Hace un par de dias encontre un post mas que interesante sobre las personas innovadoras que crearon la industria de Word of Mouth Marketing en Estados Unidos.

El autor, Dave Balter, quien hace memoria de la formacion de la Word of Mouth Marketing Association en 2004, por dos amigos suyos y el, nos deja un listado del “entonces” y “ahora” de esas y esos innovadores, que ya llevan un par de annios conversando sobre el tema.

No puedo evitar volver hacia mi librero y buscar los titulos de algunos de estos autores, y refrescar un poco los conceptos mas basicos y “disruptive” de aquellos dias.  Terminos como Buzz, Word of Mouth Marketing, Viral Marketing, Permision Marketing, Communities (Comunidades) no eran populares entre mercadologos hace un par de annios. Todo el mundo buscaba sus metricas tradicionales, y hablar de temas como “escuchar al usuario” denotaba correr costosisimos proyectos de Focus Groups, e investigaciones de mercado. 

Estas personas escribieron, presentaron, entrevistaron, crearon comunidades y recorrieron muchisimo camino para mostrarnos que existia una forma mas eficiente de hacer marketing.  Llegaron justo a tiempo para preparar nuestro pensamiento ante la inminente oleada de herramientas web, y sin duda son los y las responsables de impulsar y documentar los mejores casos de best practices en estas materias.

Thanks SO MUCH to all these great innovators!

Conversation marketing is not a new concept.  But it’s one that has been slow to take root.

Challenges abound in incorporating a more conversational tone into a corporation’s marketing voice.  But advances in technology and the changes in consumer culture they have enabled have signaled companies that it’s time to stop shouting and start engaging.

Interactivity is the fuel behind the conversation, and social media is the engine that propels it.  Within social media lies the power to facilitate consumer engagement.  Social media provides the porthole through which companies and audiences can gain mutual awareness and forge relationships with one another that transcend the transactional.  It’s the vessel in which substantive, customizable and conversational meetia marketing is possible.

Meetia marketing finds its bedrock in the belief that the most effective marketing techniques are those that require the company to introduce itself to its consumers in a whole new way.  Transparency, honesty, authenticity, and truth are the cornerstones of marketing in the Web 2.0 era.  It is within the social media milieu that advertisers can find a way to reach prospective customers in more meaningful and personal ways.  It is within these virtual communities that advertisers can find their voice.  How?  By listening to ours.

In order to engage prospective customers, earn consumer respect, and compete for our increasingly strained attention, ad agencies and marketing departments must be willing to adopt a culture that places a premium on listening.  But listening is not enough. They must act on what they learn and answer the call of the consumer with an authentic, human voice.  They must formulate marketing strategies that are grounded in transparency and governed by an understanding that success in building an audience will hinge more on the messages companies receive than the messages they send.

The notion that companies are now better equipped to ask consumers for input, listen to the advice they receive, and incorporate it into an overarching marketing strategy has been referenced in such concepts as permission marketing, conversation marketing, invitation marketing, and relationship marketing.

Seth Godin proposed the notion of permission marketing as far back as 1999, and was one of the first to articulate the need for businesses to transition away from the interruptive marketing techniques that dominated the Internet and offline landscapes (Godin 1999).  With the realization that genuine conversation is made possible once permission is given, permission marketing evolved into conversation marketing.  It’s time to take the next step.

The next step requires companies to exercise even more transparency and trust.  It asks companies to loosen their grip on the top-down control of messaging that has been so engrained for so long.  The next step asks consumers to collaborate with each other and coordinate with corporations in their marketing initiatives.  The next step is collaborative marketing, and the movement is already underway.

Collaborative marketing tosses aside the old model of the passive consumer and molds marketing methods to better suit the new reality of participatory engagement (McConnell & Huba 2007).   Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba refer to these creative consumers as citizen marketers and the online activities they conduct as customer evangelism. “As everyday people increasingly create content on behalf of companies, brands, or products- to which they have no official connection- they are turning the traditional notions of media upside down  (McConnell & Huba, 2007).

Citizen marketers are “democratizing traditional notions of communication and marketing,” and are forcing companies to abandon their long engrained advertising instincts and adopt a collaborative marketing model that encourages consumers to participate and contribute.

The Gage Experience Video Intro Bumper supports search & social tagging

In early October, I had the opportunity, once again, to collaborate with my colleague Mark Kurtz, Chief Growth Officer at Gage. As a new media expert and market innovator he is always looking for the best way to drive results for his Global client base.  This time he was looking to create something unique at the upcoming MIMA Summit (Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association).

As they were planning to have a physical presence onsite, this was a natural opportunity to take the Social Wendy Group’s LIVE@ Social Content  Production model and “private label” it for Gage.  

Additionally, we initiated the #MIMA09 standard event hashtag 3 weeks prior to the event to build conversation and audience, as we know from experience that you cannot just have people walk in and participate in a conversation.  Your results are greater if they have prepared themselves ahead of time , including ensuring their phones have been loaded with the appropriate applications or text settings so they can at minimum tweet the day’s activities and highlights.

Okay, I know you are now thinking, that this is possibly not necessary for an interactive audience, but as we anticipated and then have reviewed post event, less than 20 core participants created a bulk of the event conversation and our small event team created a third of that conversation- keep in mind there were 1000 attendees. So what did we learn from this…

The Social Wendy Group recommendations for planning and executing Social Media Events within your social media marketing strategy:

1. Attendees may be at home Tweeters or Bloggers, this does not necessarily translate into their ready participation at an event. You will need to create a bridge strategy or tools to facilitate this type of participation especially for a Tweetup.
2. Providing & communicating a simple dedicated event hashtag in advance increases day of event conversation, and supports pre-event conversation increasing event excitement (buzz factor).
3. An organized and planful Event Day Content Capture is the centerpiece of the strategy.  Depending on the event goals this always looks a little different. It needs to mesh with the overall business and marketing goals beyond the event because event conversations come and go.
4. Package it up. Brand it, create your social content capture to be one of the signature experiences of the event so that whether or not an attendee was personally included in an interview or similar, they will be interested in the post event social campaign sharing the content.

Here is the Vimeo Video Collection from The Gage Experience at #MIMA09

Lee Odden- TopRankMarketing.com in 3 Parts

MIMA09 Pre Party- FLIP Mino Interviews- Board Member Spotlight

Christian Thilmany- Microsoft

Second City- Client Spoof Video

Jackie Huba- Church of the Customer- Morning Keynote

Mykl Roventine-  MSP Social Media Breakfast  in 3 Parts

Tim Huebsch- LeadershipandCommunity.com / General Mills

Bob Wilson- Gage VP

Sean Kershaw- Citizens League

Dan Mallin- Magnet 360 in 2 Parts

Minnov8- Steve Borsch, Phil Wilson, Tim Elliott in 3 Parts

EJ McNulty & Mark Kurtz- Gage

John Reiman- Fast Horse

And, more videos are still being posted. 

So, as you can see for this event we captured the industry thought leaders, clients and VIPs of the event to provide a flavor of the sold out event to the greater interactive community.

For more on Gage go to www.gage.com

For more on the Social Wendy Group go to www.socialwendygroup.com

Stay tuned for more Social Media Event Tips & Coverage!

The Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) ( #MIMASUMMIT ) met Monday, October 5 at The Hilton Minneapolis and Shareology was there!   Jackie Huba:   “…We are the 1%!!…”

Pictures below:

Jackie Huba, Morning Keynote "...google doesn't forget...."

Sharla Wagy, ShopNBC, and Peter Goldreich, CotterWeb

Robert Koski, Stone Arch Creative, and Kara Murphy, Popular Front

@RKoski turning the lens on @KayLoire

Sini Ross of Sexton Strategic

Mykl Roventine in mid-tweet

Standing and Sitting on the Floor Room Only

Shareology was holding up the left wall.....

Seth Godin, afternoon keynote

@andysantamaria

After MIMA or...... Before Vikings?

MIMA and Vikings and Twins, Oh My!!!   Thanks to all the great people who organized and hosted a superb event!

For more information, go to http://www.mima.org/ or follow:  @MIMASummit

See you at the UnSummit (@UNSUMMIT) !!

(Anybody miss the ginormous photos I usually publish?  Send me a comment if you do…..)

Kay Roseland    @KayLoire

After a weekend at AIGA Minnesota’s Design Camp (which I’ll blog about later this week), I’m now spending Monday at the Minnesota Interactive Media Association’s (MIMA) Summit. The event, in it’s seventh year, is sold out at 1,000 attendees…many of whom I’m sure were lured by keynote speaker and social media rock star Seth Godin. Of course, social media is topic number one. I’ll be live blogging throughout the day.

First keynote speaker: Jackie Huba

Web is democratized, BUT, 1% of visitors to a site actually create content—they become very influential.

41% of people on Facebook between ages 26-44

Fastest growing age group on Facebook: Women 55+

Most trusted form of advertising:
1. Friends
2. Online opinions (anonymous)
3. Websites
4. Editorial content
5. Brand sponsorships

Strong correlation between word of mouth activity and company growth

Measuring customer loyalty ladder:
Ownership (customer feels like they are part of the company)
Evangelism
Referral
Retention
Satisfaction (just measuring “satisfaction” not adequate)

Story: Domino’s “booger” video
Blog readers actually alerted company of video and helped identify where the store was.

CEO posted apology video to YouTube

46% polled before video would by a Dominos pizza
15% after
24% after CEO video

Story: Motrin Moms
Key learning: LISTEN

Story: Bacon Salt
Early activity exclusively through social media
Obscurity to Oprah in 2 years
Key learning: PEOPLE ARE THE MESSAGE

Story: Fiskars
Scrapbooking
Fisk•A•Teers—ambassadors for campaign=virtual salesforce
6,250 members in 50 states
1,000 certified volunteer demonstarators
Stores with Fisk•A•Teer activity have 3x the sales
13 new product ideas per month
85% of Fisk•A•Teers likely to recommend brand

Key learning: PARTICIPATION

Summary:
1. Listen
2. Attract (don’t interrupt)
3. Participate (involve customers)

Breakout Session: Creating a Social Media Workshop
Laura Chavoen, Imagination

No rules in social media

Social media shift causing dramatic disruptions across business world

Most customers don’t know the difference between a blog, a forum, a wiki…and they shouldn’t have to.

Human nature doesn’t change—human behavior DOES

Markets consist of unique human beings, not demographic sectors—don’t overvalue data
Media is no longer just a source of information, but is now also a site of coordination

This all means there is a NEW OPPORTUNITY for marketers

Huffington Post has integrated content with social media—all within their domain

Road Map:
1. Objectives (why)
2. Audience (who)
3. Strategy (how)
LISTEN
4. Tactics (where)

Case Studies:

Pepsi Innovation Day:
Invited social media experts for inside tour of operations and the LISTENED to what they said afterward online

JetBlue
Very active on Twitter to pose questions about customer service

Navy for Moms
Robust community

Graco
Online community turned into place for customers to talk about kids and parenting
Graco had an ear into R&D opportunities

Little Debbie
Sent product to bloggers and saw huge spike in online activity

Nike
1.2 million people upload data to site
30,000 online running groups
Community encourages me to run…buy product

Threadless
T-shirt designs voted on by users

Netflix Prize
$1 million prize for improving recommendation engine
Winning team—many had never met in person

Listening to customers is no longer an option: it’s a must!

Must build into your cycle the time to listen, learn and adjust

The only thing more popular than using social media is questioning it

Coke didn’t have a Facebook group, but they’re customers created one—Coke reached out to organizers and supports it

Reality: They are already talking about you
If you trust someone to work for you, trust them to use social media
Key: give them guidelines

Fear: we’ll lose control of our brand
Reality: you’ll learn what your brand is really about

Starbucks is number one brand on Facebook (3.6 million fans)
“we are gaining ROI from this effort”

Fear: our audience doesn’t use social media
Reality: Then you don’t have an audience (79% of US is online)

Fear: we don’t have time for social media
Reality: Remember how we felt about email?
Start small and let it grow and prove its value

Fear: if we make a mistake it will haunt us forever
Reality: It’s accountability (take responsibility)
It’s never too late to improve

Fear: How do we measure ROI?
Reality: Ramifications of ignoring

Social media has changed measurement:
Now we measure engagement, involvement, interactions, intimacy, influence

Quantifying Success:
Dell reaches $1 million in revenue from Twitter stream
Carnival invites community members to be first to ride on new ship—most successful launch ever

If you learn what’s important to your customers, you’ll learn what’s important to your business

The MIMA Summit: The 8th Annual Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association Summit will be held in the Twin Cities, aka “Hub of Digital Marketers.”

On Monday, October 5, 2009 attendees of The MIMA Summit will hear from companies such as Ford Motor Co., Ciceron, ExactTarget, Fallon, MarketLive and MediaPost Publications about their interactive initiatives and also network with fellow interactive colleagues and MIMA members from the creative worlds of design, media, promotions, content development, product development, publishing, marketing, usability and experience design.

The full day of presentations from top interactive marketers locally and nationwide include keynotes: Jackie Huba and Seth Godin, known for their innovative thinking on the new relationship between consumers and marketers in the digital universe.

Huba is the author (with Ben McConnell) of “Citizen Marketers: When People are the Message.” She is also the author of “Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force,” which the New York Times called “the new mantra for entrepreneurial success,” and is the co-author of the award winning Church of the Customer blog, currently counting over 245,000 subscribers. (http://www.churchofthecustomer.com)

Godin holds an MBA and is the author of ten bestselling books that have changed the way people think about marketing and work. Seth’s newest book, “Tribes,” is a nationwide bestseller, listed on the Amazon, New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. Seth was founder and CEO of Yoyodyne, the leading interactive direct marketing company, which Yahoo acquired in late 1998. He worked as VP Direct Marketing at Yahoo before leaving to become a full time speaker, writer, and blogger. (http://sethgodin.com)

So, why should you care about the MIMA Summit? Because times, they are a changing. Particularly of note is the new relationship developing between marketers and consumers in the digital world including numerous social media channels. Over 20 local experts will also present on topics relating to how to reach consumers now that print is dying and email is tired and so many people are using their mobile phones apps for information.

For those of you who will miss The MIMA Summit, you can follow the conversation on Twitter at: #mimasummit. Or for the more unconventional version, there is the UnSummit on Saturday, October 10 (sold out) #unsummit. Special thanks to MIMA.org for some of the above content.

In this series, Bob Morris poses a key question and then responds to it with material from one or more of the business books he has reviewed for Amazon and Borders.

Especially when they are involved in an economy such as the one we have now, decision-makers in most companies are almost wholly preoccupied with keeping the clients they already have while doing all they can to obtain new ones. That is understandable. However, in both good times and bad, there are some clients a company really cannot afford. Here are five reasons:

1. They haggle over every cost and question every decision.

2. They are abusive to your people.

3. They constantly send mixed signals, change their mind, come to meetings unprepared, delay approvals, etc.

4. They have a “Slow Pay” strategy and feign being offended when tactful inquiries about an overdue payment are made.

5. They take it for granted when you and your associates “go the extra mile,” solve a problem they created, perform “above and beyond the call of duty,” etc.

Clients such as these are well aware of how much additional leverage they have during a turbulent economy such as the one we now have. If anything, they are an even bigger pain in the (bleep). If you have any of these clients, cut your losses and end the relationship ASAP. If you don’t have any, consider yourself fortunate.

The world’s most renowned experts on customer relations management (e.g. Leonard Berry, Seth Godin, Gary Hamel, Guy Kawasaki, Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba) all agree on at least one core principle: Create a detailed profile of your ideal client and then focus all of your marketing attention on prospects that meet that profile.

Comments, questions, requests, or suggestions? Please share them. They will be most welcome and I thank you for them. Best regards, Bob

An article in today’s WSJ by Geoffrey Fowler And Jeffrey Trachtenberg titled, Amazon Error Removes Gay, Health Books from Search details how Amazon mysteriously  removed more than 57,000 books from its sales rankings and main search page including adult, health, and mind & body books.

The Seattle company was then hit by criticism from the authors of those affected books, mainly those focusing on gay themes. You might say, “So what, that Internet site doesn’t affect me.”

What interests me and should interest you, isn’t what dropped off the search or what Amazon’s problems on an Easter weekend were, it is how all of this was found out.  Through Blogs and Twitter.

Authors and bloggers were tagging their posts with the keyword “amazonfail” as they discussed the incident. Much of the outcry started after a publisher, Mark R. Probst, blogged about a message he received from an Amazon representative after noticing that rankings disappeared from “Transgressions” and “False Colors,” two new gay romance books.

I’ve written a lot about the happy side of social media, how attracting people is harder than being where they are, how instant communication leads to productive relationships and how fans are able to follow you.

The lesson from this episode is how quickly the word can spread about something you do wrong to a customer.  It’s not limited to sites like www.yelp.com or www.TripAdvisor.com. Another good blog can be found about amazonfail at Jackie Huba’s site

Thirty years ago when I was selling Nunn Bush shoes at their store at 7th and Grand in downtown Los Angeles, I had a customer open the door, take off his shoes and throw them at my head  – about 30 feet.  He told  me the “damn soles wore out in a week and if you don’t replace them right now, I’m going to complain to the Better Business Bureau.”  The older gentleman I worked with collected the shoes with the holes in the soles, threw them back at the guy almost striking his head and told him to “stay the heck away or I’ll call the cops.”  We never heard a word or saw the guy again.

Nowadays that same guy could have entered his information into his Blackberry or iPhone with “#Nunn Bush shoes” to a Twitter post or “Nunn Bush shoes” as tags in a blog post or even started www.ihatenunnbushshoes.com.

My point isn’t that he could have been right or wrong. (Though as a side note I will tell you leather soles wear three times faster when they’re wet so don’t, as that guy did, wear thin Italian loafers during the rainy season walking on concrete.) It is the tools he and any disgruntled customer now have to influence customer opinions about your business and how quickly it can snowball.

Ignore the Internet at your own risk.

Rebuilding Brand America – a thought-provoking piece by Derrick Daye over at Branding Strategy Insider blog.

She Said. He Said. You just have to read it. From the Diva herself, Toby Bloomberg.

Is your marketing touching on What Motivates People to Buy? Drew McLellan with some great thoughts, and a nice “List of Eight.” From the Small Business Branding blog.

Jay Ehret assembles a list of four great posts from last week giving solid marketing advice. From The Marketing Spot (small business marketing) blog.

From Louis Gray – 5 family-friendly iPhone apps. I immediately went over to the iTunes store and downloaded three of them (my 7-year-old loves playing this kind of stuff!)

PLUS – from Jackie Huba, an offer for a free conference call with Seth Godin tomorrow. Sign up at the link! (Church of the Customer blog)

I came across this great podcast on Jackie Huba, the co-author of our text, Citizen Marketers, and thought I’d share. The link below will download the podcast. Otherwise, you can view it in the original post at Struggling Entrepreneurs. 

Social Media Niche Networks with Jackie Huba

I’m a loyal reader of Church of the Customer.  I preordered Citizen Marketers before its release.  So when I saw that Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell were planning the first ever SWOMfest ‘08 right here in Austin, I didn’t just want to go, I wanted Young & Free Texas to help sponsor the event.

Ben’s post today covers the part of event we’re sponsoring (local dive to be rented out for this TBD) - 

Pre-conference ’80s party. SWOMfest ‘08 is during Halloween week, so we’ll blind ourselves with costume party science on Wednesday, Oct. 29, the night before SWOMfest. The pre-conference party theme? The ’80s. Bring your Devo energy dome and leg warmers. We’ll have prizes for best costume. Then we’ll adjourn to see the best ’80s cover band ever, the Spazmatics.

I am so excited about this I am typing it standing up.  And it’s not just that the conference will have a live DJ throughout.  Or that beer will be served throughout.  It’s the content and the bright minds in the room that’ll make this so cool.  Also I’ll be doing a brief case study on Young & Free Texas (it’ll be happening October 30th, right after the spokesperson gets announced).  

BTW, Church of the Customer has over 209,000 RSS subscribers.  My credit union has about half that many members. 

I was reading Jackie Huba’s and Ben McConnell’s blog and they were interviewing Tom Fishburne as part of the Post2Post blogging book tour he’s doing. So they asked him if branding was dead and if so, where do we bury the body?” The following cartoon was inspired by the question. All I can say, is amen. It’s dead on. It’s a great interview by the way.

Better Coffee. Faster. ** NEVER **- I honestly could not agree with John Moore of Brand Autopsy more. No need for me to provide my own commentary. Just read the post.

Welcome home, indeed.- Great anecdote by Robbin Phillips at Brains on Fire about her stay at  The Greenwich Hotel. Look at the fourth item on her list of ways she was welcomed: “Then he took me to my room. And gracefully showed it off.” (emphasis added) Big FLSE bonus points for having a pride in his brand that was compelling enough to promote action. No doubt, this is simply a step in the bellman rule-book, it’s a great way to combine a brand pride with “felt” service–probably took less than 5 minutes and cost the company nothing. Makes me wonder what other service providers could do to combine compelling pride in a brand with quick-and-free action.

Are you a barker or an attractor?- I’m a little late on this one-it came out last Friday-but I think Jackie Huba at Church of the Customer really hits the nail on the head with this simple, oft-discussed, typically overlooked marketing essential: a good quality product-or, as Jackie writes, “designing elements into a business that will get the attention of customers…” No amount of yelling, spamming, or even branded service can compete with a well-designed product (or business, or service).

PS-Thank you Ben and Jackie for Citizen Marketers. I do actively recommend it to my students.

Who Speaks Louder: Marketing or Customer Service?- Wow. Please read this post by Becky Carroll at Customers Rock. The essence of services marketing and branded service provision. If you have an interest in internal branding at all, you’ll love this post.

Combine to Create Engagement- Great post by Anna Farmery of The Engaging Brand. I think the crux of the post (and of internal marketing in general) may be found in the last sentence of the post. I’ll let you go there and read it for yourself.

I love Jackie Huba’s blog, Church of the customer it’s always relevant and so…customer-centric. With that being said, you might enjoy the light fare that I’m throwing your way. have a good 4th of July.

Jackie Huba, over at The Church of the Customer Blog, shares an experience she had at J.Crew that sounds suspiciously like STAR Treatment! Check it out and then tell me if you don’t think CEO Mickey Drexler is practicing the art of “and then some.”

If you’ve read The Celebrity Experience, you know what I mean by “and then some.” It’s not just about giving good service but about adding those unexpected touches that WOW your customer and…dare I say it….make them feel like celebrities!

Pardon me while I head over to J. Crew for a little star treatment!

 Hat tip to Jay Ehret for this one.  If you have been reading Customers Rock! for awhile, you know that Jay and I are jointly working on a project to see if Starbucks is able to re-invent their customer experience.  (You can go to the Categories list in my sidebar to see all posts on this.)  One of the key areas is, well, the coffee itself.  People have said that Starbucks doesn’t even smell like coffee anymore when you walk in.

Today, Starbucks is hoping to raise their image to change that.  They are introducing their new Pike’s Place Roast, and as part of the introduction, they are giving away free Short (8 oz.) cups today, April 8, at US-based Starbucks cafes.  This is coffee made with their new process, fresh ground beans, brewed at least every 30 minutes.  From their press release:

Customers Spoke.  Starbucks Listened.
The new Pike Place Roast™ was artfully created by Starbucks master blenders and roasters using input from customers and baristas to achieve a bold taste and smooth finish.  Nearly 1,000 customers spent almost 1,500 hours providing input on what’s important to them in a cup of coffee.

“It was an exciting opportunity to find the right roast that would produce the flavor customers told us they wanted in a daily coffee,” said Andrew Linnemann, Starbucks master coffee blender. “We heard our customers and we were determined to deliver the consistent high-quality cup that they expect every time they walk into one of our stores.”

According to some of the discussion at MyStarbucksIdea around offering a sample size of beverages, Starbucks will already give you a sample of a drink for free so you can see if you like it.  Plus, they are standing by their new mantra that a drink should be to your liking, or they will remake it for you, free.  So what is up with the “free” Pikes Place Roast today?

I agree with Jay on this one: they are most likely trying to build some Word of Mouth around their new blend, bringing attention to themselves and their re-focus on coffee.  Good for them for getting the word out.  Now let’s see if it works! 

Go check it out, and let us know what you think about this “celebration of Pikes Place Market”.  Is the customer experience enhanced with the aroma of fresh coffee?  Does it taste better?  While you are having your coffee, go online and learn more about Word of Mouth by joining Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba’s  Society for Word of Mouth (or SWOM).  I did, and it looks to be a great resource!

(Photo credit: muha04)

Most of us have heard someone say, or have even said ourselves that the best form of advertising is word of mouth. Well, I recently joined The Society for Word of Mouth. I joined mostly out of curiosity but believe like most things that start this way I’ll end up learning along the way. The society has a straightforward, two-fold purpose:

1. To be a free social network for the true believers of word of mouth (or the merely curious);
2. To be a premium educational resource for making word of mouth fundamental to the DNA of any organization.

Most every company, organization, etc. still considers word of mouth to be a viable form of advertising. It just so happens that today the technological landscape has expanded our word of mouth options exponentially. No longer do you have to depend on the literal exchange of words from one mouth to another. And no longer are you limited to only a few sets of ears while sharing these words from your mouth. Today’s word of mouth movement is propelled by a nearly limitless variety of communication options. The company who fails to at least consider all of these options in their advertising strategy limits their reach and this the effectiveness of their campaign. Check out the Society

I don’t want to abandon the topic of customer evangelism because it is such an important factor to any business, and it keeps popping up everywhere I go on the web. In Techcrunch this past week, the top 3 stories were about Fubar.com, Facebook, and Digg. According to a list of most-trafficked social network sites (done by Compete), Fubar now ranks 14^th. But apparently it is the fastest growing site, increasing it’s traffic by over 3 million percent in the past year. That is phenomenal growth for a site that is essentially an “online happy hour.” Just like Field of Dreams, ‘if you build it, they will come.’ It is hard to tell whether or not the site can maintain or sustain such rapid growth. After signing up and browsing, I find the site to be busy and disorienting. And I am not sure exactly who the target audience is after finding some profiles. It is a happy hour, but you don’t have to be 21, so perhaps it attracts the younger sets who want to feel older. Whatever it is, there is a contagion among the customer base. And there must be a high level of evangelism of the core users. Any company that grows by three million percent must be considered a success, and it must have the people talking.

Facebook was in the news for testing a new instant messaging service that will be launching soon, much to the chagrin of the third parties have who have built widgets, apps, or other forms of instant messaging services on Facebook. Only 2 or 3 years ago, Facebook was once in the position that Fubar is now, experiencing massive growth all at once. Now that they have captured the market, they must continually create programs or developments to please the consumer base. A funny thing with Evangelism is that when things are going well people are talking, and when a site is doing things that are disagreeable, the people are screaming. A phenomenon that Facebook is no stranger to.

The same goes for Digg, whose users are an impassioned lot that always seem to be screaming about something or other. In last week’s news stories, the anger appears to be justified, as Digg may be involved in an acquisition. The core Digg users quickly mobilized and raised their voices in opposition. The Digg community has shown an amazing unity in voice and focus in action. Time and again they have gotten there message out there so quickly, it would make any political campaign jealous. I wonder if the Digg creators had envisioned such a strong community when they first started. And I wonder how a company goes about creating such a strong community. In the end, it all comes back to the same core issues – good content and good people. Build a site with good content, and cater to your consumers. Facebook has figured that out. They have always sought to create the best platform, with open source software that invites participation and innovation. And when things don’t go well, the customers let them know about it.

Fubar can learn lessons from the social networking sites that are above them on the popularity list. The most important thing that they can do as a team is cater to the users, and try to foster an interactive and engaging atmosphere. A funny thing with regards to the list of Social Network Sites, is that MySpace is still three times more visited than Facebook. I didn’t realize they were still doing so well. Anyway, here is the list to check out:

I’ve been tagged by James Cherkoff to post about 8 things you might not know about me. Thanks for the invite James. It made me think…
1.       I grow my own tomatoes and courgettes – which are by far the most easy things to grow, I know -  but give me time and I can show I have real green hands
2.       I almost ended up as a professional musician flute player – life would have been different. After university I actually used to play in an Irish folk band . My PR people told me to take that off my Bio because not cool and hip. What the heck do they know about modern Irish folk?
3.       When I was young I spent most of my free time & summers on a farm next doors. I love riding tractors – or was that just a kids’ thing ? If we would have more than one life I’d be a farmer in my second one.
4.       I have been in the military service as a Lieutenant. It was a great waste of time but at least I have some nice memories and learned something I use every day: sometimes it is better to just shut up and swallow the shit. And: no you don’t have to have an opinion every single minute of the day.
5.       I do love cooking. And I do clean the kitchen afterwards.  A B&B in my third life ?
6.       I hate making choices. I just want A regular coffee at Starbucks, A pair of running shoes, A camera that shoots pictures – why do we need to make 30 different choices for everything we do in life?
7.       I try to break the rules & conventions in discrete ways. So let’s stick to 7 random things instead of 8.

Now I’d really like to know more about you guys -and forgive me when you’ve done this a couple of times before- Kris Hoet because even if we’re colleagues and I know about some of his more private side he always has that mysterious side of him, danah boyd, Valeria Maltoni, Charlene Li, Jackie Huba because you’re the ladies I do enjoy reading on a regular basis,  David Armano, Jaffe Juice, Alain Thys, well exactly for the same reason – but not ladies obviously

The Long Tail by Chris Anderson

Citizen Marketers by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba

I can’t believe how well these two books complement each other! And thanks to McConnell/Huba for contributing to college instructors like myself. I can definitely see this book being used in class.

Also…

“Engaged and Enabled” by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D.

“Just What Is Customer Experience Management, Anyway?” by Leigh Duncan

“The Science of the Customer Experience” by Eric Krell

Three articles about CEM. I’m reading these through the lens of Services Marketing. I can already see some future posts coming from these short articles.

“Ready, Willing and Enabled: A Formula for Performance”

A study by the Economist Intelligence Unit which looks at the value of employee enablement, a key issue in services marketing.

It’s been kind of a slow week it seems. In light of that, I decided to tack on some old posts from 2007 that never actually made it to my site at the time but definitely deserve the recognition. They are listed below this week’s favorites.

Monday

What Eleanor Roosevelt Could Teach You about Blogging for Business- Just began subscribing to Business and Blogging today, and this post is the reason I did. These 8 C’s (after last week’s 4 P’s) are essential not only to business blogging, but to blogging in general! (I certainly don’t want to read a passionless, non-engaging, mundane blog, business or otherwise!)

Thursday

Marketing HR- While I don’t actually subscribe to his blog, I did trip upon this compelling title and equally compelling post by Seth Godin while doing some searching for Services Marketing fodder.

Friday

Small Business Blogging Challenge #6: RoadKill Remover- I was pretty impressed with this post by Liz Fuller at Business and Blogging who thoroughly addresses a tough business blog challenge. That’s two from Business and Blogging this week!

From the week of September 2-7

Advice for Starbucks – after the leaked memo- Dannielle Blumenthal asserts what John Moore at Brand Autopsy calls an “audacious” idea for Starbucks. I’ll let you go to Blumenthal on Branding, one of my new favorites, yourself, so that you can personally enjoy the excellent writing and challenging insights.

O marketer, can you hear the loons- Awesome post about “Immersive Marketing” by Steven Phenix at 10,000 Marshmallows. And be sure to check Steven’s inspiration, an equally impressive post at Forrester’s Marketing Blog. I love this idea.

From the week of August 27-31

What I learned from Miss Teen USA- I’m embarrassed to admit I even saw 10 minutes of Miss Teen USA, but I did. And the excerpt I happened to catch included this sad response by Miss South Carolina. Despite the pitifulness of her response, I agree with Cam Beck from Chaos Scenario in his defense of the poor girl.

How to Create a WOM-Worthy Airline- This is an awesome post by Jackie Huba of Church of the Customer that shows how WOM is explicitly linked to branded service employees.

5-Star Service- I am fortunate enough to live in a town that has a LifeChurch.tv campus. It’s the natural choice of churches for a marketer (or, one who is headed that direction). I am referencing only the first in a series of five posts by my pastor, Craig Groeschel, but do make sure to click on all five. I’m sure he would humbly disagree, but his marketing aptitude, seen in this series of posts, has a lot to do with the success of the church.

Seems like a lot of people I know are either in the process of reading Meatball Sundae or waiting eagerly for their last Amazon order to show up.
Also seems like Seth Godin’s metaphor inspires a lot of ‘smart, book-buying people ‘ to faithfully review and comment the book , podcast teasing interviews, offer author teleseminar or less serious but still smartly done ones…

I’ve also been pointed to Jackie Huba’ s video. If your time – or say interest – is limited make sure that this one is the one reference you’ll know about. Huba, who’s is the co-author of Citizen Marketers a top book in any CMO’s reading list last year, and also Church of the Costumer co-blogger is actually demonstrating – both making and eating – Seth’s new concept.

Demonstration made of the visual power of a good storytelling . Would have love to have her version of the Purple Cow. Hmm, better check what the kids are up too in the kitchen.

Imagine the cabbies playing the dual role of a ‘driver’ and a ‘product-marketer’. Recently, I had read in a blog-post that the company that sells ads on the outside of cars in London would now secretly pay money to the car drivers for product marketing. 

Questions are already being raised about ethics, integrity, merit and even possible spam. Rather than criticizing the move, lets try to look at it from an Indian perspective and see if we can draw some merits out of this.

• In Delhi the move could be implemented in the ‘Autos’ and ‘DTC Buses’.
• The drivers would act as ‘customer evangelists’ by sharing their experience of products they’ve used. This could be absolutely anything under the sun as long as the driver has used it or is planning to use it. It could range from a tooth-brush to television.
• Several advertisements of different portals like ‘oktatabyebye.com’, ‘mapmyindia.com‘ can be seen on Delhi’s Autos.
• I think it would make some sense if the drivers can understand the purpose of these websites like mapmyindia, routeguru and even burrp.com by helping the travellers to connect their real needs with these city-centric portals.

Coming back to the news story, at this stage all one can say is that it looks interesting. Perhaps the companies should portray drivers as ’Customer Evangelists’ instead of Spammers

Image Credits – Via blog.verticalresponse.com. To browse the page with this image please visit this link

The Church of the customer’s Jackie Huba put Meatball Sundae into practice. Meaning actually building the disgusting mashup of meatballs, ice cream and toppings –and tasting it.

Watch the video clip here.

If you haven’t read Seth Godin’s book, here’s a summary: Loading new media (the toppings) on top of a commodity (meatballs) tastes yuck, has an awful texture, and terrible results. Seth, as always, has the recipe for creating a better menu item.

For the taste test, Huba smothered the following toppings on meatballs:

• Chocolate syrup –representing blogs
• Whipped Cream –representing Facebook and MySpace
• Sprinkles –representing YouTube

You can expect what it tasted like…