Word-of-mouth publicity is definitely an integral part of any successful modern marketing strategy. However, many of you might not know that it translates into something beyond the implied meaning. Traditionally, word of mouth referred to an individual’s independent and uninstigated buoyant verbal recommendation of a business in their social circle solely owing to the excellent product or service quality.
At the time, this phenomenon was an unprompted natural reflex action of a satisfied and happy customer. Sensing the potential power and influence of word-of-mouth on driving sales and attracting new customers, firms quickly began to leverage this technique in their marketing strategies. They began to request written feedback from their satisfied customers to showcase their abilities to prospective clients and also asked for referrals.
In no time, this natural reflex turned into a well-developed and highly technical and essential part of digital marketing services. Today, every reputed and experienced digital marketing agency in Edmonton presses the importance of word-of-mouth in enhancing a brand’s reputation.
Read Also: What Is The Importance Of Digital Marketing For Your Business?
However, the changing needs and lifestyles of society mean businesses and digital marketing agencies must alter their marketing strategies to make them more relevant and valuable to the public. Today, social media has replaced most traditional social gathering activities, and individuals now prefer to use social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, etc, as a means to socialize with other people.
The latter has not only demonstrated the importance of social media marketing but has also changed the face and meaning of word-of-mouth publicity. Unfortunately, many businesses have failed to understand the continuously changing societal norms and the need to adjust accordingly.
Hence, this blog post discusses the modernization of word-of-mouth and its connection with social media marketing.
The Power Of Social Media
As mentioned earlier, social media has greatly replaced our traditional community gatherings and interaction activities. In the past, people showcased their new purchases, such as jewellery, clothes, makeup items, etc, at parties. Impressed by the words of praise of a particular product from the owner and their admirers, people would then purchase the same product from the same brand in an attempt to attain the same glory.
Today, the same cycle occurs but instead of a demonstration at a party or gathering, the satisfied customer shares their views and pictures of a product with their acquaintances on a social media platform.
As we speak, the number of social media users worldwide stands at a whopping 4.74 billion. In 2022, social media saw 190 million new users across the globe. A deeper calculation reveals that almost 60% of the world’s population is on social media. If we talk about Canada alone, 34.47 million people use social media, while the country’s total population is barely 39 million. This means about 78% of Canadians use social media.
Sensing the potential to reach out to a broader audience than through physical means, a lot of businesses also jumped onto social media. But this wider exposure is also a double-edged sword. While it increases brand visibility, reaching out to and filtering your audience to find those interested in a particular product or service is also challenging. Resultantly, social media marketing and engagement services came into existence.
Understanding Modern Word-Of-Mouth (WOM)
As apparent from the discussion above, the conventional definition and scope of word-of-mouth have little meaning in the modern era. Since people prefer to use social media to voice out their opinions about almost everything, word-of-mouth spreads faster online than through verbal interactions. So, it would not be wrong to say that social media marketing is modern word-of-mouth publicity.
Various Role Players In Social Media Marketing And WOM
Unlike popular perception, word-of-mouth publicity is not only achieved through client referrals. Even a happy employee or an independent industry expert can boost your goodwill and reputation. For this reason, it is important to identify each audience segment you want to achieve word-of-mouth from and target them individually on the right social media platforms.
The most common roleplayers who can help you build an unending chain of potential customers and admirers include the following:
- Satisfied customers – You can ask them to share their great experiences on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
- Happy employees – If you encourage your employees to show off their company culture on LinkedIn, the chances are that you will attract a number of other companies willing to collaborate with you.
- Social media influencers – These are people with a huge fan following on certain platforms such as TikTok and YouTube. As their name suggests, they have the ability to influence the buying habits of their followers. Use them to your advantage.
- Niche experts – These people are just like influencers, but the reason behind their fame is their immense knowledge about a particular industry. If a famous makeup artist says that they use your beauty products on their Instagram page or YouTube channel, it is highly likely that their listeners will follow their example.
The Importance Of A Reputed Digital Marketing Agency
Evidently, a word-of-mouth marketing strategy can make or break a brand’s image on social media. In the past and even now, we have seen numerous seemingly well-crafted marketing strategies go down the drain. It takes years to build a reputation and a slight slip to ruin it.
For this reason, only an experienced and result-oriented digital marketing agency can help steer social media marketing and word-of-mouth efforts in the right direction.
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