Influencing Influencers

In reading several articles and studies concerning the new phenomenon of consumers becoming primary market influencers it's amazing how this simple concept is and how few people realize it.

I consult the Internet every single day even when making simple decisions. Where to eat? Best happy hours? Almost immediately I scroll to where I can find how places were rated. Star systems or consumer comments are often the driving force behind many of my daily decisions, and I never thought twice about it until now.

According to Nielsen’s 2009 Global Online Consumer Survey,  results about the most influencing factors in online shopping yielded that 90% of consumers trusted recommendations from people they knew personally, 70% trusted opinions from other consumers posted online and
70% trusted brand websites.

These results suggest that obviously people are most likely to trust their friends over strangers and brands. But oddly, well known, trusted brands are not any more influential than total strangers who merely post a couple of sentences on a website.

What does this mean for the future of public relations, marketing, and advertising? How can they regain control? How can they influence the influencers?

As a communication student I fear for future employment opportunities. I fear for the fleeting importance of my degree. I wonder if years from now when I'm talking to my grandchildren I'll have to utter the words, "back in my day there were these things we called commercials..."

However as an average American consumer, I think maybe this will be a revolution in terms of the production of honest products. Maybe the fear of truly satisfying customers will result in better products. Maybe this is what we need as a driving force for manufactures to strive to create the best products possible and not crap glorified by advertisers and wrapped in the perfect P.R. package. Maybe this is a step in the right direction.