Word of mouth Marketing is important to businesses of all sizes, but how do you turn your shared content into a sale via word of mouth?

What makes some businesses thrive on word of mouth Marketing, where others fail? Word of mouth doesn’t literally just mean a person recommending you to another person. It also means people sharing your content, this is a recommendation to their friends that you have something worthwhile to say or show. Sometimes articles, photos, videos etc go viral. There is no set formula when this happens. All you can do to try to achieve this in your Online Marketing Campaign is to make and share good quality content and try to get it out to the right people at the right time.

Timing is key to ensure your posts are being seen by the optimum number of people. Do your research, experiment a little. Different networks will behave in different ways when it comes to peak traffic. You need to do a little trial and error to optimize your Online Marketing Campaign.

Using triggers at certain times will help your message to get out there. Take a look around at what is in the news, what is trending on your social networks etc. Use clever wording and images in your content to catch people’s eye. Do Facebook research, check out what posts are being shared the most and why, copy those posts with your own twist. There are no hard and fast rules for word of mouth marketing, no scientific formula, it is down to clever and original content, brilliant timing and a lot of luck.

An example of this is a post written by a social media manager friend of mine, Maya. She is a regular blogger about all things social media, she knows her stuff and her posts are all well shared. On one particular occasion, out of sheer frustration, Maya wrote a post about Britain First and how clever they are at manipulating people into sharing their content when most people aren’t even aware of what they stand for. Her post What It Really Means When You Like or Share Content from Britain First went crazy! A lot of people had been sharing her frustrations about these posts so shared like mad. In contrast a lot didn’t agree with her and made many, many comments on the post. Britain First are good at what they do because they use triggers to get people to share their content, even if people don’t understand what they are sharing. This post about Britain First was so successful because the very name is a huge trigger, something that is current and controversial, which is why it went viral with over 83,000 shares on Facebook and received 160 comments (so far).

I am not suggesting you necessarily write about controversial subjects, but current and trending topics will always get your content noticed. Choose your subjects wisely, the more controversy you create, the more likely you are to upset people!

The more people who see your content, the more likely you are to make sales, it is as simple as that. Do you have any great ideas for your Word of Mouth Marketing Campaign? Do let us at Shout! Know. If you are stuck for great ideas or just don’t have the time, our Online Marketing Agency can help!

Check out this great video for more tips on Word of Mouth Marketing: