Sure, doing this may give you a short-term boost in

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your follower count, but it doesn’t get you high-quality word of mouth. It’s like a kid saying, “Be my friend, you can play with my toys.” They might come over to play, but it’s not because they’re really your friend. You’re better off using your energy and creativity on creating things that genuinely interest and excite your fans and customers (great products, incredible service, remarkable stuff to talk about) — things that lead to long-term, sustainable word of mouth.

Q: How can social media amplify the positive and negative effects of word of mouth?

Social networks are high-energy homes of word of mouth. They can be incredibly powerful tools to amplify word of mouth conversations about you — both positive and negative. They allow for speed, and they can get your messages out there further and faster. But before you draw up some fancy social strategy, remember the fundamentals: Do interesting stuff; make it easy to find, ukraine whatsapp number database follow, and connect with you; be nice; be remarkable. The companies that are all famous for their use of social media didn’t get that way because of some secret social tactic — it’s because they’re great at the fundamentals that applies to all word of mouth.

Q: Is it not true that in order to develop brand ambassadors, one has to relinquish some power? This is potentially dangerous as one cannot always be sure that the brand ambassador will always deliver the right message and/or in an appropriate manner. What can we do to avoid potential pitfalls?

Here’s the reality: You never had power. Word of mouth is actually how you gain influence in the conversation. Think of it this way: You don’t have power over the press, but if you invest in great PR, you can influence it. When it comes to word of mouth, people are already talking about you — and will continue to do so. If you help these talkers, support them, and give them the tools to make it easier, there’s a much better chance what they actually say will be closer to what you hope they’ll say.

Q: Do the 3 motivations apply the same way for all ages?

The You, Me, and Us motivations apply to people, not demographic groups. Different people respond to different motivators. So, test a variety of word of mouth messages and see who responds to what.

Did you miss the webinar? Check out a recorded version here.

Andy Sernovitz teaches word of mouth marketing. He runs SocialMedia.org, the community for social media leaders at the world’s greatest brands, and WordofMouth.org, where marketers and entrepreneurs learn to be great at word of mouth marketing.