A recent Ladies Home Journal study found that female shoppers think more highly of friends opinions than any paid advertising. A personal reference or experience from someone they know in most cases led directly to a purchase decision. And this cut across age groups as peer influence was proven to be age agnostic. If we did not know it already this reinforces the case for social media campaigns where relationships and opinions rule. In consumer and business-to-business markets a positive reference from a third-party source - close relationship even better - is going to have more impact than paid advertising. Structuring an integrated blog with social media to spur this conversation is strategy awaiting the numbers in the info-graphic below to be leveraged.

Source: Adweek

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