Updates from February, 2010

• Only 8 Tabletops left for School of WOM Sponsorship
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 10:47 am on February 26, 2010 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: School of WOM (136)

  WOMMA’s School of WOM, the premier event in the word of mouth marketing industry, expects an average attendance of 350 professionals representing brands, agencies, media buyers, PR firms, research and technology companies, most of which are decision makers. Showcase your new product, meet your next client, and make your company known at WOMMA’s School of WOM! As an official sponsor, you will build brand awareness.

  Email our Business Development Director, Kelly Hartweg at Kelly@WOMMA.org

  See the full sponsorship brochure here: http://womma.org/schoolofwom/sponsorship/

  

  

   

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• The Quaint Old Days of Media
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 10:43 am on February 26, 2010 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: New Media (31), WOM in Entertainment (42)

  

  Back in 1996, Sports Illustrated did produced a daily four-color magazine covering the Atlanta Summer Olympics. It goes to show how far we have come since then. Now we can find hundreds of articles hours after an event. Should we want our news from the source, we can follow the dozens of Olympic athletes who tweet, often right after their event. This isn’t leading to the standard “print media is dead” argument. But it does show how our media, compared to 14 years ago, are in hyperdrive. At this speed everyone, newspeople and brands, need to adjust their communications. Imagine Sports Illustrated doing a daily magazine for the 2010 Olympics. It’s just as absurd as using the same communication plan you did in 1996.

  Read the full story about the Olympic Daily at Wired

  

  

   

• Get Educated
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 10:38 am on February 26, 2010 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: WOM Education (94)

  WOMMA’s M&M’s Guidebook Now Available for Purchase

  Now with a Measurement & Metric coated shell, the Guidebook content is easily digestible and won’t melt your brain. The Measurement & Metric Guidebook is intended as an educational resource for marketers to better understand metrics and measurement as they relate to word of mouth and social media marketing programs.

  Buy the Guidebook here: http://bit.ly/GuidebookBuyMe
  Take a sneak peak inside the Guidebook: http://bit.ly/MMGuideBook
  Watch “Guidebook the Movie” here: http://bit.ly/GuidebookTheMovie

  
  Award Winning WOM Case Studies Now Available for Purchase

  Word of Mouth Works is WOMMA’s publication documenting the best 17 WOM case studies from the 2009 WOMMY Awards. From brainstorm to measurement, these case studies offer in depth, unfiltered analysis of how and why these campaigns worked. Learn how:

  ·Nissan and Capital C spurred 30 newspaper articles, 35 blog posts, 5 TV interviews, 3 radio interviews ($1 million in value) and surpassed sales goals from zero dollars spent on traditional media to promote a new car.

  ·Kashi and P&G Tremor increased sales of Kashi TLC cereal bars by 23% and generated over 2.2 million conversations.

  ·Ford and House Party reached over 2 million people through just 1000 influencers

  Word of mouth marketing is as powerful as it is diverse. Word of Mouth Works contains every tool at the WOM marketer’s disposal. From social media to guerilla marketing to influencer empowerment, you will find everything you need to venture into the ever expanding world of WOM marketing.

  Visit http://WOMMA.org/store to order your copy today

  

  

   

• We’re Talking Returns
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 10:36 am on February 26, 2010 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Research (521)

  

  At the Online Marketing Summit this week, there was much talk about measuring ROI of online campaigns. Despite a clear increase in marketing dollars going to online search engines and social media outlets, ROI measurement methods still lag behind technological innovations. Due to the nature of online marketing techniques, predicting ROI is quite difficult. For example, viral videos often receive millions of views yet fail to move product. However, placing some simple advertising on an organically produced viral video, such as the video of a wedding party dancing down the aisle to Chris Brown’s “Forever,” can rocket a year old song back to the top five.

  Read more about the discussions over ROI at OMS at Sign On San Diego

  

  

   

• What Now WOMMA? SM Disclosure Webinar on Monday
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 10:34 am on February 26, 2010 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Webinar (210)

  March 1 - Webinar: Lifting the Fog on Social Media Disclosure

  Best Practices in Protecting Consumers and Marketers

  Time: 9am PST | 11am CST | 12pm EST
  Who: Open to Members and Nonmembers
  Cost: Free
  Moderator: Paul Rand, WOMMA President and CEO, Zocalo Group
  Register Here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/261930194https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/261930194

  This webinar will help clarify disclosure best practices as it relates to:

  - Personal, editorial and product review blogs
  - Online discussions and comments
  - Twitter and other short-form microblogging services
  - Status updates on social networking sites
  - Video, podcasts and photo sharing websites

  March 4 - Brands Council Webinar: How Quicken Loans uses Social Media to Improve Customer Service

  Time: 12pm PST | 2pm CST | 3pm EST
  Who: For Brand and Nonprofit Members Only
  Cost: Free
  For Brands and Non-Profits only
  Register: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/758116131

  Learn how Quicken Loans, the nation’s largest online mortgage lender, uses social media as a viable and growing customer service channel. Quicken Loans has not only put out fires, but actually saved loans through social media – all in the public’s eye. It’s not what you might expect from a financial services company that did $25 billion in closed loans last year, but then again, Quicken Loans is not your average mortgage company.

  

  

   

• Lessons in SM Policy: Carnival Cruise Lines
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 10:31 am on February 26, 2010 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Brands and WOM (503), WOM How-to (591)

  

  Carnival Cruise Lines first developed their social media policy last year. It restricted travel agents from using their trademarks in any tweets, status updates and blog posts. The agents protested and on Dec. 15, Carnival withdrew their policy for further review. I think this shows a great ability to learn about the changing landscape of marketing communications. Obviously they didn’t want agents pretending to actually work for Carnival, but they didn’t want to restrict the agents from selling cruises. That led to their new policy. In brief, they allow agents to talk about deals, cruises and everything else. The only caveat is that they do not use any Carnival trademarks in any usernames, account names, profile names, or screen names. Bravo! This gives agents the freedom to promote while maintaining the brand name. Clear and simple, the way it should be.

  Read more about Carnival’s new SM policy at Tnooz

  

  

   

• Case Study: Care for a Cigar?
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 11:37 am on February 25, 2010 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Creative WOM Ideas (256), WOM and Small Business (35)

  

  The Perez-Carrillo family has been in the cigar business for generations. In March 2009 the patriarch Ernesto Jr. and his son Ernesto III started an independent cigar company, EPC Cigar. Their first product was a limited edition $13 cigar which was released in December. Leading up to the launch, their advertising agency DeVito/Verdi encouraged them to look beyond the standard print, outdoor and TV marketing and embrace new media options. Of the $300,000 marketing budget, the Perez-Carrillo’s invested $40,000 in digital media initiatives. Those funds went to map functions on their homepage and “About Us” section that showed where tweets about cigars were originating and where interested smokers could buy EPC cigars. The site also identifies 1,000 places to smoke complete with user recommendations. Both Ernestos utilize a variety of social media to connect with their customers.

  See the results of EPC Cigar’s digital media initiatives at The New York Times

  

  

   

• WOMMA Members in the Spotlight
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 11:30 am on February 25, 2010 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Member News (143)

  WOMMA is proud to welcome our newest member:

  The Word of Mouth Company

  Mr Youth has just received high honors in one of Fast Company’s annual compendiums, making our way onto the list of the Top 10 Most Innovative Advertising & Marketing Companies. Read the full story here.

  Governing Member Edelman is named Adweek’s Public Relations Agency of 2009. Read why Adweek chose Edelman in their award write-up here.

  To celebrate their 25th anniversary, Empower Media Marketing is doing 24 hours of charity for The Brighton Center – a non-profit agency offering family support services throughout Northern Kentucky. More than 150 Empower employees will be cleaning, renovating or spending quality time with some of the people The Brighton Center helps. See all the details here.

  Keller Fay Study Finds Vancouver Olympics Coverage Is Stimulating Millions of Conversations About Advertisers’ Brands. See all of their findings here.

  Lithium Technologies Partners with Sapient to Deliver Social CRM and Customer Communities. Read all the details about the partnership here.

  Social Media Group was selected as the social media partner for Beaujolais wines in U.S. market. Congratulations on this tasty contract! See the all the details here.

  

  

   

• What Now WOMMA?
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 11:25 am on February 25, 2010 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Webinar (210)

  March 1 - Webinar: Lifting the Fog on Social Media Disclosure

  Best Practices in Protecting Consumers and Marketers
  Time: 9am PST | 11am CST | 12pm EST
  Who: Open to Members and Nonmembers
  Cost: Free
  Moderator: Paul Rand, WOMMA President and CEO, Zocalo Group

  Register Here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/261930194https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/261930194

  This webinar will help clarify disclosure best practices as it relates to:

  - Personal, editorial and product review blogs

  - Online discussions and comments

  - Twitter and other short-form microblogging services

  - Status updates on social networking sites

  - Video, podcasts and photo sharing websites

  March 4 - Brands Council Webinar: How Quicken Loans uses Social Media to Improve Customer Service

  Time: 12pm PST | 2pm CST | 3pm EST
  Who: For Brand and Nonprofit Members Only
  Cost: Free
  For Brands and Non-Profits only
  Register: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/758116131

  Learn how Quicken Loans, the nation’s largest online mortgage lender, uses social media as a viable and growing customer service channel. Quicken Loans has not only put out fires, but actually saved loans through social media – all in the public’s eye. It’s not what you might expect from a financial services company that did $25 billion in closed loans last year, but then again, Quicken Loans is not your average mortgage company.

  

  

   

• Follow-up to “The Holy Grail of WOM Marketing”
  
  

  Pat McCarthy 11:23 am on February 25, 2010 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
  Tags: Influencers (60), WOM How-to (591)

  WOMMA member Lithium Technologies presented a webinars last week that put forth some very interesting findings about the different types of influencers. The presenters, Dr. Michael Wu, Prof. Barak Libai and Sanjey Dholakia, presented data that suggests four types of centrality measures for influencers:

  1. Degree centrality: measures how many connections a user has.

  2. Closeness centrality: measures how fast a user can reach the whole network.

  3. Eigenvector centrality: measures how reputable a user is.

  4. Betweenness centrality: measures how many critical diffusion paths go through the user.
  These show that depending on your goals, there are different influencers that you should reach out to.

  Read the full webinars summary written by Dr. Wu himself at Lithium Technologies Lithosphere blog