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Topics are the ideas, features, and attention-grabbers you use to give your talkers something to talk about. You should be creating and testing as many as you can, as often as you can, until you find a few that really take off.
What to remember when developing yours:
1. Keep it simple
2. Make it organic
3. Look for the unexpected
1. Keep it simple
Simple topics are easy to share and are much more likely to get repeated than long, jargon-filled ones. Recent favorites to inspire you are IKEA’s “Manland,”JetBlue’s auctioning of seats on eBay, and the library where you can check out a human being. All these topics are great because they’re simple, they’re fun, and they’re easy to tell a friend about.
2. Make it organic
Organic topics are built in to your products. They’re key features, perks, and bonuses that inspire conversations. The best all-time example of this is the flower vase built in to VW Bugs. This simple feature continues to start conversations every day, even though it originally came out in the 1950’s. (Note: VW removed this feature for the 2012 model, which is a topic for a future issue on how to kill a great conversation.)
3. Look for the unexpected
Some of your best topics will come not from you, but from your fans. Watch how people use and talk about your stuff and if you see a great topic emerge (even if it’s not perfectly aligned with your brand message), go with it. Think like Duck brand duct tape when they saw kids creating prom outfits with their tape. They saw a great topic and created a scholarship to encourage other kids to do it, and have since created a whole bunch of new conversations.
Come to our upcoming BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media conference in Dallas to hear Texas Instruments, Shell, AMD, Coldwell Banker Real Estate, United Airlines, Level 3, Northwestern Mutual, and AT&T share 8 great case studies on corporate social media.
This event is all about how big brands use social media. No agencies, no startups — just big companies sharing what they’ve learned. You’ll get practical, how-to advice on developing your social strategy, scaling your program, driving sales, engaging internal and external audiences, and measuring it all.
You’ll ask questions, discover new ideas, and learn how to make your social media program phenomenal — all in one fantastic afternoon for just $250.
…and you’ll experience a bunch of great case studies, like this one from our BlogWell in Seattle:
[Welcome back to the You Can Be a Word of Mouth Marketing Supergenius! newsletter. This is text from the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.]
You’ve got an infinite number of talkers you can seek out and earn word of mouth from. But because you don’t have an infinite number of hours in the day, start with these:
1. New customers
2. Long-time customers
3. Loyal employees
1. New customers
First-time customers make for powerful, eager talkers. But you only get one first impression, so you need to make the most of it. Give these potential talkers the chance to sample your best stuff and the tools to tell everyone about you. If you’re a restaurant, for example, this could be your one shot to blow them away — so make sure they get to sample that dessert everyone raves about (and a menu to take back to the office).
2. Long-time customers
Long-time, loyal customers can be your word of mouth bedrock. They already know how great you are, but they forget or don’t realize just how important their referrals are for you. Inspire them to talk by inviting them to join VIP groups, asking for their input on business decisions, or just simply asking them for referrals. Think about it — when was the last time you reminded your best customers how much their word of mouth means to you?
3. Enthusiastic employees
It’s fun to work at a place worth talking about, and many of your employees would love to help share your company and cause with their networks. Make sure they have access to samples, beta products, sharable discounts, and any sales materials they can forward to friends and prospects. Use tact in doing this — you don’t want to make anyone feel pressured to talk — but you want to make sure they have all the tools to do so when they feel the urge.
This is GasPedal's blog about all things word of mouth marketing. We cover everything from the best word of mouth case studies to the latest research, focusing on the practical ideas you can use to get your fans talking about you.
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