2008 April | MGH Word of Mouth / Social Media Marketing- Baltimore, MD

Archive for April, 2008

VALUING WORD OF MOUTH

Alternate title: We told you so.

In one of its latest whitepapers, BzzAgent explores the value of word of mouth as compared to several other forms of advertising. And, lucky for us, the paper claims that WOM is the most efficient means of generating brand awareness and ultimately driving sales.

The study shows that WOM communications generate an extraordinarily high recall rate (95%) when compared with print, paid search, TV, online, and radio advertising. While the cost per impression is slightly higher than these other forms of advertising, the strong recall rate keeps the required investments low.

And, as if that wasn’t good enough, WOM strategies are most effective in driving consumer purchase intent. The whitepaper claims that there is a 10-15% conversion rate on word of mouth impressions - a truly startling number when you begin to compare this with the rates of other mediums.

A quick glance at this chart and you’ll see what we mean:

Images courtesy of BzzAgent

Published by mghwom
April 25th, 2008 in Marketing Research
14 Comments

A LOOK AT FACEBOOK

On Wednesday, Time released an article, entitled Suffering from Facebook Fatigue?, which delivered a harsh criticism of the social network’s application platform. Specifically, the piece took aim at the means in which these applications are shared, and the countless number of daily download requests that members receive from their network of friends.

The Time article stemmed from a particular group created by a junior at Michigan State University, called “Official Facebook Petition: To ban the inviting of friends on Applications“. The group’s description reads the following:

“We the members whom have joined this group hereby request:

1. No application ask or require us to invite our facebook friends to [do] anything for any reason.

2. The ability and privacy to block ALL application requests”

At the time this entry was written, the group has over 1,070,000 members. And as Time points out, the movement ironically encourages its members to invite their friends to join the cause.

So how’d one of the most popular web destinations get to this point?

Just a year ago, Facebook launched its application platform with six full applications (Photos, Notes, Groups, Events, Posted Items, and Marketplace) where users were able to spread information to their own network by way of the site’s extensive social graph.

Seeing the immediate success from this new undertaking, the Facebook team realized they could make similar information expand just as quickly through the network, by allowing users to share their selected applications with friends.

It was a great idea (at the time) and Facebook decided to implement it in a huge way - by opening up its platform and allowing outsiders to build full applications within the Facebook framework.

Today, there are over 21,000 applications available to users.

Looking at the growth the past year, it’s undeniable that the Facebook team has developed one of the fastest and most effective ways to distribute information through a social network. But at what cost?

The rate at which these applications have flooded the site, and users’ inability to control the amount of received requests, has driven many Facebookers to feel left out out in the cold. So much so that Time decided to dedicate a full article to the growing dissatisfaction.

And, while this disturbance will likely have little affect on the network’s future growth, Facebook needs its core base to keep the site running. Without their support, it runs the risk of becoming just another Friendster.

So now it’s up to Facebook to address the article and make some changes before the discontent spreads faster than a Zombie application. Get movin’, Zuckerberg.

Published by mghwom
April 18th, 2008 in MGH Conversation
2 Comments

YAHOO PIPES FOR ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT

Having trouble keeping up with everything that’s being said about your brand? Can’t follow the constant Tweets, blog entries, YouTube videos, and Pownce updates? Tired of sorting through your fifty different RSS feeds just to find something you’re interested in?

Then get yourself over to Yahoo! Pipes ASAP. Yup, I said it. Yahoo! did something right.

Developed early last year, Pipes allows its users to create mashups of their favorite RSS feeds and filter out any unnecessary content. What they’re left with is a simple RSS feed, pulling in the search terms from around the web that are tailored to meet their personal interests.

For us social media marketers, a particular Pipe has been developed to help us sort through the content that pours in to our favorite community sites. Social Media Firehouse, developed by Kingsley Joseph, sends alerts every time your brand is mentioned on sites like Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, FriendFeed, and Digg. Just plug your company or brand name into the search box, filter out your own website, and you’re ready to roll.

Your results are shown in the usual list format, or, if you’re feeling adventurous, images and mapping results can be displayed as well. You can then grab a button that you’re free to pop into your Google Reader (or most other feed readers).

With so much available user-generated content flowing into the web on a second-by-second basis, we know that it’s nearly impossible to keep up. But this particular Yahoo! Pipes delivers a simple solution to a time-consuming problem.

Now put that in your Pipe and smoke it.

Published by mghwom
April 11th, 2008 in Brand Management
12 Comments

FLASH MOBS DEFINED

Picture this: you’re chilling outside when, out of nowhere, you see a man dressed in a banana suit being chased by a large group of people. Then, just like that, the group stops and everyone walks away like nothing happened, leaving you wondering what the heck just happened. Welcome to the world of flash mobs.

Flash Mob - “a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief period of time, then quickly disperse.”

Flash mobs are all about interaction. There’s the interaction of people coming together to get involved in an activity, which is pretty cool. Even cooler, though, is the interaction between online and offline WOM.

It starts online. The stunts are easily organized on the net, thanks to word of mouth through craigslist, social networks, microblogging sites, and email. The group works out details of what they’re going to do, when, and where online. After, they meet up in the streets to perform (and in most cases videotape) their stunt…

…Then comes the buzz. Everyone involved in the flash mob will be talking about it. You’ll also have the witnesses left scratching their heads in confusion talking: if for nothing else; to convince their friends they’re not crazy. The event might even get picked up from the local media. And that’s all just offline buzz.

There’s also online word of mouth, which can keep people talking about the flash mob long after it happens. Videos of flash mobs, if interesting and fun enough, have viral potential and can get passed along through video-sharing sites, forums, blogs, social networks, and email. The Grand Central Station Frozen flash mob video , received over 10 million views on YouTube alone.

Most flash mobs are random and organized just for fun but companies can definitely benefit from the buzz these quirky events create. In London, Wrigley’s organized a flash mob to get people talking about their gum. During the event, which Wrigley named “flash snog,” couples got together and kissed for 2 minutes before disappearing.

The trick to leveraging a flash mob for your brand is to make sure the event is relevant to your image or message and is fun or interesting enough to get people talking.

For some inspiration, take a peek at our 5 favorite flash mob videos to see some cool things that can be done:

5. Where’s Waldo? Flash Mob

4. Texas A&M’s Zombie Flash Mob

3. Finger Gun Shoot-out Flash Mob

2. St. Paul’s Cathedral Silent Flash Mob