There still seems to be a lot of confusion about the definitions of "Word of Mouth" and "social media" and how they are similar/different, so I thought I would kick off the year with a refresher. Put simply:
Word of Mouth is the act of people talking.
Word of Mouth Marketing is giving people a reason to talk.
Social Media is simply one of many channels for Word of Mouth to occur. Just as is a telephone. Or standing around a water cooler. It benefits from the fact that it can scale quickly due to its online nature.
The point is, they are related, but different.
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1 Tweets that mention Word of Mouth and Social Media - Similar, but Different! | Marketing | Affinitive's Social Media Playground -- Topsy.com // Jan 6, 2010 at 2:41 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Affinitive, sarahashley. sarahashley said: RT @Affinitive: Word of Mouth and Social Media – Similar, but Different – http://ow.ly/TntJ [...]
2 stanphelps // Jan 6, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Simple and to the point. Great post Bob.
Word of Mouth – 90% offline
Word of Mouse – 10% social media (Facebook, Twitter and Blogs)
The key to word of mouth marketing is to concentrate on the lowest hanging fruit . . . your current customers by creating a number of Purple Goldfish. You need to get new customers to become repeats, repeats to become frequents, frequents to be regulars and most important . . . regulars to become evangelists.
The best word of mouth marketing is not a campaign, its an ongoing commitment to a concept called marketing lagniappe.
#PurpleGoldfishProject
3 uberVU - social comments // Jan 6, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by affinitive: Word of Mouth and Social Media – Similar, but Different – http://ow.ly/TntJ...
4 stanphelps // Jan 6, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Simple and to the point. Great post Bob.
Word of Mouth – 90% offline
Word of Mouse – 10% social media (Facebook, Twitter and Blogs)
The key to word of mouth marketing is to concentrate on the lowest hanging fruit . . . your current customers by creating a number of Purple Goldfish. You need to get new customers to become repeats, repeats to become frequents, frequents to be regulars and most important . . . regulars to become evangelists.
The best word of mouth marketing is not a campaign, its an ongoing commitment to a concept called marketing lagniappe.
#PurpleGoldfishProject
5 Word of mouth marketing for museums « Museum Marketing | Promotional Media Marketing Wisdom // Jan 7, 2010 at 6:37 pm
[...] Word of Mouth and Social Media – Similar, but Different … [...]
6 johnmoore_womma // Jan 7, 2010 at 6:46 pm
love the brevity, spot-on!
7 9/13/07 – ida-bdc's head to direct cny economic development | Cortland County NY Real Estate // Jan 8, 2010 at 2:07 am
[...] Word of Mouth and Social Media – Similar, but Different … [...]
8 social media marketing // Jan 12, 2010 at 10:42 am
Since social marketing costs nothing at all other than your time even one extra sale is a good return on your investment.
9 Promotional Products // Jan 18, 2010 at 7:33 pm
Thank you for not giving us another thesis on why the two are related. I think you are right about the relation. Sending a link to someone is just as effective as telling a friend about a product. Good, quick post!
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