Society for Word of Mouth

The Society for Word of Mouth helps people build word of mouth into the DNA of their organizations using social media.

Members

  • Krystal Walker
  • Tony Caridi
  • Author Stephanie Morris
  • Rachel Pradhan
  • Mark Gordon Wolf
  • Christine Grogan Taylor
  • Doctor Larry
  • vinbeazel
  • Lisa Taylor
  • Ben McConnell
  • Paul Johnson
  • Andrew Schulkind
  • Aivar Ruukel
  • Christian Wolf
  • S
  • Spaige

Getting started on SWOM

5 ways to participate:
1. Introduce yourself in the Lobby
2. Join or start a discussion in the Forum
3. Join one or several specialty groups
4. Sign up for a webinar
5. Write a blog post

Groups

Church of the Customer blog

Money vs. gold

The hubbub surrounding Moonfruit giving away 10 Macs over 10 days on Twitter is a good lesson for marketers on money vs. gold. Give away money and people will question your motives or simply yawn with boredom. Give away gold -- like a pallet of Macbook Pros, or tickets to the Michael Jackson memorial service -- and they'll line up...

WOM won't wait 'til Monday

Buzz isn't scheduled, especially bad buzz. Thanks to Twitter, it can snowball into an avalanche of angry buzz after hours or during a weekend, just in time for the Monday morning news, as Amazon and Motrin recently learned. (Recent bad buzz for Domino's began on a Monday evening.) The bigger the company, the more likely the inevitable unhappy Tweet that...

Hype vs. excitement

Hype is: Excitement is: An impossible promise A realistic promise Sales-driven Value-driven Exclamation points Passion Obnoxious Contagious Cause for mistrust Cause for belief Overuse of adverbs Adverb-free Narcissistic Optimistic Segway Bike Friday Contrived Authentic Unsustainable Fuel for the future How would you describe hype vs. excitement?
 

Blog Posts

Ben McConnell

When people talk about *blank*

Fun video that puts word of mouth and evangelism into context (via Charlene).

Continue

Posted by Ben McConnell on July 1, 2009 at 11:30am

Kim Proctor

Social media case study/ growing conference attendance

Learn from this example of how to grow conference attendance by giving registered attendees extra value with social networking tools.

Read this case study of leveraging social media as a conference benefit/ value.

ps. This case study highlights the Ning social networking platform. The conference in this study was the Southern California Business Growth Conference put on by LAVA and the Harvard Business… Continue

Posted by Kim Proctor on June 23, 2009 at 10:50pm

Ben McConnell

Viral culture: It's about nanostories

Good Q&A with Bill Wasik, the originator of flash mobs and a number of other viral cultural experiments, and his belief why some things take off and others don't.

The short answer is, naturally, a good story. The even better answer is: nanostories -- small, yet telling details that become a story when the big picture-story is too big to grasp.

Q: Does our fixation with nanostories make us less able to focus on the mega-stories, the long-term problems such as global warming or the ecoContinue

Posted by Ben McConnell on June 15, 2009 at 7:03pm — 2 Comments

Ben McConnell

An emerging metric: The GoodGuide score

A non-profit website founded and staffed by academics and researchers is giving consumer products a score based its health, environmental and social impacts.

GoodGuide is growing quickly in scope and influence, and its work may usher in a new metric: social value. You could say social value is how well a company practices good corporate stewardship, something that early adopters and buzz-spreaders often concern themselves with.

For GoodGuide, responsible… Continue

Posted by Ben McConnell on June 15, 2009 at 3:26pm

Ben McConnell

Why do Hispanics trust word of mouth less than whites when it comes to restaurants?

When it comes to word of mouth influence on purchase decisions and ethnicity, there are few differences, except for one category: restaurants.



When it comes to restaurant decisions, whites tend to be influenced by word of mouth more so than other groups, especially hispanics. Th… Continue

Posted by Ben McConnell on June 10, 2009 at 4:00pm

Ben McConnell

Of 12 industries, 4 generate more negative buzz than positive

Forrester asked 4,500 people about their reasons for talking about brands in 12 different industries and found that the answers depend on the industry and the talker's approximate age. For instance:


  • More people tend to share positive experiences than negative ones for brands in 8 of the 12 industries covered. The four bad buzz-driven ones? Credit card providers, health insurance plans, Internet service providers, and TV service providers. Makes sense.

  • PC makers and airlines te

Continue

Posted by Ben McConnell on June 10, 2009 at 12:00pm — 1 Comment

Mark Harbeke

B2B Social Media Marketing Benefits in the Eye of the Beholder

I read with interest this guest post on the Small Business Blog by Jean Van Rensselar, owner of Chicago-based Smart PR Communications. She cites the… Continue

Posted by Mark Harbeke on June 8, 2009 at 3:23pm — 5 Comments

Ben McConnell

Credit tight? How about a loan with 2,689% interest?


This seems like something from a Saturday Night Live digital short than an actual business but yes, the interest rate for borrowing from this company is really 2,689%. That's likely to build word-of-mouth-worthy for all of the wrong reasons.


Continue

Posted by Ben McConnell on June 8, 2009 at 3:17pm

Roy Dahl

To Create Community by Building The Buzz with A Bite Size Chunk for 11musikk. How do we do it?

This year was our premiere for the festival 11musikk (www.11musikk.no). We had good artists, good audience and we were all having a great time.

For the next years festival we have started the planning process with regards to which artists we want to appear on stage.

To Build The Buzz and to create a Bite Size Chunk we wonder what to do. We have many artists who want to be on stage during our festival, and an idea has struck me to letting the subscribers to our newsletter vote for their favouri… Continue

Posted by Roy Dahl on June 8, 2009 at 1:25pm — 4 Comments

Warren Sukernek

97% of Twitter members think brands should engage with customers on Twitter!

There have been a lot of studies of Twitter users lately. Have you seen this study by PMN that says only 22% of Gen Y consumers are using Twitter. Or this Harvard Business Review study of 300,000 users reveals that the 10% of Twitte

Continue

Posted by Warren Sukernek on June 4, 2009 at 9:53pm — 3 Comments

Latest Activity

Krystal Walker, Tony Caridi, Rachel Pradhan and 5 more joined Society for Word of Mouth
3 hours ago
Aivar Ruukel and Soultravelers3 are now friends
yesterday
Aivar Ruukel, Christian Wolf, S and 9 more joined Society for Word of Mouth
yesterday
John Redbear Jones-Hubertz added a blog post
Seriously, this blog has the best idea regarding just making a change and really creating peace and hope - It seems to be a rather spooky and identical tolling of the bell though. Can you say, "It's over, Rover?" I'm chatting this up. I've ha...
on Tuesday

Forum

Warren Sukernek

Share of Conversation 1 Reply

Over on Media Philosopher, Marcel Lebrun has created a new social media metric called, Share of Conversation that seeks to go beyond Share of Voice by measuring the degree to which a brand is assoc...

Tagged: conversation, of, share, measurement

Started by Warren Sukernek in Case studies, metrics, and other WOM evidence. Last reply by Andre Jun 8.

Geoff Hampton

Excellence - The most dishonored word in business today 6 Replies

Think about it. How many businesses love to tout their "committment to excellence" or "excellence in everything we do" and so on and so and on ad nauseum. As one carefully observes the performance ...

Started by Geoff Hampton in Books. Last reply by Andre Jun 8.

Ryan La Rosa

Does posting links on Twitter make you an expert? 9 Replies

I don't think so and I think the tendency to do this is devaluing the true experts and the medium. Here are my thoughts in full - http://parkandco.com/blog/?p=821 Am I right? Am I wrong? Trying to...

Started by Ryan La Rosa in Help fellow SWOMies. Last reply by Phil Tanny Jun 16.

Jackie Huba

My Swomi Board

A few months back, we asked for your help in shaping SWOM’s education mission. Two common refrains we heard: * More “WOM 201” programs * The opportunity to learn from peers in an intimate format ...

Started by Jackie Huba in Other Jan 12.

Jeff Stephens

WOM isn't [just] hiring an actor to promote your brand

There's a healthy, constructive word of mouth marketing debate going on over at http://blog.brandexperiencelab.org/experience_mani think this is one of the biggest challenges we face as a word of m...

Tagged: education, debate, marketing, guerrilla

Started by Jeff Stephens in Books Jan 2.

Ben McConnell

Help SWOM develop its education curriculum 19 Replies

Help SWOM develop its word of mouth education curriculum by answering one or both of the following questions: 1. What specific or general topics related to word of mouth would you like to see taug...

Tagged: education, SWOM

Started by Ben McConnell in About SWOM. Last reply by Miles J. Shapiro Apr 28.

Ben McConnell

Affordable word of mouth ideas 33 Replies

What are affordable ideas for building word of mouth, whether in good or bad economic times? Here's a list of 5 ideas. Add your own, too. 1. Personalize the bills of lading or receipts sent to cus...

Started by Ben McConnell in Help fellow SWOMies. Last reply by Laney Liner Apr 2.

Ulla Jones

Is Advertising Dead? 10 Replies

Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Pepsico will give a million dollars to anyone who can create a Doritos ad for the Super Bowl. Also yesterday Adweek reported that Ad Spend Falls 1,6% du...

Tagged: Decline, Recession, MadMen, UserGeneratedContent, Doritos

Started by Ulla Jones in Case studies, metrics, and other WOM evidence. Last reply by Melissa Nery Dec. 29, 2008.

Jacqueline Amyot

Word of Mouth via Company Employees 6 Replies

I just read this article in Ad Age, and until today, only really thought of WOM in the realm of customers talking to customers, friends to friends, etc. I hadn't considered the importance of EMPLOY...

Started by Jacqueline Amyot in Case studies, metrics, and other WOM evidence. Last reply by Frans van Zon Dec. 22, 2008.

Ulla Jones

To aplologize or not to apologize? 16 Replies

Simple question, isn't it and it would seem that there is only one obvious answer, Yes! However that isn't always the case. First you'd need to know and acknowledge that a screw up has happened. ...

Tagged: mistake, acknowledging, service, customer, Apology

Started by Ulla Jones in Case studies, metrics, and other WOM evidence. Last reply by Gary Pyke Mar 4.

 
 

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