Recently we highlighted how Coke has lost its status as the most talked-about brand in the US, having held the #1 spot since we began TalkTrack in 2006.  Apple is now king of WOM, in terms of volume at least.

Here in the UK we generally award that status to Tesco, though if sub-brands such as iphone and ipad are included, Apple would claim top spot here, too.  Over 7 million people a day talk about Apple and its products, while Samsung reaches 5 million daily.

The talker profile of tech brands unsurprisingly skews towards younger people, but there are big variations across types of device – for tablets, 60% of WOM impressions are among the over 35s.

Several factors, we believe, contribute to the continued importance of real-world conversation, including:

• A relatively high proportion of conversations at work or college → people are interacting with their peers in a tech-rich environment where stuff is on show and being used

• Have you seen this?  Those sleek designs can be a conversation starter → WOM triggered by seeing a device nearly always takes place face-to-face

• Advice-seeking – a big trigger of conversations about devices;  while some are happy to plough through online reviews, most still seek the reassurance and interaction available from those they know personally

Product and brand experience is another big trigger of conversation for devices – around one in three conversations are triggered by a good or bad experience.  It’s an especially powerful trigger in the case of phones, and as the chart below shows, the experience is by no means entirely positive.

Hence, those niggling phone features or battery failures can have impact beyond irritating users.  Friends and family in the room or at the other end of the phone will become aware of any problems, and while good customer service or online patches might fix problems quickly, the damage may already be done in terms of real-world viral impact.

We know that brand WOM and advocacy is much more prevalent in real-world channels.  In part this is a simple reflection of time spent – an hour a day online leaves 23 hours for real-world interaction.  But we’ve always known that motivations and barriers to posting online are different.

An interesting research study* by Andreas Eisengerich sheds further light on this issue.  The research confirmed that consumers are generally less willing to engage in “sWOM” (WOM in online social media) than in-person, and that a key factor is the greater social risk associated with posting online – a sense that what you post will be used in judgement against you, and will hold you to account.

The research also suggests that people with ‘high self-enhancement needs’ (basically, people who like to be praised a lot!) appear less concerned about these social risks – hence the people who post frequently in social media are likely to be psychologically and emotionally different from the rest of us…

All summed-up beautifully in The Guardian by Sofia Niazi:

*Eisengerich, A.B. et al, Why recommend a brand face-to-face but not on Facebook? How word-of-mouth on online social sites differs from traditional word-of-mouth, Journal of Consumer Psychology (2014)