WOMMA Summit – Day 1

Posted on by under Word of Mouth

Here are my notes the first day of the WOMMA Summit:

Dave Balter, CEO of BzzAgent

4 Keys to WOM

  • Community of Influence
  • Experience and Training
  • Coummunications
  • Analysis & Adjustment

Why do people share things via WOM?

  • Helping/Educating
  • Proving Knowledge
  • Find Common Ground
  • Validating Our Opinion
  • Pride

80% of WOM occurs offline.

Value of Negative WOM:

  • Learn by Listening
  • 50% of Negative WOM is result of injustice
  • Wake up your quiet advocates

George Silverman, author of the Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing

People take action on 1 in 15,000 ads they see
People take action on 1 in 3 recommendations they receive

WOM is 5000X more powerful.

WOMMA Ethic Guidelines – Lots of Talk. Key tenet in the Guidlines is the Honesty ROI.

  • Honesty of Relationship – Say Who You Are Speaking For
  • Honesty of Opinion – Say What You Believe, Don’t Shill
  • Honesty of Identity – Say Who You Are

There was an interesting discussion around the developing area of WOM metrics. Too much to summarize.

Pete Blackshaw and Jim Nail had a great session on how the customer is in control. Check out HybridBuzz.com and BlogPulse. They have research that shows after WOM the next two most trusted sources for consumers are websites and email they receive. I found this amazing.

Here are Guy Kawasaki 10 points on Selling the Dream:

  1. Make Meaning
  2. Niche Thyself
  3. Don’t Be Paranoid
  4. Localize the Pain
  5. Let 100 flowers bloom
  6. Look for agnostics, not atheists
  7. Enable Test Drives
  8. Provide a Slippery Slope
  9. Make them feel a part of the team
  10. Don’t ask anyone to do something you wouldn’t
  11. Be a mensch

I attended a panel on WOM in the music industry. So-so.

I am now attending one on using WOM in specialty markets. Greg Stielstra, author of Pyromarketing is talking about Purpose Driven Life, the 22 million copy bestseller. I just said critics are as important as praisers. They help frame the market for your product.

Friendster is using its network to start WOM campaigns. They chose members whose interests matched that of the campaign. They have done things with Apprentice 2 and The Aquatic Life.

Last session is brands using WOM. Interesting stuff from Jake on the stuff he is doing with Lego.

Michael Wiley is talking about the GM blogs. He gets it.

Enough for today. I need dinner.