The document discusses word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM/WOMA) and social influence marketing. It defines WOMM and explains how companies can encourage positive word-of-mouth through customer satisfaction, transparency and empowering customer voice. Eleven types of WOMM techniques are outlined including viral marketing, influencer marketing and cause marketing. Social influence marketing is defined as engaging with social media and influencers to achieve business goals. The "6 C's" of social influence marketing are described as content, customization, community, conversation, commerce and commitment. Viral marketing spreads exponentially through sharing while buzz marketing uses publicity stunts to generate excitement and information.

1. Symbiosis Institute of Media and
Communication, Pune
Integrated Marketing
Communication
Prof. Sonali B.
Social Influence Marketing
Submitted By:
Yasmin Hussain
144
MBA - Ad
2013

2. WOMM/WOMA
Word of Mouth: The act of consumers providing information to other
consumers.
Word of Mouth Marketing: Giving people a reason to talk about your
products and services, and making it easier for that conversation to
take place. It is the art and science of building active, mutually
beneficial consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-marketer
communications.
Word of mouth is a pre-existing phenomenon that marketers are only
now learning how to harness, amplify, and improve. Word of mouth
marketing isn't about creating word of mouth -- it's learning how to
make it work within a marketing objective.
That said, word of mouth can be encouraged and facilitated.
Companies can work hard to make people happier, they can listen to
consumers, they can make it easier for them to tell their friends, and
they can make certain that influential individuals know about the good
qualities of a product or service.
Word of mouth marketing empowers people to share their experiences.
It's harnessing the voice of the customer for the good of the brand.
And it's acknowledging that the unsatisfied customer is equally
powerful.
Word of mouth can't be faked or invented. Attempting to fake word of
mouth is unethical and creates a backlash, damages the brand, and
tarnishes the corporate reputation. Legitimate word of mouth marketing
acknowledges consumers’ intelligence -- it never attempts to fool them.
Ethical marketers reject all tactics related to manipulation, deception,
infiltration, or dishonesty.
All word of mouth marketing techniques are based on the concepts of
customer satisfaction, two-way dialog, and transparent communications.
The basic elements are:
• Educating people about your products and services
• Identifying people most likely to share their opinions
• Providing tools that make it easier to share information
• Studying how, where, and when opinions are being shared
• Listening and responding to supporters, detractors, and
neutrals

3. TYPES OF WOMM/WOMA
1. Buzz Marketing: Using high-profile entertainment or news to get
people to talk about your brand.
2. Viral Marketing: Creating entertaining or informative messages that
are designed to be passed along in an exponential fashion, often
electronically or by email.
3. Community Marketing: Forming or supporting niche communities that
are likely to share interests about the brand (such as user groups, fan
clubs, and discussion forums); providing tools, content, and information
to support those communities.
4. Grassroots Marketing: Organizing and motivating volunteers to
engage in personal or local outreach.
5. Evangelist Marketing: Cultivating evangelists, advocates, or volunteers
who are encouraged to take a leadership role in actively spreading the
word on your behalf.
6. Product Seeding: Placing the right product into the right hands at
the right time, providing information or samples to influential
individuals.
7. Influencer Marketing: Identifying key communities and opinion
leaders who are likely to talk about products and have the ability to
influence the opinions of others.
8. Cause Marketing: Supporting social causes to earn respect and
support from people who feel strongly about the cause.
9. Conversation Creation: Interesting or fun advertising, emails, catch
phrases, entertainment, or promotions designed to start word of mouth
activity.
10. Brand Blogging: Creating blogs and participating in the
blogosphere, in the spirit of open, transparent communications; sharing
information of value that the blog community may talk about.
11. Referral Programs: Creating tools that enable satisfied customers
to refer their friends.
SOCIAL INFLUENCE MARKETING

4. Social Influence Marketing is about engaging with social media and
social influencers to achieve the marketing and business needs of an
organization.
We call it Social influence Marketing (SIM) in recognition of the
increasing role online social influence plays in brand affinity and
purchasing decisions.
Consumers are communicating more than ever online and making
more of their choices based on the opinions of others – sometimes
friends, sometimes experts and sometimes complete strangers. It’s
about peers influencing peers and brands engaging with consumers’ on
the consumers’ terms – wherever and whenever the consumers choose.
In less than two years, social networking has transformed the way we
communicate. And for brands, it has opened up new ways to engage
with consumers.
Display advertising is certainly a viable ad model in social
environments, but the real opportunity for marketers is to leverage the
unprecedented community-building aspects to build their brands.
Marketers are experimenting while getting better attuned to consumers'
opinions of their efforts.
Six 'C's of social influence marketing are:
1. Content
In 2007, for better or worse many companies experimented with social
networking environments. Brands like Victoria Secret's loungewear line
PINK and Nike seem to thrive in the space, giving consumers access
to unique content they can't get anywhere else. Access to valuable
tools and content is a key factor in a consumer's decision to interact
with a brand.
Regardless of their goals, brands need to think about customizing bite-
sized, portable content or experiences for their most prominent target
segments—content that their "friends" would be proud to display,
share, or support.
2. Customization
Users crave the ability to customize, post and share content. On
social networks like MySpace or Facebook, users define themselves
through their personalized profile pages and the elements that they
choose to display. On sites like YouTube and Flickr, users are building

5. custom video or seeking content that represents their particular likes,
interests or sense of humor. Marketers need to empower consumers to
express themselves. In most cases, brands can craft the framework of
a social media campaign, but the customization of content and the
dialogue is up to the consumer.
3. Community
The foundation of every community is a relationship rooted in trust
and mutual interest. Brands need to understand the community they
are convening with and what holds them together. Marketers should
think carefully about how to personify and express their brands
appropriately.
The adage "build it and they will come" is not applicable here. To
build community within social media campaigns, brands need to
achieve several things:
• Give users a reason to interact with your brand frequently by
providing unique content, value or engagement.
• Let your content travel by distributing it across widgets and other
mechanisms beyond your Web site.
• Consider adding social networking experiences on your site relating
back to your brand pages on social networking sites.
4. Conversation
Many consumers represent aspects of their personalities through the
brands they associate with, advocate or even criticize. Dialogue is
happening openly among consumers, which creates both an
opportunity and a challenge. Brands can tap into positive buzz and
build a network of advocates to support customer relationship building
and new sales. But brands must also accept the negative conversation
and hear the signals that may help them mitigate a problem before it
escalates.
Social networking environments are public, but from the point of view
of consumers, it is still considered private space. Brands need to
respect this and explore how they can create benefit with consumers
that will warrant their welcome and continued conversation.
5. Commerce
Standards and metrics for measuring success in the social media
space are not yet well defined and vary based on the advertiser, type
of campaign and the environment. The metrics you lay out in the
beginning of a campaign need to factor in the environment and its

6. nuances. There is one factor around social influence marketing that
can give marketers more immediate satisfaction: commerce. Brands
can gain a return on their investment beyond customer relationship
building or branding.
6. Commitment
Consumers expect brands to bring some kind of benefit to the
community they foster. Any brand can enter the social media space
on a campaign level or experimental basis, but those who can actually
make a commitment to building a presence, a community of friends
and a steady amount of new content to keep their communities
engaged will benefit most.
VIRAL MARKETING VS BUZZ MARKETING
Viral Marketing is an attempt to deliver a marketing message that
spreads quickly and exponentially among consumers. Today, this often
comes in the form of an email message or video. At its best, it is
word of mouth enabled, and at its worst, it is just another interruptive
marketing message.
The heart of a viral ad campaign is the content. People don’t spread
the ad because they love your brand, they spread it because they
adore the content.
Viral Marketing kills two birds with one stone
– It avoids the need to have a product with a wow factor in order to
raise awareness, generate buzz and kickstart peer-to-peer spread.
Instead, the viral campaign’s communication agent is the element
that needs a wow factor.
– Viral campaigns ‘work’ the Internet to deliver exposure via peer to-
peer endorsement. The focus is on campaigns with material that
consumers want to spend time interacting with and spreading
proactively.
The point of a viral campaign is not only to ‘go viral’, but also to
benefit the brand strategically.
Some viral marketing methods are:
• face-to-face communication
• phone conversations
• text messages

7. • online profile pages
• blog posts
• message board threads,
• instant messages
• emails
Buzz Marketing is an event or activity that generates publicity,
excitement, and information to the consumer. It is usually something
that combines a wacky, jaw-dropping event or experience with pure
branding. If buzz is done right, people will write about it, so it
essentially becomes a great PR vehicle.
Example:
When Richard Branson wanted to launch his mobile services in
America, he wanted to create a splash, a buzz. It was decided to drop
Richard Branson from a skyscraper into Times Square in New York
City at rush hour — naked. At the same time, have two hundred
people, dressed up in red spandex suits, running around handing out
product samples and information leaflets, and otherwise scaring the
hell out of the commuters running for the five o’clock train.
Objectives:
– A type of PR whereby you engage in either publicity stunts or plant
content (Blogs, articles, message board postings) hoping to get a
"buzz" generated about your brand.
Characteristics:
– Mostly offline spread initiated by e.g. online campaign
– Requires great product
– Under-promise, over-deliver
Some techniques of buzz marketing are:
• Multi-site presence
• Posted editorials
• Created testimonials
• Normal banner campaign
• Blogs
• Multi-channel presence
• Orchestrated TV, radio, print and web campaign
• Desired effect
• "Everywhere you go, you hear people talking about it"
• No blatant ads, just omni-present presences