Marketers wanting to tap into the power of word of mouth marketing to increase brand awareness, preference, and purchase eventually learn a fundamental truth. This truth is simply, “Marketers do not decide what gets talked about. People decide.”

Studies clearly indicate word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing. According to research from McKinsey & Company, word of mouth is responsible for up to 50% of all purchase decisions.

Studies also indicate there are seemingly endless ways to spark word of mouth conversations. The Keller Fay Group has been tracking conversations people have about brands since 2006. Their findings tell us 22% of all conversations people have about brands, products, and services are sparked by advertising. However, the vast majority of word of mouth conversations, 78% of them, are sparked by something else.

Which means… the playground for marketers wanting to trigger word of mouth from customers about brands is HUGE.

Anything and everything a customer can “touch” is an opportunity to spark a conversation. Every customer touchpoint is a possible talking point.

And since people, not marketers, make the decision about what gets talked about, it’s up to marketers to give people something to talk about at every customer touchpoint.

It's time to think about all the associations your service brings to your customer's mind.

For example, any restaurant that uses a “Please Wait To Be Seated” sign from a restaurant supply catalog has given up on being talk-able. This sign is one of the first customer touchpoints someone will experience inside a restaurant. It’s the perfect opportunity to showcase a brand’s unique personality by creating a custom sign that expresses the uniqueness of the restaurant.

Chevrolet was one of the most talked about brands at the 2011 SXSW Interactive Conference. They accomplished being talk-able by giving conference attendees something to talk about at various touchpoints. There were Chevy Volt-branded recharge stations throughout the Austin Convention Center for attendees to recharge all their electronic gadgets. Attendees needing a ride to someplace in downtown Austin could hop into Chevy Cruze and be shuttled free of charge. You could get a 360-degree picture taken of you and your friends at the Chevy Sonic photo booth. Prior to the start of SXSW, Chevy sponsored 10 teams on a scavenger hunt road trip from their hometowns to the conference in Austin. Of course, Chevy was all over social media during the conference with the much-used hashtag of #ChevySXSW. By far, Chevy was the most talk-able brand at the 2011 SXSW Interactive Conference because they gave people reasons to talk at various touchpoints.

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BP supposedly employed 76 social mediaites pre-crisis. I wanted some verification of this claim, so as any social media user would do, I took to Twitter. If BP actually had 76 employees in social media, a timely response via Twitter seemed reasonable. So I waited and waited some more… and nothing. Even after repeated attempts, my question fell on deaf ears. BP doesn’t understand social media; that is, BP isn’t using it to engage their users and answer their questions. This could be one reason why they’ve had a PR nightmare on their hands. I might appear to be on a tangent or a rant, but I’m actually taking this somewhere.

Let the grand experiment begin

Here we go… After BP’s overall fail, I wondered how many other large corporations tout Twitter friendliness, but aren’t actually “Twitter friendly.” Lo and behold, I found a list on Mashable with the 40 Best Twitter Brands. The article seemed a bit like digital networking and corporate back rubbing, so I stopped at number 15. I took matters into my own hands from there. It was time to find out which of the 15 were worthy of being a “best” Twitter brand.
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