{"id":199,"date":"2012-10-15T20:02:39","date_gmt":"2012-10-16T04:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/janiceloh\/?p=199"},"modified":"2012-10-22T20:57:20","modified_gmt":"2012-10-23T04:57:20","slug":"5-word-of-mouth-and-the-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/janiceloh\/2012\/10\/15\/5-word-of-mouth-and-the-internet\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of mouth and the internet"},"content":{"rendered":"

For those B2B digital marketers out there \u2013 good news! Bizo launched a news and community website \u2013 \u2018Digital Marketing Remix\u2019<\/a> specifically for you. Chancing upon an article by them \u2013 \u2018Remix Opinion \u2013 Activating B2B Advocates to Boost Leads and Sales\u2019<\/a>, I found out that many B2B companies get \u00a0more than half of their businesses from word of mouth. In fact, I have always thought of word of mouth in relation to a consumer\u2019s decision process only, but this article tells me that advocacy is even more influential in business than in consumer purchase decisions, because you lose millions if you make a wrong decision. However, regardless of whether it is a B2C or B2B transaction, the reason that advocacy is important is the same: It\u2019s all about trust.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Source: vouchfor.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s bring \u2018word of mouth\u2019 to an online context. How does the internet facilitate the \u2018word of mouth\u2019 process?<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Efficient (yet scary) \u2013 The Internet spreads things like a wildfire. Spot something good \u2013 people \u2018share\u2019 it and you or your product gets famous. A negative publicity \u2013 you get famous too, but in a bad light. Take South Korean singer Psy\u2019s hit song \u2013 \u2018Gangnam style\u2019 as an example. The song has stormed to number one in charts around the world while the video has been watched more than 454 million times on Youtube since July. But look at how some have lost their jobs over social media \u2013 the recent insensitive KitchenAid tweet joke at President Barack Obama\u2019s late grandmother.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
      \n
    • Convenient \u2013 The internet is transparent. Just a mouse click away, or a search up Google, people find information in real time. Reviews, price differences, or product features, you get to compare what you want. With this \u2018convenient\u2019 factor, I think it\u2019s important for businesses to consider how they could make \u2018searching online\u2019 more effective \u2013 simple yet not complicated. Two good examples I can think of in a travelling industry is cheapoair.com and priceline.com \u2013 they present different flight carriers in a single page with all the lowest deals, instead of me having to \u2018select sites to compare\u2019. Some consumers might like the option of comparing deals on different sites, but I prefer when the entire \u2018search\u2019 (i.e. lowest deals) has been done for me in a single page.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      The internet is indeed a platform for word-of-mouth, and firms should definitely be taking note of how impactful and important that is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      For those B2B digital marketers out there \u2013 good news! Bizo launched a news and community website \u2013 \u2018Digital Marketing Remix\u2019 specifically for you. Chancing upon an article by them \u2013 \u2018Remix Opinion \u2013 Activating B2B Advocates to Boost Leads and Sales\u2019, I found out that many B2B companies get \u00a0more than half of their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5518,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/janiceloh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/janiceloh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/janiceloh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/janiceloh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5518"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/janiceloh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/janiceloh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/janiceloh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions\/215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/janiceloh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/janiceloh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/janiceloh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}