Generating Word of Mouth with Social Media

Melissa Pelto MA Six Degrees Communications

Social Media is…

Participatory online media where news, photos, videos and podcasts are made public via social media websites through submissions. Normally accompanied with voting process to make media items “popular”

Wikipedia Friday, January 12, 2008

….. but really social media is a conversation"

Word of Mouth

Word of mouth is a reference to the passing of information from person to person. Originally the term referred specifically to oral communication, but now includes any type of human communication, such as face to face, telephone, email, and text messaging.

Wikipedia January 12, 2010

Word of Mouth Core Concepts"

•  Everyone talks about products and services o Not about celebrities- it is about everybody o Mom Bloggers

•  Fundamentally different from other “alternative” forms of marketing o Honest, genuine sharing of opinions o Can be stimulated but not controlled

Word of Mouth Core Concepts

• Word of mouth proliferates in unpredictable ways o Tickle Tap Apps in the Globe and Mail

•  There are limited word of mouth windows o There has to be something new or noteworthy

• Word of mouth is product story telling o People tell stories about their experiences and

the marketing messages get woven into the stories and changed in the process

Word of Mouth Core Concepts

• Word of mouth does not have to be good or bad o Can provide an opportunity for a company to

gain credibility, create loyalists and bring out quiet advocates

• Word of mouth is the basis for a new approach to marketing

•  Third party credibility!!

Social Media Revolution

Social Media Core Concepts

•  Engaging with communities •  Spin vs. relevance •  Value added •  Becoming an information hub •  Genuine conversations- communicating with, not

to •  Dialogue •  Transparency •  Relationships •  Conversation tools and networks

SocialMedia

Social Media Tools

• Blogs • Micro Blogging o Twitter o Tweetdeck o Hootsuite

• Facebook •  Personal Pages •  Fan Pages • Groups •  Events •  Causes

Blogs

•  A blog is a “web log” •  Type of website usually maintained by an

individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video

•  Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order

•  Contains tags and categories •  One of the most pervasive forms of social media •  Not every blog is created equal

Bottle and a Cork

Types of Blogs

•  Personal o ongoing diary or commentary by an individual

•  Corporate and Organizational o Internal- communication o External- marketing, branding and PR

•  By Genre o Travel Blogs

Types of Blogs

•  By Device o Defined by which type of device is used to

compose it o Moblog- a blog composed from a mobile

device

•  By Media Type o Vlog o Photoblog

Wine Library Vlog- Gary Vaynerchuk

Corporate and Organizational Blogs

•  Delight your audience •  Demonstrate openness •  Express goodwill •  Provide thoughtful leadership •  Mitigate PR damage risks •  Control the conversation in

your market •  Develop a product with

customers in real time

•  Harness the power of rapid response

•  Casually release products and get feedback

•  Create word of mouth marketing

•  Amplify a strategic message •  Use blog as a competitive

positioning tool to create visibility and

Jeremiah Owyang discusses how to get the most out of business blogging in “Web Strategy: How to Be a Corporate Blog Evangelist:

Blog Community

•  Blogosphere o The collective community of all blogs is known

as the blogosphere

•  Blog Search Engines o Technorati- most popular blog search engines,

provides current information on both popular searches and tags used to categorize blog posting

o Google Blog Search

Twitter (Micro Blogging)

•  Send and read messages known as tweets

•  Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters

•  Displayed on the author's profile page

•  Delivered to the author’s followers

•  Internet Text Message •  @username •  #hashtag •  RT@username

www.twitter.com

Tools for managing tweets

•  Tweet Deck •  www.tweetdeck.com

•  Software for managing accounts

•  Can program searches to monitor twittisphere

Tools for managing twitter accounts

•  Hootsuite •  Professional

twitter client •  Allows you to

manage more than one twitter account

Facebook

•  Social Networking site where users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves

•  Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region

•  As of January 2009, facebook was the most used social networking site

Facebook Pages

•  Personal Pages •  Fan Pages •  Groups •  Events •  Causes

Personal Pages

Fan Pages

Creating Fan Pages

Groups

Creating Groups

Events

Creating Events

Causes

Creating Causes

Facebook Advertising

Once upon a time….

Bitches Who Brunch

Bitches Who Brunch Events

Bitches who Brunch on Twitter @bitchesbrunch

Bitches who Brunch Blog"www.bitchesbrunch.wordpress.com

Objectives of Campaigns

•  Increasing revenues from new sources?

•  Engage current supporters?

•  Build awareness? •  Recruit volunteers?

Audience

•  Who is your audience? •  What kinds of social

media do they participate in?

•  What are they talking about?

•  How can I add value to the conversation?

Measurements

•  Google Alerts •  Hash Tags •  Facebook Fans •  Twitter Followers •  Web Traffic •  Blog Comments •  Brand Sentiment

Social Media Revolution