The power of Word of Mouth Marketing
Does W.O.M Marketing instigate informed consumer choices? Today’s consumers are not as prone to exploitation as they were in the past. The prime reason for this being the exposure to all different products and services – thanks to the evolution of the internet. Along with search engines, social networking sites, such as bzzagent, facebook, my space and twitter have aided in making the once ignorant consumer , well-informed about the variety of services and products available in the market; providing them the opportunity to make a wise choice suiting their needs. While on one hand social media is facilitating the consumer, on the other they are serving as a plausible marketing tool, primarily with regards to word of mouth marketing.
Word of mouth marketing functions through an individual’s personal recommendation regarding specific services and products. The biggest advantage it has for the event marketers is the maintenance of the trust level amongst the consumers, while your purpose is being fulfilled to the utmost. “Harry Potter” is perhaps the best example of how effective word-of-mouth marketing is. So, why not utilize this top guerrilla marketing technique along with others to give a boost to your business?
As I mentioned before, social media tools are serving as an event marketer’s right wing. Add informed consumers publicizing and reinforcing your product amidst their social circle, and you have the best marketing strategy lined up! By becoming a part of the online social utilities, you can have a one-on-one interaction with your customer; learn what they want and formulate the best possible option you can give them. Have the trend setters of a community recommend your product and soon you will have an army of enthusiasts marketing for you. By introducing an element of “surprise and exclusivity” you can further attract more customers to what you are offering them.
In a nutshell, having informed consumers recommend your product is a great way to boost up your ranking amongst the consumers. Why, we all would prefer purchasing a product which is being recommended to us by one of us, rather than all those flashy advertisements showing only one side of the story.
Google News is ensuring a 100% digital future
So when everything else is going digital, and readership stats of paper newspapers were decreasing - we had this thing in the back of our minds that it might not go away completely. We’d still need to access old papers in libraries, right? Wrong.
Google News just announced an update to its Google News Archive that it will store electronic text and scanned newspapers of the past.
This is great for researchers, who will then be able to ’search’ through actual historical newspaper data while working on their projects and papers. However, keep in mind that all of this content will take time to load up and integrate. So, only time will tell how well this initiative goes for Google.
Great things ahead!
Meetup wants us to MEETUP!!
Meetup.com has recently been promoting and encouraging us (internet junkies, techies, twitter addicts, and of the likes) to go out and see the sun. This brings us to an interesting question: Have people actually stopped meeting real people and socializing or has the social media landscape increased our social lives considerably. I guess the answer would vary from person to person and experience to experience. But generally, I have to admit that online interactions can get people carried away. I have been covering how virtual events are suddenly on the rise, but I had no idea its something for us to stop and seriously think about. Will our future generations know of no other means of communication rather than micro-blogging, text chatting virtual meetings? Is that the direction we are taking our kids future lives towards? OR are real events still the core of human needs and interactions?
Lifehacker has a good post on this here.
Testing your audience’s patience
Marcel has a great post on the importance of planning for backups, emergencies and contingencies. Although it applies to all marketing folks, the weight of it is far heavier for event marketers and managers. People don’t care about excuses, problems, issues when they arise - the idea is to prepare for events knowing how to tackle things when and if they go haywire.
Do check out Marcel’s blog post. Its a good read. Here’s an excerpt:
“You’re watching a movie in the cinema & the projector breaks down, leaving you in the dark for 10 minutes.
You’re watching a play at the theatre & suddenly, due to a technical problem, the curtains can’t be raised.
At an important presentation, the wireless microphone’s batteries go ‘flat’ & you wait for ages while the technical crew looks for new batteries.
The laptop doesn’t open the Powerpoint presentation; the speaker arrives late; a guitar string breaks right in the middle of a solo.
What do all of these have in common? Who cares?!”
Platform integrations - Facebook + There.com
Will has a nicely detailed post on there.com’s “Facing There” application that strategically integrates the experience of there.com users onto their social networks on facebook. It is an interesting way of extending the experience of their users a step beyond by synergizing with one of the more popular social networking platforms. This is also a good case to evaluate how people are planning virtual events on there.com and sharing the event details on their facebook pages. Does this level of syndication, synergies and cross-platform interactions help enhance user experience?
There.com recently launched a Facebook application, Facing There. Facing There’s app design, launch and roadmap are part of There.com’s strategy for operating in a world where their users have to manage participating in a growing number of social graphs.Michael explicitly cited the exploding number of social graphs online, and we discussed his company’s strategic decision making on how to partner with Facebook and MySpace versus compete with them. These large social networks do not have support for avatar based interaction, the core of There.com’s user experience. Facing There is an explicit attempt to allow users to take their There.com experience and make it a part of their social networking experience.
You can read the complete post here.
Top secret Intelligence agencies discover the power of social networking
I read an interesting article today on cnn.com about how CIA and FBI have built a social networking site, just like facebook, where their analysts can share information and have discussions. They figured that social networking platforms are the best way to gaurantee that there aren’t any unconnected dots or loopholes.
A-Space is ofcource highly classified and nobody without the right security clearance can access the space. However, I’m glad that agencies are finally starting to discover and utilize the power of social media to their advantage.
Here’s an abstract, enjoy!
“”It’s every bit Facebook and YouTube for spies, but it’s much, much more,” said Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analysis. The program is called A-Space, and it’s a social-networking site for analysts within the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.
Instead of posting thoughts about the new Avenged Sevenfold album or Jessica Alba movie, CIA analysts could use A-Space to share information and opinion about al Qaeda movements in the Middle East or Russian naval maneuvers in the Black Sea.
The new A-Space site has been undergoing testing for months and launches officially for the nation’s entire intelligence community on September 22.”
Who builds online products?
We do, of course. Do we? Despite the growing number of online consumers? Despite the easy interaction that we can have with them? Despite the platforms that we can use to collaborate with them during the development of our product?
If you can involve end-users into your development process somehow by early stage testing or feedback mechanisms, the value of your product is sure to increase manifold. Its equivalent to investing in heavy research. Its a better position to identify usability and UX design issues. Its the best way to get prospects on board and get them excited about the venture so that they can spread it from there.
So, who really builds online products? We come up with ideas. We hire resources. We get the business models and launch plans setup. But who really builds the products?
We need to learn to allow ourselves to stoop low. We need to allow ourselves to stop and listen. We need to learn to allow ourselves to put our ideas aside and give others ideas some weightage. We need to learn to allow ourselves to understand what is best for the people who will eventually use our products. What do they want. How do they like to work? What do they currently do? What are their frustrations? What are their aspirations?
Who builds online products? The engineers who design it? The developers who code it? The designers who lay it out? The copywriters who sell it? OR The users who will use it? Add that special ingredient to your product development cycle and you’re sure to hit the right needs and make it big.
Dont presume, assume or come up with baseless needs. DONT estimate. Be specific. Talk to people. Understand them. Implement what you learn from your customers into the solutions that your products are marketed to solve.
Who builds online products? The internet more so than any other medium has meant that we all do, we collaborate in carrying our collective endeavors forward at a rate that is 7 times faster in online businesses than it is in off line business.
If building products or services for any online economy you must understand trends and you have to rely on feedback through ongoing conversations with your audience. If you don’t, the chances of ever getting online products that your customers need, when they need it, are very slim.
Social media and Ethics
Markets today are better informed, smarter and they demand quality services. You cant fool them into buying into substandard stuff. You shouldn’t. Your consumers should be longterm community members and should feel like an active part of your organization. The more they are kept in the loop, the better decisions they can make - they more they will trust you.
I’ve seen people malpractice in internet marketing, thinking that they’ll get away with it - which they don’t. The interesting thing about social media is that people don’t forget and they hardly ever forgive anyone if they feel like they have been cheated in any way, most of the communication is on record so is easy to remember and pass on to others. One bad move can spread far and beyond and soon enough everyone will want to stay away from you. Being true to yourself and your network is the only way to go here.
The best way to do that is to have products and services that are actually worth talking about and soon they’ll spread by themselves via WOM. The social networking effect, if you get traction is flabbergasting yet real - and can not be faked. It has to happen naturally, if your stuff really is good then you can rest assured that there will be a stir. If it is not, then bring it to par first.
Traditional monologue advertising has less than 30% effect on people. People want to have real conversations with real interaction even if its online, they want brands that have things to offer of real value and they want social proof that what ever they spend their money on represents value. Be present. Be on social networks. Be real. If you offer a product or service that offers true value then you should Blog often to communicate yourself to your audiences. AND most importantly, don’t dodge, lie or deceive your readers. People don’t get a second chance here. Have good intentions and your actions will follow suit.
Social marketing is a very delicate business in that you are facilitating people’s emotions in the process of getting your message out. You need to be careful about how your messages are perceived. You need to be careful about leaning into practices that some may seem to be bordering on unethical or misleading. If you get it right and your message represents great value and happiness then people will broadcast it for you without cost, if your message is a negative one it will broadcast just as far except it will be at a considerable cost.
Heres a great presentation on social media to watch:
Coordinating private social events with AnyVite
How can any website that proclaims to be “the easiest way to invite people to an event” be anything but short of a miracle for event managers and marketers. Anyvite is one such nifty site with tools that help you coordinate private social events.
Though this site brings people together, yet it doesn’t claim to be a social network. It allows you to create real life events for free and keep your friends posted about them. You can put your contacts in different groups, thus making your life easier when it comes to inviting a certain group to a specific social do. Marketers and managers don’t need to sort out through their contacts in order to send invitations each time a new event is to be arranged.
The interesting thing is that you don’t need to send every member of a group separate invitations; once an event is created for a group, all the members will automatically receive an invite. This saves you loads of valuable time and you don’t need to maintain a checklist of guests.
Along with issuing invitations, you can start a discussion with any group about a related event. This feature provides a heaven-sent opportunity for event marketers and event managers. Pre-event arrangements can be made based on the suggestions and likes/dislikes of all participants. This active involvement of all players not only keeps them updated but also makes them feel special. It also saves the hassle and confusion caused by “reply to all” e-mails. You can keep in contact with all partakers through each and every stage of the event through the event feeder.
Another interesting feature is the SMS functionality. Whenever you create an event or are invited to one, you’ll get a text message. This ensures that you remain connected with your buddies even if you don’t have access to a computer.
You can have fun even after the event as the site allows you to share photographs, videos and views on all that happened. From a business perspective, this is vital feedback.
Websites like Anyvite go a long way in making the job of marketers and managers as stress-free as possible, their performance and results will undeniably profit from such ingenious and handy sites.
Kevin Kelly - “Web 3.0″ - The Semantic web
The web is less than 5000 days old. Everything we all take for granted was published in the last 5000 days.
Satellite images of the earth, your family tree, all patents, the populations phone numbers, our resume, government forms, all legal doc’s, all friends, newspapers, real time stock quotes, all movies, everything for sale, everything for auctions, properties for sale, all regulations, all books….
MySpace
FaceBook 
BeBo
Linked In
Pownce
Twitter
Friendfeed
Tumblr
Second Brain 
Wink
Live Journal
Simpy
Get Boo
Net Vouz
Yahoo
HelloTxt
YouTube
del.icio.us
Digg
Stumble Upon
Technorati
Furl
Reddit