Are Brands Neglecting the Power of Online WOM?

Today's post is a guest post from Lucy Ostermeyer, who spent some time working with us this week. She works at MEC as a Communications Planner and helped us on several projects. We really enjoyed having her around and we're loving the chocolate she left us (it's taken just 24 hours to get through more than half!).

Enjoy the read!

"Word of mouth is much more credible than your most sincere salesperson. It is able to reach more people, and faster, than advertising and direct mail because it can spread like wildfire."
George Silverman, The Secrets of Word of Mouth Marketing

With the explosion of social media over recent years, WOM has never been so rife. Recommendations from friends and experts of specialist interests are the most valuable form of endorsement so why aren’t brands listening more to the online buzz about them? It may be a case of not knowing where to look or simply a lack of resource dedicated to listening to what consumers are saying about their brand, whatever the reason, we feel many are missing a trick.

There are a number of obvious benefits to listening to what people are saying about your brand:

1 - Recommendations from friends or experts in specialist fields are more valuable and trusted than any form of advertising
2 - Cheap, often free form of market research
3 - Provides insight which can inform future marketing strategies
4 - Brands can quickly be seen as helpful, reactive and proactive if negative views are taken on-board
5 - Encourages engagement and a closer relationship with consumers

It’s one thing being aware of what people are saying about you online but the ultimate value is generated by brands who turn the most vocal into brand ambassadors. Much the way Pringles did by sending out their ‘first2taste’ party packs when P&G identified their most influential bloggers: networked mums. By making them feel special with free product, they were much more inclined to recommend to friends and fellow mums within social forums. A flurry of conversations was triggered about the product offline and online, and resulted in one of the most successful product launches for P&G in Europe.

Here are our top tips for promoting your brand reputation online effectively:

1 - Identify your most influential bloggers
2 - Incentivise the negative bloggers and reward the positive, turning both into brand ambassadors
3 - Above all, be open, honest and chatty!

Get this right and you have the potential to reach a mass audience at very little cost.

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts or examples of brands you’ve come across who have nailed this!