A good friend of mine, Hazel Walker over at the Networking Strategist has a great post called Word of Mouth is Always Working. If you read my blog pretty regularly you know that I am a huge fan of two things:
1. word of mouth marketing
2. social media marketing.
There is one point I wanted to take out of Hazel’s blog post and relate it to social media and using social media for brand development. From Hazel’s blog:
“WOM is the most dangerous form of marketing, in that you cannot control people. They may carry the wrong message or a negative message.”
As a social media marketing and design company we try to focus on building messages that can be carried or echoed across many different types of people (you know…something that sticks!). The beautiful thing about social media marketing and the Internet is that you CAN control word of mouth marketing to an extent. Let me step you through a scenario. For sake of argument I will use XYZ company as an example.
Let’s say XYZ decided to create a website for a group of people out of state. Let’s say the project didn’t go so well because of a lack of management on both sides of the issue. We all make mistakes right? They finished up the project and the client decides to spread a “virus” across the channels or the Internet and through their friends:
“XYZ company is the worst to work with! They didn’t even hold our hand and pat us on the head because we took time out of our day to deal with them!”
The truth of the matter? Even though XYZ did an excellent job in saving the project and pushing through to try and satisfy the client… they still spread the “virus.”
The beautiful thing? The client’s friends who are INFECTED will get online and search for XYZ… guess what will come up? Everything good. If you are spending time investing into activity on the Internet, you will find that your content, your best clients content, and your use of social media will hit the search engines first (at least that is what we have found).
Social media marketing is very much rooted in the development of BRAND. If you can figure out how to balance your social media use it will be worth it in the long run. Nothing dissapears on the Internet. 
Have you searched for what people are saying about your company?
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[...] Controlling Word of Mouth Marketing Using Social Media [...]
Kyle,
Your exactly right in saying that social mentions are tied back to your brand. To break it down even further, your brand is an association based on interactions/experiences with your business before and after any transactions or sales.
Social media helps you engage in those conversations and interactions before the “sale” and help you follow through afterwards, especially when people have negative things to say. @comcastcares is a great example of someone who uses social media before and after the actual “transaction”.
Kyle,
I like to think that WOM and Social Media are one and the same. As I have dived into social media over the past few months I’ve come to realize that from a marketing perspective social media marketing is basically just an evolution of WOM. While there can be good old interruption “marketing” with banner ads and such on blogs, facebook, etc., what we’re seeing with users leaving reviews on Yelp!, becoming a fan of a product on Facebook, or blogging about their best or worst experiences with a brand or product is the evolution of WOM.
Now more than ever companies need to focus on WOM marketing in my opinion. This includes social media and the conversations about your brand online.
Thanks for sharing Kyle. Enjoy your day.
Mj
@Mark I completely agree with your point of view. I really think that you have two types of companies… proactive and reactive. The proactive companies have leverage the new form of WOM: social media.
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