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In Forbes (@Forbes), Jacquelyn Smith (@JacquelynVSmith) writes, “We live in a world where word-of-mouth is the No. 1 driver of sales and competitive advantage — and because there’s a strong correlation between a company’s reputation and consumers’ willingness to recommend it, businesses need to focus on building those strong bonds with stakeholders. Companies should of course strive to earn the trust and esteem of consumers in its native land, but given that a multinational gets a majority of its revenue from international markets, it really needs to be liked everywhere else, too.”

A newly released global reputation study of more than 100,000 consumers shows that who you are as a company is more important than what you produce, with BMW, SONY, and Disney topping the list of the most reputable companies.

The third annual Global RepTrak™ 100, by reputation consultancy firm Reputation Institute (@Reputation_Inst), identifies how stakeholders perceive companies and how those perceptions affect purchasing behavior.

The companies with the 10 best global reputations are:

1.    BMW

2.    Sony

3.    Walt Disney Company

4.    Daimler

5.    Apple

6.    Google

7.    Microsoft

8.    Volkswagen

9.    Canon

10. LEGO

Each company earned a “Global RepTrak Pulse” score of zero to 100, representing an average measure of people’s feelings for it. The scores were statistically derived from calculations of 4 emotional indicators: trust, esteem, admiration, and good feeling.

Reputation Institute also analyzed what it calls the 7 dimensions of corporate reputation. That’s where it found that perceptions of the enterprise (workplace, governance, citizenship, financial performance, and leadership) trumps product perceptions (products and services plus innovation) in driving behaviors.

Read this in full.

Read the news release (pdf).

Also see our previous blogpost about the value of brand reputation, “Ford Gets Its Logo Back.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you manage your brand’s reputation.

Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard, especially the Marketing/PR tab.

According to recent research, 44% of online American adults (that’s 35% of all American adults) use the Internet for religious purposes.

Now a new study by Grey Matter Research, Phoenix, AZ, says 36% of American adults who are online have visited the website of a church or other local place of worship within the last year.

Most commonly, people visiting the website of a place of worship are

·         checking to see the times of services (43%)

·         checking what activities are offered (e.g. youth groups, studies, events – 29%)

·         looking for a map or directions to the church’s location (28%)

·         watching streaming video (26%)

·         listening to streaming audio (26%)

·         checking to see what the church’s religious beliefs are (22%)

·         requesting prayer (18%)

·         downloading a podcast (15%)

·         checking what denomination or group they belong to (15%)

·         sending a message to the pastor or leader (12%)

·         posting on a bulletin board or forum (5%).

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you discern relevant research and connect your brand’s content with searching people.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard, especially the Research tab.

Alexandria, VA has moved up one level this year to first place in Amazon.com’s (@amazon) annual list of the Most Well-Read Cities in America. The ranking was determined by compiling sales data of all book, magazine and newspaper sales in both print and Kindle (@AmazonKindle) format since June 1, 2011, on a per capita basis in cities with more than 100,000 residents. The Top 20 Most Well-Read Cities are:

1.   Alexandria, VA               11.  Pittsburgh, PA

2.   Cambridge, MA             12.  Knoxville, TN

3.   Berkeley, CA                  13.  Seattle, WA

4.   Ann Arbor, MI                  14.  Orlando, FL

5.   Boulder, CO                    15.  Columbia, SC

6.   Miami, FL                        16.  Bellevue, WA

7.   Arlington, VA                   17.  Cincinnati, OH

8.   Gainesville, FL                18.  St. Louis, MO

9.   Washington, DC             19.  Atlanta, GA

10. Salt Lake City, UT          20.  Richmond, VA

Read the news release in full.

See last year’s listing.

The above list differs from the one compiled by Central Connecticut State University (@CCSUToday) which names Washington, DC number one. Here’s the top ten list:

1.  Washington, DC               6.   Pittsburgh, PA

2.  Seattle, WA                      7.   Cincinnati, OH

3.  Minneapolis, MN              8.   St. Louis, MO

4.  Atlanta, GA                       9.   San Francisco, CA

5.  Boston, MA                     10. Denver, CO

Read this in full.

See last year's listing.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you reach readers.

And if you love books like we do, be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Newsweek (@Newsweek) created this poster in 2010, but it’s still interesting.

Marketers should make an effort to understand and cultivate so-called brand advocates as social media becomes more prominent. According to a Zuberance (@Zuberance) study, half of brand advocates make a recommendation online because of a good experience with a product or service. The second most prominent motivation for brand advocates: they want to help friends make better purchase decisions.

Though brand advocates are formally defined as making one recommendation a year, without pay – the highest percentage of them (38%) do so 5 to 9 times a year, with 16% making 10 to 15 recommendations and 16% making 15 or more. Other findings:

·         Brand Advocates are even more active than previously thought.

·         Brand Advocates have even larger social networks than previous studies showed.

·         Brand Advocates’ recommendations aren’t limited to consumer brands and products.

See the recorded webinar.

Also see our previous blogpost, “Consumer Trust in Online, Social, & Mobile Advertising Grows.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you identify and reach your brand advocates.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Consumers’ reliance on word-of-mouth in the decision-making process – either from people they know or online consumers they don’t – has increased significantly.

According to Nielsen’s (@NielsenWire) latest Global Trust in Advertising report, which surveyed more than 28,000 Internet respondents in 56 countries:

·         92% of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising — an increase of 18% since 2007.

·         70% trust online consumer reviews, an increase of 15% in 4 years.

·         58% (nearly 6-in-10) trust messages found on company websites.

·         Half trust email messages that they signed up to receive.

·         4-in-10 respondents rely on ads served alongside search engine results.

·         36% trust online video advertisements.

·         One-third believe the messages in online banner ads — an increase of 27% since 2007.

·         Sponsored ads on social networks, a new format included in the 2011 Nielsen survey, are credible among 36% of global respondents.

·         Display ads (video or banner) on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones are trusted by one-third of global respondents, which is slightly higher than the reported consumer trust level of text ads on mobile phones (29%). While the reported consumer trust level in mobile phone advertising is still low, it increased 61% since 2007 and 21% since 2009.

·         When it comes to traditional paid media, while nearly half of consumers around the world say they trust television (47%), magazine (47%), and newspaper ads (46%), confidence declined by 24%, 20%, and 25%, respectively, between 2009 and 2011.

Read this in full.

Interestingly (perhaps confusingly), the 92% statistic above contrasts with April 2012 survey results from Ipsos (@ipsosnewspolls & @ipsosna), which finds that, while consumers worldwide may turn to their friends for advice on purchases, only 38% will trust a product or a service more because friends recommend it. Hmmmmmmm!

Possibly our previous blogpost, "Matching the Medium with the Message in Word-of-Mouth Marketing," might shed some light on the confusion.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you communicate your brand’s message through owned media, consigned media, earned media, and paid media.

Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard (and tell others about it, too).

On the heels of Gallup’s assessment of the religiosity by state, American Bible Society (@americanbible) has released findings from its State of the Bible survey (@UncoverTheWord) conducted by Barna Group (@barnagroup), which details Americans’ beliefs about the Bible, its role in society, its presence in US homes, and more.

·         47% of American adults believe the Bible has too little influence in society today; only 16% believe it has too much influence, with the remaining adults expressing neutral opinions

·         55% read the Bible to be closer to God, down 9% (from 64%) in 2011

·         79% believe they are knowledgeable about the Bible but 54% are unable to correctly identify the first 5 books of the Bible

·         46% believe the Bible, the Koran, and the Book of Mormon are different expressions of the same spiritual truths; 46% disagree

·         On average, 85% of US households own a Bible; the average number of Bibles per household is 4.3

·         36% of Americans read the Bible less than once a year or never, while 33% read the Bible once a week or more

·         Younger adults are less likely to perceive the Bible as relevant and useful when compared with older adults.

·         62% of adults age 66 and older believe the Bible contains everything a person needs to know about living a meaningful life, dropping to 54% among boomers (age 47 to 65), 44% among those age 28 to 46, and dropping even further to 34% for those age 18 to 27.

Read this in full.

See the graphic (pdf).

Read the full analysis report (pdf).

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you reach Bible readers.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

The above Infographic is by BzzAgent (@BzzAgent). Enlarge it.

A demographic milestone has been passed that will be important to marketers and publishers. Here’s how The Wall Street Journal puts it:

For the first time in US history, whites of European ancestry account for less than half of newborn children, marking a demographic tipping point that is already changing the nation's politics, economy, and workforce.

Theologian Martin E. Marty suggests,

Insert the word “Religion” next to “Politics” and “Economy” ... and you will have the mix which excites, troubles, and provides new agendas.

According to the WSJ,

Among the roughly four million children born in the US between July 2010 and July 2011, 50.4% belonged to a racial or ethnic group that in previous generations would have classified them as minorities, up from 48.6% in the same period two years earlier, the Census Bureau says. That was the first 12-month stretch in which non-Hispanic white children accounted for less than half the country's births.

The New York Times says,

While over all, whites will remain a majority for some time, the fact that a younger generation is being born in which minorities are the majority has broad implications for the country’s economy, its political life and its identity. “This is an important tipping point,” said William H. Frey, the senior demographer at the Brookings Institution, describing the shift as a “transformation from a mostly white baby boomer culture to the more globalized multiethnic country that we are becoming.”

Read the WSJ article in full.

Read The NYT article in full.

Read Martin Marty’s commentary in full.

Read the Census Bureau news release.

Also see our previous blogposts, “Millennials Aren't Kids Anymore; Plurals Are” and “New Website for Demographic Info.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you reach your brand’s targeted demographic.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

At the 21st Annual Minitex ILL Conference in Minnesota, the director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project (@pewinternet), Lee Rainie (@lrainie), gave the keynote presentation on "Learning in the Digital Age: Where Libraries Fit In."

He discussed the way people use ebook readers and tablet computers, and how those devices are fitting into users' digital lives. His presentation below describes how 3 revolutions in digital technology – in broadband, mobile connectivity, and social media – have created a new social operating system that he calls "networked individualism." And he used the Project's latest findings to help describe how librarians can serve the new educational needs of networked individuals.

How does this new way of learning among your consumers impact your publishing agenda? Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you sort it all out.

And be sure to bookmark, use daily, and tell others about the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.