When voting moves online, as it undoubtedly will (just think about all of the tax money we would save if we did not have to set up temporary voting centers everywhere), the marriage of social media and election campaigns will be that much more profound.

To be frank, I do realize that the title of my post is too far reaching.  The reality is that Obama is a truly great man and therefore a good subject for word of mouth to flourish about.  Andy Sernovitz, the founder of WOMMA and Bazaarvoice Advisory Board member, has taught us – great subjects (products, people, services, etc.) easily generate word of mouth by just asking people to help and share.

On a personal note, I took a short vacation this weekend in Laguna Beach to recharge after my week in Amsterdam to speak at Shop.org's first Global E-Commerce Summit, then back to Austin for Halloween (I couldn't miss it with our 4-year old daughter), followed by a week in London for our own sold-out Summit (recap here).  I'm here for the Piper Jaffray Global Internet Summit kicking off on Monday night.  And vacation allowed me catch up on reading some great opinion pieces in the NY Times.  This is a truly historic period that we are living in, and I encourage you to read a few of these if you have the time – they are well worth it:

• It Still Felt Good the Morning After by Frank Rich
• Show Me the Money by The World Is Flat author Tom Friedman
• Obama and the War on Brains by Nicholas Kristof
• The Climate for Change by Al Gore

This is the third in our series of key takeaways from some of the presentations and panel discussions offered at the Social Commerce Summit in May 2008.

Andy Sernovitz, founder of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and author of the book Word of Mouth Marketing, keynoted at our Social Commerce Summit, encouraging brands to give customers a reason to talk about your stuff. As Andy highlighted, marketing is what you do, not what you say.

To jump-start those word of mouth conversations on your site and beyond, Andy recommends the following 5 steps:

1. Talkers – find the people who will talk
   For each brand and product, your talkers will be different people. For the launch of the renowned Wynn in Las Vegas, the hotel invited the city’s cab drivers to stay free of charge for a weekend in order to spur conversations amongst Vegas’ most evangelical workforce.
2. Topics – give people a reason to talk
   Ask yourself: “Would anybody tell a friend?” It is your job to make customers happy, and remember that happy customers are the best ads.
3. Tools – allow your talkers to share
   Whether you deploy Ratings & Reviews, Ask & Answer, Stories, or some other social media tool, be sure to equip your customers with an easy way to share ideas and collaborate.
4. Taking Part – join the conversation
   Reach out to your community, and participate and respond when necessary.
5. Tracking
   No word of mouth campaign is worthwhile unless it can be measured and improved. Understand to what extent you are engaging your customers, and critically evaluate how you can continue to amplify those conversations.

I was happy to see Andy leverage the valuable community we assembled at our first-ever and sold-out Summit in May by recording five video interviews. It was truly an amazing group of individuals, charged with word of mouth marketing at many of the largest companies in the world, from Bank of America to Wal-Mart. It was humbling to be in the presence of so many smart industry leaders, sharing best practices with each other in our rapidly emerging field. Because of them (as well as the hard work by our team), we have set a very high bar for our Summit next year.

Andy recently published his interview of me. We discussed how user-generated content is changing the merchandising culture at companies, helping them become more customer-centric and successful as a result.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Read on to see more interviews by Andy.

Andy previously published an interview of Ze Frank, another one of our keynotes and one of the funniest but smartest online personalities you will ever meet. Ze's interview at our Summit by Kelly Mooney (a Summit keynote speaker, author of The Open Brand, and President of Resource Interactive) was a personal mental highlight for me, probing into some very deep issues. Andy covers topics like viral marketing with Ze. By the way, that gong behind Ze in the interview is a very important part of Bazaarvoice's culture, and has been since the beginning. You can thank my co-founder, Brant Barton, for that, and you can find multiple gongs in our Austin office and one in our London office (so far).

Click here to view the embedded video.

Andy also previously published an interview of Steve Leveen, the founder and CEO of Levenger. Steve is a very smart leader, and brought his son to our event. Steve gave me some great tips on raising our daughter, Rachel, and is a very kind person (as is his son, by the way).  In Andy's interview of Steve, they talk about the use of video reviews and Flickr as a natural medium for Levenger's sophisticated customers.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you have not subscribed to Andy's blog yet, do it today. Incredibly useful tips are published on an almost daily basis. I found myself recently evangelizing on why to follow it to the founder of Hey Cupcake, a local joint in Austin. I connected with the founder, Wes Hurt, recently after reading about him in Tribeza because we may be related (it is a long story). You must try these cupcakes the next time you are in Austin – they are unreal. But I'm off topic – I was telling Wes to read Andy's book and subscribe to his blog because he will quickly learn how to build his business as a result. I also found myself telling Wes the story of how Krispy Kreme lost its "specialness", parroting Andy telling me the same story.

On Andy's blog, he will soon be publishing the remaining two interviews he did at our Summit: Bryan Eisenberg (highly respected industry consultant, co-founder of the Web Analytics Association, keynote speaker at our Summit and several other conferences, prominent author [ClickZ, Call To Action, and Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?], and Bazaarvoice Advisory Board member) and Seth Greenberg (former CEO of eHobbies.com – one of the online pioneers, former Shop.org Board peer, and leader at Intuit).

* Note: we are proud members of WOMMA and our own Sam Decker serves on the Board of Directors while WOMMA's President is my fellow Board Director at Bazaarvoice, Ed Keller (keynote speaker at our Summit, author of The Influentials, former CEO of Roper, and co-founder and CEO of The Keller Fay Group).

The first was a banner ad from The Home Depot, which promoted two eco-friendly products, encouraging shoppers to "Go Green & Save." 

The second was a catalog from Design Within Reach, which cleverly asked "What is Green?" on its cover and featured, again, eco-friendly products, many manufactured from reclaimed materials. 

The last was a direct mail piece from The Container Store, which featured green products from Umbra, a brand I really like.  

As an eco-conscious consumer, I appreciate any company's genuine efforts to go green.  Ideally, this transformation should start with the company's selection of materials, suppliers, and manufacturing processes, so I'm a bit skeptical when I see green marketing without having any knowledge of the company's environmental track record.  Green marketing elicits a Pavlovian response from many consumers, so the lure of easy money makes me wary of "greenwashing" campaigns.  And I'm not alone.  Just Google "greenwashing" and take your pick of websites dedicated to blowing the whistle on companies that stretch the truth on their environmental resumes.

As a professional working within the word of mouth marketing industry, it struck me that green marketing represents a rare, macro-level opportunity for rapidly building or destroying credibility with a very large number of consumers.  I'm creating terminology on the fly here, so bear with me (BTW, I consulted WOMMA's Terminology Framework but didn't find terminology that describes the "why" of word of mouth). 

I think of micro-level word of mouth as something that companies can create for themselves by developing fantastic products, delivering fantastic service, and doing the right things in their advertising, sales, support, etc. to be memorable to consumers, somewhat independent of the external business and consumer environment (never completely independent, but relatively-speaking).  

Green marketing represents a very different opportunity, because the green trend is an externality.  Virtually every company has an opportunity (not all equal, of course) to benefit from increasing consumer sensitivity to the environmental practices of the companies they do business with, directly and indirectly.  To use a metaphor, green marketing is a big wave that everyone gets a chance to surf.  Some will surf it beautifully (authentically), while others will eat sand, and the majority of those in the latter category probably had no business surfing it in the first place.  Which are you, honestly?   

Coincidentally, the day I decided to write this post, eMarketer's "How Green is the Online Environment?" article appeared in my inbox.  It mentions new green marketing-focused research studies from DoubleClick and eMarketer, which may be worth a read if you are planning a green marketing campaign.  Just this morning, eMarketer followed up with another email newsletter article on green consumer demographics.  In summary, there is a strong positive correlation between environmental sensitivity and online engagement, especially among younger consumers.  "Green teens" indexed well above their non-green peers in multiple forms of engagement, from e-commerce and mobile content sites to using digital photo services and participating in chat rooms.  

Clearly, the green segment is a valuable one to target both online and off.  But before doing so, marketers should get comfortable with complete transparency.  The reputation risk of less than authentic green marketing is high, and as we've seen too many times in the recent past, today's online consumer is very adept at uncovering the truth in just a few Google searches.  On the flip side, if your brand has long upheld the green values that mainstream consumers are only now beginning to appreciate, you should absolutely consider using word of mouth marketing tactics to reach new consumers through the experiences, opinions, and recommendations of your satisfied customers.  

Andy Sernovitz, a Bazaarvoice advisor and founder of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), likes to say (I'm paraphrasing here) that advertising is the price brands have to pay for being uninteresting.  But occasionally some interesting advertising comes along that makes you laugh hysterically, possibly cry, and swear to tell your friends.  That's the goal.

I'm not really a customer of Burger King's (my parents were McDonald's franchisees for over 15 years, so that would be blasphemy!), but I do applaud their advertising creativity in recent years.  Subservient Chicken was a word of mouth sensation and the NFL replays that feature a cameo by the King had me laughing aloud.  Whopper Freakout extends the streak.  Well done, Burger King, well done.  Pun intended.   

Every day that customers trust advertising less is a day word of mouth becomes more critical to business growth. Yet there is ambiguity on who should own WOM marketing, what strategies are effective, how it should be measured, who should be targeted, and how to execute the right offline and online tactics.

I personally don't believe companies can be competitive or market leaders without having a comprehensive and operational focus on how their product and service drives word of mouth, along with a clear understanding of how to amplify the customer voice with word of mouth marketing strategies.

If you agree, you'll join me at this years WOMMA Summit, November 14 and 15 in Las Vegas. And, I'll sweeten the deal!…

When you register online, enter the code 'guestofbazaarvoice' for $75 off. And when I see you there, I'll buy (drinks that is…not your bets!).

1. As the author of "The Influentials", former CEO of Roper, President of WOMMA, Board Director at Bazaarvoice, and CEO of your new business, why do you think the word of mouth movement is buzzing like never before?

Why now and not five years ago?

Word of mouth has always been an important factor in consumer decision making about products and services.  Over the course of many decades, consumer research has shown it to be among the most important factors to consumers.  However, over the past several years two major forces have aligned to make word of mouth considerably more important to consumers than it has ever been in the past, and considerably more important than other forms of consumer contact with brands.  The first force is declining trust – over the past 5 or 10 years consumer trust in official sources of information has plummeted, replaced instead with rising trust in friends, family, and "people like me."  The second force is the rise in technology, which enables consumers to see out peer-to-peer advice and recommendations more easily than ever before.  And the more they "try it," the more they "like it."  So the trend is accelerating. 

2. Do you think the reason trust in official sources is plummeting is the rise of the Web?  Or is some other factor, maybe sociological, at work here?

The decline in trust started with the corporate scandals of the 1990s (e.g., ENRON and others).  I think the transparency that the Web facilitates provides an additional means for people learn the facts and seek out the truth about matters more quickly and thoroughly than the could in the past.

So it is an enabler and an accelerator, in my view, but not the initial impetus.  History then shows that trends in trust (up or down) come in cycles, so once the trust decline starts declining it will generally take a while before it turns around the starts climbing again.  The trust must be re-earned.  And for some businesses, they are beginning to re-earn the trust through their word of mouth initiatives, showing they are sincerely interested in being enablers of open, honest, and beneficial consumer conversation.

3. Do you view what we do as an effective way for companies to improve trust?

The short answer is, yes.  And the reason is that when companies open up and let customers express themselves in their own voice — talking both about what they like and what they don't like in order to help other customers make smart and informed decisions — it sends a message that the company values openness, transparency, and (most importantly) that it respects the consumer.  All of those attributes help to build trust.

4. What are other ways that companies can earn trust via word of mouth initiatives?  What are some of the best examples you have seen?
There are many ways for companies to engage in word of mouth — some of which take place through online channels while others taking place offline.

Dell's IdeaStorm is proving to be a powerful way for Dell to listen to customers, and act on their suggestions.  Companies like Harley and eBay and others are creating customer communities that are very powerful way to cement customer loyalty and create advocacy.  Apple earns trust and customer respect through a wide variety of initiatives, including a very powerful experience that takes place in their retail stores which generates a considerable volume of positive word of mouth for Apple (in addition to a considerable sales volume). 

5. Let's talk about your new company.  What are the some of the exciting word of mouth insights that you have discovered for your current clients?

My company's research involves ongoing survey research with consumers about their word of mouth conversations regarding products, services, and brands.

We monitor this on a continuous basis to help companies understand the dynamics of consumer word of mouth about their category, their brands versus the competition, and among their target consumers.  Some important findings:

1. By a 7 to 1 margin, consumer word of mouth about brands is positive, rather than negative.  As Bazaarvoice has noted in its research about the J-curve, consumers are more interested in sharing advice and recommendations with consumers about "what works" and what they should be doing, rather than knocking down brands.  This debunks a major myth about word of mouth, and should encourage companies to be more comfortable with "letting go" and inviting consumers to talk about them and their services. 
2. Media and marketing play a big role in stimulating consumer word of mouth.  About half of all consumer word of mouth conversations about brands include a reference to some type of media or marketing.  By channel, TV is the number one medium, but the Internet is very close behind reinforcing the important role that the Internet plays as a channel to drive word of mouth.
3. Finally, our study proves just how ubiquitous word of mouth is. The typical American consumer engages in about 125 conversations each week about products and services, and talks about brands over 90 times per week.

That's a lot of word of mouth.  In fact, our projections are that there are 3.4 billion word of mouth conversations each day in America about products/services, and 2.3 billion brand-specific conversations.

There are just a few of the many insights we have learned.  But the real power of our research is to dig into the data at the category and brand level to help companies understand their strengths, and opportunities for improvement, in a word of mouth era.

6. What do you think about Wal-Mart's decision to launch customer ratings and reviews?

I think Wal-Mart's decision to offer ratings on reviews is a very significant development in the growth and development of word of mouth.

Anytime the industry leader in a category gets actively involved in something new and innovative it sends a very loud signal. And, in this case, the signal is to multiple parties: 

(a) to Wal-Mart's consumers: the message is that their voice is important and that Wal-Mart wishes to listen and let them be heard;
(b) to the many manufacturers whose products will be reviewed, letting them know that Wal-Mart is serious about opening up this new and important channel of conversation; and
(c) to other retailers who have been sitting on sideline, wondering if they should engage in word of mouth or not.  So this is both an important development for Wal-Mart and it's customer base, as well as for the word of mouth movement.

As stated in Wal-Mart's press release: 

"It is the No. 1 customer-requested feature," said Cathy Halligan, Chief Marketing Officer. She went on to say "We will use those customer reviews and ratings to be able to provide more direct information about how our customers feel and make decisions on a case-by-case basis."

To read the full article, click here – http://news.com.com/Walmart.com+to+let+customers+review+
merchandise/2100-1038_3-6197478.html?tag=nefd.top

The Bazaarvoice Team is extremely proud to have helped make this happen and to serve Wal-Mart as a client.

Here is some other coverage of the news on Blogs:

Andy Sernovitz remarked that the Wal-Mart launch “is going to fundamentally change the marketing environment. More important, it is going to give consumers extraordinary power to fight back against businesses that don't deliver on their promises.”

http://www.damniwish.com/2007/07/a-landmark-mome.html

The GrokDotCom described the launch “a giant leap for corporate transparency and the growing popularity of word-of-mouth marketing."

http://www.grokdotcom.com/2007/07/19/say-what-you-will-about-
walmartcom-seriously/

Here is some of the press coverage of this launch: