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Word of Mouth Marketing and Community Marketing defined

February 19, 2008 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

I’ve read a myriad of works attempting to quantify Word of the Mouth Marketing and Community Marketing, ranging from the likes of the Cluetrain, to Wikipedia. Many attempt a philosophical or pseudo-scientific approach, citing ideas such as messages spreading like viruses, key advocates, and bi-directional customer feedback flow.

That’s fine, and some of those approaches have a lot of worth. But I like to make things simple as possible.

Community Marketing and Word of Mouth Marketing is simply helping people to find the solutions to their problems (including finding news/sports/entertainment) by asking around. And it leads to the feeling you get when someone you know recommends a good plumber or carpenter who can fix your house, or a mechanic who can get your car on the road. For half price.

That’s it in the most basic nutshell. As a community marketing person, my job is to make the tools on our websites as simple and easy to use as possible to allow people to get to know each other and ask those questions in whatever is the best way for them at the time, and also to let people not currently on our sites know we exist in order for them to satisfy their needs.

That’s why most of the best Word of Mouth and Community Marketing experts aren’t employed by companies or marketing agencies. That’s why the best Word of Mouth and Community Marketing experts are those people who work for some spare cash as plumbers, electricians and carpenters. Because they can’t advertise, and they totally rely on recommendations.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: agencies, best, cluetrain, community, community marketing, companies, defined, expert, marketing, wikipedia, word of mouth, word of mouth marketing

Scheduling your work with the ‘kitty litter’ method…

February 7, 2008 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

Don’t worry, I haven’t decided to switch to blogging about my pets! There’s already enough people filling that niche quite nicely.

The reference to kitty litter comes from the fact that I quite enjoy doing all the stereotypically manly jobs around the house, like DIY, changing light bulbs, and heroically standing up to insect and rodent invaders. And that’s despite the fact I exude the aura of someone permanently bathed in the glow of a computer monitor, laptop screen, or videogame.

But the one task I do hate is cleaning out the cat litter tray, especially if I’ve let it go for a day or two. If it’s done daily, it’s not too bad. If it’s a day or two late – you can probably imagine…

And by the same token, I’m lucky enough to have a job I’m really enjoying, but it does come with some tasks that are either new, or things that don’t always fill me with joy. But the more I do them, and the more regularly I schedule them, the easier it is to get them done and then get on with something more enjoyable. Hence kitty litter scheduling…

In other news, I picked up a shocking story about the UK Government and plans for healthcare from the excellent Communities Dominate Brands. Trying to be impartial, I can see why increasing private sector healthcare makes sense for a Government run like a corporation. But it deeply offends me that the Government isn’t putting service to the electorate first, and seems to have ignored the problems that many people in the U.S encounter every day due to private healthcare. It certainly means I know exactly which party will no longer get a vote from me.

Finally, some other interesting tidbits:

BBC Iplayer drivers online TV in the UK.
General Motors is compiling it’s 100 year history via a wiki
And
A call to boycott writing for academic journals who refuse to allow open access
Proving that even the most exclusive and respected academic journals face the same problems as consumer media and newspapers – and in fact, may find it even harder to adapt to survive.

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Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: academic journals, bbc, Blogging, boycott, communities dominate brands, general motors, healthcare, iplayer, open access, productivity, scheduling, UK government, wikipedia

The internet will always develop new niches… make them yours…

October 20, 2007 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

Ever wondered why networks tend to grow more quickly if they allow groups of self-form?

It’s because, no matter how well you know your subject and your customers, you’ll never predict their most interesting motivations for starting a group. And the ones that you might dismiss can end up being incredibly popular…

Take, for example, the Lolcat Bible… a wiki constructed to translate the Bible into the language of those lolcat pictures you’ve doubtless seen around the internet.

(Spotted thanks to a post on Dana Boyd’s blog)

Now would you have created a group for people interested in creating a Lolcat Bible? Would you have been able to quantify how many people would be interested in contributing, and how many people would then view it? Would you have even guessed Lolcatz would take off?

Me neither.

But by allowing anyone using your website to make their own choices, decisions and ideas, you’ll capitalise when one of their groups does take off. If you’re trying to explain it to the type of people who inists on quantifying everything by Return on Investment, you could try explaining that rather than spending time and money on second-guessing how to force people into categories, you’ll be hiring an unlimited number of people to do your research and development for you, and then reaping the benfits…

Still not convinced? Take a look at Wikipedia’s list of internet phenomena, and see how many you recognise. Then take the list round your peer group, and prepare to be shocked how many people who you’d have thought closely shared you interests will have radically different knowledge (Idea taken from The Long Tail…see reading list, right)…

One of the biggest joys of the internet is the fact you can find people, products and information on pretty much anything you might need, want, or be interested in. So why would you ever want to stop people experiencing that joy?

Oh, I can’t resist:

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: apophenia, chris anderson, communities, dana boyd, groups, internet phenomena, lolcats, lolcats bible, micro niche, networks, niche, self-forming, social networks, the long tail, Uncategorized, wikipedia

Don’t swap journalists for users quite yet…

October 5, 2007 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

User generated content (UGC), citizen journalism, blogging. I’m a huge fan of all three when used correctly, but they all need to be handled with care by traditional media companies, whether it’s not serving them properly, or, in the case I’m going to hypothesise about, overestimating their effect.

Way back in June I quoted figures which put submissions to Youtube at 0.16% of users, while Flickr submissions were at 0.2%. Wikipedia was the involvement leader with 4.6%. Which should be one worry to the people I’ve spoken to who believe traditional journalists will be replaced by users in the near future.

Putting this to one side, along with discussions of trust, I think there is a further concern which anyone should consider before cutting journalists in favour of UGC.

And that’s going to be a growing rise in the need for payment for UGC. The oft cited example of OhMyNews already pays for submissions, and some bloggers are now being paid to produce work professionally. At the moment, these are exceptions rather than the rule for User Generated Content.

But there’s an established global market which already handsomely rewards creativity, and which will have an effect on any creative efforts produced. Users of MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Rolepaying Games), or users of Xbox Live will already be familiar with the concept of creating virtual items, Forza Motorsport car liveries, or a wealth of other content, and being reward in game currency, or via online auction sites in real money. And then there’s Anshe Chung, the Second Life millionaire…

As increasing numbers of people are playing online games, and are familiar with the concept of virtual capitalism, then they won’t be satisfied with the fame of having their content published on a large website, and will increasing expect fair recompense for their efforts…

And to get the best UGC, to make it worthwhile, you’ll need to be making your site more financially rewarding…

And the worst part will be that your submissions will now come from people who aren’t tied by a contract or a notice period. Instead they’ll be free to submit to any site which appears overnight with a more attractive offer…

(None of this is meant to dissuade you from using UGC on your site… But as with anything, it’s one aspect of the future of online publishing, not the only answer…)

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