Monday, February 28, 2011

Social Word Of Mouth?

Think about it, WOM or Word Of Mouth advertising has been around forever. And what better medium and channel than to Social Media to harness WOM. It’s the ham and eggs of advertising. It doesn’t make any difference if your technical orientated, nitch specific, a shopping B2C or a Manufacturing B2B. You should be collecting the kind of followers that need and want and understand what you do and sell. You can be almost sure that in your collection of friends and followers there is at least 1 if not more people that need to tell everyone the latest news and gossip about you, your brother or your latest Blue Duggers.


These WOM wonders are the virtual influencers of your world. Give them something to talk about. They are asking, no begging you to say something good, new and juicy for them to spread around. They are your hidden virtual marketing team. Your online hidden sales force but how can you put any muscle to this online power house?


1) Find the influencers. There are processes and software (especially on Twitter but also MerchantCircle and Facebook if you’re watching. If you find and locate the leaders of discussions and repostings you stand a greater chance of yours getting retwitted or posted or whatever. Research people as to who does the most retwitting and thoroughly understand who they are and what they cover and topics they like. Then develop a relationship with them online.

2) Listen to them. Ya shut your mouth and listen. You need to listen and understand these top influencers. Track and monitor their online discussions. See if they are positive people or come off as negative or just plain vanilla neutral. Not everyone posts and reposts equally.


3) Find and make your advocates. Some of your best social media WOM marketing examples just simply begin with a company (person) giving a group of influencers previews to their product or service and simply asked them to tell their networks what their ideas and thoughts were and are. You will get great feedback and everyone loves to get the inside scoop first, don’t they?


4) Give them a forum or soap box. You have gone and provided them with the information on you and your company’s product or service, now give them the keys to door. Give them a megaphone. Make them special. How many times have I been a featured person in a Ning? And what do you think I do. I post it on my Facebook fan page http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans which flows into my twitter account which flows into my LinkedIn account and bingo their site is all over my social media sites.


Larson Notes & Satire: Your one person, only one. So am I no matter how bad I want to clone myself it’s just not going to happen. Yet WOM can seemingly make more of you and really get you into new places fast and some you would never get into without out help. People like to help. They really do. There are bullies out there in cyber land. People who have no reason to be in a social network site because they are just not social. All they do is push their way in and take over. Or if you choose to disagree with them they blast you into submission. These you should avoid.


But the good ones? Embrace them and run with it.


Remember our 3 new programs for 2011
1st is our Virtual Sales Manager Program.
2nd our Sales Function Outsourcing Program
3rd our Virtual Business Consulting Program


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate


P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.


P.P.S. Take the Larson Challenge to double your sales this year and get listed on our web site @ http://www.larsonassociates.ws/Larson_Challenge . Email us your company name and web address to get listed. Make this year your best ever!

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