Social Media as the viral and word of mouth (WOM) marketing.

The word of mouth (WOM) medium provides a “tool” which works as enabler in order to increase reach and speed of the messages. WOM exchange the information through the social media/networks in a global inexpensive publishing tool which reaches who ever want to participate in the Viral Capacity. WOM seems very straight forward and simple to understand yet elusive when we adapt social media technology on top of the consumer’s ability to exchange and engage in issues of products services and brand. According to Lockhorn (2007) WOM campaigns can take off very quietly through niche communities and can be powerfully persuasive or conversely result in an astonishing backlash for a product, brand or services. WOM has a greater impact on product judgments, attitude formation and decision making that formal marketing communications (Herr, Kardes & Kim 1991; Bone 1995). The value of WOM marketing is a joint function of the receiver’s involvement in the communication and the communicator’s creditability (Hass, 1981).

For marketers, understanding how WOM networks differ online is particularly pertinent in terms of Web design and marketing communication strategy. What company marketers have to do is to embracing an empathetic approach during individual interactions and across all marketing touch points which can ignite WOM. All this can be summarized in two words Consumer Empowerment.

Consumer empowerment makes the consumers voice louder in the viral network. Blogs has been created both for going into a Positive Interaction but also to confront and watch companies, ways of conducting their brand and products or for government laws. WOM is fuelled by “positive” interactions across all the company touch points, it happens both on a Macro (Organizational elements, company policies, quality standards etc.)  and Micro (experiences impacted by individual interactions) interactions. The type of Macro/Micro interactions stakeholders have with the company product, service or company brand will have a big impact on whether WOM occurs and whether it will be positive or negative. On an almost daily basis consumers exchange information/ knowledge which can expose cases of corporate misconduct or product defects which forces companies to respond. Web log postings of product and services problems often prompt a form of consumer activism called “blog swarms” (Gillin, 2007).

These blog swarms frequently reach the mainstream media with significant consequence. An example is when Intel launching a new processor and they wanted it to be tested by a group of physicist from Stanford University. These physicists where using their processors for the purpose of calculating the impact of nuclear particles. This gave Intel a problem as these physicist were using

the last decimal in the processor as they needed certainty of the result of the worked they were doing would be positive. The physicist made a blog and started to write that there were a “buck” in the new Intel processor – standard users would never recognise the problem but Intel had to

withdraw the processor from the market as nobody could live with the knowledge of this “buck” in the 37 decimal.

Another interesting development in WOM is the increasing keenness of consumers to become part of the value creation process in terms of being a lead generator. Lead Generation appears when a company delivers on its brand promises, this leads to loyalty and trust from the consumers. When

consumer’s start feeling the trust and loyalty towards a product, a service or a brand they start to exchange their experience and information by WOM to other people they trust and whom they happen to like will become friends; especially if the trust and attraction is reciprocated. This exchange of information will lead to WOM will be translated into referrals and sales leads. The company will then benefit from WOM referrals because these include some inherent trust in the company brand, product or service which is passed on from influencers which are not internal company marketers but genuine costumers or consumers. WOM marketing through social networks could emerge as an important tool in the marketer’s arsenal. That will depend on whether marketers can tame the fundamentally unpredictable and serendipitous nature of WOM without losing what makes it so valuable in the first place – its authenticity (McKinsey, 2010).

This has lead to a positive attitude towards the social media in all its forms and has created a visibility in the field and the term Enterprise 2.0 has also appeared in the literature (Bughin, 2008). Marketers and companies seem willing to engage in social media as part of their marketing strategy (Korica et al., 2006; McKinsey, 2007; Forrester, 2007; Parise and Guinan, 2008). But with anything new it is important to create a set of rules or just learn from experience, so did a number of mid-market companies in the Tech Breakfast Club (2010) lesson learned from using social media is;

Social Media basic rules
Social media must be ingrained in a companies culture, it is not just a strategy
Social media won’t be effective without a very strong content strategy
Before venturing into social media:	Have a plan for how to deal with people making negative interactions about you as a company, product, service or brand so everyone knows who will respond and what actions to take (and not take). Be ready, be quick to respond, and be genuine but recognize there will always be people that will never be happy no matter what you do. Deal with the “haters” (negative interactions) respectfully but focus on those who are positive in order to establish and build a group of followers Train employees taking part on behalf of the company on how to use tools (Twitter, LinkedIn, Face book, blogs etc.) and guidelines  for type of content to share and how to interact with prospects, costumers, partners and others.
When providing content to several different communities, offer exclusive access to some content to one community for a limited time, and exclusive access to other content to another  community for  a limited time, in order to achieve higher perceived value and keep people engaged long-term.
“Happy accidents” are common when experimenting with social media, don’t be afraid to try and test new ideas.

Table 2.6 Social media basic rules

When an enterprise company want to benefit from the new social media structure they have to take into consideration how the interaction is done online from a costumer point of view. That is why new concepts as Consumer 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 appear in the literature and in the marketing concept.

In the following I will open a fling of how Enterprise 2.0 will solve the collaboration and the exchange between consumers/ stakeholders and enterprises.