WOMMA Summit Recap, in 5 Takeaways & Tweets
We just got back from attending the 5th annual Word of Mouth Marketing Association Summit. Not only were both Carrie & Dave featured presenters, not only did we win a WOMMIE Award (not only did we lose a few $ to the Vegas gods?)– but, more important, we actually learned a ton of valuable information and often found ourselves inspired by the incredible array of talented speakers, including author of The Anatomy of Buzz Emanuel Rosen, VP of Patagonia Rob Bondurant, and country music legend Kristian Bush of Sugarland. Here are 5 Key Takeaways:
1) Listen first. We’ve heard this before, and we’ll hear it again. Companies are excited to share their messages, insights, and even value with their customers and potential customers using social media. But what good is all of that sharing if companies don’t listen first, to learn what their customers want and need from them.
2) Tell stories, and encourage storytelling from your customers. We all know a picture’s worth a thousand words, and a video is probably worth 10,000 words. So companies should be sharing their stories, not their press releases. More important, you should be equipping your customers with as many tools as possible for them to share their stories about you, with you and with their friends. Your customers’ storytelling about you is far more valuable than any paid (ads) or unpaid (social) messages you share.
3) Disclose Disclose Disclose. The new FTC guidelines are very clear: If anyone is being given anything of value in exchange for talking about you online or offline, there must be a clear, unmistakable disclosure of relationship. Companies and individuals who violate who violate this are breaking the law. Don’t mess with it, just disclose.
4) Beyond Facebook and Twitter. Facebook and Twitter are clearly excellent tools for joining, monitoring and stimulating the conversation between companies and consumers and between consumers around your company and industry. But using these tools is just a start. You need a strategy around them, follow-through – and more tools beyond the big 2 – like blogs, private communities, niche social networks, YouTube, LinkedIn, Yelp, etc.
5) Customer service and marketing are now linked. There really isn’t a way to separate them on social networks anymore. Every time you respond to people talking about your brand on a social network or blog, you’re performing tasks that could be considered marketing, customer service, and pr. And every time your call center takes a call, that customer service experience could easily be turned into great marketing – or a viral nightmare. Be careful, listen up, and get everyone involved at your company.
Of course, these are just our 5 key takeaways. There are lots more great recaps – including outgoing WOMMA President John Bell’s blog post, and the official WOMMA recap. My favorite, though, is John Moore’s recap – 195 Pages of Talkable Tweets - i.e. the entire confernece recapped via Twitter. Brilliant!
