Download presentation:social media outreach, viral marketing and

E-word-of-mouth
A study of the strategies and theories underlying social media, viral
marketing and branded communities
By Ming Zhao
WORD OF MOUTH

Personal source

Positive, and especially negative
WOM have the ability to quickly
become wide spread

Such effect is multiplied with
online interactions

words can travel to many in a
very short amount of time

Cost effective

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jgas
per/courses/ABM/ViralMarketing.
html
Currently Practiced Forms of Word of
Mouth
 Social media: blogs and
podcasts (45%)
 Social networks (42%)
 Buzz/Guerrilla Marketing (25%)
 Influencer Programs - 23%
 Brand Experience Initiatives
(21%)
 Viral Ads (18%)
 Brand Communities (16%)
Source: Agent Wildfire Research 2008

Brand/Customer Communitybuilding WOM

Social Media
Production/Outreach WOM
(i.e. blogs, podcasts)

Social Network
Production/Outreach WOM

Viral Marketing/Advertising
WOM
What is social media?
Wikipedia says: Social media are primarily internet-and mobilebased tools for sharing and discussing information among human
beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate
technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the
construction of words, pictures, videos and audios. The interaction,
and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the
varied perspectives and “building” of shared meaning among
communities, as people share their stories and experiences.
Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content or
user-generated media.
Common social media applications
BLOGS
DICUSSION FORUM
VIDEO AND AUDIO SHARING
IDEA MANAGEMENT
SOCIAL PROFILES
RATING AND RANKINGS
SHARED FILE REPOSITARY
EVENT CHAT
Social media marketing

SM Marketing relies on the audience to distribute and engage in the
dialogue and sometimes the creation of additional content.

Its about engaging, communicating via a dialogue and interacting with
people. More so customers.

Increasing traffic to a site by links, brand awareness and well attention.

You pay attention to what your customer/user wants and needs!

You do this by listening, interacting, chatting.

One does this by having a presence on social networking sites and
channels.
http://wiki.beingpeterkim.com/
What is viral marketing？
“Viral marketing refers to marketing techniques that
use pre-existing social networks to produce increases
in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing
objectives (such as product sales) though selfreplicating viral processes…It can be word-of-mouth
delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the
internet” ---Wikipedia
Viral marketing

Simply relies on the audience to distribute the objective-Uses social
networks like Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, Twitter to help achieve an
objective…i.e sales, brand awareness, etc

This objective is obtained by a “Viral Action”. This action is people
passing on the content such as video, picture, an application, banner,
heck even just word of mouth.

Bottom Line: Viral relies on the audience to spread the message with
little or no interaction. Its a one time interaction.
Framework for viral marketing—M.R.Subramani and
B.Rajagopalan, 2003
HIGH: benefits
to all users
depend on size
of user base
SIGNALING
USE, GROUP
MEMBERSHIP
Normative
influence
MOTIVATED
EVANGELISM
Normative
influence
AWARENESS
CREATION,
BENEFITS
SIGNALING
Informational
influence
TARGETED
RECOMMEND
ATION
Informational
and normative
Influence
EXTERNALITY
LOW: benefits
to users only
RECOMME
NDATION
ROLE
PASSIVE
ACTIVE
According to the “tipping point”
Three factors making things go viral

The law of few: the connector; the maven and the salesmen

The stickiness factor

The power of context
What is brand community?
“Brand community is a specialized, nongeographically bound community, based on
a structured set of social relations among
admirers of a brand.”
(ALBERT M. MUNIZ, JR. THOMAS C. O’GUINN, 2001)
Advantages of building a
brand community
DIRECT BENEFIT

Better insight and quicker
feedback

Competitive intelligence / market
needs

Prepare launches/market
introductions

Runaway word of
mouth/evangelism

Reduce customer support costs
INDIRECT BENEFIT

New
distribution/selling/customizing
channel

Superior innovation/solutions

Galvanize employee/vendor

Organizational wide costumercentricity
Power of the community
Among community members:
91% believe community enables them to give candid feedback
82% were more likely to recommend the company to others
76% felt more positively about the company
Community users remain customers 50% longer than noncommunity users. (AT&T, 2002)
56% percent of online community members log in once a day or
more (Annenberg, 2007)
Customers report good experiences in forums more than twice as
often as they do via calls or mail. (Jupiter, 2006)
Categories of E-WORD-OF-MOUTH
actions--John Eaton
High
degree of
marketercontrolled
efforts
Viral
Marketing
E-referral
marketing
Low
degree of
marketercontrolled
efforts
Brand
Community
Social
Networks

Viral marketing refers to the practice of a marketer creating an internet promotional vehicle to

Brand community refers to a specific classification of a social network that revolves around a
draw attention to a brand, most often in the form of an email or website address link that is
distributed online by consumers.
particular brand.
TWO MODELS OF INFLUENCE
normative influencing
Where recipient behavior is based on interpreting the
information provided by the influencer as an implied
expectation to confirm.
Underlying mechanism influencing actions are:
Identification and compliance
Informational influencing
Where recipient behavior is based on a personal
evaluation f the information provided by the influencer.
Underlying mechanism influencing actions are:
Internalization
other underlying theories

The law of the social few

Social information processing theory

Social presence theories

The 50-20-10-1 rule
50% of people will passively participate
20% will actively and frequently consume/trade content
10% chime in opinion/rate and vote on content
1%develop and innovate content
Conclusion and some
questions for discussion

E-word-of mouth is more effective and persuasive than traditional
marketing

There are disadvantages too:
negative e-word of mouth can snow ball more quickly than positive eword-of-mouth
Is e-WOM marketing better for creating awareness for a brand or for
inducing consumers toward purchase?

If you are the salesman for the “smart“ car, when consider social media
marketing, will you prefer viral marketing to branded community strategy?
And why?

In general, what is the context in which these strategies work and the
characteristics of products and services for which they are most
effective?|