subject: Today's Word-of-mouth Marketing Involves Social Media [print this page] Word-of-mouth is not only a very effective marketing method, it is also very affordable. This is because word-of-mouth may be company initiated but it is the people that keep the word on your business spreading. Word-of-mouth can bring new clients and also repeat business to your company.
When people post positive reviews or spread good messages about your business online, then they can influence other people into patronizing your products.
Word-of-mouth marketing really happens in a larger scale these days with the popularity of social media. A person may have thousands or even millions of followers online and that means that person can command a strong influence online. When that person recommends a product or a service online then that person is reaching thousands, even millions of people online. A company can then benefit from the endorsement of someone with a lot of followers on Facebook or Twitter. If a person blogs positively about your business too, then that's also a fantastic free publicity for your business. That blog will be there when people search for your business using search engines and can really help people purchase your products.
When a campaign goes viral then that is incredible word-of-mouth that brings tremendous benefits for your business at such unbelievable affordable costs. Some videos only take a few hundred dollars to create and yet spread like a wildfire online reaching millions of people online. When this happens, the company gets an amazing ROI on its marketing material.
Of course, word-of-mouth is not all positive. It can be the boon or bane of your business. Twitter and other social networks may be fantastic tools for spreading positive information online but they can also be used to easily spread false or bad information about your business online. A disgruntled client can use his blog or his Twitter account to post rants online. If the person has a very strong influence online then that information can have a negative effect on your business. A single tweet or negative blog can influence many people to not buy from you.
This is why it is important to be aggressive with your online marketing and really try to get as much positive information out there as possible. This is to establish your business' good reputation. You must also stay on top of things and make sure that you monitor what's being said about your business so that you know how you can respond.
