Page Sec1:41 - Labyrint 2013 - English Edition

million Norwegianmembers. Worldwide,
there are more than 900 millionmembers
of the Facebook community, whichmakes
it easy to share your thoughts and ideas with
others. In particular, you can talk about
products and services you will either recom-
mend or tell people to avoid.
This kind of conversation is called “word-
of-mouth”, and has been around a long
time. What is new now is that the Internet
and social media have made word-of-
mouth discussions accessible to a much
larger audience. This can have a major
impact for two reasons: Potential customers
can read what you write, and can change
their behaviour or attitude towards a prod-
uct or service.
In addition, businesses can also use word-
of-mouth conversations to improve their
products. Before, these word-of-mouth
conversations occurred without the com-
pany being able to knowwhat was said, but
word-of-mouth conversations conducted
using social media are openly accessible, in
the public domain. Smart companies know
this and can gain valuable information from
customers’ reactions to their product or
service.
A new kind of marketing
Another consequence of word-of-mouth
moving into the public domain is that the
conversations spreadmuch faster than
before. This rapid spread of information
is often called viral, whichmeans that
informationmoves fromperson to person
at high speed.
For those involved inmarketing on the
Internet, the ripple effect from a word-of-
mouth commentary is of great interest – if
their product is described positively. In fact,
this approach can be an effective way to
market a new product.
“This is a completely newway of think-
ing about marketing. It’s a change that is
here to stay. Marketers must change their
mind set, and find out how they can have
a dialogue with customers and get them to
talk about a product,” says AndersWien, an
assistant professor at the Tromsø University
­Business School, who is writing his doctor-
ate on word-of-mouth. He is interested in
what makes people talk about goods and
services, and what this means for corporate
marketing.
Other consumers more
trustworthy
Consumers have always trusted other users
of a product more than the company that
makes it. With social media, consumers
around the world can help each other by
sharing their experiences. The website Tri-
padvisor.com is one such example. It works
like a travel guide, where people share hotel
reviews and other useful tips.
“We trust other consumers, because they
have no interest in deceiving us. They are in
the same boat as we are, and we have to help
each other. But it can be smart to consider
why people might be motivated to engage
in word-of-mouth recommendations. They
may be excited about a product, but it can
also be important for them to be the first to
talk about a new product. They may want to
be seen as trend-setters as a way to enhance
their social status,”Wien says.
But what if a company uses this to their ad-
vantage, by pretending to be a consumer and
talking nicely about their product – and thus
misleads others?
“A few years ago, competing hotels pub-
lished negative reviews of each other on
TripAdvisor. But if consumers find out that
your company is engaged in this sort of
activity, it can destroy your credibility. Most
have stopped trying these kinds of tricks.
Openness and honesty last the longest in
social media,”Wien says.
More power to consumers
Social media marketing differs significantly
frommarketing on the Internet at large.
Dialogue is the key. Consumers tend to
filter out regular advertising on the Internet,
but they may find it more useful when busi-
nesses share information through dialogue.
Dialogue gives consumers more influence
and power: it means that more people
hear them. But since consumers are in the
driver's seat, sometimes the conversation
can go in the wrong direction for the busi-
nesses involved.
McDonald’s, the giant fast-food chain,
experienced this when the company asked
customers to write about their best restau-
rant experiences and post them on Twitter.
They hoped they would get a lot of positive
stories, but customers shared not only their
best moments – but also their worst. One
wrote that he lost 22 kilograms after he
stopped working for the hamburger chain
and thus also stopped eating the food there.
Another wrote that he found a fingernail
in his BigMac burger. And so it continued
until the hamburger chain stopped the
conversation.
When consumers spread negative word-of-
mouth stories that are read by many people,
it can destroy your company's reputation
at worst. It rarely happens, but companies
need to learn fromnegative word-of-
mouth, saysWien.
“Companies should look at word-of-mouth
as a source of information to enhance their
products. Many businesses have begun to
take this seriously, but most have not real-
ized the potential yet. It can be huge, but
it also depends on the product, of course,”
Wien says.
University of Tromsø – Labyrint E/13 ••• 41
Text: Randi M. Solhaug
FACTS about social
­media:
Social media is a collective term for
online services where the content is
mainly created by users of the service.
Dialogue and sharing are key words.
Among the most important channels
are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs
and YouTube.
As of April 2012, Facebook had 900
million members, and if it had been a
country it would have been the world's
third largest.
Users “like”and post comments on Fa-
cebook nearly 3.2 billion times per day.
Sources: E24.no Synlighet.no, Socialnomics.net,
pcmag.co, Facebook