Most people are aware that social media shares, comments, and ratings
have the biggest impact on the reputation of products and services provided by businesses
today. Yet there are many who believe that social media will never replace face
to face networking. I believe that most of us would agree that word of mouth is
the most valuable form of advertising, right? Well, what if you could maximize your
social media word of mouth by systematically using the tools that social media provides.
What do you think would happen to your sales, reputation and the growth of your
business? In this episode of Working the Web to Win we will explore how to use social
media tools and techniques to maximize your positive word of mouth and grow your
business. We will answer the questions of why this is important, how you go about
building trust and credibility and how to use social equity to get more sales. We
will also try and answer the question of which is the most powerful form of word
of mouth marketing. So, get ready and fire up your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
engines as we explore the many ways to maximize word of mouth in social media.
In the Beginning - Back in 2007, when social media was
just starting to take off, I had an online conversation with an associate who was
very excited about social media. His position was that social media would soon replace
face to face networking and all word of mouth would move to the web. My position
was very different. I felt that social media only enhanced networking and word of
mouth marketing. It was my opinion that it would never fully replace face to face
word of mouth efforts because humans are highly dependent on nonverbal communications.
Online communication severely limits your nonverbal message, and because of this,
it is not as effective. Back then social media did not fully support video streaming
and chat, so most of your message could be lost or misconstrued. On the other hand,
online communications (i.e. social
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Why Use Social Media - We all know that word of mouth is the
most powerful form of advertising, right? Or is it? If face to face word of mouth
is so powerful, why use social media at all? Why would a business choose to use
social media word
Don’t get me wrong; I am a proponent of face to face networking for
word of mouth marketing. But social networking does have several benefits that elude
a face to face venue. First, there is zero windshield time. There is significant
screen time, but that time can be mostly only meet
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| Courtesy of Wikipedia |
Sharing is
Growing - One of the things that social media has always provided
Here are the Prerequisites - Before we get into the tools,
remember these prerequisites. First off, no one ever joined a social network to
be sold to. Don’t post ads in the timeline; it tends to piss people off. Second,
remember the importance of providing high quality, relevance, timeliness and useful
content. Remember, your success is dependent on your ability to build trust and
credibility. In social media, it is your primary mission. Sales are secondary. Although
you can sell using
Let's look at how you use social media tools to perpetuate this positive
engagement. You can post your comments in many ways to the timeline. You can share
pictures, videos, podcasts, articles and a multitude of other types of content to
the timeline and you can advertise, both in the timeline and on the sidebars. And
you can use the built-in marketing platforms most social media networks have in
place to reach billions of people.
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Growth is the Name of the Game - I have written
many articles about how to grow your social following. Your daily mission is to
invite new prospects, referral partners and influencers
It is my recommendation that your social sites (all of them) receive
no less than one curated post a day and if possible one authoritative post a week.
This means you must search for non-authoritative articles, videos, pictures and
podcasts from other quality content producers that you will then curate and share.
Your ability to share high quality, timely and relevant content is your best way
to provide value added material to your social media presence. It is also this ability
that will keep followers loyal. It will also (along with daily inviting) help you
grow your audience.
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More Ways to Grow - These aren’t the only ways you can use
social posts to build trust, credibility and grow your business. You can connect
with fans, friends, followers, clients and prospects by providing them with engaging
posts. These can include; “Thank you posts,” “Congratulation posts,” “Consoling posts,”
“Happy birthday posts” and “Help or Training Posts” just to name a few. In fact,
direct engagement is a great way to deal with disgruntled customers. By directly
asking them “how you can help them” and then “asking them to take the issue off
the timeline,” you will be able to turn an unhappy customer into a raving fan. Too
often I see business people dig in their heels because they feel they are “right.”
But the truth of the matter is that in almost every case, it's better to make the
customer happy. Give the disgruntled customer the chance to say how you helped them
by helping them. If you make them a loser, it will ensure that they will go after
you in a very public and vitriolic way
Now let’s talk about testimonials and ratings. If you’re not currently
implementing a program that ensures your customers share positive ratings and testimonials
with you, you’re making a big mistake. We help our customers develop methods and
procedures that garner more consistent five-star ratings, positive rankings, and
testimonials than the competitors do. We teach all of our campaign clients how to
do
Social Media Keeps Evolving - Social media's ability to evolve
is amazing, but also frustrating at the same time. The rapid changes bring new features
and benefits. But they also rearrange the functions making it hard for users to
use their platforms. Early on in this article, I mentioned that social media word
of mouth was handicapped because we humans rely on nonverbal communication for much
of the meaning of our messages. Well, within the last few years’ social media sites
have been moving more towards a video format. Most major social sites allow video
posting and sharing. Many are now adopting live streaming videos and several use
video chat as their primary means of communication. In fact, smartphones
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In time, it is my belief that video chat will become as common as making
a regular phone call is today. It will become the defacto way to communicate. At
that time, social media word or mouth will supplant
So, what does this all mean? It means that if your company is going
to take advantage of this opportunity, it’s going to have to master the use of video
streaming and video chat technology. Your ability to recycle your content will give
you real leverage that is almost impossible to reproduce in a Face to Face networking
event (unless you stream it live on a social media network).
It is my hope that you decide to grow your social network and to use
it as a means of word of mouth marketing. It is important that you take the time
to learn as much as you can and understand that social media is always evolving.
If you feel that it is too much trouble or time-consuming to engage in, then outsource
this effort. We would be happy to bid on your needs. It can pay big dividends to
your company, and the cost is far less than TV, Radio or Print.
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I have taken the liberty of listing several articles we have written
that I believe will help you maximize your return on your social media word of mouth
marketing efforts. Here is my short list of articles. There are more on our blog,
just type social media marketing in the search box to find them. I thank you for
taking the time to read this article, and it is my hope that you succeed in your
social media word or mouth efforts.
That’s my opinion; I look forward to reading yours.
Social Media
Word of Mouth Marketing Reading List
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In this article, we have provided insight as to what social media tools
you can use and how to use them to maximize your social media word of mouth marketing.
We also address the question of which is the more powerful
If you feel your business could use some help with its
marketing, contact us at 904-410-2091. You can also fill out the form in the
sidebar of this blog; we will provide a free marketing analysis to help you get
better results. If you found this article useful, please share it with
friends, family, and co-workers. You can find other articles on our blog by
typing in “marketing, advertising, branding or audience” in the search box at
the top of this blog. Also, check out the “Blog
Talk Radio, Internet, podcast, that goes with this article ”
and the Show Note
Page, it has, even more, links for you to check out. If you
have a useful comment or opinion related to this article, leave it in the
comment section of this blog. Also, don’t forget to plus us, on Google+
and share us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Hector Cisneros is COO and Director of Social Media Marketing at Working the Web to Win, an award-winning Internet marketing company based in Jacksonville, Florida. He is also co-host of the weekly Internet radio show, "Working the Web to Win" on BlogTalkRadio.com, which airs every Tuesday at 4 p.m. Eastern. Hector is a syndicated writer and published author of “60 Seconds to Success.”
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