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210 Managing Customers Through Economic Cycles

● 41% of Internet users read blogs.
● 47% of the time people spend on the Internet is spent

looking at content.
● 33% of the time is spent communicating.

And most telling for businesses:

● 91% of users are likely to buy and make recommenda-
tions online.

Ms Delobelle’s research also shows the growing importance
of social networks:

● Twitter has one million users with three million messages
per day.

● Linkedin has 19 million users.
● MySpace has 110 million users.

Collaborative: Originally the Internet was seen as a one-
way medium. Consumers could find information; businesses
could send out information. That has been transformed. It’s
now a two-way vehicle that enables collaboration and true
conversations.

Given that trust is a core need before a consumer will
purchase, the collaborative nature becomes even more
important when you consider the Edelman Trust Index on
various groups, according to which the following percent-
ages of people expressed trust:

● Public Relations Person – 20%
● CEO – 29%
● Academic – 57%
● Industry analysts – 59%
● Peers – 70%.

The pervasiveness of the Internet makes “word of mouth”
exponentially important as it has supercharged consumers’