Deloitte conducted a survey that shows people are more influenced to buy a product by online consumer reviews of the product rather than direct advertising. That’s not really news, but it does indicate that consumer review sites are pretty valuable. If you can manage to have a few of your satisfied customers go to a site like, say, Yelp and review your business and its products or services then that would go much further than you spending money on display advertising online.

The survey also indicates that people are socializing more online, watching more TV than they did last year, and really want to connect their TV to the Internet. So what does that say?

I think it says that TV isn’t going anywhere. In fact, people are more influenced by TV advertising than they are Internet advertising. And if people are spending time socializing online then you can bet they are talking to their friends. So if you can find a way to get your influence into the social media circles that your potential customers are running in, that would be quite influential. What do you think?