benefits | John's Digital Marketing Blog

Word of Moth Marketing or WOMM for short, is exactly what it sounds like, an oral or written recommendation by a customer to another potential customer.
It is regarded as the most effective form of marketing.
For example, the Nielsen global advertising survey, said that in 2013, 84% of the people participating trust in recommendations they hear from people they know (today the number is closer to 92%).

According to Mark Zuckerberg; People influence people. Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend. A trusted referral influences people more than the best broadcast message. A trusted referral is the Holy Grail of advertising.

How to get good word of mouth advertising?
Word of mouth marketing is most successful with brands that are working really hard to do right by their customers. This means a great offering partnered with exceptional customer service. The product needs to be strong, but it is just as important that the staff’s interacting with customers and clients is the best it could be.
Another way to create a good word of mouth is to be unique, have a one of a kind product or creative marketing ideas. Such as the Old Spice commercial on YouTube (below).

This commercial has over 52 Million views of YouTube and is so popular because it is funny and weird which people enjoy. This commercial became even more successful thanks to the power of word of mouth. One person saw it somewhere, and started to refer it to a friend or relative, and so on and so forth (Marrs, 2014).

The most time-consuming way to get good exposure of word of mouth is to become a industry thought leader, which means that a person is engaging in dialogue with existing industry leaders and power players while staying up to date on the latest industry news (Whitler, 2014).

One of the most important things to consider when creating good WOMM is to create a good name. Which means that people appreciate a business that is honest and treat their customers right. Using false advertising or trying to trick their customers will experience in bad WOMM and will ultimately lead to a decrease in sales (Bughin, et.al, 2010).

Lastly, a company needs to create an active social community and engage with their customers online.
The most efficient WOMM power brands, convince costumers that by buying their product, they are making a personal statement and joining special ranks.
The most devoted fans may even refer to favorite brands as “family” since certain products or services become part of a customer’s identity (Whitler, 2014).

Negative Aspects of WOMM?
With everything business do on a daily basis handling negative effects that some campaign or product have is probably one of the most common.
The disadvantages need to be taken into consideration before a company decides to rely on WOMM as their primary method of bringing in business.

WOMM can spread slowly, it takes time for employers and employees to spread the word about the product and it can take even longer to reach out to customers who can then keep spreading the word around. To help this a company can post things on their company blogs or social media platforms to reach out faster (Groeger, et.al, 2013).

Tracking issues is another factor that needs to be considered. It is almost impossible to thoroughly track the amount of business generated by WOMM. Asking customers to fill in a survey is one way to find out, but it does not usually cover as many people as needed for the company to make future marketing plans.

The most obvious negative effect of WOMM is negative feedback. If a customer have a bad experience with your business, it is very likely that they will tell other people of the bad experience and they will in turn tell more people and so on and so forth. It is a increasingly bad experience wave that will lead to a lot of potential customers not buying from a business. The only way to deal with this type of issue, is to prevent it before it happens. Every customer needs to be treated equally and never be treated badly by staff or other (Buttle, et.al, 2014).

Conclusion
In conclusion, WOMM is very effective but can be time-consuming, it is always a good marketing tool, even for online based businesses and it can help a business to get a lot of positive feedback and increase sales.
However, it can go the other way and create bad publicity, it is hard to keep track of and it can be a very slow process.
WOMM needs to be taken seriously by any business in today’s society. It either helps increase sales, but it can also rupture a business with one bad experience.

References
How Powerful Is Word-Of-Mouth, Exactly? – The Definitive Guide To Referral Marketing”.ReferralCandy. N.p., 2016. Web. 9 May 2016.

Bughin, J, J Doogan, and O.J Vetvik. “A New Way To Measure Word-Of-Mouth Marketing”. McKinsey & Company. N.p., 2010. Web. 9 May 2016.

Buttle, F and L Groeger. “Word-Of-Mouth Marketing: Towards An Improved Understanding Of Multi-Generational Campaign Reach”. European Journal of Marketing 48.7 (2014): p1186-1208. Print.

Groeger, Lars and Francis Buttle. “Word-Of-Mouth Marketing Influence On Offline And Online Communications: Evidence From Case Study Research”. Journal of Marketing Communications20.1-2 (2013): 21-41. Web.

Marrs, J. “5 Ways To Wield More Word Of Mouth Marketing Power”. Wordstream. N.p., 2014. Web. 8 May 2016.

“The Disadvantages Of Word Of Mouth Advertising”. Smallbusiness.chron.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 10 May 2016.

“What People Watch, Listen To And Buy | Nielsen”. Nielsen.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 9 May 2016.

Whitler, K.A. “Why Word Of Mouth Marketing Is The Most Important Social Media”. Forbes 2014: 1-2. Web. 8 May 2016.

The short answer to what social media is, according to Lon Safko (2012) it is the media we use to be social.

A social network, trusted network, virtual community, e-community, or online community is a group of people who interact through newsletters, blogs, comments, e-mail, and instant messages. The social network’s goal is to build trust in a given community. Every social network has different levels of interaction and participation among members. This can range from adding comments or tags to a blog or message board posts, to competing against other people in Virtual Gaming.
The ability to intermingle with like-minded individuals instantly from anywhere on the globe, has considerable beneﬁts (Safko, 2012).

The benefits to use Social Media in business
Because it appeared quickly, social media has developed a reputation by some for being a passing marketing interest, and therefore, an unprofitable one.
The statistics, however, illustrate a different picture. According to Hubspot, 92% of marketers in 2014 claimed that social media marketing was important for their business, with 80% indicating their efforts increased traffic to their websites. And according to Social Media Examiner, 97% of marketers are currently participating in social media but 85% of participants aren’t sure what social media tools are the best to use (DeMers, 2011).

For businesses in any industry, the key to success is knowing your audience. Social media makes this possible, and easier to accomplish than ever. With tools like Facebook Insights in Hootsuite (a site which manages all your social media) you can learn the dominant languages spoken among your social media audience, as well as their age and gender. This knowledge can help you cater campaigns and product offers to your target audience, which will provide you a better return on investment (Cisnero, 2014).

(Taken from Hootsuite, 2015)

Social media for business gives you instant access to positive or negative feedback, which provides you with valuable insights on the customer perspective. For example, if you launch a new product and share it on social media, you’ll instantly learn what your customers think of it. Another way to gain customer perspective with social media is by learning how they use your product; brands often base new products or services on their customers’ original ideas.

Another benefit for any business to use social media is the fact that it increases the web traffic of your website. SEO is the best way to capture relevant traffic from search engines, but the requirements for success are always changing. It’s no longer enough to regularly update your blog, ensure optimized title tags and meta descriptions, and distribute links pointing back to your site. Google and other search engines may be calculating their rankings using social media presence as a significant factor, because of the fact that strong brands almost always use social media. As such, being active on social media could act as a “brand signal” to search engines that your brand is legitimate, credible, and trustworthy. That means, if you want to rank for a given set of keywords, having a strong social media presence could be almost mandatory.

Risks for businesses using Social Media

One inappropriate tweet or Facebook post can cause irreparable damage, but should this stop companies from integrating social media into their business?

Social media may cause a risk to a company’s reputation by creating negative publicity. Legal issues may perhaps arise if a company gives an inappropriate comment about another company on a social media platform for instance.
While social media allows a company to interact directly with customers in real time, it also gives those same customers a public platform to voice dissatisfaction.
However, Steve Nicholls, author of the best-selling book “Social Media in Business,” (techxb.com) believes that any form of progress comes with risk and the key is to identify them and overcome them.

Conclusion
As we all know, social media is ever changing, and what was cool yesterday might not be tomorrow (O´Hare, 2011).
The longer you wait, the more you have to lose. Social media marketing, when done right, can lead to more customers, more traffic, and more conversions.
The most important things online are to listen first, and when it’s appropriate to add something to the conversation, you slide it in, just like in the real world.

Sources

Chaney, P (2009). The Digital Handshake, Seven Proven Strategies to Grow your Business using Social Media. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. p185

Cisnero, K. (2014). Benefits of Social Media for Business Every Skeptic Should Know. Available: http://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-for-business/. Last accessed 28th Jan 2016.

DeMers, J. (2014). The Top 10 Benefits Of Social Media Marketing. Available: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/11/the-top-10-benefits-of-social-media-marketing/2/#20e587935232. Last accessed 28th Jan 2016

Hootsuite. (2014). Social media is an easy way to learn about your audience. Available: http://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-for-business/. Last accessed 28th Jan 2016

O´Hare, C. (2011). Utilizing Social Media to Benefit your Company. Available: http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=9ba6ebbb-d440-4845-afa8-62b761d80dc1%40sessionmgr198&vid=1&hid=110. Last accessed 28th Jan 2016

Safko, L (2012). The Social Media Bible. 3rd ed. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.. P537-600

Techxb. (2014). Top five risks companies face when using social media. Available: http://techxb.com/top-five-risks-companies-face-when-using-social-media. Last accessed 28th Jan 2016