Great List of Brands / Companies on twitter

August 2, 2008 · Filed Under Web · Comment 

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twitter, as you should know, is a microblogging platform, which a) seems to have got over its problems and b) seems to be getting more and more popular and grabbing headlines on the web.

What has impressed me is the number of brands / companies / important and influential people on twitter. fluentsimplicity has a post here which has an excellent list. Have a look… pretty long isn’t it?

What strikes me is that there are not that many UK based companies that have cottoned on to the fact that twitter could be VERY useful to them. A bit like monitoring their online reputation - they don’t really get this.

Another industry which is seriously under-represented is the healthcare / pharma industry. Ok, they would have to be a little careful as it is strictly regulated, but honestly, most people use drugs (prescription ones!) or healthcare products. There is definitely an opportunity here, certainly for the more consumer-related brands.

Two of my clients are on twitter - Paul from purebeans, and Steve from hasbean. You can follow them here and here. (You can follow me here).

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When word of mouth marketing works

July 3, 2008 · Filed Under marketing · 1 Comment 

Word of mouth marketing is something that makes a huge amount of sense. If you experience something good, you tell someone about it. Word of mouth. On the other side, you experience something bad, and you also tell people about it, possibly even more!

Word of mouth marketing has always been there, but with the rise of the web, and of course Google, it has started to be recognised as a serious part of the marketing mix and even has it’s own association - WOMMA, and they do a good job of explaining what they think it is all about.

What is vital for Word of Mouth marketing is customer satisfaction, (and dissatisfaction in some cases), the ability of being able to facilitate a conversation between customers, potential customers and the company / brand, and transparent communications. The basic elements are laid out by WOMMA are:

- Educating people about your products and services
- Identifying people most likely to share their opinions
- Providing tools that make it easier to share information
- Studying how, where, and when opinions are being shared
- Listening and responding to supporters, detractors, and neutrals

There are a number of key things to understand here.

  1. If you have a happy customer, they are going to sing your praises
  2. Encourage them to tell other people if they have a good experience, and give them the means to do so if at all possible
  3. Listen, learn, get feedback, and actively take on board all postive and especially negative comments, so that you can act and make your product and service better
  4. Word of Mouth marketing really fits well with an authentic company which behaves in a postive manner with its customers. Word of Mouth is being honest, telling the truth and should not be forced

In fact, as pointed out by the WOMMA, Word of Mouth marketing can be organic (natural) or amplified (I like to use the term, stimulated). I regularly take part in natural word of mouth for certain brands and services because I am pleased with them, and have a desire to share my enthusiasm, with the honest belief that I will be helping someone, making their life better, or recommending something they will also enjoy. (Natural word of mouth could be likened to evangelism). Examples of my organic / natural word of mouth would be:

All of these companies and brands make me smile, provide excellent service and great products. Stimulated Word of Mouth marketing happens when companies actively launch campiagns to facillitate Word of Mouth.

There is one BIG watch out with this seemingly great form of marketing. And that, ladies and gents, is false Word of Mouth, paying people to be positive, spamming people, providing misleading information, I think your get the idea. Word of Mouth works best when you have a great product or service. It really is as simple as that. That’s what your aiming for anyway isn’t it? If you get this right, word of mouth will come along soon enough, you may just want to be able to harness it, and perhaps stimulate it. Just don’t think people won’t notice if you try and do something a little unethical. They will, and it will always come back to haunt you.

PS I nearly forgot about why word of mouth works! Two good examples from yesterday and today. A friend recommended me to his friend, who got in touch and I get a new client. I tell my friend about the great coffee we are drinking, and he goes to investigate online and will order some. Natural, unprompted word of mouth resulting in sales and more business. If only all marketing was like this! But, it could be. Think about it :-)

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