Category: word-of-mouth

Social media listening – When it doesn’t pay to DIY

DIY is in our Kiwi DNA and for many it’s a matter of geekish self respect to reinvent the wheel. Certainly there is enough cost pressure on most of us to ensure that we don’t incur unnecessary expense for our organisations.

Even in quite large NZ companies with a high volume of consumer conversation online, the person responsible for social media is frequently to be found cobbling together a range of free tools, such as the lovely Hootsuite, plus any number of alerts and analytics dashboards.

Usually they’re holding it all together with considerable skill and Kiwi ingenuity, which can take you a long way for sure. However, what I also hear, is that they’re working pretty hard to stay on top. They’re conscious of a need for more consistency and structure, as greater demands are made on them to interpret and respond to consumer generated content. Continue reading →

Public Relations and Voyeurism 2.0

voyeuristic zebra

The PR ideas that get the most award-winning attention tend to be experiential/ambient/stunt related. There is, of course, plenty of great PR work that intentionally flies under the radar, but that’s for another discussion. Continue reading →

‘Word of mouth’ marketing is social media, PR and all of the above

Word of mouth

Media types sometimes refer to ‘word of mouth’ marketing as the most powerful form of communications. Social media is intrinsically tied into this as it is based largely on the fact that personal recommendations are the most powerful; certainly more powerful than a brand talking at you.

However, word of mouth marketing isn’t purely about social media. It can be embodied in ambient/experiential marketing, promotional stunts and also PR.

The slight difference with PR is that it’s a third party recommendation/endorsement from a journalist or blogger rather than a personal contact.

So, essentially, social media is very closely aligned with PR. Continue reading →