Word of Mouth Really Is Changing Everything
I got a Christmas card today from one of my oldest friends and I looked at Elizabeth and said “she’s wearing a LaRoque dress.”
I couldn’t believe it. I sounded like a complete idiot knowing what kind of dress she was wearing. But how couldn’t I know? Half the girls at the Jr. League party last week were wearing LaRoque. I’d venture to say that more than half the girls at last year’s Cup were wearing LaRoque. Hell, even I was wearing LaRoque. My bow tie was custom made to match my wife’s dress…and yes, I’m pretty ashamed to admit that. But like they say, happy wife = happy life.
If you are a Columbia female, you know exactly what LaRoque is. It’s a dress shop.
Most impressive is that LaRoque is owned by a 25-year-old lady named Annabelle. Here’s how it works. A girl visits Annabelle, picks out a fabric, and Annabelle makes the dress custom for her. Maybe that’s not impressive. I don’t know because I’m not really into that kind of thing. But how can you not be impressed that a 25-year-old girl’s store has become ALL the rage in Columbia?
I believe Annabelle is blowing it up for three reasons:
1. Great product.
2. Amazing customer service.
3. Word of Mouth!
Yeah. Word of Mouth! I’ve never seen an advertisement. Maybe she runs ads in some girly magazine that I’ve never seen, but I know for a fact that Annabelle has created at least 25 dresses just because my wife recommended her or because some chick was super pumped about my wife’s dress. Many of those recommendations happened on the Internet after a friend saw a picture on Facebook. It’s all word of mouth baby.
I’ve blogged before that word of mouth is changing everything because with the Internet, its happening faster than companies can buy advertisements. Remember this fact when designing your website and developing your Internet strategy.
Oh, and one more thing. I just asked my wife “what is LaRoque’s website.” Elizabeth responded, “she uses Facebook and MySpace because that’s where all her customers are.” Very true! Gotta love it!
What the hell is Twitter?
What is Twitter?
That’s the question I’m hearing most these days. Here’s a pretty good answer from Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post.
Twitter is taking over the world.
Become an Information Drug Dealer
(cross-posted at politicalnetroots.com)
A few weeks ago, SC House member said to me:
“You know what really gets to me Wesley? We cut taxes by $850 Million in the past four years and nobody cares. Voters demanded property tax cuts and we slashed them by half a billion. They didn’t care. We cut income taxes and eliminated the grocery tax. And still, nobody cared. In response they tossed out a bunch of our guys.”
Yup. That about sums it up.
The voters tossed out a bunch of incumbents because they lost trust in them and felt the need for change. That’s because you aren’t sharing your accomplishments.
In The Blogging Church, Brian Bailey writes:
“Information is a drug. Want proof? How else do you explain our insatiable desire to stay informed? No matter how much news and information we have, we’re constantly searching for more.”
You know the feeling too. It’s why you watch the news. It why the 24-hour news cycle became the 24-hour news cycle. It’s why you always look at those trash magazines in the grocery store line and why you listen to gossip around the Statehouse (or whatever your state capital is called). And it’s why you get up and read the blogs everyday. You want to know everything that’s happening.
Well, so do voters. They want to know what you’re doing – the good and the bad. The problem is that you’re not talking to them and telling them the good stuff you’re doing. You’re letting gossip blogs and the MSM tell the story for you! Big mistake! You just expect the voters to read through the voting records and understand what they’re reading. That’s freakin’ ridiculous!
If you don’t give voters the information you want them to know, they will go get it someone else.
And chances are that somewhere else is going to be an outlet extremely biased against you.
The Internet is cheap, simple, personal, and immediate. At a very low cost you can spread all your positive news minutes after it happens.
Information is a drug and most folks are addicted. It’s your job to feed the addiction. If you don’t, someone else will.
Word of Mouth is Changing Everything
(cross-posted at www.politicalnetroots.com)
As I write his post I sit in a hammock in Tulum, Mexico. I didn’t come here because I read about it in a magazine or saw an ad on TV. I didn’t even find it in a Google search for “awesome vacations on the beach.” I came here because my buddy Jay Hicks recommended it. When I wrote about my trip a few weeks ago on this blog, another buddy, Matt Robinson, emailed me saying that he just went to Tulum. He then sent me a bunch of recommendations, nearly all of which I tried.
When I got to Tulum, Jay was actually down here for the first night and I showed him Matt’s email. Jay just laughed and told me that he’s the one who told Matt about Tulum. I didn’t even know that the two of them knew each other.
That shows the amazing impact of “word of mouth” and combined with new technologies and connectivity, it’s killing, or rather changing, traditional marketing and advertising.
In The Blogging Church, Brian Bailey writes:
“We love to tune things out. So much so, in fact, that we’ve turned the ability to tune things out into a skill that we home with enthusiasm, admire in others, and gladly spend money on to make it as easy as possible. We fast-forward through commercials using the latest DVRs, flip past ads in magazines, turn the station when an ad comes on the radio, and pay for satellite radio to avoid as many commercials as possible. Our culture has become adept at ignoring traditional “interruption” advertising.
We listen to our friends, though. Whether it’s a restaurant recommendation, a movie critique, or a tip on a great place to take the kids, we’re eager to hear from people we trust. They know what we like, have similar tastes, and are motivated only by enthusiasm and as desire to share…
Ten years ago, your friends were largely people you knew personally – neighbors, coworkers, former classmates, and your church family. Today, many relationships are formed online; some of our most trusted voices are people whom we’ve never met.”
I agree. People have always talked. Now we are talking around the clock, from nearly everywhere. We are always connected. Because of blogs, social networking sites, and the latest and greatest handheld gadgets, word of mouth is dominating communication and the importance of advertising is diminishing rapidly.
In South Carolina Sweet Tea vodka was all the rage this year. They may have advertised, but I never saw one ad. I just heard my friends talking about it over and over again. I can’t tell you how many times I read about it on Facebook. The liquor sold out in stores across the state because of word of mouth.
Will word of mouth end political advertising? Will direct mail and television ads fall to online connectivity in the coming years?
We will see.
For Those Who Want To Know About Twitter
Everyone is asking me - what is Twitter? This week Will Folks started using Twitter, but still doesn’t know what it is. EPIC FU has posted a pretty cool video to explain:
Twitter for Christians
I doubt I’ll join because I’m getting pretty swamped with the social networking sites I have now. Still, I think this is a pretty cool idea. It’s Gospelr, a Twitter type site for Christians. Tech Crunch reports:
Gospelr is quick to point out that it’s not “just another Twitter.” Instead, the site prides itself on being the world’s first “Ministry Microblogging” tool for those that want to share thoughts, ideas, words of encouragement, prayer requests, daily scripture readings, and oh so much more.
The company’s founder wants it to be more than a Christian Twitter, though. Beyond being a place where people can chat it up about ol’ JC, the company wants to be the place to “share the Gospel with those that have already heard the Good News (because we all could use a good reminder… daily!) and those that have not.”
Gospelr tries to change the way people interact on the service too. A normal “tweet” is colored in brown, while replies are green, and imported tweets from services like Twitter are colored in blue. That coloring scheme will make it easier to identify what’s being said and who is saying it.
The service can also let users upload and share files like Pownce, and most importantly, it auto-refreshes the page so you don’t have to.
Gospelr gained Twitter API source parameter approval, so whenever you tweet something in the service, you’ll notice an update on Twitter saying “from Gospelr.com” and it will also work with TweetDeck and other applications that let you syndicate material to Twitter.
Gospelr is available now for those that are looking to try it out.
While Twitter blows up, South Carolina politicos are getting hooked (UPDATED)
Word came yesterday that Twitter has grown 422% in the past year. As it’s popularity grows, so does it’s use among South Carolina politicos. I thought now would be a good time to let you know which one’s are getting their Twitter on. Here they are:
Rep. Nathan Balletine - Quickly becoming South Carolina’s most tech-savvy state legislator. The rate at which he Tweets may soon be classified as an addiction. Very informative. Check him out.
Rep - Elect Dan Hamilton - He ain’t at the State House yet, but look for Dan to make Nathan work for that most tech-savvy legislator trophy. He’s probably the geekier of the two, constantly keeping up with the latest and greatest Internet fads.
Rep. Eric Bedingfield - Representative Bedingfield tweets a lot about his family life. Want to know about the everyday life of a SC State Rep? Check out Bedingfield’s page.
Nick Kreymdas -Nick is straight tearing it up for the SC Realtors Association. No other state political group comes close to Nick’s tweets. You have to check him out.
Elizabeth Donehue - Republican fundraiser. She likes to twitter about how her husband plays too much on the Internet when he should be fixin’ stuff around the house.
Joey Millwood - Joey’s win over Bob Walker was one of the biggest upsets in the 2008 primary cycle. He just starting Twittering and seeing that he is a journalist, we expect good things in his tweets.
Randy Page - As the leader of South Carolina’s most controversial group, South Carolinians for Responsible Government, Randy is sure to have one hot Twitter. He just started twittering last week and he’s already doing it up big time.
SC Policy Council - They write really long reports. 160 characters might not be their thing.
Senator Jim DeMint - The nation’s most tech-savvy U.S. Senator. Enough said.
Congressman Gresham Barrett - Congressman Barrett’s team just started twittering. We hope big things happen here.
Political Net News - Want to know when South Carolina’s news aggregator has been updated? Follow their tweets.
Palmetto Scoop - Adam Fogle let’s you know when he’s posted.
Taft Matney - Taft blogs about all sorts of things - work, politics, personal life. He keeps it interesting.
The Other Brooks Brother - Taft blogs about all sorts of things - work, politics, personal life. OK, I’m kidding. Maybe it’s not Taft. Maybe it is. Either way, I like this blog and as they reminded us today, they were among the first in SC to use Twitter. They posted their first tweet on 1/24/08 at 11:43 quoting Senator Brad Hutto.
Senate Republican Caucus - the latest news from the Senate Republicans.
Tim Kelly - Very liberal. Very interesting. Tim runs one of the best Democratic blogs in the state.
The State - I like it because their tweets keep me up-to-date on what’s happening throughout the day.
Tim Cameron - He’s gone, but Tim will always be a South Carolinian to me. He convinced me that Twitter is where it’s at and I convinced a bunch of other folks.
Not Very Bright - Another great Democratic blog you should be reading.
John Vierdsen - One funny blogger. Who are you?
Elonkey - Jennifer Read’s blog is actually my favorite SC liberal blog because she does a really good job covering campaigns…and you know that’s where my heart lies.
Katie Baham - The South Carolina Republican Party’s Political Director is on Twitter too. If only we could get her to twitter more.
Drew McKissick - Drew’s blog is great, but like Katie, we have to get him to twitter more.
Amy Wood - Who? South Carolina’s most tech-savvy television personality. That’s who.
Mattheus Mei - Very liberal and well written. Mattheus knows his/her stuff, although I only agree with about 0.02% of it. Tweets “normally range from mundane to ‘direct yourselves to the notebook.” I read this blog daily. You should too.
WHO NEEDS TO GET THEIR TWITTER ON
Will Folks - who doesn’t want to see something completely obnoxious pop up on their Twitter feed every 10 minutes?
Henry McMaster - Tweets every time an “Internet pervert” is arrested? Sounds about right to me.
Jeffrey Sewell - But who would write his tweets?
Did I leave you off? Hollar at me and let me know.
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