Affinitive’s Social Media Playground

Welcome to Social Media Playground, a place to discuss all things related to word of mouth (WOM) and social media marketing. Brought to you by Affinitive, a word of mouth and social media marketing, technology and strategic solutions firm located in New York City and San Francisco.

Affinitive’s Social Media Playground

Want Word of Mouth? Make it Easy for Your Customers to Share (Offline)

February 26th, 2010 · View Comments

While I know it’s very easy for us marketers to all get worked into social media hysteria, let’s not lose sight of the fact that over 80% of Word of Mouth recommendations happen offline. Twitter might be “sexy”, but face-to-face is still king. That being said, I find it surprising that more brands aren’t providing [...]

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Tags: Marketing · Strategy

The Importance of Voice

January 25th, 2010 · View Comments

Those of you who watch a little show called Glee are aware of how important it is to “find your voice”. While characters on Glee find their literal voice, the lesson to be learned from the show is the importance of understanding who you are and staying true to that personality. The same can be [...]

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Tags: Marketing · Social Media · Strategy

New Comprehensive Word-of-Mouth Marketing Industry Report Released

July 30th, 2009 · View Comments

On the heels of the first-of-its-kind WOM industry study in 2007, The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), in conjunction with PQ Media, just released their Word-of-Mouth Marketing Forecast 2009-2013: Spending, Trends & Analysis study. It’s chock full of great data and insight, and includes the following eye-opening prediction: Total spending on WoM marketing is [...]

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Tags: Case Studies · Industry News · Marketing · Research · Social Media

Dear KFC: Never Underestimate the Power of Free + Word of Mouth

May 11th, 2009 · View Comments

Dear KFC Team, Last week you learned a valuable lesson (no, not that Oprah is queen – we already knew that). You learned, hopefully, not to underestimate the power of Word of Mouth. To recap, for those who haven’t been stampeded in one of your locations within the past week… You as a brand, interested [...]

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Tags: Industry News · Marketing · PR · Self-Promotion · Social Media

Generating WOM for a New Product or Service that Doesn’t Yet Exist

March 8th, 2009 · View Comments

How do you get people excited (and talking) about your great new product or service while it’s still in development? Here are five tips that have proven successful: Tip #1: Motivation If you are truly starting “from scratch,” with no existing customers (let alone an existing CRM system or even an email list), you’ll need [...]

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Tags: Marketing · Social Media

Word of Mouth and Social Media Marketing… “Tipping Point”, or “Jumping the Shark”?

November 18th, 2008 · View Comments

(note: This post isn’t meant to be a critique of the recent WOMMA Summit but rather my general observations about the evolution of the WOM industry as a whole.) I recently returned from WOMMA’s Word of Mouth Marketing Summit in Las Vegas. It was a fun (yet sleepless!) few days and it’s always great running [...]

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Tags: Industry News · Marketing · Social Media