[Welcome back to our Word of Mouth Marketing Lessons newsletter. This is text from the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using this handy form.]
One of the biggest motivators for word of mouth is all about “me.” People don’t want to talk about your company — they want to talk about themselves.
Here’s how you can help them talk about “me” and earn some buzz along the way:
1. Make it personal
2. Make it easy
3. Make it visible
1. Make it personal
The New York City Marathon has tons of brand sponsors and supporters. It’s a noisy place for advertisers. But what do people actually care about? The runners. That’s why ASICS created personalized 3D-printed models of hundreds of runners to commemorate the marathon. They also gave them RFID chips to help track their location during the race and post updates to social media. That doesn’t have a lot to do with ASICS, but it gives hundreds of marathoners (and all of their proud families and friends) a personal reason to talk about them.
2. Make it easy
When one guy started a social media campaign to talk about the reasons to vote, he admitted that with only 54 Twitter followers, he didn’t have a lot of influence. So to get the campaign rolling, he simply asked someone with more influence to share it with their 93 Twitter followers. All the participants had to do was share a video of themselves explaining #ImVotingBecause. It eventually grew to a reach of 2.6 million Twitter users. Why it worked: It started by simply asking someone to share, and they kept it super simple. Everyone has an opinion and a camera phone.
3. Make it visible
Sourpatch Kids is inviting bands to come stay in their cool Brooklyn apartment in exchange for making and sharing content — whatever kind they want — during their stay. Then, Sourpatch Kids is sharing that content on all of their social media sites. (Sort of like a residency. For bands. With candy.) That’s a ton of coverage for a small indie band — and some great content for a candy company to share with their fans. As a business, you have a stage your customers want to be on. And for the most part, it doesn’t matter what you sell. How can you give them the spotlight?
