Getting excited to celebrate the first ever National Word of Mouth Marketing Day and WOMMA’s coast-to-coast WOMMfest festivities? Why wait for the party? We can celebrate WOMM and create talkable moments every single day.
While developing custom campaigns is one important way to get people talking, don’t miss opportunities every day to generate right place, right time WOMM and amplify the organic conversations already taking place about your brand.
Spark Conversation
We know that a really creative new campaign can generate and inspire conversation. One must-ask question when planning a new campaign is: what can you create that is so compelling or delightful for your audience that they won’t think twice before sharing with their own networks?
One brand that flat-out gets this is REI. Last week, the All Things WOMM blog covered their #giftpicks campaign which offered personalized digital responses to inquiring holiday shoppers. Another highly engaging campaign is the The REI 1440 Project, an effort to fill each minute of a virtual day with photos that celebrate the great outdoors. People can submit their own photos, scroll through the visually stunning timeline, and share the experience with fellow outdoor lovers.
Strike While the Iron’s Hot
Who knew that the brand hero of the Super Bowl—traditionally the domain of talking babies, buxom babes, and Clydesdale horses—would be a cookie? This is probably the umpteenth time you’ve heard about how Oreo capitalized on a unique moment, the power outage at the Superdome during Super Bowl XLVII, and gave millions of viewers something to talk about while the stadium lights were out.
The tweet wasn’t just clever. Consider the internal machinations of Oreo’s digital team that enabled it to be so timely. The custom image was created using existing, easily accessible elements. The copy was written. And the concept was approved almost instantly.
People were talking about Oreo because their team was well orchestrated and ready to provide a captive audience with something to talk about when the big game got delayed.
Be the Lightning Rod
We know that conversations about our brands are taking place every day and that when these conversations take place between friends and family, they are more powerful and trusted than when we shout from our megaphones.
Source: wommapedia.org
But we can play a role in amplifying the voices of others when they talk about our brand. One way to do this is by creating second-screen experiences for broadcast events that allow viewers to share their thoughts and reactions in real time. Fully 50% of Super Bowl ads mentioned Twitter in some form, driving people to specific hashtags so that interested viewers could easily find and participate in conversations about the brand.
TV series, like the CW’s Vampire Diaries, also use this tactic, creating custom hashtags for each episode to create a community where viewers can share the experience in real time.
Find More Ways to Make WOMM Work
If you want to learn more about creating engaging experiences, orchestrating your social team for real-time WOMM, and fostering conversations already taking place about your brand, check out the Student Council, Music, and English chapters of our new Social Business Textbook. The first edition of this eight-chapter primer covers key concepts and elements of successful social programs.
