by Crystal DeGoede*

Technology, the ways you connect with your audience, and communicate your brand continue to change – faster than you can send a 140 character message. But it seems that as things speed up some organizations are losing the trust of their clients and prospects because they lack personal interaction. Should you stop launching marketing campaigns and start word-of-mouth movements?  What does it take to engage and build brand ambassadors and start a movement in the digital age?

Flickr Image: Intersection Consulting

Part of my responsibilities in the marketing department at BurrellesLuce is always trying to find new ways to increase our presence on social media sites along with engaging our clients and target audience. 

So naturally during the 2009 PRSA International Conference (#prsa09), I wanted to learn more about getting our clients and prospects involved and talking about us on social media networks and even offline. I wasn’t interested in just not another “how-to” session.  Like many public relations and marketing professionals, we are already out in the social media space. And like many in the industry, we just need to know how to make it more engaging and inspiring to our audience and deliver on those results. So I attended, “People Are the Killer App: How to Grow Word-of-Mouth Movements With Your Brand Fans” presented by Geno Church, word-of-mouth inspiration officer, Brains on Fire.

To start was a discussion of campaigns versus movements and how they differ. When a company talks about its brand or product, that is a campaign; when others talk about a company’s brand or product that is considered a movement. Here are a few comparisons from Geno’s presentation:

• Campaigns have a beginning and an end. Movements go on as long as kindred spirits are involved.
• Campaigns are dry and emotionally detached. Movements are organic and rooted in passion.
• Campaigns rely on traditional mediums. Movements rely on word-of-mouth, where the people are the medium.

 To help illustrate his points, Geno shared with us a very compelling case study on Fiskars brand scissors, and how they launched a movement with the help of Friskarteers (a group of four brand ambassadors). With the aid of these brand ambassadors Fiskars  increased their online conversation by 600 percent and “recruited” 5400+ engaged and active members.

Do you think businesses should now become P2P (People 2 People) and rely on customers to generate movement for their brand rather than running a print ad in The New York Times? Or is it necessary to stay B2B/B2C and continue to employ the traditional tools of the trade?  Do you think connecting with your customers on a personal level is more valuable that keeping things all business?

*Bio: After graduating from East Carolina University with a Marketing degree in 2005, Crystal DeGoede moved to New Jersey. In her four years as a member of the BurrellesLuce marketing team and through her interaction with peers and clients she has learned what is important or what it takes to develop a career when you are just starting out. She is passionate about continuing to learn about the industry in which we serve and about her career path. By engaging readers on Fresh Ideas Crystal hopes to further develop her social media skills and inspire other “millennials” who are just out of college and/or working in the field of marketing and public relations. Twitter: @cldegoede LinkedIn: Crystal DeGoede Facebook: BurrellesLuce

This entry was posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 1:16 pm and is filed under Advertising/Marketing, Career Advice, Industry Events, Public Relations, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.