The Business Value of Social Influence The power of good, old-­‐fashioned word-­‐of-­‐mouth marketing. By: Ed Keller Is it Facebook’s new social graph that will be the next silver bullet for marketers? Or what about Twitter’s Vine? Today’s marketers are hard pressed to keep up with all the latest social channels, hoping that one will provide the highest return of investment. After all, the future of marketing is tied to successfully mastering social media, right? Wrong. I recently met with marketing and brand managers from some of Seattle’s top companies to present findings about what the next silver bullet should be-­‐-­‐-­‐and the was answer is word of mouth conversations. Yes, that’s right. What some derisively call “good old fashioned word of mouth” is not a relic of a bygone era. Not at all. It is very much alive and kicking in 2013, and businesses that embrace this reality are the ones that will successfully ride the next wave in social marketing and reap the profits that social marketing promises. In a recent study conducted with MarketShare, we found that word of mouth (WOM) makes any marketing campaign up to 54% more effective. The question then is what is the best way to spark WOM about your brand, service or product? Most marketers think that social media is the medium that produces the most WOM because of a user’s ability to easily share content and therefore its ability to go ‘viral.’ However, as documented in my recent book, The Face-­‐to-­‐Face Book: Why Real Relationships Rule in a Digital Marketplace, 90% of word of mouth conversations happen offline as opposed to just two percent that happen online in social media channels. This may be a shock to the current way of thinking, but think deeper and you’ll realize that in our daily lives we spend far more time interacting with people face-­‐to-­‐face -­‐-­‐ at home, at work, in places of worship, while socializing with friends -­‐-­‐ than we do via social media. Thus, it should be no surprise that most of the conversations that we have take place offline and during those palpable conversations, we share experiences, seeking advice and making recommendations about brands, products and services. Marketers have a huge opportunity to give social beings a lot to talk about. Unfortunately many marketers put the cart before the horse, choosing the channel in which to disseminate the information before even evaluating what will make the story most “talk worthy.” It’s important to flip the current approach and start the creative process with the story, not the channel. What do consumers talk about when they talk about your brand, your product or your service, and what information or experiences can you share with them that’s new, exciting, emotional, or valuable. That’s that the key to sparking conversations. People engage in WOM to make smarter decisions. Help make them smarter. Then, tap into the right talkers. These are the most influential people who will share information about your brand, product or service. Understand what motivates them, and where they seek out information. Only then is it time to pick choose the right channels. Contrary to popular belief the channel that drives the most conversation is not online social media networks. It’s television (yes, television) followed by in-­‐store marketing, promotional activity such as coupons, and company websites. When you plan media to drive word of mouth, start with what works in the real world and be guided by facts, not hype. Today’s consumer marketplace is being driven by social influence. We shouldn’t misunderstand that to mean people are only social online, but rather they are in fact social in every facet of their lives. For marketers there is a very exciting opportunity to find the right story that will make people talk, and mostly they will talk face-­‐to-­‐face. Unleashing the power of these real world conversations will reap huge rewards. This is the next social revolution. Ed Keller is CEO of the Keller Fay Group, a market research and consulting firm specializing in word of mouth and social influence. Keller’s newest book, The Face-­‐to-­‐Face Book: Why Real Relationships Rule in a Digital Marketplace was co-­‐authored with Brad Fay and published in 2012. Keller is a past president of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and of the Market Research Council. In 2011, he was awarded a Great Mind Award from the Advertising Research Foundation, where he was a long-­‐time Board member.