Everybody knows that word of mouth is the best form of advertising. The question is how do you get people to start talking about your business? Is Social Media the new word of Mouth?
Well… I guess that is an assumption on my part. Perhaps everybody doesn’t know that word of mouth is the best. But it certainly has been in my experience.
When I first started developing youth clubs and later when I was establishing my Judo club, I started with letterbox drops. The next best form of advertising in my view and a good way to get word of mouth moving. If you are allowed of course. I know that in some places it is illegal to do letterbox drops.
There are of course limitations to this in that you have either got to have lots of spare time or be able to get a volunteer to help you. At one point I decided to pay someone to do the drops for me, as I found them so successful.
The point is that in order to get word of mouth going you have to have a different medium to get it going. Which begs the question “why is word of mouth” so important?
Given that I have answered that question in the Why is Word of Mouth Marketing so Important? Article I won’t go into that here but I do want to cover what I think is the current equivalent to word of mouth, Social Media.
Now social media has of course not done away with word of mouth but there is a very real sense in which it is synchronistic with it.
Fortunately, people have not stopped talking with each other face to face. If ever that happens I think we are facing a very serious problem in our society. But they do use social media as a kind of continuation of the conversation.
If you’re in business then and you want to make use of the word-of-mouth advantage you have to be on social media.
Now I can just hear some say well Duh! But to many people, this is not that obvious. I have clients that have Facebook accounts and prior to my intervention, hardly ever make use of them. I have other clients that have Facebook accounts and struggle to use them effectively.
What I am saying is you can’t ignore social media. It is here and it is the new word of mouth. You must learn to take advantage of it and take advantage of it efficiently.
Richard
