In light of the growth of paid blog reviews, the growing recognition of the power of user reviews, and the the current hub-bub about disclosure of advertising … I found this interesting:

Time.com: Word on the Street

I came across this article while reading the current edition of TIME magazine. It talks about that same point as above — the growing power of user reviews and personal recommendations, particularly from close friends and family members. Procter & Gamble is actually hiring regular people like you and me — hundreds of thousands of them! — and paying them to tell friends about the company’s products.

The article’s focus is on offline word-of-mouth marketing, and it makes an interesting tie-in to what’s happening online:

Even in the era of MySpace, some 90% of word of mouth still happens off-line, according to research by both P&G and the consultancy Keller Fay Group. Breaking it down, Keller Fay found that 18% of word-of-mouth marketing took place on the phone, and 72% face to face, despite the ubiquity of electronic communication. Or perhaps because of it. Inundated by marketing messages, says Tremor CEO Steve Knox, “consumers have gone back to their most trusted source–family and friends.”

If you’re interested in user reviews and word-of-mouth marketing as I am, it’s a good read. And if you’re interested in small business marketing, I assume you’re interested in reviews and word-of-mouth….

[tags]word of mouth marketing, user reviews[/tags]