The Takeaways From #WOMMnext Day 2

by | Apr 30, 2014 | Content Marketing, Social Media

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s (WOMMA) WOMMnext Conference is in full swing! We just got out of Day 2 and everyone learned a lot. If you want to know what we learned from Day 1, check out our previous WOMMnext blog post.

In the throes of the show, TweetReach has registered that an estimated 147,969 accounts had been reached by the #WOMMnext hashtag. This is an increase of 60,569 accounts since yesterday, indicating that word of mouth truly works!

Day 2 started with a keynote from certified improv professionals and marketers George Eckart and Charlie McCrackin, who gave us some lessons based on improv to help your word of mouth increase. They include:

• Listen: Listen to your audience and use what they say in your upcoming marketing campaigns

• Agree: Use the power of “yes, and.” Don’t shut down an idea before you have time to play it out

• Make strong choices: This shows confidence in your overall message

• Have fun: Give your audience a great experience while marketing your product or brand

The example they used to prove their point was Oreo’s Dunk in the Dark campaign since it was made in response to the power outage during Super Bowl XLVII.

This photo looks very familiar and was even talked about by our own Katie Foley in a social media blog post from last February. Oreo is also a familiar brand to WOMMnext attendees, considering how four other presentations used Oreo as an example of successful marketing at the conference.

Social media was lit up from attendees’ thoughts and takeaways from this keynote and the other presentations. Here’s a tweet from “ROI and Results: How to Quantify Word of Mouth’s Sales Impact and Uncover Actionable Insights,” presented by The Keller Fay Group’s Ed Keller and AT&T Mobility’s Greg Pharo.

Not only is that impressive, but their presentation claimed that social media only accounts for 2% of word of mouth marketing. No matter the medium being used, you should always be interested in the conversations that consumers are having about your brand.

Brains on Fire’s John Moore and Geno Church stated that 80% of purchases are influenced by word of mouth.

With the advent of social media, brands now run six campaigns in one month where they used to run one campaign for six months. Another point that was made by Unmetric’s Rock Liebling, FleishmanHillard’s Alan Chumley and GM’s Rebecca Harris was that content marketing managers are the unsung heroes of social media space since they’re the ones interacting with and gauging the audience. They said that putting your audience first will make them want to take action. Here’s some more food for thought:

The conversation never stops, so your content marketing strategy should always be evolving.

Danielle Smith of Danielle Smith Media,,White Wave Foods’ Lori Anderson, TapInfluence’s Holly Hamann and Havertys Furniture’s Brittney Cooper stated that great content is at the intersection of telling brand stories in the voice of someone they’ll trust and useful content.

Well said, indeed. You should also know your social platforms and why people are using them. For instance, Twitter is the number-one platform for complaining and Pinterest is the number-one platform for killing time.

Razorfish’s Alex Bodman talked about a similar topic during his presentation on Mercedes-Benz’s Instagram marketing campaign. The brand’s average driver is 54 years old and they wanted to reach a younger audience. Their social media marketing campaign asked for a lot from the consumer contest entrants, resulting in high-quality entrants, many of which were people with 50,000 followers or more and fascinating lives.

Here’s the big takeaway that we found from this:

Word of mouth is also how brand advocacy gets spread. Boston Consulting Group’s Steve Knox said that conversations with your customers are not the same thing as recommendations. Two moments of truth are 1) winning at the store shelf and 2) the user experience. But advocacy adds a new moment of truth: winning at pre-purchase.

WOMMnext Day 2 closed with a keynote from Starkid Productions, which focused on making sure you eliminate as many barriers as you can between you and your fans. The easier you make it for people to talk about your brand, the more word of mouth you’ll hear.

There was a lot more education that we learned during WOMMnext Day 2. Here are some other major takeaways that we thought were worth sharing:

 

What did you learn most from WOMMnext Day 2? Let us know in the comments below! 

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