points along this online path - learn to take advantage of them. WebPR is about the flow of traffic, where products are being considered and where the money is being spent. As the online world evolves and moves closer to real world social behavior it's changing the way people communicate and behave online. And it is affecting your bottom line...