Word-of-Mouth has been around since the beginning of time – no one will every refute that fact. While it is the most powerful form of communications – because it carries with it things like “trust” and “integrity” and “recommendations” and “confirmation” and “credibility” and a host of other such terms – it has always been kind of a “one-on-one” activity.
You hear something and you tell someone else. Even if we extended it a bit, it is “one-to-few” at best since maybe you were telling people in a group at a party or event or maybe even e-mailed a few of your colleagues and friends. But while it is the most powerful and credible form of engagement and communications, it was never easy to leverage…until today!
Social Media changed the game for Word-of-Mouth – it handed it a megaphone! Today, you can share your great experiences and how much you like a particular product/service freely to a potentially very large audience of followers, friends, connections, etc. Social Media has finally given us the answer to the “leverage” question – it is the AMPLIFIER of Word-of-Mouth!
Word-of-Mouth hasn’t changed, just the ability to amplify what you normally would say “one-t0-one” has changed. This gives people and companies tremendous opportunity to use it correctly and expand their reach – but it also gives people the ability to misuse it and upset even more people than they ever could before. Which way are you using it? Unfortunately, the incredible “noise” on the social media channels is caused by not using it the way it was meant to be used. Trying to “buy” word-of-mouth and get people to share what they don’t really believe in or are passionate about or are not committed to doesn’t work. It didn’t work one-on-one so what makes anyone think it would work one-to-many? I don’t get it…
But for those that have highly credible word-of-mouth because of the experience they deliver to their customers/clients or the incredible value their products deliver or the improvements they received because of someone’s services, the ability to AMPLIFY WORD-OF-MOUTH is Nirvana and is the most powerful engagement strategy any organization can employ today. If you are one of these organizations, you are immediately miles ahead of your competition, but you have to start the “word-of-mouth engine” to take advantage of it and further leverage your great work. Gentlemen, start your engines…
