Blog Post 4

Word of Mouth Ceases to Exist

Social Influencers

Today, connecting with consumers on a personal level is revolutionized by various mediums of social media. In Nicole Fallon’s article, Turning Social Influencers Into Brand Advocates defines a “"Social influencers," as they're known, are social media users with a strong group of active, engaged followers.”[1] However, having a large social media base is only effective if those followers are engaging with the social media mediums. For example, for a company’s twitter page, it is important for followers to tweet at the company’s twitter and then it is equally as important for their tweet to get a response. A tweet without a response will prevent people from tweeting feed back. However, this can also affect the company negatively. If an upset customer posts a negative comment on Facebook, all of their friends have access to viewing that post. It can go viral and once it is posted on the Internet is hard to recall your statement. Companies have to be more conscious than ever because of the pace that social media processes at.

Modern Word Of Mouth

Social media is the modern day word of mouth. Today, as twisted as it is, speak more openly about issues, problems, etc. on social media than in day-to-day conversations. Even furthermore, people find out about issues with companies, products and services on social media. On the contrary, good news and publicity about companies, products and services spread like wild fire on social media. It is just not negative publicity. For example, the ice bucket challenge this past summer stirred up more publicity for the cause of ALS (or Lou Gehrig’s Disease as it is commonly known in the United States) than anyone could have ever imagined. It raised over 98.2 million dollars, compared to a small 2.7 million the previous year. Social media gave way for millions of dollars of donations because people were talking about it because of social media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS6ysDFTbLU

Dunkin Donut’s

Dunkin Donut’s and Starbucks

Dunkin Donuts has really gotten involved with social media fixing negative feedback from customers. When someone tags Dunkin’ Donuts with a negative comment about service, the food or the drinks they provide, they will usually immediately tweet them back and apologize. In some cases even send the disappointed customer a free gift card from tweeting their feedback. If they tweeted with no response, they could have lost a potential customer. However, by sending them a new gift card it gives the customer incentive to return to Dunkin’ Donuts and continue to give them his or her business. Keeping current customers happy and continuing growing their customer base by positive publicity is important for a company’s reputation.

Starbucks has perfected imperfections. When you go to Starbucks and order a coffee, they write your name on the cup. It is not just an average cup of coffee; it is your cup of coffee. It creates customer- employee relationships, makes you feel like you are more than just a number like at Dunkin Donuts or McDonalds. You have a name and you have a specific order. Johnny likes lattes; Jennifer likes tea black, etc. It is a fantastic marketing technique to create value for the customer and therefore receiving value from the customers. However, the spelling of the names is a humorous, unique and brilliant marketing strategy. In the viral video, WhyStarbucks Spells Your Name Wrong a barista explains how spelling is a marketing technique.[1] If Paul goes and gets a coffee at Starbucks, but the barista writes on his cup “Pawl”, how is the customer in a social media obsessed world? He wants to share with his friends and family. He is going to do that by tweeting, Instagraming, posting on Facebook, vining, snapchatting, etc. a picture of the Starbucks cup with the butchered spelling. By doing that, Paul is marketing Starbucks unknowingly. His friends, family and followers will get a good laugh but they will recognize the Starbucks brand logo. Subconsciously, you might start to crave Starbucks because you saw the logo. This is an quirky way that some Starbucks baristas are marketing their company to the masses just by being an idiot and misspelling a name.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPbrlNsMTg4&feature=youtu.be&list=PLc-iZdzBsFxmnIaBTS7I7H0vGiSrFFOxf

[1] “Turning Social Influencers Into Brand Advocates,” Business Daily News, http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7277-social-influencers-for-brands.html