Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You’re only a stranger once.

December 11, 2009

Word of Mouth and Social Media Aren’t the Same …

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 9:14 am

But You Already Knew That!

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My son is an introvert. He thinks long before he talks and rarely wastes words. He’s not one to volunteer extraneous information. Ask a question and you’ll get exactly the answer it takes to fulfill your request. Some days that makes conversation a bit of a challenge. A digital native by age, birth, and technological era, he would never be a social media maven. It’s just not his personality or his inclination.

However, if you get him talking about something he believes in, he’ll tell you exactly why and how you should be participating. Then he’ll tell the person sitting next to you, if he thinks that person might listen. If he knows how to do something faster, make something easier, or has an insight into something more meaningful, he’ll share it because it feels good to do so.

That’s the definition of a word-of-mouth natural. It’s not promoting. It’s sharing what we care about with the people we care about.

World of Mouth and Social Media Aren’t the Same Thing

Recently, Andy Sernovitz and I were talking via email about his new SuperGenius Word of Mouth Conference on December 16th in Chicago. He made some great points worth sharing about the difference between social media and word-of-mouth marketing.

Social media is an incredible tool. But social media is not word of mouth marketing. It’s a tool we can use for the online portion of word of mouth. But it’s not even the main tool there. I would argue that more recommendations go by plain old-fashioned email than all the social networks combined.

On top of that, offline word of mouth is so much bigger than online word of mouth. A tweet still doesn’t beat a personal recommendation from a close friend.

So why are we talking about social media so much?

1. Because real word of mouth is hard. It requires big ideas, long-term commitment, and an honest dedication by a company to earn the respect and recommendation of its customers. You can’t just call your agency and order up some WOM.

2. Because social media gives us an action step. It’s fairly straightforward to do a campaign on Facebook or Twitter. You can call your agency and order up a social media campaign. And your agency, who is totally freaked out by this WOM stuff, can deliver a pretty good campaign. Then you can show the results to your happy boss. Everyone feels good and gets paid.

Except… we completely miss the point.

The point of word of mouth isn’t ecommerce; it isn’t to count clicks and CPAs.

The point of word of mouth is to be a brand worth talking about. To be a company that people are proud to tell their friends about. It’s to replace paid marketing with personal connections. To replace cash with love. To be fantastic.

And that’s what this conference is all about: A revival of TRUE WOM. A home for the simple idea that HAPPY CUSTOMERS ARE YOUR BEST ADVERTISERS.

True WOM is a movement.

Andy didn’t ask me to share what he said, but I agree with every point he made here and I wanted to pass it on.
He offered me a discount seat at the conference and he offered a scholarship code for my readers.

Learn How to Be Great at Word of Mouth Marketing An incredible word of mouth marketing conference. Learn to get more people talking about you the very next day. 12 How-To Classes, 12 Case Studies, 6 Authors Word of Mouth Supergenius! Chicago, December 16

Register here: http://gaspedal.com/supergenius Use the code VIPSUCCESSFULBLOG for a discount of $144.

Andy wrote the book on Word of Mouth Marketing. No, I’m not an affiliate. I think it’s important that we know everything we can about getting folks to talk about the good things we have going on.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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7 Comments to “Word of Mouth and Social Media Aren’t the Same …”

  1. December 11th, 2009 at 9:40 am
    Karin H said

    Hear, hear Andy!

    Really puts it in those words I (and no doubt more) was looking for to pin-point why the hype some people make about SM-marketing felt wrong and incomplete.

    The point of word of mouth isn’t ecommerce; it isn’t to count clicks and CPAs.

    The point of word of mouth is to be a brand worth talking about. To be a company that people are proud to tell their friends about. It’s to replace paid marketing with personal connections. To replace cash with love. To be fantastic.

    Amen to that!

    Thanks Liz, for publishing this strong message.

    Karin H (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)

  2. December 11th, 2009 at 10:06 am
    Flora Morris Brown, Ph.D. said

    Thanks for sharing this Liz. The clarification needed to be made because gurus have us thinking we all need to be on board the social media train.

  3. December 11th, 2009 at 10:46 am
    jenn_lee_ca said

    This is parallel to Seth Godin’s process versus event posting (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/12/the-reason-social-media-is-so-difficult-for-most-organizations.html). I agree — WOM is a process and social media is an event. Process takes time, thoughfulness, planning, and collaborative input. Social media is a tool that can feed into this process.

  4. December 11th, 2009 at 11:01 am
    Andy Sernovitz said

    Thanks for sharing this, Liz. I’m so passionate about earning the passion of our fans and friends — that’s what it’s all about! Not the tech toys.

  5. December 11th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
    Alasdair Munn said

    You cannot fake passion and genuine interest. Content in context. Content that adds value, content that is directed towards people, their interests, learning styles. Making the connection. Not through playing the numbers game, or broadcasting your message, but through finding out where that connection can happen. You can show you are listening through changing your behaviour, adjusting your distribution channels, adding features that address common needs and requests.

    Word of mouth happens after the connection has been made. It does not have to be overt, but it has to be real.
    Thanks Liz. Nicely put.

  6. December 12th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
    Paul Sherland said

    Let me wave the “process” team banner!

    Word of mouth is not social media, but social media and the Web can make word of mouth so much more effective. Andy is correct that nothing replaces the personal recommendation of a friend or relative, but social media (I’m including online customer reviews here) can greatly expand the reach, growth rate, and sustainability of word of mouth. A positive blog post or customer review created in 2005 in TX can influence a purchase decision in NY in 2010.

    I see successful word of mouth and social media as processes — sorry Seth. Businesses build great word of mouth over time by providing noteworthy products and services and by listening to and engaging with customers. Successful businesses are always improving based on what they learn from their customers. Successful businesses are also continuously refining their use of social media tools to better communicate with (not broadcast to) their customers and the public. Engaging with customers using social media and in more traditional ways takes time to be truly effective.

    Continuous improvement, over time, based on customer engagement is crucial to sustaining great word of mouth. That’s why word of mouth is as much about business operations as it is about marketing!

  7. December 13th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
    Sugar Jones said

    YES!! AMEN!! and THANK YOU!!

    I have been having this conversation with several people about how so many are stuck on line and don’t move the conversations or experiences over to the real world. That’s the only way to really complete the circle. I think… no I KNOW I serve my clients and sponsors best that way.

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