In a previous post, I mentioned that one of the most basic concepts behind social media, in any of its forms, is simple word of mouth; this is truly the most reliable and quickest way for a brand to advertise. In the past, traditional advertising was mainly used to attract attention to a brand, but the rise in use of social networking has added a new dimension to WOM. It is all about creating buzz, which is the key element of Social Media Marketing. It replicates the message a business hopes to promote through user-to-user interaction.

On Facebook, for example, I can tell people about everything I like with just the click of a button. This is done by becoming a “fan” of something. I can become a fan of Raw Cookie Dough (a “product”), Rachel Kemble Photography (a “professional service”), and Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots Program (a “non-profit”), just to name a few! My friends on Facebook will be able to see the things I like. Additionally, I could share a link to a product or brand, or just talk about it in my status update. A simple update such as “Anyone seen the movie Avatar yet?” could spark a conversation about the movie between a few friends and myself. It could also remind someone else–who reads but does not respond to my status update–that he has been meaning to get to the theater to see that movie. This is effortless brand recognition for the producers of the film.

The Word of Mouth Marketing Blog at gaspedal.com suggests starting conversations among fans by giving “small gifts they can share, extra free samples, or even stationery.” This strategy worked on me when Starbucks offered its Facebook fans a free pint of coffee ice cream, simply for sharing the link to Starbucks on my page. Gaspedal.com sums up: “Like many great word of mouth strategies, this technique works best when the conversation isn’t specifically about you.” This Starbucks campaign was about them, but it was also most definitely about me and my love of (free) ice cream.

How does WOM work in these subtle ways in your own life?

An illustration of the buzz effect

Buzz or Viral Marketing are definitely up there in the popular psyche at the moment. The question is what do such campaigns buy you? How is buzz different from the everyday word of mouth (WOM) conversations that people have about your brand?

To my mind they are very different. Great word of mouth comes from having a great product and the perception that you listen to your customer. In other words people love your brand. The obvious example of the moment is Apple. Their customers are passionate about their products because they deliver excellent design, novelty and they are backed up by good service. Their customers show off their products to all their friends and family. They advocate for them. Those conversations are what build reputation.

A 2009 study by the Keller Fay Group showed that over 90% of all WOM conversations in the US take place offline. The analysts estimate that 3.5 billion brand related WOM conversations take place on a daily basis. 75% of these are face to face, 17% on the phone and only 7% via technology (online, instant messaging, email and blogs). This means that offline word of mouth conversations remain a very important part of the way brands are discussed.

In many ways the results from a gimmick based viral campaign are more spectacular. It is a great way to create awareness of a brand. However the value does not sustain. If by building up your reputation with your customers you can create advocates for your brand then those advocates create a buzz all of themselves. This self fulfilling, sustainable engagement about your brand must be the ultimate goal of every business.

There have been some excellent results from viral marketing. Blendtec
was a case in point, where an essentially solid product was given the exposure it needed via a viral campaign. However to build on this success they have had to go on to deeply engage with these customers.

At SociaLNK we believe in building strong word of mouth strategies for our customers to enable them to create long term engagement with their brand.

The latest hype on the internet in the tech world seems to be around Google Wave. Google have been very clever in the past about the way that they build up the buzz around their products. They managed to hype up gmail before they delivered it. Google maps was also a real lesson in excellent Public relations. When it first came out it was reported on television news throughout the world. Of course on the whole they are promoting absolutely top notch “free” products to an audience who are completely behind what they are trying to do. However it is probably worth taking a look at what they do to tray and gain insight into how to create a “buzz” in today’s social media world!

For Google Wave the  first public relations exercise was to hold a developer conference last May in which they presented Google wave to an audience of 4000 developers for 80 minutes. They gave each member of the audience an account and password with access to the API. The talk was then  put up on YouTube – uncut with all the stammering and stalling of a buggy demo. This was an exercise is real openness and transparency, inviting the community right into the center of their development process. The buzz started right away!

The technology is fairly outstanding. As Google explain they wanted to rethink the basic constructs behind email. Email was designed 40 years ago before blogs, wiki’s, web sites, instant messaging, mobile phones or social media. It is an old robust technology. So with Wave they have rethought the concept into a new platform. The proposed platform is open source so any developer or company will be able to develop on it. Googles argument for creating it is that it needs to be done! Of course it will do absolutely no damage to their reputation as class A tools developers! This is reputation management at its highest level.

Google Wave allows users to create “Wave” documents which they can share with groups of people. These can be edited synchronously or asynchronously. In other words some of the group can be online, whilst others can be offline. A nice way to describe this is as asymmetric  i.e. not all users are in the same mode. Wave documents be turned into blog posts. In this way the creator can reply to comments from directly within their “Wave” client. Another lovely feature is that you can playback the creation of the wave document so that you can follow the discussion as it develops. In other words this tool merges email, blogging tools, IM tools, shared content creation tools.

Google’s next public relations step has been to offer invitations to 100,000 valuable users. They then allowed each of these to invite 8 of their friends and colleagues. Again building a network of feedback and buzz around the product. They are now starting to issue further invitations. My colleagues and I here at SociaLNK have signed up and are waiting for our invites! If the User Interface is any good this could be a new phenomena in social media.

I just heard news that Facebook are making some design changes. Facebook users hate change so it will be fascinating to watch the buzz this time around. Earlier this year I really enjoyed watching how Facebook users used all the social media tools at their disposal to create a fuss. The last changes were quite big ones centred around how the “home” page displayed data. Interestingly we all got used to the new style fairly quickly and personally I can’t imagine it any other way now!

Web News Service, thenextweb managed to get some early pictures of the new design. The changes are once again on the “Home” or Newsfeed page but not nearly as drastic as last time around. The publisher box at the top has been removed, users will now have to click a button. In a way this gives more space for news so I can see the value of that. It also adds a “Top News” feature which seems to be the most “popular” new messages – I can see that this would useful. The more friends you have the more difficult it is to track the interesting conversations. Such filtering to find out where the buzz is in your facebook network could be fascinating.

 Facebook responded to thenextweb’s newsfeed by saying “We are currently testing different designs of the News Feed and the home page with select users. The tests help us understand if we can make it easier for users to balance both the most important and the most recent information from people they’re connected to.”

Have to say I am glad that they are doing some usability testing on the site before inflicting the change onto the general public. Facebook is a really important tool in our work here at SociaLNK – anything that damages it damages us.

It is interesting to try and speculate what the next changes in Facebook might be … a bit like this “Top News” filter I could imagine visual tools or filters that allowed you to identify new posts around a particular topic. These more powerful ways of providing information scent as to where the “buzz” lies is obviously an area that Facebook are looking at. All of this is good news for Social Media Marketing!

One of the leaked pictures