Social Media and Word of Mouth: Two Different Ecosystems that should be mastered

Earlier this month, I attended the WARC Webinar ‘Social Media and Word of Mouth: Two Different Ecosystems that Should be Mastered’. The talk was hosted by Ed Keller (CEO) and Steve Thompson (UK MD) of Engagement Labs and was centred around understanding some of the crucial differences between online conversations, and our conversations in real life.

Both Social Media and Word of Mouth have become increasingly critical paths to improved ROI; it has been suggested that on average 15% of sales can now be attributed to conversations people have had, either on social platforms or offline. However, crucially, the substance of these conversations is often very different. Most brands actually see a significant disconnect between online and offline consumer conversations, and marketers shouldn’t make any assumptions about how a consumer feels about their brand based on their online sentiment.

Online sentiment is often captured through social listening tools such as Crimson Hexagon and Sysomos. From these tools, marketers can get a sense of how consumers feel about their brands. Offline sentiment, however, is a much harder metric to measure and, as demonstrated by the iceberg analogy below, accounts for so much more than what we can measure on the surface.

The reason behind the ‘significant disconnect’ lies in the key differences in the types of conversations we tend to have offline vs those we feel happier to discuss in an online environment. Offline conversations tend to be much more two dimensional in their content. Topics such as the weather, weekend plans and general everyday life are often the focus of our offline conversations. Ed Keller was keen to suggest that people tend to save conversations about the things they most care about for the online world. Here, topics that consumers genuinely care about, whether positive or negative, are covered in much greater depth.

Take content on TripAdvisor as an example. Typically, reviews on the site will either be brand advocating (“We absolutely loved it and can’t wait to return again”) or painfully negative (AVOID THIS HOTEL AT ALL COSTS!!!”). Most consumers won’t waste their time and effort writing a review that is just ‘ok’.

The key challenge here therefore, is that marketers struggle to understand how the majority of their consumers actually feel about their brand. Most consumers are fairly apathetic about brands, even those they use regularly or show great brand loyalty towards. Looking at extremes in online sentiment can therefore provide a very skewed brand perception, and this is something marketers need to be mindful of.

To add to this challenge, Ed and Steve were quick to convey that offline sentiment has by far the greatest influence with respect to product sales. Ultimately this is what really matters, regardless of what online sentiment suggests. A good example of this is the Co-Op. This brand has strong ethical credentials which connect particularly well with online influencers, giving Co Op a strong online score (results via TotalSocial). However offline it is a different story; less than impressive high street stores and poor customer experience with their banks and other services (e.g funeral care) have a negative impact on their offline sentiment.

Consumers move extremely fluidly between offline and online worlds. In order to be successful, marketers need to do the same. A good example of this is the recent United Airlines debacle – within minutes of Dr David Dao being dragged off the plane, the world had seen the shocking video footage and conversations were rife on social media and during real life water cooler moments. Agility between the two environments will help brands succeed and grow.

In conclusion, it’s clear that for marketers it is very difficult to gauge true brand perception using online sentiment alone. Given how important offline word of mouth is, especially with regards to purchase, marketers need to concentrate on how to positively encourage offline conversations. Digital activity should be planned so that it has the power to be shared and amplified offline, and brands need to focus on talk-worthy marketing; topics that will gain traction in both online and offline conversations.

The full webinar recording is available now for anyone who is interested in learning more about this topic. The webinar is available for WARC subscribers only, however subscriptions are free and easy to set up for new users.

Author:Rachel Mackenzie