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| Digital word of mouth creates real-time feedback |
You are possibly missing out on a golden opportunity.
With the later stages of the Internet turning us all into digital journalists a business no longer gets away with being good it has to be MARVELLOUS!
Anything less than blowing your customer away with superb service does not cut the mustard.
Some business owners have got into flap about dodgy reviews online and at one point it was true as read and many believed every comment. In 2010 a bad review will not be detrimental just so long as it is a one off, we have all read the one review on Tripadvisor from the grumpy holidaymaker who hates the queue at breakfast, moaning about the fruit juice, we all know they have deeper issues or the other 30 reviews are all wrong and it might true about the unfriendly staff with no orange juice!
Holiday time for me is right (I actually wrote this last week and am now back in England with the heating on as it is chilly) now as I sit in my study at home in Sri Lanka, we planned a weekend down south, we fancied the best beaches, our closest beaches are nice, not as nice as beaches a couple of hours south of Colombo, towards Galle, we fancied a change and wanted a great beach hotel and sure enough reading other peoples reviews was the final job before booking.
My first stop was Googling the area, see the villages and then reading the reviews. You will no doubt have done the same and we might be the last generation to have stopped in a hotel without knowing how to get feedback from twenty of the very last guests.
Feedback can be great for business or it could spell disaster and Nestle will be feeling this on the bottom-line after the Kit Kat fiasco.
After calls that asked Nestle why they used Palm Oil that endangered the life of the Orangutan they tried a unique approach as food giant Nestle, already under pressure from environmentalists, became the subject of a Facebook- and Twitter-based "twitstorm" when the operators of the corporation's Facebook page took a hostile approach to critics.
In protest against Nestle’susageof palm oil from companies that kill Indonesian rainforests, Facebookusers put up anti-Nestle logos as their profile pictures.
Nestle asked them to remove these images, triggering even more discontent from the “fans.” These conversations snowballed into a PR fiasco for the company.
Every action gets a reaction, Greenpeace has long been putting the pressure on Nestle to stop using palm oil, the production of which has been documented as a source of deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, and endangered species loss. With huge help from Facebook users Greenpeace made friends with many people and became more mainstream. I in the past thought Greenpeace was a little radical, (imaginary) membership comprising of an induction involving eating granola bars for two weeks and walking for 1 hour to work daily with vegetarians driving a Prius complete with a wetsuit in the boot and off to the park saving the Mallard from white bread (wholemeal only).
Don't get me wrong I am a bit of an Eco Warrior myself, they just seemed a bit over the top, compared to me (goals: Solar panels on the roof/Bentley in garage) the lighter green, with Greenpeace getting 200,000 emails sent and a word of mouth viewing totalling 1.5 million of its viral film they made followers through online PR.
When Greenpeace set sights on banking giant HSBC the reaction was fast and they gave up shares in Sinar Mas, one of the worst companies responsible for ripping up the Indonesian rainforest for palm oil and pulp plantations.
So in this battle Greenpeace grew its brand and Nestle killed a brand.
Why is Word of Mouth (WOM) so HOT now?
Frankly WOM has always been hot and personally I've been instrumental in establishing a handful of people (for WOM to work just find a handful better than you are) who built sales of around $200 million WOM for one product and for one company. The amazing thing was that no market was officially identified for that product and sales still increase.
Today people are faster as word spreads (word can be typed or oral) through a plethora of online social networks and we can then take action together.
The slowness of isolated instances of bad customer experiences are no longer a challenge as we express our concerns and dissatisfaction more loudly than ever before.
Not just chocolate, we can challenge traditional business activities and people in power.
In the digital world a few inspire and reach many.
We can use this to our advantage with a flow of information publishing the thoughts of every single customer and that is much stronger/faster reaction than ever seen in our lifetime.
I follow the thoughts of Seth Godin and say build a tribe of employees, partners and customers. This is where customer satisfaction becomes critical.
Do not let this scare you as we tend to gravitate towards the positive.
Having worked in three companies who sold nothing off the shelf of a shop I implore you take this concept seriously and it should motivate you to be a better marketer.
You can now make more sales off an ideal that if your customers are happy, they will share satisfactory experiences with a broader social network and earn you more followers.
Word of Mouth means something we can remark about and one word describes this remarkable. Both Greenpeace and Nestle did something worth remarking about.
To get the greatest response on Facebook or Twiter it will be no big surprise to know the highest response or re-tweet was found in conjunction when a sexual reference was in the title.
Positivity is more shared than negativity.
So if you want to make a fortune blogging and get the articles shared on Facebook, try writing (positively) about sex.
The real commercial word is FREE as we seek value for money and look toward the voucher business. I tried to get a decent reseller deal with a voucher company and they are so busy the response was yeah have a few pence in the pound. Without doubt in this financial market
online vouchers are the business to be in and I will enter the market shortly, buying our own email database, with special offers being flavour of the moment.
As an online marketer you will have realised that if you provide incredible value, consumers will beat a path to your door.
Of course, you’ll probably run out of pizza (or whatever it is you provide) , which is exactly the result you were hoping for and those who help market this can make a fortune out of a WIN/WIN situation.
Get yourself known, I laugh at those who still say it is cool to be a secret on the web and one Internet Networker claims I don't do email. I say get known, get a thousand or more Twitter folowers, find 500 Facebook friends and fans.
Post replies all over LinkedIn and set up groups. The key to status is everyone wants to share it. And the more you have it, the more you’ll do just that. If you make it simple for people to share their connectivity, there won’t be a tight lip in the house.
To make the most of this our team at Netbods (www.netbods.net) are predicting a big upturn in translation with
English to Chinese translation.
Chinese to English translation.
English to Japanese translation.
Japanese to English translation.
Also all the Indian languages
Also all the Indian languages
This covers 35% of the population and switched on business people will want to capture this market.
I've set up a Netbods team just for translation as we are now a global market.
How we can transform our business comes through making our blog worth a
read.
There are some insanely popular blogs out there. You probably have heard of the biggies, like: The Huffington Post
, Mashable!, TechCrunch and Gizmodo. But today let’s talk about a more achievable idea and how you could make your blog one of those that people read.
How we can transform our business comes through making our blog worth a
read.
There are some insanely popular blogs out there. You probably have heard of the biggies, like: The Huffington Post
, Mashable!, TechCrunch and Gizmodo. But today let’s talk about a more achievable idea and how you could make your blog one of those that people read.The Internet is a level playing field and this means that every single blog has a shot at gaining a big readership.
I wanted to compile some ideas to make sure that your blog posts are influential, tweetable and hopefully – even a bit addictive.
Make sure that your blog is…
- Part of the global blogging fraternity
Networking online counts and it counts BIG in the Internet world. The first and best way to drive readers to your blog is to be an active participant on theirs. Comment all the time on a blog whose readers you’d like to attract. - Break the normal rules
Please avoid making-up fake controversy, although I would embrace the real thing, either. Controversial topics and debates will make your site the go-to place for readers. We all like a heated debate? It’s human nature to want to ‘see a scrap' - Takeaway Heavy
You must make sure all blog posts jump off the page. They should be alive and you should ensure they should get into a readers brain and traumatise them, long after they have browsed away from your blog they should remember what you wrote. When you create a post, think about it from the readers’ point of view. Are you just talking about stuff or are you giving your readers something they can act upon and change their lives for the better? - Facts are the truth when you've done research
Do your fact finding, back up your point of view with facts. Talking in generalities about your industry will still gain you readers but if you can include references to research and if you go a little deeper, it will up the chances they can return. It will also up the chances that you will be quoted again and again or even linked to, by other bloggers! - Personal & Passionate
“Write about what you know” is not new advice. Your best, most compelling blog posts will happen when you write about topics that are near and dear to your heart. Don’t shy away from writing with passion, either. Seeing you care about a topic will make readers care about your posts!
What blogger has inspired loyalty in you? Who do you follow and recommend your friends to? Why? What specifically made them stand out in your mind?
http://mashable.com/2010/05/17/nestle-social-media-fallout/
http://e-activist.com/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=18&ea.campaign.id=6632
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