Word of Mouth Engagement

Jason Ford // Nov. 21, 2012

We're big believers in word of mouth marketing which, at its core, is about arming a vocal group of advocates with compelling content to further your brand's mission. This concept is actually at the heart of the FeedMagnet Branded Social Hub product, displaying the most compelling social content all in one place and then enabling advocates to share, re-post, and participate in the conversation.

As sponsors of this year's WOMMA Summit – the leading conference for word of mouth marketers – we put our social hub technology to work to see how this relatively small, but incredibly active audience would use it to engage.

Content from everywhere, delivered everywhere

We pulled in content from a variety of sources to display in the Social Hub. We used Klout to identify a handful of influencers, but only displayed their social posts related to social, marketing, or WOMMA. Then we combined influencer posts with official content from WOMMA organizers and general mentions from attendees, filtered for relevance and profanity.

Once we had this rich set of content, we ensured that our Branded Social Hub could be used not just online, but on the Facebook fan page, on phones and tablets, on HD screens around the conference center, and on the big screens in the main ballroom.

Engagement and Amplification

In addition to getting all of the best WOMMA content in a single place, WOMMA's goal for the Social Hub was audience engagement. Specifically, we set out to maximize interaction and social word of mouth about the conference, make the physical event experience even more engaging, and amplify WOMMA content beyond just attendees.

One way we did that was through a photo contest. To enter, attendees posted photos of their favorite branded swag. We used social sharing to Twitter and Facebook as the voting mechanism, which increased reach by pushing out WOMMA content to the followers of each person voting. For maximum reach, voters' shares included a link back in to the Social Hub.

Results

WOMMA hit record numbers for social posting, sharing, and engagement at the 3 day WOMMA Summit:

But perhaps more interesting than the number of social posts generated was the amount of sharing that took place. Each of the social share posts generated by the Social Hub included links back in to the Social Hub, which drove additional visitors in to the WOMMA branded experience. We also placed QR codes around the live event to drive visitors to the hub on their mobile devices, which accounted for 18% of total Social Hub traffic.

social photo contest

We had a blast at this year's WOMMA Summit in Las Vegas, not only digesting stories of brand success and best practices, but playing an integral role in facilitating and expanding the social conversation. Having been truly inspired by session speakers and attendee participation, we're already mapping out ideas around what social engagement could look like for Summit 2013! To be continued...