Word of Mouth marketing

Geoff Ramsey grabs hold of New Marketing principles while addressing Word of Mouth marketing.

While there’s nothing revelatory in his comments, it’s a repeat underlining of marketing basics in the new internet economy:

• Consumers care more about what other consumers think that they do about advertising.
• Consumers have a high distust level for advertising
• Factor in the influence of online social networks
• Be honest about your products and services

It’s easy to say - “Ah, gee - not the basics again!”, but it’s funny how many marketers are still missing the point of social marketing.

I got a call from a marketing company the other day, representing a major publisher. They were looking at how to best utilise the science fiction/fantasy community I run for promoting some coming book launches.

They seemed to want nothing more than book reviews. Fine, that’s not a problem.

But I also pointed out to them that as a *community*, it was a place where social/referer/viral marketing would work better - give the community something worth talking about, and the message will grow not simply across that board, but also be carried to other websites.

The marketer didn’t really sound so sure, like I was suggesting something alien to them, rather than basic marketing principles.

The point is, online communities are places where people come to talk and discuss things. Simply putting up a book review isn’t a great talking point.

It’s a shame, really, as there remains so much of the social nature of the internet that remains untapped by marketers who should know better.

Of course, forums aren’t the online form of online community - blogs have presented a simply entryway for novices to begin building basic communities - and are especially empowered with social networking devices such as tags.

On that issue, Nick Wilson has done a good job covering use of tags and folksonomies for promotion with third-parties such as Technorati and de.licio.us

On a related issue, Graywolf makes a few interesting points about using digg for marketing - as a referer marketing platform:

The problem with people not getting digg is they think techie’s and geeks are different than everybody else, sure they have their own idiosyncrasies, but by and large they are just like the average man or woman on the street. They have the same hopes, fears, dreams, aspirations and weaknesses as everyone else.

Point is, if you can give people something worth talking about - they’ll talk about it. If you provide something positive about your products/services worth talking about - the marketing message goes viral.

2c.