Return on Intention

We have all heard that word of mouth is the best form of advertising, and there has been no shortage of people trying to figure out how to harness its power . The reason that word of mouth is so effective is because it’s based on trust. If someone I know recommends a restaurant, and I trust that their taste in food is similar to mine, then I will believe that that restaurant is a good place even before I go. This is the expectation part of the brand building equation.

Building the Brand

The expectation part is what makes new customers take action and try a product or service. The second part of building a strong brand is experience. If the experience matches or exceeds the expectation, you have made good on your brand promise and you have gained a customer. While both sides of the equation (Expectation and Experience) are important and require attention and a solid plan to execute well, word of mouth is more about gaining new customers by setting up a favorable expectation. 

WildFire  - Online makes WOM move fast

The need to grow the top line has driven companies into looking for ways to drive word of mouth through influencers (The group of people in any market who can influence the expectations and opinions of many others). The internet, and more specifically, the social web (web 2.0) has spawned many new attempts and avenues to try influencer marketing. If your company can get a popular blogger to recommend your product then the readers of that blog will likely have a positive expectation of you and your product. Blogs, podcasts and other social media channels have made the influencer class even more powerful. No longer does the influencer need to wait for the next cocktail party to work his/her influencing magic to the 40 guests in attendance. Now that influencer can reach hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people every day online.  

Getting in the ball game

With all this great looking potential, it would be silly for any consumer brand to not want to get involved. Of course getting into the social space online to influence the influencers is harder than it might seem. I guess it’s not really hard, but rather it has to be done the right way. Hiring a bunch of bloggers to talk nice about you isn’t going to work. So What Does?

How to get involved

Imagine that you are going to a party, a real one in the real world with real people. Lets assume you don’t know anyone that will be there, but you know one guy who everyone seems to respect and listen to. If you want that person to talk favorably about you or what you do you have two options. 

1. Meet the guy right before the party and ask him if he will tell everyone how great you are if you give him $300, or
2. Go to the parties that he goes to, get to know him and build an honest, favorable impression of yourself so he naturally wants to say good things about you.

As I’m sure you can guess option 2 is going to work the best. Imagine taking option 1 and then having everyone find out about the $300. That will most likely set the wrong expectation. You can’t buy trust. The only problem is that the second and better option takes time. OK, lets drop the metaphor. 

In the business world, time is money. Getting involved will take resources. Getting to the influencers will not be a quick fix. Get to know the people at the party (you market). Let them get to know you. 

Not All Influencers are the Same

The key that makes this whole system work is trust. The word of mouth engine only fires correctly when the influencer is trusted by the people who he/she influences. This can be tricky because there are several types of trust. There is the trust we have in people that make us want to beleive what they have to say (they are not liars), but there is also a smaller unit of trust that if we don’t consider as marketers  this whole system will be a waste of time. 

There is a saying that goes “You may not be able to trust someone, but you can always trust them to be who they are”. Every person has a set of unique knowledge in many different areas. Some people know cars, some know the law and some know marketing. Not everyone knows the same stuff or has the same expertise, but they may all be trustworthy. The difference between these people is what you trust them to know, and not know. Trust them to be who they are.

I have a friend (who will remain nameless) that really loves food. The problem is that his taste in food is very different from mine. I have learned over the years that while I would trust him to watch my kids, I  should avoid the restaurants he likes. I trust that his recommendations don’t work for me where food is concerned. 

This type of trust is also well described in the saying: “Don’t ask you doctor for legal advice”. Make sure the influencers you want to work with are the right fit for you. Make sure that you know them and their audience at least well enough to know if they can be trusted with the type of influence you wish to have. Don’t try and recruit any blogger than seems to have a large audience. Do your research. Read the blog, and the comments. 

Be Transparent

There is no reason to try and hide anything if your intentions are good. Communities need professionals, products, services, advice and organizations so be completely upfront about who you are and what you do. If you sponsor a blogger or podcaster, run any promotions or contest with the influencer make sure you are completely transparent. Do not try to control the community, the influencer or the content the influencer writes.  If people think they don’t have all the facts they will make them up and usually assume the worst. Makes sure everyone knows what’s going on.

Baby Steps

Take your time moving into these arenas. They aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, so don’t be in a rush. You can’t rush friendship or love because they are based on trust. Trust cannot be fast-tracked. Building a brand is based on trust too, so take your time and get involved. Most people want to be helpful, so if you need some help don’t hesitate to ask for it.

Tags: influencers, social media, trust, word of mouth

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 at 1:10 pm and is filed under Doin' it right, Mar Comm, The Wild Wild Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.