Rohit also shares Likeonomics’ 5 keys to bridging the “likeability gap” (which happens to be an acronym for “trust”): truth, relevance, unselfishness, simplicity, and timing. In his author discussion at our word of mouth conference in Austin, he gives examples for each of these and explains how they’ve helped different brands in the past.

In this discussion, you’ll also learn:

• What makes stuff like Flip cameras, Twitter, and iPads so likeable
• Why unexpected honesty is better than forced transparency
• Why maps of the world were wrong until the 1970′s

Interested in finding out more? Download this excerpt from Likeonomics with its five principles here.

Rohit Bhargava on “Likeonomics” from WordofMouth.org on Vimeo.

Are the right people in the room when you talk about building loyalty?

After speaking at the 2012 Colloquy Loyalty Summit in California, I found myself wondering if brands aren’t shortchanging themselves on their loyalty programs, and where they reside within the organization. The majority of the attendees have titles that are slanted towards the CRM (Customer Relationship Management), data, and analytics divisions of a company.

Loyalty is not just about the data that one collects.

In fact, I would argue that loyalty isn’t even about the relevant programs that a brand puts out based on the data that they have collected. Why is loyalty so closely linked to data and, in many instances, so distanced from the greater marketing good? Rewards and redemption aren’t the be all and end all of loyalty anymore.

Bryan Pearson is President and CEO of Loyalty One (the company that owns Colloquy) and the author of the bestselling business book, The Loyalty Leap (more on that here: Building Loyalty Beyond Reason). The subtitle of his book hints at the new world of loyalty and how mal-aligned it is in most of the larger organizations. “Turning customer information into customer intimacy,” is not just a compelling subtitle for The Loyalty Leap, it speaks to the deep chasm that exists between our current definition of “loyalty” when it comes to brands today and the promise of what it can mean.

I am not a number. I am a human being.

Loyalty, in this day and age, is about a number. Brands collect your purchase information, turn you into a zero and a one, and spit out offers based on technical algorithms. Sexy, I know. Does that feel like loyalty? Does that feel like a real interaction between real human beings?

Whether or not you’re experiencing fatigue on the terms “social media” and “social business” is irrelevant, the fact remains that it’s going to be increasingly more difficult for brands to build true loyalty if they’re not looking at all of this fascinating information that we, the customers, are posting in the social channel. No, we don’t wants brands to creep on us and farm this data to hit us up with more inane offers, we’re talking about a new dawn in loyalty where we push beyond personalized offers into a place where context truly becomes king and queen.

What loyalty can mean.

We want to treat our best customers better. We want to treat other customers in a way that will make them better customers. We want those who are only considering our brand — or trying us out for the first time — to keep on coming back. Is loyalty only about signing customers up to a program? Turning customers into a number? Getting customers to gamify their shopping experience? The answers aren’t as clear as they once were, so I left the 2012 Colloguy Loyalty Summit wondering if we need to turn these loyalty professionals from customer relationship management and data jockeys into the very heart and soul of what the brand can (and should) be?

We need to get better at building loyalty. True loyalty. Not data pukes and customer segmentation Excel files, but the kind of stuff that moves us from selling more to being more valuable and appreciated in the consumer’s life.

Content is king.

Or maybe it’s queen. It might even be the court jester. Nevertheless, “content” is on the lips and minds of a lot of marketers these days. Especially when the topic turns to engaging people on social media channels and hoping that they’ll stick around. There are A LOT of opinions and theories about what good content is and what it isn’t. How much is too much and how much is not enough? Blah. Blah. Blah.

Look, content is important. And while I could argue my own opinion (which has mostly to do with context, not content), there’s something that I’ve learned and has proven to be effective about content: It works best when you give it away.

In late 2011, I led a team that launched a program for an automotive client (disclosure: I’m not with that firm any more and that company is not a client of WCG). It was the beginnings of an ambassador program and extremely grassroots in nature. There was the usual blocking and tackling that went into building the program, but we also tried some new things. One of which was giving content away.

It went down like this: We found an individual that had more passions than just the automotive brand we represented, like graphic design. He wasn’t an influencer. He didn’t have a huge social media footprint. But his passions ran deep. So we connected with him and asked if we could come out with a camera and talk to him about his passions on a Saturday.

So we went. And filmed him talking about and showing us his passions — not just the car. And then we did something that might be counter-intuitive to a lot of marketers. We produced a beautiful three minute video, packaged it back up, gave it to him… and then walked away. We didn’t post it on the brands highly-visible social sites, we didn’t ask him to post it anywhere, and we sure as Hell didn’t tell him what he could and couldn’t do with it. We just said “thanks” and gave it to him.

Now he had all the power. And that’s all he needed.

He posted it on his favorite forum. All his buddies asked how the whole thing came to be and our first ambassador told them the message and purpose of the program in his own words. Industry blogs picked it up and interviewed him. He changed his social profiles to reflect his membership in the program. And it grew and grew and grew. He even became the most influential person on Twitter about that car model (according to Klout, so take it with a grain of salt).

(There were several other components to the program, but for the sake of this post, we’re concentrating on this one piece of content.)

With all of social media’s great abilities to connect with people, we are still inundated with brands pushing their messages down our throats. And that goes triple for automotive brands.

So when it comes to content, doing something thoughtfully and deliberately that’s not all about you goes a long way.

As we’ve talked about before, as a brand you have a huge spotlight that you can shine on anything you want. So why not turn it around sometimes and instead of shining it on yourself, you let your customer bask in the glow for a while? And then watch word of mouth in action.

At WordofMouth.org our required reading list is full of fantastic books by word of mouth leaders who get it. And while we easily could have added a dozen more books to this list, we narrowed it down to the eight that are great for teaching the fundamentals.

Here are some of the best books to get you started:

1. Unleashing the Ideavirus, by Seth Godin
2. The Culting of Brands, by Douglas Atkin
3. I Love You More Than My Dog, by Jeanne Bliss
4. The Anatomy of Buzz, by Emanuel Rosen
5. The Ultimate Question, by Fred Reichheld
6. Raving Fans, by Ken Blanchard
7. Brains on Fire, by Robbin Phillips, Greg Cordell, Geno Church, and Spike Jones
8. Word of Mouth Marketing, by Andy Sernovitz

1. Unleashing the Ideavirus, by Seth Godin

This classic book is from one of marketing’s most influential thinkers, Seth Godin. While books like Purple Cow and Permission Marketing get lots of love (and deservedly so), this book explains why information travels so much faster and more effectively from customer-to-customer than from a business to a customer. Seth gives examples of how companies like Volkswagen, PayPal, and Hotmail have gotten their customers to spread their ideas and how you can too — no matter what size your business is.

Buy on Amazon >>

2. The Culting of Brands, by Douglas Atkin

Douglas Atkin is one of our frequent guest authors and an all-around brilliant guy. In this book, he explains what cults like the Unification Church have in common with brands like Ben & Jerry’s — from attracting the right people to giving them a sense of belonging. He talks about how cults and brands alike can inspire true loyalty from normal folks.

Buy on Amazon >>

3. I Love You More Than My Dog, by Jeanne Bliss

Customer experience expert Jeanne Bliss, another frequent contributor to WordofMouth.org, explains how companies earn extreme love from their customers by making five decisions about how to run their business. She shares her experiences with beloved companies like Zappos, Harley-Davidson, and Land’s End and how they inspire raving fans.

Download the first chapter | Buy it on Amazon >>

4. The Anatomy of Buzz, by Emanuel Rosen

Truly one of the foundational books on word of mouth, The Anatomy of Buzz talks about the success of products like the Palm Pilot and the movie The Blair Witch Project because of word of mouth marketing. Emanuel Rosen explains the mechanics behind these conversations and gives real-life examples of how it’s worked for other companies.

Buy on Amazon >>

5. The Ultimate Question, by Fred Reichheld

According to Fred Reichheld, too many companies are missing the connection between their customer relationships and their future growth. He introduces how to clearly measure real growth based on one important question: “Would you recommend us to a friend?” This book was originally published in 2006, and this question is still used in marketing meetings every day. No word of mouth plan is complete without it.

Buy on Amazon >>

6. Raving Fans, by Ken Blanchard

Designed as a guide for a new area manager on her first day, this marketing parable by Ken Blanchard explains why just satisfying your customer isn’t enough to have a successful business. He’ll show you how to create a business that thrives on thrilling customers and inspiring them to tell everyone about you and your stuff.

Buy on Amazon >>

7. Brains on Fire, by Robbin Phillips, Greg Cordell, Geno Church, and Spike Jones

Here’s the newest book on our list, and it’s an instant classic. The Brains on Fire team explains the passion behind word of mouth movements that inspire fantastic communities like the Fiskateers, Love146, and Rage Against the Haze. They talk about the process of starting these movements — from recruiting the right people to lead movements to achieving the company culture that supports them.

Download an excerpt | Buy on Amazon >>

8. Word of Mouth Marketing, by Andy Sernovitz

Finally, as biased as we are, we recommend our own Andy Sernovitz’s Word of Mouth Marketing. The 5 Ts framework in this book shapes all of the tips and advice we share each week, and it’s filled with dozens of real-world examples from giant and tiny companies alike.

Download the first chapter | Buy on Amazon >>

Phone system provider Grasshopper does just that with their “Tell Us Your Story” form. They ask their clients for information like how many employees they have, what makes their business unique, and which blogs they’d love to appear in. Then they turn that information into a reason to put the spotlight on them.

Grasshopper uses these stories to feature their clients on their Happy Customers page or to get them press coverage. In fact, they even managed to get one of them quoted in The New York Times. That’s a great way to not only do something awesome for your customers, but also to build stronger relationships by learning more about them.

Make your word of mouth story about your customers and they’ll be more than happy to tell everyone about you, too.

Why? Because each one of them can turn one recommendation into much bigger conversations — plus, they’re easy to implement and they don’t cost a thing.

The Three Must-Use Word of Mouth Marketing Tools will help you kick off any word of mouth campaign no matter what topic, industry, or budget. They are:

1. Ask people to spread the word: Sometimes, all you have to do is ask.
2. Put everything in an email: Email is fast, portable, and makes your ideas move.
3. Put tell-a-friend links on every page of your website: Make it incredibly easy for people to advertise for you, for free.

Download this free guide to learn why each of these tools are perfect for getting people to talk about your stuff and how you can make the most out of them.

None of these tools are at all new or groundbreaking — and that’s precisely why so many marketers forget about just how powerful they can be. Use this guide to help you start working them back in today.

Fill out this form and we’ll send it straight to your inbox.

You can’t get awesome reviews without being awesome

First and foremost, you need to be a great business that sells something fantastic. No amount of marketing gimmicks or advertising budgets can overcome generic, unremarkable stuff. Find ways to go above and beyond with your service, your product, and your customer experience.

Once you’ve really nailed the first part, the rest is more straightforward than you might think.

Get more reviews by just asking

For starters, have you asked your fans to review you? It sounds obvious, but so few businesses regularly ask customers for feedback and reviews.

You probably already have a whole bunch of happy fans who would love to support you. But they’re busy, and so few of us wake up one day and say, “Today’s the day I write a review about my dishwasher!”

So remind them. Let them know how much their reviews mean to your business and how much you value their feedback. Your happy customers would love to help.

When you get great at this — that’s when you can start exploring advanced techniques. Because if just asking isn’t working, you have bigger problems to sort out first.

Most Chief Executive Officers outwardly commit to customer loyalty, customer focus, and just plain improving things for their customers. It’s getting them to drive the company to do something about it that’s the challenge. A number of telltale signs determine pretty quickly whether a company is serious about the job or not — beginning with the CEO and leadership and cascades all the way through the ranks of the company.

Specific leadership actions occur in companies that have taken the commitment past lip service. Understanding customer issues and what drives customer loyalty become the stuff of everyday conversations. The issues are trended and understood and talked about. Building customer experiences and relationships is considered the true work of the organization — not something layered on the “real” work of achieving quarterly sales goals.

Chief Executive Officers that drive this work understand that it’s the inspiration, leadership, and organizational change that are the sticking points in making progress.

CEO has personal ownership

A CEO leader on a customer mission takes responsibility for driving value for customers and improving the customer experience. This is not something jobbed out to someone else to do. Although they will need a lieutenant to help drive the work (because they have an entire company to run after all), the CEO is an engaged and active participant.

Commitment Questions 1 and 2:

1. Does your CEO clearly articulate what he/she wants the company to become for customers and constantly reinforce and drive the company in that direction?

2. Is there a commitment for organizational transformation, not some one-off tactics and silver bullets?

The CEO makes the customer champion an officer of the company

Because these leaders recognize that this is organizational transformation, they grasp completely that it will not happen with a public proclamation and a great kick-off memo (sad, but true — how many of us have received those?). It’s understood that they need an executive level partner to bring the transformation about.

The point about making the customer champion an officer is not an insignificant one. When the customer effort is considered a strategic priority, the work simply needs to reside at that elevated level. An officer level caliber leader is needed to drive the action and the company will take their cue about the work’s importance from the title in the organization box.

Commitment Questions 3 and 4:

3. Has the CEO layered this work onto someone’s already over-full plate, or is there recognition that this is a critical job for the organization that requires an immense time commitment?

4. Has the CEO ensured that the customer champion is an officer of the company with the full support and engagement of the CEO, leaders, and the organization?

There is clear and regular accountability for customers

This is a huge sticking point for the work. CEO’s who get this demand regular accountability for the sole purpose of identifying and tracking progress with the customer agenda. The metrics and performance requirements are clear. Regular accountability means, for example: trending and tracking customer complaints by category and setting metrics for improvement. Regular accountability means that customer losses are understood and accounted for and explained. Regular accountability takes the key customer interaction points down to operational metrics which the CEO tracks as fervently as the number of products sold — because in those moments experiences are made or broken.

Commitment Questions 5 and 6:

5. Does your CEO actively hold people accountable for customer performance? Is there clarity in what’s expected, and does the organization practice discipline around identifying what should be measured and managed?

6. Are forums for accountability regularly scheduled and enforced as a key strategic meeting for the success of the company?

They provide political air cover

Committed CEO’s provide the necessary political air cover to drive the work ahead. They bring around the non-believers of the customer effort. Because this work traverses across the organization, the CEO steps in when necessary to course-correct and drives the action when it stalls. These CEO’s don’t sweep the naturally competing silo priorities under the rug. They are acknowledged and the gnarly work is done to determine where the agreements must be made, where the compromises must be set, and where the new lines of accountability must be established.

Commitment Questions 7 and 8:

7. Does your CEO commit time and resources to be a solid partnership with the customer leader?

8. Does your CEO play an active role in understanding and participating in the rigor of aligning the company when necessary?

There is corporate patience for the work to take hold

This work is not for the mild-hearted or the quarterly inclined. Everyone needs to understand that becoming a ‘customer’ company is a multiyear endeavor. They can’t bail in the first year because the results don’t come as simply and cleanly as seeing response rates on a marketing campaign, tracking sales goals, or the number of hits on your website. The CEO must personally have the belief and commitment that this is the right course.

Commitment Questions 9 and 10:

9. Is your CEO committed to the timeline required (in the neighborhood of five years), and are they willing to suspend the usual short-term expectations of immediate results to have patience for the customer work to take hold and yield results?

10. Will they sustain the patience inside the corporation and with the board to stay the course so that results can be achieved?

They demystify the roadmap and suspend the disbelief

The corporate ‘nay-sayers’ will be quick to voice that this work has been tried before and failed. But committed CEOs have grasped all that and factored it in. And since it’s all been considered, there is a clear plan — an achievable plan that is laid out before the organization. A reality-based roadmap is established, funded, followed, and followed up on.

Commitment Questions 11 and 12:

11. Are the stages, expectations, and processes to drive the work identified realistically and planned so people understand the roadmap, where it is leading, and why it is set forth?

12. Have the resources been applied so that the roadmap is grounded in the reality of what the company can achieve and fund?

Got a storefront? Then you’ve got a stage for your word of mouth topic. Give your “Open” sign some company and give people walking by something to talk about.

Check out these examples of remarkable storefronts and try applying them to your own:

1. The shareable storefront
2. The photobooth storefront
3. The storefront stunt

1. The shareable storefront

Burt’s Bees got tons of people talking with a billboard covered in coupons, that, when removed, would reveal the effects of their new moisturizer on the billboard model’s face. It was a cool idea that put something shareable in people’s hands (and encouraged them to keep coming back to see the gradual transformation). Steal this idea for your storefront: Put something out that’s easy for people passing by to grab and share with a friend.

2. The photobooth storefront

How many pictures have you seen of your friends sitting with a Ronald McDonald statue on a bench, standing next to a cardboard cutout of a celebrity, or posing with a 3-D movie poster at a theater? You have something interesting and interactive that people would snap a photo with. Put it out there, tell them to go for it, and encourage them to use a hashtag for posting it in social media (if you’re feeling techie). Who knows, maybe someday you’ll have a bunch of photos like these.

3. The storefront stunt

Think you don’t have anything cool to display in your storefront? You might be surprised. Austin’s Radiant Plumbing, for example, dresses up and displays toilets referencing pop culture, current events, and holidays in their store window. Recent themes have included “The Most Interesting Toilet in the World” and a pot of gold toilet for St. Patrick’s Day. People write on Yelp about these displays, post pictures of them, and have even interviewed the owner about the tradition. Even if your stuff is boring, you can earn a lot of word of mouth with a little sense of humor.

Banger’s menu offers a free tattoo of their logo.

(Image from Downtown Austin Blog)

It explains that Banger’s has partnered with a local tattoo parlor to pay for you to get their logo inked and to ask your server about it if you’re interested.

They probably don’t have a lot of people take them up on that offer, but because they display it proudly on their menu, even people who don’t get the tattoo will at least get a good laugh out of it — and they’ll definitely talk about it.