Every day new studies and whitepapers are published that predict the further rise of user-generated-content (UGC). A key theme is that people are more likely to trust other consumers than marketers.

A recent example from Hotelmarketing.com:

Quite simply, people believe people who are like themselves. People want to hear the opinions and unbiased critiques of like-minded individuals (classic word of mouth). This is the trust component of the decision process being satisfied.

With social networks and consumer content being so readily accessible, satisfying trust is the new industry standard – not marketers spin. The implications of which are enormous now that over 60% of European online consumers take part in social computing activities such as blogging, reading and writing reviews, or taking part in social networking sites.

What most studies fail to mention is that in the world of UGC not all people are created equal. People are different and as a consequence content created by users varies greatly in quality and relevance. UGC has to be relevant and has to come from a trusted source in order to carry more weight than an expert opinion or even a marketing message. In the long run tools and filters will be needed to weed out bad and irrelevant UGC.

Consumers who participate in travel sites that offer user generated content want suppliers to interact with them.

Compete, Inc. today announced findings from its latest study, “Consumer Generated Content in Travel”, which finds that a majority of consumers support a brand responding to consumer generated reviews. Travelers are increasingly turning to their peers as a valued research source and encourage travel marketers to join them in this dialogue.

So you hotels, attractions, restaurants and other suppliers out there: your customers – and potential customers want to hear from you!

Give them what they want, because a lot of money is at stake:

Compete estimates that consumer generated content (CGC) influences over $10 billion a year in online travel. With consumers finding CGC more credible than they do professional reviews or information from travel companies, CGC has emerged as a critical source of travel information.

More on the study at Hotelmarketing.com.

While I did not have a chance to attend the Travolution Summit last week I found a very nice video from the conference.
In it several industry insiders give their perspective of the challenges that the travel industry is facing for the next 12 months.

While the perspectives are for sure tilted towards trends and issues in the online segment some themes emerged across the board:
- UCG, UCG, UCG, UCG – do we need to say more?
- The issue of trust and authority in an online environment
- The impact the whole environmental footprint debate will have
- Rise of video in an online environment
- Creating loyalty

Find the video here.

Maybe we are on to something. Just a hunch. Gut feeling.

PhoCusWright announced today the theme for their next conference and it will be – tata – The Long Tail.

According to PhoCusWright:

Customers communicating with other customers has triggered an unprecedented social networking phenomenon and a resurgence in the Long Tail economy. The Long Tail debunks the old 80/20 rule or Pareto principle. Defending an 80/20 strategy is getting risky. So is automatically dismissing the value of low volume products, under-the-radar channels, small customer groups and obscure key words.

In the Long Tail, embracing niches wins because they cumulatively outnumber or outweigh higher frequency plays. Big companies are successfully harvesting lots of little things while “Davids” are beating “Goliaths” because the size of a reputation matters more than the size of a marketing budget. The alleged “leveling of the playing field” that was supposed to have occurred in the 1.0 world has finally come into its own. Little guys compete on the merits of the products and services, not the size of their marketing budgets. Big guys are all of a sudden at increased risk if they ignore too many little things.

Why do we like to hear this? Well, at GoSeeTell we are betting on the long tail. Instead of building on website we are creating a network of multiple sites that are interlinked while serving different communities.

Niche + network effects = GoSeeTell Network

Brandweek recently had an article about how DMOs are trying to get their arms around user generated content.

“Ad speak and market speak are dead,” said Dale Brill, CMO at Visit Florida, the Sunshine State’s official tourism unit. “Consumers don’t want to hear ad copy. They want to hear first-person from people who are out there.”

It will be interesting to see who the “people who are out there” will be once more DMOs start offering social networking tool. Who will deliver content: consumers or journalists paid by the DMO? Will users be able to share their opinions? Will user generated content be filtered and edited? Time will tell …

Click here to see the Brandweek article.