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The 2009 edition of WOMM-U has drawn to a close. It’s been two days of fast and furious learning. An often-repeated phrase has been ‘heads-down’.
As always it was great to see the familiar faces at a WOMMA event, along with the new members and variety of amazing speakers.
We hope you’ve enjoyed the blog posts, photos and tweets. Hopefully we’ll see you in Las Vegas in November.
The final general session of the event dealt with the topic of Federal Trade Commission guidelines and what they mean to WOM. Leading the discussion were Paul Rand, President, Zocalo Group and Tony DiResta, Attorney, Reed Smith LLP.
The new FTC guidelines have the ability to tremendously impact WOMM programs. Tony provided some background on the new proposed rules.
The FTC is making changes to the guides related to testimonials and endorsements. There are a few key points:
1. Results may vary will be a thing of the past.
2. Bloggers can be held responsible, personally liable, for failing to disclose material information.
3. Advertisers and sellers can also be held liable for the actions of the bloggers.
Why?
- There is a new FTC Chair and is pro-cosumer and has voiced concerns with self-regulation.
- The current guide was developed 35 years ago and was last updated in 1980.
- Two FTC-commissioned studies had results that concerned the FTC about testimonials and endorsements.
What the new principles mean:
- Advertisers are subject to liability for false or unsubstantiated statements made through endorsements, or failing to disclose a material connection between themselves and their endorser.
- Endorsers may also be subject to laiablity for their statements.
- The communicator of the message must be transparent and honest.
- The FTC requires substantiation or an appropriate basis for claims being made.
How is WOMMA participating?
- WOMMA has asked the FTC to make clear who is subject liability.
- WOMMA has asked the FTC to make clear what a reasonable consumer is defined as.
- WOMMA asked the FTC to reconsider requiring bloggers to request substantiation before making recommendations.
- WOMMA asked the FTC to be more specific on the role of employer liability.
Paul then took the stage and talked about the relationship between WOMMA and the FTC and how the organization is working for the industry in this time of change.
Luckily, WOMMA is viewed as a leader by the FTC in the WOM and social media space. The past ethical guidelines that have been issued by WOMMA help set the standard to date.
But how do these guidelines evolve? WOMMA has a review process that is constantly updating the guidelines as new issues surface.
One of the common complaints about social media and WOM case studies is that they’re mostly consumer focused. This session was design to address that topic. Kathryn Collins, Director, Corporate Communications, Texas Instrument talked about brining WOM to the business-to-business space. Kathryn was joined by Jeff Beringer, Senior Vice President, Digital Practice Lead, GolinHarris.
Yes B2B can benefit from WOM. In TI’s case, they’re a unique brand. They’re an 80-year-old technology firm. How can you be old and hip at the same time?
Texas Instruments invented the integrated circuit and have continued to drive innovation. A recent well-known product is DLP, the power behind the latest projectors and theater systems.
They’re trying to target design engineers. They’re the folks that design the products we use. However, they need to get to the engineers early though, while they’re doing the initial development work to make sure they use TI products.
TI has created an Engineer to Engineer (E2E) platform. But it was built on some standard foundations.
Listen: They need to listen like engineers though. This can be surveys, behavioral research, word processes and of course analyze online conversations about TI.
They have to base their process on the standard engineering process. Planning -> Design -> Prototyping & Testing -> Production.
The internet has changed from a library to a social place. Engineers could find the information in the planning phase, but when it came to later phases, they needed interaction. Social media and WOMM now provides that platform.
Who do engineers listen to? Peers, industry media, TI employees, analysts and academia. This lets TI know who they need to influence and engage with.
Engineers are not communicators. How do you activate their own experts? TI has a conversation agent training program. They’ve created a cadre of on-call experts. However it’s often an additional duty.
How do they use WOM? They used to do technical white papers, but that model is gone. It’s more about conversation. TI looks to help shape dialogue, participate in existing conversation and drive new discussions.
To claim their place as an innovator, they often need to tell their own story. Their doing this with VOIP and power & energy. They’re allowing their engineers to talk about the projects they’re working on and new ideas they may have.
The next step is to find out where engineers are going and follow them there. Twitter is obviously an emerging channel. What’s promising is to see their customers creating their own communities.
How do they measure success? Uptick in discussion volume about TI, accuracy of online discourse and organic search visibility.
After another amazing lunch, the general sessions picked back up with a look at Wal-Mart and their Elevenmoms program. Leading the session was John Andrews, former Emerging Media Senior Manager, Wal-Mart.
How do you get a group of moms to help evangelize Wal-Mart? John Andrews, kicked off the program with an overview of the Open Brand model. The common theme is that consumers own your brand, and the sooner you start to think about that the better.
One example he showed was the Kogi taco truck in LA. It’s the epitome of a new media brand. Kogi is a start-up though. What about a larger established brand? Look at Nike, they’re well known, but how do you energize a community around that brand? With their Nike + program they’ve done that.
Another major asset of social media is the ability to leverage social insights. The ability to mine the discussions and learn. What does your community really want? What should you build? When they started to develop the Elevenmoms program, they asked, “What should a savings community look like?”
For Wal-Mart they started with a plan, but then forget about it. Social media is very dynamic, so perhaps instead of a calculated plan, have a set of guidelines that help you down the path.
Another core component was to link all their media. However, they try to make their community the center of the traditional media elements.
Participation is also key, get as involved as you can. The large events are great, but sometimes the smaller events provide more value and engagement. It’s key though to not only have the marketing folks there, but other members of their team.
Having a network of advocates are also an amazing early warning system for any issues that may flare-up online.
Finally, build a real relationship. This can take many paths, but it’s important to be involved, perhaps beyond a standard business relationship.
John then turned it over to two of the moms to answer questions.
Q: What guidelines were given to you by Wal-Mart?
A: Both of the moms said there was no guidelines given to them. The only two rules they had was that any travel or product provided had to be disclosed and that they couldn’t be disparaging about Wal-Mart. But to be clear, they wanted criticism, but it needed to be informative.
Q: Has the involvement with Elevenmoms brought you any celebrity or additional traffic to their blogs?
A: The moms said it has, but not in the way they expected. They’re not seeing increased traffic, but it has lead to new opportunities. They did joke that their home stores don’t even know who they are.
Q: How did they identify and approach the bloggers?
A. Twitter. They looked for keywords around frugality and savings. That helped them quickly identify who the leaders in the space though. They did this for three months, then started building relationships. They didn’t look at the existing blogs or traffic from them.
Q: How are you identified as a part of the program on your blog?
A: There is a badge that most of them have their blog. It wasn’t something that Wal-Mart did, the moms asked for it. On the other side, there is an aggregation site that collects all their content.
Q: How important is the aggregation?
A: John felt it wasn’t that important. While they do try to send traffic to the mom’s blogs, but it’s not about traffic in that sense.
Q: Have you provided any training to the moms about transparency or how to use the social media tools?
A: None. All the moms selected had established blogs or Twitter profiles. They simply asked them to keep doing what they had been doing.
Ahh Twitter, the shiny object, not necessarily the shiny ‘new’ object though. However it’s come on strong the past few months. It’s the platform for millions of conversations, and that of course interests WOM advocates.
Julio Fernandez, Global Search & Social Media Strategist, Global Strategies International led one of the many round-table discussion on Twitter.
Discussion ranged from the basic, why, how, etc to more advanced topics. The majority of attendees are using the tool, but want to become more savvy. The interest is of course for their brands, but also for personal use.
One thread dealt with the variety of Twitter applications available for mobile devices and for the desktop. Think TweetDeck, which is a common site on screens around the event.
Coming from an SEO background, Julio discussed tips for optimizing your profile and bio to better search optimization.
Of course at WOMMA event, the discussion always turns to measurement. Is it reach, i.e. the number of followers? Is it engagement? A key tool in marketing efforts are the URL shortening devices that allow you to track click-thrus.
The second general session of Day 2 featured Duncan Wardle, Vice President, Global PR Integration & WDW PR, Disney Destinations talking about some recent campaigns that Disney has conducted.
Duncan started his presentation with a quick review of the changing media landscape and how the digitization of content is driving consumer choice. Mobile is another huge force, along with media snacking and social networking. All these things point to more power for consumers.
Balance all of these changes with authenticity, that is what consumers want/expect from brands. Since October this has come to the front with the recent financial crisis. People don’t trust brands.
Brands talk about engagement, but what is it really? Duncan believes that the brands that will succeed will be those that work with their consumers to build products and services together. It’s the standard role of talking with not talking to.
Duncan then moved into a few case studies from the past few years. First up was the Disney Dream Jobs program. Disney partnered with CareerBuilder.com to allow consumers to upload a video to apply for a ‘dream’ job.
For Disney it was a totally new arena. They had no idea how many videos they would receive and what the videos would could contain. The big step was of course letting go.
Disney was overwhelmed with the number of video applications they received. Duncan and the team watched all of them, eventually narrowing it down to five finalists. The finalists were posted online and consumers were allowed to vote, resulting in millions of votes. The finalists built their own marketing campaigns, driving even more traffic to the campaign. A side benefit was the number of regular job applications that Disney received. Because of this, it was the most successful recruitment effort to date.
The next project was the Walt Disney World Mom’s Panel. They launched a search for some of the most passionate Disney moms. Once again the response overwhelming. They received 10,000 applications over the weekend, but turned away over 30,000 applicants. That was the one major mistake they made.
As the program evolved, the internal issue was once again giving up control of the marketing messaging. But the moms are an amazing resource. They currently can’t handle the volume of questions they receive, but that’s a good problem to have.
The mom’s panel has helped them overcome the two largest barriers they’ve faced, affordability and age. That is, what is the appropriate age for a child to first visit the theme parks. The honest, open advice of the mom’s helped break down this barrier.
The women that did not make the Mom’s Panel became part of the Mickey Moms Club. One major step was allowing the club to select their own logo. Once again, for Disney to allow somebody outside the brand to do design and select a logo was a huge leap of faith. But, it worked.
Their work with the moms made them look at how they consume media. To help promote the new What Will You Celebrate? campaign they created a viral video campaign. The program allows consumers to create a uniquely branded video to ‘celebrate’ an event such as a birthday or an anniversary. These videos can then be sent to friends and relatives. This builds the standard pass-along/viral effect, spreading the video even more.
The videos has had an 85% click-thru rate and paid for itself in just over 18 hours from launch and has gone on to blow past all expectations for views and revenue.
What are Duncan’s take-away questions:
Reach: How will you reach new consumers?
Control: How do you balance letting go?
Advocates: How will you leverage your biggest asset?
Content: How will content be shared?
Measurement: Is it impressions or engagement?
Success: What will success look like?
After a short break, we’ll be back to the general sessions.
The title says it all, MySpace or Facebook, or both? Representing the two titans of social networking were, Heidi Browning, Senior Vice President, Insight & Planning, MySpace
and Chris Pan, Head of Brand Solutions, Facebook.
For the presentation Heidi and Chris compared how one campaign was executed differently on MySpace and Facebook. The first MySpace sample, Bruno, as in the former Borat.
The Bruno page is quite a experience, from the photography to the content. The Bruno page also promotes other social media and social networking activity related to Bruno/the movie.
The next example was VitaminWater, one of their first campaigns was built along with rapper, 50 Cent and features music, playlists and other forms of interactivity.
They’ve also launched a community featuring content/commercials from the brand. VitaminWater has been using traditional advertising to drive users to MySpace.
Now let’s look from the Facebook perspective. For VitaminWater, they first launched with a campaign around the ‘Great Debate’ featuring Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. By nature the topic was very conversational.
The advertising elements on Facebook provide users the option to vote for their favorite player. That interactivity drives engagement. Users that interact with the ads can then become fans of the brand. As users become fans, that status update appears in their wall and other friends see this, then they become fans. It’s a true viral effect.
Chris looked at data from Compete and Quantcast on the traffic to VitaminWater’s web site and compared that to the number of fans they have on Facebook. There is no comparison, Facebook allows them to reach a larger audience.
On Facebook, half the users come back everyday. Looking at fan pages then, that fan base is very engaged and the ability to send updates to them is a very powerful resource.
Who is the audience? On MySpace, it’s not just teenagers. Heidi said the 18-34 market is the majority of their audience.
On Facebook, Chris said that in the US they have 60 million active users. They count an active user as somebody that has logged on in the past three days. Globally they have 200 million active users, with 100 million logging on each day.
Both brands allow advertisers to work with their dedicated account teams to mine the user data/demographics to target advertising. A key component to all the advertising/brand work is interactivity. This can be defined as users interacting with each other or the brand interacting with the users.
Both panelists agree that the true value is an ongoing relationship and not a short-lived campaign. Once a user becomes a fan, you need to keep the updates flowing.
People tend to follow other people, for example the character Jack Bauer has twice as
many fans as the show ‘24′.
MySpace and Facebook have hyper-targeting functions to create campaigns to reach a very select audience. For example, if you wanted to reach office managers in a select city, it’s possible.
One mistake that many brands make is running the same ads/creative on MySpace or Facebook that they run in traditional channels. Get interactive or targeted!
Next up is Duncan Wardle from Disney.
Day one of WOMM-U drew to a close with a typical WOMMA reception. Typical as in unique, entertaining and sure to generate WOM. Attendees were driven by school bus to The Victor Hotel for a great oceanfront affair.
We’ll be back tomorrow with all the Day Two updates.
John Moore, Marketing Medic, Brand Autopsy and Ted Wright, Founder, Fizz definitely had a unique title and location for their breakout, ‘Blowing Chunks” & a small outdoor landing outside the main ballroom.
The purpose of the discussion was the talk about problems that arise with WOM campaigns and other horror stories. Ted and John even created custom barf bags as a takeaway, clever.
Ted and John outlined the four core components to any WOM program: Focus, Design, Delivery and Report.
Focus: What is the purpose of the program, does it provide value, etc.
Design: How will the goals be achieved?
Delivery: The tactical execution of the program.
Report: What are the measurements attached to the program.
A breakdown in any of these key elements can lead to failure.
The first case study they presented was Dr. Pepper’s promotion involving Guns n’ Roses new album release Chinese Democracy.
What started out as a unique marketing stunt, soon turned to a brand disaster as Dr. Pepper’s design and delivery veered off course.
Next up was Skittle’s experiment with Twitter. Sure it was an interesting concept, but in hindsight it was a one-hit wonder. Providing little value beyond a few days of buzz.
The final case study discussed was the recent KFC coupon fiasco. Similar to the Dr. Pepper story, the brand underestimated the demand, and when problems arose, they cut and ran. Leaving long-time fans disappointed and turning away folks that may have sampled the brand for the first time.
The final general session of the day dealt with women and WOM. Kimberly Lang, Brand Manager for Ore-Ida at HJ Heinz Company was joined by Fiona Pietruski, Chief Marketing Officer, SheSpeaks, Inc. on stage.
How do you make mashed potatoes more interesting? That was the challenge that Heinz and Ore-Ida faced with the Steam n’ Mash product. The goal was to try to mimic the gold-standard in mashed potatoes, which is home made.
However, home made mashed potatoes are a chore to make: Peeling, Cooking, Mashing. They created a product that reduced the steps involved. Pre-peeled, pre-cooked potato chunks that can be quickly cooked in the microwave and then mashed like home made.
What they found in product research is that seeing is believing. Once people saw the potato chunks and the ease of the process, they loved the product.
The product was brought quickly to market, in half the time they normally take on other products. With the reduced timeline they needed to look at alternative marketing channels. One of those was WOM.
SheSpeaks was brought in to tap into their network of moms. Their members span across a number of social networks and communities.
For the Steam n’ Mash program they looked to tap into 16,000 moms in all fifty states, which at least one child and a familiarity with the Ore-Idea brand. SheSpeaks e-mailed members about the program and as they enroll they are directed to a microsite. The microsite serves as the hub of content and sharing.
The discussions about the product started before the moms have even tested it. This is common.
Shortly afterwards a mailer went out to the enrolled moms. Rather than sending product, they sent coupons. This was important since it would force recipients to seek the product out in the store. It also allowed for some pass along.
Once the product is in their hands, the conversational volume increases. This allows brands to listen in and engage. The interaction they had with the communities, validated some of their initial research results. As issues surfaced they could poll the community and course-correct as needed.
As the traditional launch began, there was already a groundswell of discussion and online activity. They also had a group of brand ambassadors that helped market the product.
Results? The 16,000 moms generated almost a million conversations and 200,000 unit sales.
The rest of the day’s schedule is devoted to breakout sessions.
Jeben Berg, Creative Director of Cross Platforms Solutions, YouTube, Google led the next general session on how to effectively use the platforms to connect with customers.
Jeben’s first point is that YouTube is not TV, so you need to think differently about it.
How big is YouTube? 81.6 million unique US visitors, over 300 million when you include international audiences. There are 15 minutes of video uploaded every 60 seconds.
YouTube’s audience mirrors the online population. In other words anybody that can get online, will go to YouTube.
There are two types of videos, user and partner. User videos account for 91% of all video uploads. The remaining videos are partner videos.
The big question is how do you stay on top and stand out in such a large sea of content? Jeben says there is no single formula for success.
One of the questions that always comes up is responding to negative comments, it’s about controlling the flow and interacting. The recent Dominos Pizza crisis was resolved when Dominos responded via YouTube.
Another concept is buoyancy, that is keeping your content afloat, and rising to the surface. It’s a difficult task. Nike has always been very progressive with online advertising. They opened their YouTube account in 2005, and started posting right away. Now, they continue to feed the channel and cross-link their content.
Search hierarchy is this: Title, Description and the Tags.
Your content should be self contained. It should be able to live on its own. If I need to search outside the initial video to learn more or get context, then the moment is lost.
BlendTec does a great job with this. Each video tells a story in a simple, self contained way. If you stumble upon a video on another site, the story can stand by itself.
Next, be who you are. Snuggie learned this recently. They also went along with the criticism they received. By participating they continued to drive interest in their product.
Brands also need to be thick skinned. Take the criticisms and roll with them. In the end it keeps the content relevant and on top.
Choice is not an option, people expect choice. Street Fighter has been using annotations to link one video to another. A single video leads to many interactions.
One of the hottest things on YouTube is competition. By our nature we all compete, they will quickly create there own sports and events, just to achieve status.
Episodic innovation is also very successful, once you have an interested audience, continue to build upon it.
Next tip, pull on the heartstrings. Think the Susan Boyle video.
Memes are also a very powerful tool, be prepared to embrace them. A number of trends started by the Obama campaign, spilled over to pop-culture and to brands. Once again, roll with it.
The most valuable pieces of real estate are free. There are a number of YouTube users that have huge audiences, build relationships with them.
Up next is the last general session of the day followed by more breakout sessions.
After a great lunch, WOMM-U returned to the action with a general session led by David Churbuck, Vice-President of Global Web Marketing, Lenovo and John Bell.
The 2008 Bejing Olympics offered Lenovo a unique opportunity to partner with athletes to use social media to tell their stories and their experiences at the games. As a primary sponsor of the Olympics Lenovo had the right to provide gear to athletes.
Lenovo is the home team in China, so everything had to go perfectly. They were very concerned about the perception of the brand.
There were some internal objections to doing anything social at all. Once again it was the fear of losing control.
Another issue was the IOC. In the eyes of the IOC, once the torch was lit, the athletes were there to compete, not to blog. If they were blogging then they were a member of the media. Eventually these internal barriers were overcome. Lenovo then looked to work with athletes to blog from the Olympics.
Lenovo soon realized that they needed help recruiting and training athletes. Ogilvy was brought in to help with this task. They tapped their existing networks to recruit and train the athletes all over the world.
They looked to find athletes that had blogs, they were free to say what they want to. They also looked to find athletes that would not normally be in the spotlight.
Lenovo did ask athletes to include a badge identifying them as a member of the network. This allowed them to track traffic to the individual blogs.
The next step was to build an aggregation tool that pooled together content from all the athlete’s blogs. This landing page was the focus of all of Lenovo’s advertising efforts.
The project was in constant beta. They had the ability to quickly change technical aspects of the project without a lengthy approval process.
There were a number of roadblocks. The IOC was very strict in making sure that athletes did not post photos or video footage from the venues. There seemed to be some daily issue related this.
The blogging provided an alternative content channel for the games. Readers could follow the behind-the-scenes story from before the games to after it. As is often said with blogs and other social media tools, the humanization of the content is what makes it compelling.
One of the main lessons learned is to reach out to writers with existing blogs and aggregate the content, don’t look to re-create the wheel.
Next on the agenda is YouTube & Google.
When you’re at the beach, it only makes sense to have lunch as close to the beach as you can. WOMM-U attendees enjoyed an appetizing outdoor lunch featuring creations from famed ‘Top Chef’ Jeff McInnis. Some highlighted photos below.
After the last general session of the morning a series of breakouts were held around the hotel property. Attendees could choose from:
- Evaluating the Social Media Toolbox
- Managing Reputation at the Speed of Social Media
- Optimizing your Twitter Efforts
- Activating WOM in Social Networks: Advanced Social Media
- Finding Influencers that are Really Influential
- Blowing Chunks with John & Ted
- Injecting Mobile WOM into Your WOM Marketing Plan
- Year 3-5 of your WOMM Program
- Measurement 1: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) That Work
- Measurement 2: The ROI of Fans
We’ll post some recaps later, but for now here are some photos.
The opening morning of WOMM-U 2009 continued after a short break with a session featuring Chas Edwards, Co-Founder, Publisher and Chief Revenue Officer, Federated Media.
The web sites that are seeing tremendous growth are the sites that have a social component. There is no longer this packaged goods approach. A conversational approach to content is now key.
Almost 800,000,000 monthly unique visits to conversational sites, it’s no longer a niche. Chas feels that all media is becoming conversational.
Google can’t tell the difference between a brand, a blogger or a newspaper. Google simply indexes the content. Google is now the primary touchpoint for most brands. Or perhaps Twitter is?
Key points that they’re seeing:
- Every marketer is now a publisher
- Every publisher is a marketer
- Every consumer is both
This is great, but let’s look a conversational marketing at scale. There are five golden rules:
- Identify conversations that your customers are having
- Befriend leaders of them
- Add value to the conversation
- Let your brand converse
- Be authentic and transparent.
Chas then went through a few quick case studies. One highlight was Motrin Moms. It’s a well known case, but what it showed Chas is that whether you like it or not, you have a social media strategy. It’s up to you whether you engage or not. So many of the flare-ups happen because of a lack of understanding of the culture and the tools.
Scale comes from moving outside your traditional web presence, relying upon others to spread that message.
After the session attendees headed to the first of many breakout sessions.
After a great first general session WOMM-U moved on to NBC. Matt Allen, Senior Executive Director of Marketing, NBC.com and Sarah Hofstetter, Emerging Media & Client Strategy, 360i spoke about the holistic approach to social media. The process of getting the organization on-board, but for the right reasons.
Yes we know conversations are important, they’re also messy, vibrant, measurable and sometimes can be monetized.
Don’t fall into the checklist trap. We need a Facebook page, we need a Twitter program, etc. What is the broader strategy? What is the ROI? The other trap is the Bright Shiny Object Syndrome.
Matt and Sarah then went into a case study from NBC on their approach. NBC has seen great success from their digital word of mouth initiatives.
Widgets are a major part of their strategy, widgets allow people to spread NBC’s content to other locations, while maintaining the NBC brand and user experience.
The widgets are also trackable, NBC can see where they’re being used. They can also be monetized. NBC can provide advertising via standard ads or pre-roll on video.
There are so many platforms, but so little time. Does the platform provide value to the marketing objectives.
- Does it meet your marketing objectives?
- Does it leverage your social media arsenal?
- Does it follow best practices?
- Does it provide value to the consumer?
For NBC the major objectives were: A preferred player, site traffic and advocacy. NBC has great assets with programs like SNL. However the majority of users were going to other sites such as YouTube to watch/comment.
NBC created a unique video player and a digital word of mouth strategy to capture back this traffic and conversation.
The first step was the find their advocates. However, just because somebody is writing about a subject doesn’t mean they want to be approached. With those that do want to be approached they built unique relationships with them. The process is very manual. You need a combination of PR and WOM best practices.
In a case like SNL, they need rapid, relevant outreach. NBC wants coverage on Sunday morning. If they wait, then users will upload their own clips to other services. Once again the goal is to drive the video traffic, discussion and coverage back to NBC.
Obviously a key focus is measurement. They want to measure what people are watching, when they’re watching and where they are watching. The data mined allows them to make other strategic decisions. If users are engaged on a site and watching embedded video, does it make sense to advertise or build a stronger relationship.
Popularity in social media dominates PageShare on Google. In 2006, if you searched for SNL on Google, NBC wasn’t even on the first page, now it’s the first result.
At numerous points they map back to their four primary questions. If they’re not answering those questions, they need to adjust strategy.
What are their key DWOM (Digital Word of Mouth) tactics:
- Always be transparent
- Never spam
- Authenticity is key
- Give them something to talk about
Now for a quick coffee break, before we come back to the WOMM-U action.
The first general session of WOMM-U 2009 featured Geoff Donaker, COO of Yelp. Geoff gave the audience a brief overview of what Yelp is. One on side it’s a consumer search site. You’re looking for a restaurant a plumber, etc. On the other side, it’s a business tool. You’re a restaurant owner or a plumber and you need customers. Yelp meets these needs in the middle.
Yelp currently has six million reviews, many of those in the past year. Restaurants are 31% of reviews submitted. People think of Yelp as a restaurant review site, but only 1/3 of reviews are restaurants, the rest are spread across all manner of businesses. Why are they known as a restaurant site? Because most people eat out more than they may have their car fixed.
How do they make money? Local search ads.
Obviously people are going online to do research before making a decision. This trend is accelerating.
What they’re finding by analyzing the site traffic is that no reviews = no traffic. The more reviews a business has, the more traffic they get online. Major retailers are now realizing that they need to be part of this ecosystem.
What have they learned about WOM?
Geoff recently had a situation with his car, it needed repairs and at first he didn’t use his own product. It resulted in a bad situation, but by going to Yelp and doing a little research, he found a mechanic that worked out perfectly. By listening to the opinions of others, Geoff found the quality service he wanted.
We all have a love/hate relationships with reviews. A carpet cleaner told Geoff some interesting stories. First, he removed all the logos from his vans since he didn’t want to accidently cut off somebody in traffic, and then get a negative review.
The small business operators want such control over their personal brand. The concept of putting control in the hands of their customers is terrifying to them. In the past this carpet cleaner would spend $50,000-$100,000 in Yellow Page advertising, now he spends $0. Because of Yelp and other sites he has more business than ever. However the money he’s saving from advertising, he’s spending on improving customer service.
For Geoff, it’s great to see consumers winning and businesses that are providing excellent service winning.
Nothing sells better than great WOM. The stories that customers provide about products and services sell much better than advertising. As a result many of the organizations that excel on Yelp are focussing more efforts on WOM and service.
WOM does require think skin though. Negative reviews sting. Yelp recently entered into their first national advertising deal with Starwood Hotels. However, in the lead-up to the deal, a Yelp user posted a scathing review of a W Hotel in Arizona. Starwood asked for it to be removed, but Yelp left it up. Geoff wondered if that would scuttle the deal, but in the end Starwood realized that the positive and negative reviews were what made Yelp the resource that it is.
With online review sites the temptation to spam is very strong. Sadly there are people that will attempt to game the system. Some do this without knowing it’s wrong, while others specifically
The manufactured reputation usually backfires. A pet sitter recently asked customers to write five-star reviews on Yelp and receive a $20 discount. From Yelp’s perspective this violates their terms of service. It also brings out the vigilantes. People who attempt to protect the sanctity of the system. Sometimes that retaliation
However, negative WOM can be good for business. A local coffee shop that was VERY serious about their product received a 1-star rating. The reviewer felt the coffee shop was a bit too serious about the product. The coffee shop took that review and ran with it. It became a focal point of their marketing efforts. Yes they were serious about coffee and proud of it. That negative review was quickly turned to a positive.
It’s worth engaging your vocal critics. Geoff showed a clip from a local wine shop owner. He said that whenever he contacts a negative reviewer and interacts with them, the review changes from negative to positive. Some of his best customers now are individuals that once left negative reviews.
Geoff’s closing thoughts: The genie is out of the bottle, you’re better off joining the conversation than not, choose your ambassador(s) carefully.
No break between the first two sessions, we’re on to the next presentation.
WOMM-U 2009 officially started with a brief welcome session lead by John Bell, Managing Director, 360° Digital Influence and current WOMMA President.
This is the second edition of WOMM-U. John talked about the tactical and practical nature of the event. The goal is to hear from other brands, how they’re engaging with WOM.
One of the major influences on the curriculum was how can you market more effectively and efficiently a recession. This includes strategy, execution and measurement.
The audience is a unique mix of students and teachers, and depending on the subject, sometimes those roles are reversed.
Social media is a major component of today’s WOM tool-kit, but WOM is more than social media, and that’s something that will be addressed at WOMM-U.
How do you scale, how do you measure, how do you convince management? These are also major components of the curriculum. However, this event is not going to be WOM 101, it will be advance placement WOM.
John then discussed three new changes at WOMMA.
First, John introduced the new WOMM Enthusiast, John Moore. John will be taking the WOMMA discussion to the masses, and internally.
It’s his job to spark the conversation about WOMMA, this could be best practices or legal issues. John will be blogging from All Things WOM.
Second, there is also a new, fresh visual identity for WOMMA. Brains on Fire has created a new WOMMA brand. John went through the creative process that Brains on Fire went through to create the new identity. This is slowly starting to roll out. Be on the look out for it.
Third, is the fresh voice of new members. It’s the membership that drives this organization and WOMMA always welcomes new members to the fold.
The event will be vigorous, with a focus on learning, but then again we are in South Beach, so fun will also be had.
Next up is the first general session featuring Geoff Donaker, Chief Operating Officer of Yelp.
At this year’s WOMM-U event one of the main screens during the general session will always display a list of recent tweets from the conference. More and more conferences are doing this. It’s an interesting twist to bring that backchannel front and center.
If you’re not attending this year’s WOMM-U, then you’re missing one fabulous hotel. There’s nothing like a Ritz-Carlton on the beach. And when that beach is South Beach then you have quite the combination.
This beautiful venue allows for some rather unique locations for breakout sessions. See you by the pool.