Word of mouth is valuable only because of what causes it and because of what it drives. It’s time to move the conversation about conversation away from a focus on ‘buzz’ and toward an investigation of innovative strategies to shift what consumers feel and do, not just how they talk.

Emotion is the root cause of word of mouth.  Conversations about brands and products occur when consumers feel something strongly enough to want to share. Many marketers make the mistake of focusing on   spreading the conversation—pushing a press release to bloggers, or asking people to retweet a link—rather than stimulating the emotion behind it.  Conversation without emotion is meaningless, and of limited value to a brand;  the whole reason people turn to their peers is because of that personal engagement, that opinionated slant that makes a recommendation relevant and influential. Neutral or regurgitated word of mouth may boost a brand’s visibility (although even that is questionable considering the deluge of content out there), but it is unlikely to change behaviour.

And that introduces the second valuable aspect of word of mouth: the behaviour that it drives. The conversation may be spreading by word of mouth, but if it isn’t actually influencing people to behave differently toward your brand—whether buying for the first time, buying more, or staying loyal—it’s simply empty talk.  

So, word of mouth is simply the potential indicator of two valuable processes: emotional advocacy and behaviour change. This is why conversational success measurements such as level of participation; depth and range of emotion; strength of recommendation; and audience relevance and resonance are in fact much less fuzzy than those that look at reach figures alone. They indicate how the brand has changed the people behind the conversation—and it is this alchemy alone that brings true word-of-mouth return-on-investment.

Read the full article here.

Recent Content

Membership and Pricing

Videos and podcasts

Membership and Pricing