Word of Mouth?

We have discussed in this class, and many of my other Communication classes how word of mouth is the most effective way to reach people. Blogs play a big part in the idea that people would rather get their information from other people like them rather than marketers.

Lately, I have been running into situations that are quite the opposite. Today, my teammate had ACL surgery. I have had two ACL surgeries and have experience with both the patella tendon and cadaver graphs. After all the terrible stories I told her about how painful the patella tendon is and how much harder it is to rehab and make a comeback, she still chose to use the patella tendon graph because the research showed it was more efficient. I am not the only person who advised her not to use the patella graph including her doctor and trainer. Despite our attempts to tell her form experience, she had her surgery and they used her patella tendon. Ironically, in the same week my mom called me asking about Mac laptops. After I told her all the stories about my friends and teachers who use Macs and love them, she chose to buy a PC because after she researched it she decided that a PC was the better purchase.

After all our talk of word of mouth being the best medium to reach people, I feel like recently that has not been the case. This leads me to question, are their certain decisions we make where we trust the experts over our friends and people with experience? If so, why is this? People with experience know first hand about the product or service you are thinking about purchasing and would have the best input. I guess all people are different, therefore, sometimes we feel as though we should only trust the experts.