{"id":209,"date":"2008-12-02T11:54:16","date_gmt":"2008-12-02T18:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briantroy.com\/blog\/2008\/12\/02\/same-as-it-ever-was-word-of-mouth-still-rules\/"},"modified":"2008-12-02T11:54:16","modified_gmt":"2008-12-02T18:54:16","slug":"same-as-it-ever-was-word-of-mouth-still-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogarchive.briantroy.com\/index.php\/2008\/12\/02\/same-as-it-ever-was-word-of-mouth-still-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Same as it ever was… Word of Mouth still rules."},"content":{"rendered":"

The revolution of Web 2.0 (everyone as a content creator) begot the Social Media<\/a> revolution (discussion as content)…<\/p>\n

Social Media is in the process of birthing a PR\/Marketing and Branding revolution (click here for google results<\/a> if you don’t believe me).<\/p>\n

And that is a good thing… but there is a secret buried in there…<\/p>\n

The secret, of course, is that word of mouth was always the best PR, Marketing and Branding. What has changed isn’t which mechanism is better – the traditional PR\/Marketing megaphone or word of mouth – it is the relative power of the platform.<\/p>\n

When word of mouth was limited to the small group of people any individual customer could interact with over a given period of time you knew, with absolute certainty, that the power of the Megaphone would win. Why? Because your message – clear, repetitive, and powerful – would overwhelm the disjointed, contradictory, and often biased word of mouth.<\/p>\n

The reality was that it didn’t matter if a large segment of your customers didn’t like your product or service. The reality was that 15% of your customers being dissatisfied wasn’t a big deal – because you had the megaphone… and they didn’t. You were in control of your brand, you decided what your brand was and how it would be messaged.<\/p>\n

As an example of the megaphone:<\/p>\n

The megaphone gave you the ability to control the conversation and the perception. Your dissatisfied customers could tell friends, co-workers and family, but their reach was limited and the message was disjointed.<\/p>\n

Social Media effectively neutralizes the megaphone – simply by providing every dissatisfied customer with access to a megaphone equal in size and capability to yours. Ten years ago, no customer could afford a 30 second TV spot or half page print ad – today they can all create YouTube video, blog or Twitter account from which they can tell everyone what they think of your product or service.<\/p>\n

Perhaps most importantly these messages, while lacking in production quality, are 100% authentic. They are not carefully crafted, on message, or chock full of reassuring language – but they are how your customers talk to one another:<\/p>\n

This is the new word of mouth. This is Social Media. This is you no longer being able to control the conversation.<\/p>\n

The irony of this is that for years companies have yearned to tap into their positive word of mouth. And – to be sure – there are voices evangelizing your company, products and services in Social Media. These are the same customers who provided you testimonials before – the only difference is they no longer need your megaphone to be heard.<\/p>\n

The new reality is conversational. Your brand reality is the current state of the conversation. Your PR and Marketing efforts are simply a part of the larger conversation.<\/p>\n

The real question you need to be asking yourself is – am I in the conversation in a relevant way? Am I engaged, empathetic, and listening – or am I attempting to shout down my critics?<\/p>\n

Any effective Social Media branding\/marketing strategy has to include your company engaging in the conversation. You can’t control it, you can only influence it – and the only way to do that is to engage in a meaningful way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The revolution of Web 2.0 (everyone as a content creator) begot the Social Media revolution (discussion as content)… Social Media is in the process of birthing a PR\/Marketing and Branding revolution (click here for google results if you don’t believe me). And that is a good thing… but there is a secret buried in there…… Continue reading Same as it ever was… Word of Mouth still rules.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8,28,34],"tags":[258],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogarchive.briantroy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogarchive.briantroy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogarchive.briantroy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogarchive.briantroy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogarchive.briantroy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogarchive.briantroy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogarchive.briantroy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogarchive.briantroy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogarchive.briantroy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}