Articles in Word of Mouth
Great slide deck from David Armano on Social Business Planning
[slideshare id=10595521&doc=socialbizedelman-111214162029-phpapp01]
Word of mouth marketing is not new. It started around the camp-fire when people debated over what were the best hunting tools, and conversations continued into market places where trade flourished. But since the invention of the TV, which radically changed the way brands spoke to consumers; many big brands have either forgotten or ignored the levers that drive word of mouth marketing.
The science of how you measure word of mouth marketing is still in its infancy, and no doubt organisations like WOMMA will continue to promote various metrics to try to standardise the way word of mouth can be measured. But there are some quite simple initiatives that marketers can do to maximise the word of mouth marketing effect of their campaigns.
Here’s a check-list that it worth considering as part of every campaign or activity, which should help you enhance the word of mouth marketing impact.
Last week Universal McCann released Wave 5 of their yearly social media tracker survey, expanding their data to 53 markets and 37,600 respondents (up from 38 markets and 23,200 respondents in Wave 4)
As usual it’s filled with great information and updated statistics
Omo has combined GPS technology with a prize giveaway promotion as part of their “Try Something New With Omo” campaign. GPS devices are hidden in 50 detergent boxes throughout Brazil and the device is activate4d when the box is removed from the supermarket shelf.
The promotions agency then track the box to the consumer’s home, where winners receive a pocket video camera as well as an invitation for a day of outdoor fun at Unilever’s expense. To help alleviate consumer concerns the promotions team can cause the GPS to start beeping – let’s hope they don’t think it’s a bomb ticking 
Twitter Co-founder Evan Williams talks about the ideas for driving twitter’s growth in the future.
Sweden is known for it’s innovation which not only expresses itself in design, but also in creative campaigns.
Agency Forsman and Bodenfors decided to use one of Facebook’s built in features of “Tagging” to get the word out about Ikea’s Malmo store opening. First, they created a Facebook profile for the store manager, Gordon Gustavsson. Then, over the next two weeks, uploaded images from of IKEA showrooms to his Facebook photo album.
Alan Long, Research Director for Hitwise reports that Social Media Traffic in Australia has nearly caught Search as depicted by the following chart.
Top 10 Social Networks in Australia are shown here, dominated by Facebook which boasts over 8 million Australians.
The net affect is that companies need more than ever to develop a strategy for Listening and Engaging with these networks so that they have the ability to influence consumers.
October 15th is Blog Action Day, where 10,000 bloggers around the world are writing about climate change.
Social Media certainly provides a platform to harness the “collective” due to the global accessibility of internet and the ease of content publication which has given consumers a voice. Cause marketing is certainly one of the early adopters of doing this, and I expect to see a continued growth in corporate sponsorship of these initiatives, demonstrating the merging of social media engagement and PR.
The Economist has published this video which contains a series of interesting statistics about the changing media landscape.
Whilst the stats are US focused, they are representative of the changes that are occuring across the globe.
