8 WOM and Social Media Lessons

I’m sure you’ve heard the adage “those who can’t , teach.” I hear it often…but that’s because I’m a professor and every so often, a feisty undergrad will quote this to me with a smug look on his or her face. Yes, I remember that at grading time. But I digress.

I worked in the advertising industry for over a dozen years, and while there are many areas that I feel completely comfortable teaching, I have to admit talking about word of mouth and social media occasionally makes me anxious. I read and write about both WOM and social media, I’ve conducted studies, and I’ve interviewed dozens of businesses that are successful practitioners of both WOM and social media.

This summer, though, I had an opportunity to develop a strategic word of mouth and social media campaign. In a matter of hours, I turned the corner from Monday morning quarterback to being in the new media trenches.

My friend and colleague, Lauren Kessler, published a terrific new book this August (it’s called My Teenage Werewolf, where she embeds in the life of an average American middle schooler—her daughter Lizzie. The book is “hilarious and insightful’ according to several reviewers, including me.). Lauren took me out for coffee one afternoon to ‘pick m brain’ over a campaign for her book. I offered to find her an intern, and I thought that, along with a little oversight, would be my involvement with the project.

But when the intern bailed and the publication date approached, Lauren and I found ourselves working together to create buzz for the book. She is fortunate to have a publisher that set up some interviews and sent the book out to some major reviewers, but they didn’t do a lot of personal outreach to start word of mouth.. And that’s where I came in.

Here is what I learned:

1. Know your product and the product’s audience.
Lauren’s book was a journalistic observation of her daughter’s life…so it crosses a line between reportage and memoir. I spent two days devouring the book, and thinking about who I thought would read it. Some parts were laugh out loud funny, some parts heartbreaking, and the parts where Lauren wove in some of the expert thinking on brain development and the differences between teen girls and teen boys was astonishing.

So who is the audience for this book? We both knew it would be Moms: moms of teens, moms of almost-teens, moms who had grown up daughters who would appreciate the ‘look back’. We knew the moms had to like to read, who weren’t opposed to reading literary nonfiction, and who had active desires to better understand parenting. With this in mind, we could find much more focused places to promote the book. Which leads to the new insight

2. Dig deep to find the niches.
Armed with knowledge about the potential consumer, we sought out book clubs and ‘mommy bloggers’ that might be interested in the book. We were surprised to find that many book clubs had strict guidelines: fiction only, business books for and about women, etc. We avoided those. We also avoided mommy bloggers who focused on infants and pre-school kids.

For the rest, we contacted individuals to tell them about the book and point them to the web site so they could learn more. It took a few days of trying several dozen keyword searches on Google to unearth the best prospects, but it appears like this is worth it: positive feedback is coming from many different places.

3. Old media planning concepts don’t die.
I was trained as a media planner, and these skills helped me assess some of the possibilities that are out there. Take, for example, bloggers. Some bloggers just want a copy of the book, some want us to place ads on the blogs, some want 50 copies of the book in order to have an online book club. Every book, like every ad, has a cost associated with it, and publishers these days aren’t willing to mail out free copies to just anyone.

Many bloggers toot their high page views, but it is important to assess unique page views to get some idea of monthly reach and frequency. My own benchmark is even if a site gets 100,000 page views a month, it ought to get at least 10,000 unique views in order to be worthwhile. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by those big page view numbers. Dig a bit deeper into the data.

4. The personal touch can work.
I sent personal messages to bloggers and book club organizers inviting them to learn more about the book at the book website. I told them where I found their contact information, and addressed them by name where possible. In addition, Lauren also offers to visit with book clubs, either in person locally or via skype or the phone.

Her generosity sets her apart from the mass mailings of publishers. As a result, we’ve had several book club organizers request more information, and we think a few will even interview Lauren for their blogs. It takes effort to connect at a personal level, but it can make all the difference.

These were our first steps. In our next post, I’ll share more information with you and let you know our results.

– Kim