Many argue that word-of-mouth marketing is the most sustainable and powerful way to grow anything. In a global study by the Nielsen Company, 78% of consumers reported that they trusted recommendations from other consumers more than any other form of advertising. When it comes to anything in the new media world, I believe successful world of mouth is the determining factor in any new media company’s success. Why? People talking about new media are using new media; thus, they are the easiest to reach, spread the word and catalyst to grow your message.
In 2006, Sernovitz proposes in his book “Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking.” <– Amazon affiliate link to the book that there are essentially 4 rules of WOM marketing. They are:
(1) Be interesting
(2) Make People Happy
(3) Earn Trust and Respect
(4) Make it easy.
When it comes to word-of-mouth (or word of content) marketing in the digital world, earning trust and respect (rule #3) and making it easy to share (rule #4) still hold very true to the online world. Being interesting (rule #1) and making people happy (rule #2) however, just do not cut it in a new media world. I would argue the rules of word-of-mouth marketing in the new media world are as follows:
(1) Be Sharepelling (I’ll explain so read on)
(2) Make People Feel A Lot of Something
(3) Earn Trust and Respect (unchanged and very true)
(4) Make it easy. (unchanged and very true)
So why have the first two rules changed when it comes to word-of-mouth marketing?
New media and digital channels have dramatically changed marketing strategies and tactics. What works in a digital world is different than what works offline. People feel different about communicating digitally than they do about traditional communication. It is the new media world’s transparency and sharability, among other things, that greatly change people’s feelings about communicating via new media channels.
1. Old Rule: Be interesting; New Rule: Be Sharepelling: Sharepelling content is content that you are incredibly compelled to share.
Sharepelling = sharable + compelling
The original rule was “be interesting” however, being interesting is no longer enough. Why? We’re in an information age where there is an overload of interesting content. Moreover, people’s attention spans have dramatically decreased and there is so much information and content floating around that being interesting is simply not enough to get people talking in the digital space.
Mobile applications, videos, games, blogs, vlogs, facebook apps, the list goes on and on and will continuously be evolving. SearchEngineWatch.com estimated approximately 213,000,000 searches done each day in 2006 and it is reasonable to say that it has grown exponentially from that number stated four years ago. Each search will return thousands if not millions of pieces of content. And that is just search!
In a new media world people rely on search, their friends on social networks, and other online media channels to hear about things happening in the digital world. Search engines rank content based on how much people are talking about you, talking with you, and linking to you. Top applications only become top applications if people are using them and talking about them and sharing them. Videos only get views because people are passing them along to their social networks. Blogs only become successful because their readers find their content compelling enough to subscribe and share. Social networks, like Facebook, only become valuable because their users help grow it by getting their friends to join. Facebook’s value would drop to $0 if everyone decided to deactivate and remove their profiles.
Essentially, the only reason these bits of digital content get traction and create any value what-so-ever is because their users are talking. In order to get people talking about you or your company in the new media space, you need to create give them something that is not only interesting, but compelling enough to share, or as I coin the term, “Be Sharepelling”.
2. Old Rule: Make people happy vs. New Rule: Make people feel a lot of something. Feeling a lot of something is the revised #2 rule to get people talking about you or your company. Why? We don’t always share things online that make us happy. We share things that make us feel a lot of something. What that something is depends on what your trying to get people talking about. They key phase here is “A Lot”.
Think about this for a second. What did you tweet today or this week? Did it make you happy? Perhaps. Did it make you feel productive, smarter, cautious, intrigued? Maybe that as well. Whatever you discussed did not necessarily make you happy but it made you feel enough of something to pass it along for other people to feel it too. We share things when we are angry sometimes if we want to invoke change or action. We share things because we feel fear sometimes because we want others to be aware and be cautious. There are a variety of feelings that make us share but they do not always have to make us “happy.” The key is to create a message that evokes a lot of some type of feeling because people, by nature react to feelings. They sometimes become emotions (which is great for branding) or sometimes they just compell people to do something like get rid of the feeling or spread it or pass it on. That’s great too.
The bottom line for this rule is that if you want to get people talking about you or your company in the new media space than you have to create a message that makes people feel a lot of something.
3. Earn Trust and Respect. This still holds very true as the only reason you get people listening to you is if you earn their trust. Chris Brogan bases an entire book on how critical trust is. In the book, “Trust Agents,” <–Affiliate link to see and get the book, he proposes that a major necessity for any new media influence is building trust with who your trying to reach. You build trust in the new media world practically the same way you do on the physical plane, over time. It takes time, energy and commitment to build it. Two key pointers for this rule are as follows:
- Be honest: We learned this in pre-school. As always, you have to be honest about your intentions. If you want to spread a message or piece of content, be honest about it, don’t spam. Ask for help, you’d be surprised at how willing your online contacts are willing to help you out. You just have to ask politely and offer the same kinds of help in return, it’s good karma.
- Be available: Being available is important. Your online networks need to be able to contact you. Think about it. The exchange of business cards is your first step to building a relationship in the professional word. When it comes to online relationships, giving your audience ways to contact you in a variety of ways makes you more trust worthy. Of course, you have to follow up appropriately and that takes some energy.
For more info on building trust and respect online, read David Airy’s post on 5 easy steps for building trust online.
4. Make it Easy. This is still very true. When it comes to bloggers you first want to answer any questions about intellectual property with some type of online license like creative commons so people know that they can share your stuff without breaking laws. Then get a button. If you want people to talk about you or your company, you need to make the message easy to share on all the social media networks people are using. “Tweet this” “Email This” “Share this”, there are so many tools and buttons out there to make it easy. If you’re interested I’ll post a brief on all the great plugins I’ve come across to achieve this function. Just let me know.
Conclusion:
Word-of-mouth marketing is a powerful and very sustainable way to get people talking about you or your business. New media is and will continue to rapidly change and this has therefore changed the rules of word of mouth marketing as it applies to the digital space. In order to successfully get people talking about you or your company on digital channels you need to follow these new rules as well as the two old rules:
1. Be Sharepelling: Your content must be Compelling enough to Share. Compelling + Sharing = Sharepelling
2. Make People Feel A Lot of Something: Your content must evoke a strong emotion that people want to pass on.
3. Earn trust and respect. Always true.
4. Make it easy. Always true.
For more ideas and tips on social media optimization to get people talking about your businesses be sure to subscribe to Social-Capitalist
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