it is more persuasive since the messenger has no monetary incentive and is a trusted person.
It is directed at the immediate context of the recipient
Only 7% of word of mouth happens online. Most still happens offline
Types of word of mouth
immediate word of mouth
ongoing word of mouth
Big forest fires aren’t caused by big sparks. Lots of individual trees have to catch fire and carry the flame
Word of mouth principles
Social currency
people want to feel special about themselves. When they get to share something extraordinary, they get the chance to Wow others.
Categories of currency
scarcity
exclusivity
Triggers
Ideas strongly associated with items frequently found the environment gets triggered more often. Pick common objects in a user’s environment that is not already laced with other meanings.
The more specific a trigger the higher the likelihood of triggered action.
Choose trigger right close to the proximity of the intended action
Emotions
Emotions that excites will be more likely to drive the recipient towards an action than those that.
Useful emotions: Awe, excitement, anger, fear
Not useful emotions: sadness, hopelessness
Associate the idea with emotions
Public
Monkey see, monkey do. Figure out how to make users activities more visible to those around them so that they could copy his action. A private action is unlikely to get copied
Choose stimulus that others can’t help but notice.
Practical Value
Useful things tends to get shared more frequently. While there might be less initial word of mouth, there will always be on going word of mouth.
Stories
help transfer huge amounts of contextual information to recipient
helps suspending judgement – using proof by analogy
story must be designed such that storyline falls apart when intended idea is removed from it
For dramatic purposes, interesting and novel points often get exaggerated as story pasts from one person. As such the story gets more and more remarkable as it is past along.
Related theories
Prospect theory: the WoW factor of an idea is often taken in association with the denominator its associated with
Rule of 100
for items below $100 present discount in percentage
for items above $100 present discount in absolute dollar figures
