Word of Mouth Marketing for the 21st Century
Social media has evolved to the point where a business's Facebook page is more valuable than its website. This is because Facebook gives the business a distinct voice while a website is basically an interactive brochure that isn’t personal to the reader. Evidence of this is shown in a study by market research firmLab42 that shows that 75% of consumers feel more connected to a business on Facebook.
But businesses are still trying to figure out how to successfully turn their customers’ social media interactions into sales. The viral nature of social media curates word-of-mouth on and off-line. But how do you spark the conversation? Word of Mouth for the 21st century is our ability to communicate in one moment via social media to all our friends and followers. The more people who engage, the more viral it becomes.
Let’s take a quick step back in time. Shortly after social media was introduced to the world, marketers realized they could take advantage of the new channel to spread their word. Brands quickly jumped on the social media bandwagon, hired social media managers, and developed social marketing campaigns that probably focused on driving Facebook fans or Facebook Likes (which today’s marketers now question altogether), all without knowing what it all meant. Fast forward to just last year and businesses still haven’t been able to measure or monetize their Facebook Likes or general social marketing efforts, despite the money, time and resources spent. There hasn’t been a clear way to measure ROI.
As social media has continued to evolve, so have mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Today we can leverage the benefits of all platforms to show how content generated on social media which initiate word-of-mouth have tractable conversions to sales. New technology-based marketing tools like Freebie now exist to help brands ignite word-of-mouth to ultimately drive traffic to their business.
The connection between Freebie and word-of-mouth marketing is simple: Businesses give a valuable product to someone who is socially connected and willing to leverage their connectivity by allowing an automated branded post on their social channels. The post acts as word-of-mouth to all who see and the user gets to try the product risk free. Freebie tracks engagements and whether they or anyone that interacted in the social posting returns to the place of business. Multiply this process by only 100 and you get a viral amount of impressions, and a huge number of people seeing products and services that their friends are engaged in.
These peer to peer endorsements are creating stronger brand awareness and more engagements for these businesses than traditional media advertisements. In a sense, the word-of-mouth you can create in social media is more valuable to a business than the revenue generated by the sale of an individual item.
As social media continues to evolve, I predict that people will have the option to purchase goods and services from merchants with their Social Capital. The benefit to consumers is obvious: they receive remarkable products and services for free by simply being social. Business’s love it because it’s much more cost effective to allow their product to market itself than an upfront cash expenditure in traditional media. Having consumers “pay” for their services via social sharing, they get automated, reliable, word of mouth marketing. Its word of mouth marketing for the 21st century, and it all starts with social.
Social influence is the new currency. It might sound like a bold statement today, but it will be the norm soon enough.
Author:
Ben Rosenfield
Founder
Freebie
http://frbapp.com/getfreebie
