Social Media: Empowering Word-Of-Mouth

There are many different methodologies for fostering growth in a company. The key to realizing success is to implement a process that will bring the maximum growth with the least effort and resources.

Social media can be used to enhance word-of-mouth marketing as much as (or better than) good customer service. Social media encompasses technologies such as websites, blogs, RSS feeds but really comes down to the big three social media giants of Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Because of the ever-changing nature of new technology, the tactics for social media shift regularly. Even with the changing tactics, the core principles stay the same.

Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Word-of-mouth marketing has been around in essence since the invention of the first product that needed to be sold. On a placard near the door of a local physical therapist’s office, I found the sentence “The best compliment our patients can give is to refer a friend.” This form of marketing is inherently word-of-mouth. It is not about doctors referring patients because the doctor’s have been wined and dined. It is about patients referring other patients because they feel an emotional connection.

In an effort to increase revenues, many companies conduct customer satisfaction surveys to find out how they can increase these levels. They have a hope that if the customer satisfaction levels increase, revenues will soon follow. Gallup has conducted research that indicates, “If you don’t make an emotional connection with customers, then satisfaction is worthless.” Creating that emotional connection is key to developing customers that are willing to fight for your cause.

Your goal should be to create customer evangelists. Customer evangelists will sell your services for you. Customer evangelists will stick with you during your hard times. No matter what product you sell, whether you are selling to customers or businesses, everyone buys on emotion. You have to connect your cause with something that your customers care about. Whether you’re a Mac owner and your cause is sticking it to the man (i.e. Bill Gates), or Disneyland and your cause is fun, wholesome entertainment for families, your evangelists have to have something to believe in.

Websites are a critical component to building a business in today’s marketplace and are a great tool that can help to build the emotional connection with customers. Customers are more sophisticated than ever so the key is to ensure that the website has relevant content that adds to the user’s experience and provides information that the customer needs/wants to see.

Building relevant content that the customer needs to see can be difficult. As difficult as relevant content development can be, your website is really the foundation for your social media efforts. For your website, it is important to remember that something looking pretty has never been enough of a reason to include it on a website. The website needs to be pertinent and relevant to what customers need and want to know. You can then use social media to properly distribute that content.

Blogs

Blogging is one of the purest forms of word-of-mouth marketing. Blogging allows for the marketer to develop a website that provides customers with relevant, timely information and, by using the website, the marketer can publish that information. Traditionally, blogs have been published via RSS, which allows people to subscribe to content via an RSS reader or email. More and more often, customers are turning to social media outlets to find their new information. They expect their social media timeline to give them the information they need when they need it.

Blogs are not limited to just editorial content. Blogs encompass any type of timely information such as news stories, client case studies and other routinely updated content. Blogs can help shape the way clients use your website to gather the most relevant information when they need it. Social media allows your customers to more readily find that information and engage in conversation surrounding that content.

Social Media

Both the company and customer benefit from a more personalized account of what’s happening. The reason this is true is because of the sophisticated nature of customers today. Customers do not want to be spoon fed information; they want to be a part of the conversation. Treating customers as an equal instead of people that just do not have the knowledge or understanding will allow them to feel a part of the conversation.

As mentioned before, blogs allow you an opportunity to create postings that are timely and relevant to today’s news and information. Social media allows for customers to return back comments to allow for an online two-way conversation that all can be a part of.

The best part about social media is that it works both ways. In order to provide the most relevant information to your customers, you can post comments to other blogs and social media postings just as easy as you can create your own post. You have the ability to contribute to conversations that others have started just as well as starting your own conversations. People want to talk about what you are interested in… you just have to find them.

What next?

What is the best way to move forward from here? Developing a website that incorporates constantly updated content that integrates with social media is not as simple as creating a static site on the Web. It requires planning. The content needs to be relevant but it also needs to be presented in a way that customers want to see it. Developing a strategy for what information is important to your customers is more important than how to incorporate the technology. The technology is the easy part once the content is understood.

Your next step is to ensure that your company has an appropriate Web presence that encourages your evangelists to talk to you and more importantly, talk positively about you.

Conclusion

Word-of-mouth marketing is the most efficient and effective way for growing a business in today’s sophisticated marketplace to increase brand awareness as well as increase revenues and profits. Social media empowers word-of-mouth marketing by growing your message virally and organically because your message spreads from user to user rather than every customer hearing directly from an advertising source. Incorporating a blog and social media with your website, then actively managing them, can help to distribute relevant content to customers that are most interested in hearing what you have to say. A marketer just needs to identify what he wants to say.

Word-of-mouth marketing does require your customer to spread the word on behalf of the your company. When your customer feels an emotional connection, the word will spread virally and organically. A website integrated with social media can help to unite people of like minds in a two-way conversation that can lead to transactions.