Author: virginia.miracle

I am a passionate Word of Mouth Marketing practitioner. The juxtaposition of my experiences in WOMM vs. my time in the trenches of one of the country’s most voluminous direct marketers has given me firsthand understanding of the power of customer conversation and the relative inefficiency of shout and interruption marketing. Currently, I am the Director of Word of Mouth Marketing at Brains on Fire, a national Identity and Word of Mouth marketing company. There, I champion the client services group and intimately shepherded the Fiskateers crafting ambassador program for the first 18 months of its existence. Brains on Fire is a supremely creative and intuitive company. If you ever are in search of examples for how to make every customer touchpoint express your true personality, try calling the Brains on Fire front desk. I was first turned on to the power of conversational marketing through a role I was asked to tackle during my 4 years at Dell, Inc. in Round Rock Texas. I began my time there in Corporate Strategy and rolled through various roles in consumer marketing including word of mouth marketing manager (believed to be the first WOMM title at a F50 company) and leading the company’s online advertising to consumers and small businesses. Before that, I was a proud member of the late-90s phenomenon Trilogy Software and earned a BA in English language and literature from Princeton. I am a member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s Board of Directors. I am also a new mom, a mean Scrabble player, and a (formerly closeted) Bruce Hornsby superfan. I recently completed GH3 for Wii on Medium, but secretly doubt if I’m going to get good enough to go through it on Hard. I’m not sure how many more times I can listen to Metallica’s “One”, anyway.
Storm Preparedness: Another Take on the Power of Community

Storm Preparedness: Another Take on the Power of Community

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Last week I had the pleasure of joining the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH) for their annual conference in Orlando, FL.  Little did they know when the conference was scheduled, a huge opportunity for national communications about storm preparedness would be headed to the Gulf Coast just as the conference would be taking place. I was very impressed with FLASH’s surround sound approach to the influences on whether or not a community is prepared when a storm hits.  Included on the speaking docket were:

  • TV meteorologists and severe weather experts who largely control how the mass media carries messages about weather and preparedness
  • local officials who most directly deal with the aftermath when communities are not prepared for a storm
  • insurance executives who can encourage preparedness through discounts for those who “harden” their homes
  • contractors who can influence their clients electing storm safe materials instead of chosing minimum building code standards
  • legislators who want to encourage private markets to solve the preparedness problem so it does not become public debt
  • home inspectors who can be trained to identify building weaknesses that would be vilnerable in the case of a storm
  • a Disney Imagineer who encouraged us to think differently because, in a world where Al Gore can win an Oscar for a Powerpoint presentation, preparedness could be made cool too.  He has put his money where his mouth is by guiding FLASH’s creation of an Epcot experience illustrating the difference that fortifying a home can make called StormStruck.

If you are anything like me, you are probably thinking that I, with zero storm experience, was not qualified to join the above cast of characters.  Technically, you’re right.  It was, however, a great opportunity to discuss the role that social media can play in promoting preparedness.  If a parrot dancing to the Backstreet Boys can “go viral”, why can’t the concept that your neighbor’s backyard junk can become a missile of airborne debris headed straight for your windows in a storm? Preparedness is not an every-man-for-himself game.  There is power in communities and neighborhoods preparing together- be it a storm, a terrorist attack or a viral epidemic.  But what role could social media play?  Some starter ideas:

  • Empower communities with wikis that will indicate what homes have been fortified for storms and visualize the % to goal on a neighborhood basis.  This type of accountability could add some positive social norm pressure to the goal of building strong homes.
  • Allow for those in hurricane prone regions to share referrals on contractors who are certified to build new or to bring existing home up to fortified “Code Plus” standards.  Customers should be able to include their personal experiences with hose contractors.
  • Before a storm strikes, encourage your local community to get organized via mobile so that you know how to get updates on the status of your immediate neighborhood even while you are evacuated.
  • Identify and organize a single day (before hurricane season) around which to discuss Storm Preparedness that could be recognized on an annual basis.  Create widgets that include instructions on assembling an on hand storm kit and the steps to fortifying your home.  These could be distributed through the websites of local TV stations and then added to social networking profiles or blogs of those who care about preparing their community.

Other thoughts on new idea or best practices?  How do you think social media could power storm or any other type of preparedness?

Your SXSW Vote Appreciated – 2 days left!

Your SXSW Vote Appreciated – 2 days left!

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Like many other voices in the social media echochamber, I am part of a panel that us up for consideration to be included in the 2009 edition of SXSW Interactive. The Viral Garden’s Mack Collier has assembled some humbling company for a panel that he calls:

Co-Created Marketing: Embracing Your Customer Evangelists Online

Helping brands, associations, social change initiatives, and any other group of people with a purpose identify and embrace their evangelists is something about which I’ve learned a lot – through both successes and mistakes – and I would love the chance to share some of that live in person.

I am not sure what I could say about fellow panelists LinkedIn Chief Blogger Mario Sundar and Church of the Customer / Society for Word of Mouth‘s high priestess Jackie Huba that Mack did not say better here, so I will simply leave you with the info on the panel and a request for your vote. The Panel Picker will close August 29!

1. Go to http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/users/register
2. Fill out the form and submit it
3. Check your email and follow the verify link
4. Go to http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/2006
5. Give the idea 5 stars.
Hope to see you there.

World of Warcraft’s WOM Techniques

World of Warcraft’s WOM Techniques

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ZhevraThis morning on Wired, I read about a new referral bonus for World of Warcraft players who successfully recruit new players. The genius of it? The referral bonus is specifically tailored to their target audience. If you bring in a new player you get, to quote the Blizzard support site, “an exclusive in-game zhevra mount“. WoW Wiki describes a zhevra as a unicorn-like , zebra-hybrid equine beast. How fun is it that they have to specify that this will be “in-game”? Heck, if I could win a zebra with a horn in real life I would quit my job to recruit Warcraft players.

Because I am a WoW virgin, I reached out to the esteemed Mike Nels to comment. Mike is my only friend who has been able to manage a long term relationship with Warcraft – others have tried and become so engrossed that they needed to go cold turkey. Mike manages a busy technical job, brilliant wife, 2 kids under 4, a single-digit golf handicap, and his WoW identity.

So, what does this brand evangelist think about this newest referral marketing execution?

Mike NelsBlizzard has done a great job with Warcraft because they continue to display mastery at converting real life friends into crack whores.

Step 1: Convince WoW players that playing the game with their real life friends/girlfriend/spouse is a great way to spend quality time with them. Throw in a stylish mount at the referring friend and you increase allure.

Step 2: Create 70 levels (soon to be 80) of eye-popping content and status so instead of playing with your friends, you are “coopeting” with them to see who can get to 70 fastest.

Step 3: Throw a myriad of powerfully sexy gear at those that reach 70 so that the race to 70 soon becomes a competition about who has the best gear.

Step 4: Guard your eyes from the pasty white boys that used to be friends, but now never see each other’s real faces or the light of day because they need to take down this one last ogre/dragon/demon/ghost to get the best piece of gear. Only give the gear to one of them and force them to repeat step 4 until every player has the gear. Oh, and did I mention that each player wears about 16 pieces of gear. So repeat this once for each friend and once for each type of gear.

Step 5: Introduce more levels, monsters, gear into the next expansion pack and toss out some referral bonus. Repeat process starting with Step 1.

I’m exhausted just reading it, but I do understand that this cycle, with its interdependencies and intricacies, is a sustainable way to grow a community and identify new potential members. Are there other examples of brands that market through “Coopetition“?

Playboy’s Rogue Brand Ambassador

Playboy’s Rogue Brand Ambassador

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KendraYesterday’s WSJ contained a front page story detailing the Olive Garden’s unusual challenge of figuring out how to handle the repeated, vocal endorsements of Kendra Wilkinson. As a playmate, Hef girlfriend, star of E!’s Girls Next Door, and “friend” of 730k+ on MySpace, Ms. Wilkinson has a considerable platform for her declarations of Olive Garden love regardless of the feelings the family-friendly brand may have about her.

The core question posed in this situation is what do you do if you find yourself with a brand ambassador that in no way matches the brand “persona” imagined in the board room? What if they do not reflect the brand’s core values? What if they aren’t even using the product in the way you imagined or marketed it? As the article repeats, this is a complicated issue, but I think there are a few steps to walk through when any unexpected brand ambassador shows himself – whether or not they match your ideal target.

Stage 1: Acceptance. Per the solid advice of WOMMA board member Dave Balter, the first thing to do is accept that this is going on and it can’t be stopped. The quicker you can pass through this stage, the quicker you can get to the good stuff.

Stage 2: Opprtunity Identification. Maybe this isn’t your dream spokesperson, but is there an opportunity here? While there are sure to be pros and cons, why not explore? Does the appearance of a new ambassador mean that there are additional untapped market segments for the brand? Could you engage these new segments without compromising your values or offending your core audience?

Stage 3: Reimagine Success. Chances are that there is an engagement option somewhere between ignoring and embracing the rogue ambassador where the pros outweigh the cons for the brand. Success may not be what you envisioned at the company retreat, but the rogue brand ambassador could show you the promise of a different reality that might have higher revenues and more word of mouth surrounding it.

How would the pros and cons weigh out for inviting Kendra to design her own chicken parm-based entree? Offering to shut down the place to host her birthday? Or simply inviting her on a tour of the test kitchens to be taped for the show? Maybe some old fashioned “hospitaliano” could go a long way.

But the REAL question is, what am I doing with my life when Kendra Wilkinson has her own WSJ etching on page 1?

*cross posted from the Ogilvy PR 360 DI blog*

Social Media in Real Estate

Social Media in Real Estate

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For the 4th time in my young life, I am shopping for a house. My requirements have changed from the first time I bought (access to schools with foreign language immersion vs. stumbling distance from the best margarita in Austin), but shockingly little else about the process has. Where are my awesome social media apps to make this fun? Not being able to leave well enough alone, I started to ponder why.

  • Some of the earliest examples of social media promoted the collective good – user reviews on restaurants or local businesses benefit the whole because when there is good food, we all win.
  • And then there’s altruism/karma. If I waste $20 on a bad movie or discover a great book, chances are I may write a brief review just to let you know. It doesn’t really benefit me immediately, but I benefit from the reviews of others so its a positive cycle. Like blogging, this also appeals to ego.
  • And then, of course, the fuzzy satisfaction of our ever-increasing digital interconnections. We Link, we Friend, we Match, we validate each other’s existence on the interweb by remarking on each other’s photos and vying for spots on blogrolls and in RSS feeds.

So where does the gnarly world of real estate fall in this spectrum? In most transactions, there is a winner and a loser. Can that dynamic thrive in social media? Trulia certainly doesn’t answer the call – it is little more than another online listing service with some Y!answers tacked on. And the dozens of MLS listing sites are just push marketing.

Frankly MLS

Enter FranklyMLS, claiming to be “The First Wiki MLS“. The wiki is built up by buyer’s agents – not the agents marketing the homes. In addition to the listing info, these agents add their own photos and important factual data that would be strategically missing from a seller’s MLS listing such as homes backing up to busy streets, being located under an overpass, having bizarre neighbors, etc. It is by no means an elegant UI, but the wiki contains meaty data and its sorting an searching features are tight. The FranklyMLS wiki saves the other buyer’s agents a lot of time and creates a great resource for those of us trying to wrap our arms around the concept of commuting 40 minutes to get to a house priced at $500 per square foot. In a recession.

Frank’s schtick “Don’t Buy! Ask Why!” is that listing agents can’t be trusted and you deserve to work with someone who will tell you the truth. The wiki extends the seller vs. buyer divide, but unites buyers and their representatives to share data as they search for deals that meet their needs. So while there isn’t a current solution for all parties to hug it out in social media, Frank has taken a big step for frightened buyers like me and I appreciate it. Now will someone give this great idea a cosmetic facelift?