Does it combine your brand traits, with motivating activities and a primed audience?
Does it max out on a few of the 36 reasons why people word of mouth?
Does the experience and follow up match the promise that’s been set up? Does your buzz have longevity?
Are you grabbing the right type and combination of influencer (tastemaker, trendspotter, opinion leader, expert, social ringleader, celebrity) at the right time and motivation?
Do they feel connected to your brand or mission for reasons beyond the freebie – social connection, shared values, ability to express?
Happy to be in hometown recognized as master – whereas my last 2 years have been talking about the socialization of business and Wikibrands – my real roots are brands and word of mouthFor those following at home – the relevant hashtags are below
Whereas some of my fellow members of the blonde guild society have their cuases cleaning up their own neck of the woods – I am focused on my little postage stamp in the world
Ran over 100 engagements over last 7 years as Canada’s – we live, breathe and sleep this stuff – with Facebook less than 8 years old, YouTube less than 7 and Twitter less than 6, the notion that people talk to each other is not new
Over 30 different categories – top three categories for word of mouth – child acre, restuarnants and cars
We wrote a book – some smart people liked it, we’ve been travelling the last 9 months evangelising our business manifesto – would love for you to join us
Get through 17 chapters, the real core idea is that as brand owners, managers, agencies and stakeholders, we are in the middle of the poarticpation age – whereas brands represented important distinctions in the past based on ownership, equity, aspiration, preference or affinity, now the real limus test is are you providing forums for people to engage and particiapte more deeply with your brandThe stats prove it – according to Forrrester, those that engage deeply grow their value by 18% and those that don’t 6% - chicken or egg argument
So we interviewed the top 100 brands doing great work and asked them how they put their social pants on the morningToday we’ll focus on one of their core success factors – word of mouth
I think we’ve all been trained on marketing’s 4Psa for the last 50 years it is has been a marketing stapleWhenever I talk to my colleague Don Tapscott, he believes brands are a much more complicated construct shared between company and users nowadays – we prefer the 13Es as a new model of wikibranding – with the key driver being Evangelism – a true litmus test of a healthy business and brand – would you recommend me to others?
Tretaed as a media, word of mouth in nearly every study you see, is the most trusted, referred, action driving, information seeking vehicle
I loved this morning’s chats about Social Business – from strategy by Chris to infrastructure by Sam – this is no longer excused as a tacticCertainly if you look at a Beatle’s metaphor and their popularity below in terms of Google searches, social business might not be everybody’s favourite topic like John Lennon but it is the high ground for effective use of social media and new technology
If you thought I would expound on the nittygritties of usingKlout vs. peerIndex, hosting communities on Salesforce vs. Lithium , measuring on Radian vs. Sysomos, sorry to upset but think again….it’s really the sociology and psychology of business and its customers that is the main gap
So before we go on a pretty heady WoM trip, I wanted to profeer to you that in a social tech, word of mouth world there really are 4 overriding laws, the Hammuraboi code, the 10 commandments of the social net so to speak
The first law is awesomeness – we truly don’t notice or talk about stuff that is above average or even good anymore, we are deluged with that – what we talk about is the 1% of stuff that we find fascinating and relevant (and maybe the 0.5% of stuff that really really offends us) – loved our fellow friend and canadian author neilpasricha who wrote a best seller on the topic Loved some of his 1000 acts of awesome from his blog – out of last 100, here are two of my faves , although personally hated #1000 Broccolflower
Three things I’ve been word of mouthing about in Toronto – Prvada Vodka bar, NuitBlache all night festival from alst week and Roncesvalles new restaurnat scene including new smkehouseBarque and authentic pizzeria Pizza Defina
I’ll prove the law of awesomeness, who was first person to fly across Atlantic
Of 50 attrubytesSpice Route - It makes peeing feeel like a religious experience
We are pre-wired to talk – what social media has done is make it easy for usThe average person has 2 really close friends, 8 close friends and 33 social friends, if you are on facebook/Twitter/LinkediN you now have 385 friends
My colleague Emanuel Rosen wrote a two great bnooks on the subject of buzz and he nails it – we have 6 basic reasons why we like to talk…and they mimic some of the key social networks/websites we like to useEvery brand owner should ask why their users fundamentally want to buy and spend time with them
Contrary to fly by night, coupon clippers and deal hunters, the real core of your brand social squad will join your community for fundamentally social reasons
If I look at myself vs. the me from 20 years ago – my social network has feasibly expanded by a factor of 5,000 through my links to social networks
And it is deplorable that as a nation, our businesses are dragging their feet when our customers are the most primed for engagement in social media – we are at the top of the ranks of all key usage points online and in social media
We need to be real at this stuff, there is a new higher order benfit customers are seeking out and it is a sense of realness and soul behind the business, brands, people and causes we support – part of more scrutiny and part if there are less of them, brands that know themselves and are perceived by their customers as the realk thing – social media elevates authenticty
More than TV, radio, print or any other medium, word of mouth and social media is an experiential medium – whereas the others you might be able to create and particpate without a rich understanding of each medium, this one is different
Shocking, but buisness is coming around
In a world of great noise and consumer overburden, where customers can increaisngly filter the branded message out, word of mouth is the great enabler, we rely more than ever on our friends and people like me
This is what your NEWcustomers’s basic needs are – it’s not quality or relaiability anymore – they want to be involved, they have a high standard, low tolerrance for slowness and will exact a tool when you don’t meet it now publicly
The sad reality is that we all think its important and many think we deliver a good one, only a small fraction of customers ageree
I am a Seahawks fan – sadly only 4 of us in town – but you noticed the best sports teams have communities around their brands even in different cities – Red Sox Nation, Yankee Pride, The Mnchester United red Devils