SNCR announces 2008 winners

Those forward-thinking Fellows of the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) have announced their choices for their awards this year.

Visionary of the Year:
Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, whose book Groundswell sits on many of my peers' bookshelves (and mine included, when I get it back from a client I lent it to)

Innovator of the Year:
Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams the founders of Twitter.
(Which I mist admit to using, but less-so recently)

Brand of the Year:
Dell, for making the most in-roads to using new communications technologies, etc.
(E.g. For Dell Idea Storm, PR Blog, etc.)

Note: I'll obviously take credit for mentioning all of these winners in this blog and therefore expect my honorary membership to be in the post tomorrow [grin].

Customers share experiences

According to the recent report by the Society for New Communications Research on the link between Customer Care and Brand Reputation in the Age of Social Media:

• 59.1% of respondents use social media to “vent” about a customer care experience
• 74% choose companies/brands based on others’ customer care experiences shared online
• 81% believe that blogs, online rating systems and discussion forums can give consumers a greater voice regarding customer care, but less than 33% believe that businesses take customers’ opinions seriously

This report clearly shows that there is a growing group of highly desirable tech-savvy consumers who use social media to research companies & products. These individuals will clearly not use companies with bad reputations for customer care and are quite prepared to tell others online about their views.

It should not be news for companies that these people exist. But it should provide insight into who they are and what they do.