Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing

It’s not buzz or more information that people want; it’s meaning.

Intent helps us understand the emotion, feeling, and sentiment behind the words. Is the person excited and passionate about what he or she is saying? Is the person frustrated? Does the person find it ludicrous?

“Consumers spend twice as much of their personal income on entertainment as they did just five years ago. The market turmoil lies in the fact that how consumers want their entertainment and how companies have traditionally delivered it is not just

1. Engaging An effective point of view evokes the response, “That’s kind of interesting. Tell me more.” It starts conversations rather than just informing. People want to know more and to offer their views as well.

There are three important things to listen for: intent, content, and language.

If your marketing doesn’t lead to some sort of dialogue with customers and market influencers, it’s not effective marketing.

Meaning making helps makes sense of an idea, concept, or product, showing us how it relates to what we already know and believe.

This is why using points of view to engage people in conversations can be so effective. Points of view are not just rational facts, but ideas laden with emotional beliefs. In other words, the point of view in and of itself provokes an emotionally charged conversation.

a gap—it’s a canyon. That’s what we’re working on.”