The Science of Communicating & Marketing Your Business

The separate posts in this arc deal with

• General B2B sites
• General B2C sites
• Various Blogs
• Across All sites we monitor (what we call a "glom")
• Insurance sites
• Medical and Pharma sites
• High end Vacation sites
• Corporate Wikis

Deceitful behavior is both a boundary and defense mechanism. Think of a cat poofing its tale, a dog bristling it's back, things like that. These mechanisms engage to make the animal appear larger than it is. It is, in a sense, being deceitful, making itself appear larger than it is, to protect itself or its territory. Thus, when there are no forms to fill out, et cetera, and ET is picking up fabricational behavior it is an indication site visitors are uncomfortable with the website they're navigating. Similarly, truthful behavior is an indication visitors are comfortable with the website they're navigating.

Let's start back with visitors to B2B sites. Across all general B2B sites in the NextStage system visitors are more truthful when entering information into the site and comfortable navigating the site than not.
Next up is visitors to B2C sites. As above, across all general B2C sites in the NextStage system visitors are not only more truthful than their B2B cousins, visitors are convinced they're not fabricating information and are largely comfortable with the sites they're navigating.
Here we have visitors commenting on blogs. Ahem. People seem to be either uncomfortable when commenting on blogs or fabricating information outright. I'm shocked, aren't you?
This chart is what we call a "glom", meaning it covers all sites in our system. We analyze information from several sectors, verticals and markets, some with only one client and others with several, therefore this glom truly is a glom, an amalgam, of visitors. Think of a delicious stew that has great subtlety and is wonderfully filling and you have the idea.
This chart shows that visitors to online insurers are incredibly truthful in filling out forms and navigating insurance sites. Good job and nicely done, online insurers (at least those in our system), you've managed to build rapport and create relationships with your online visitors that insures comfort and honest dealings. Hooray for you!
Online medical and pharma sites is where we recognize that these reports show more than just visitor truth and fabrication, they also display comfort and discomfort with the information presented on a site. Here we learn that many visitors to these sites are telling the truth when filling out forms and also uncomfortable, perhaps in a state of physical or emotional distress, with their need to be on such sites.
Here we have one of my more fun findings to share with NextStage clients; those who offer high-end vacations. Why is this fun? Because while it might look as if most visitors to these sites are either uncomfortable or making something up, it's more likely the case that they are imagining themselves taking part is some stimulating adventure scenario (I know I could use one right about now...) and that active imagination would be registered as fabricated information.
Our last chart deals with people entering information into corporate wikis. The large majority of people entering data into corporate wikis believe they're offering accurate information. More importantly, nobody entering information into the corporate wikis NextStage is monitoring believes they're making up information.

This report is offered as NextStage Veritas tool. Hate to think I spent a month calibrating and verifying data from various sources, perfecting the math, so on and so forth, for nothing.

Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.

Links for this post:

• The NextStage Reports arc
• The Visitors, Truth, False Information and Personal Information arc

• Society for New Communications Research Annual Research Symposium & Awards Gala on 5-6 Dec 07 in Boston.