"How to Create Word of Mouth Marketing." That's the subtitle of Emanuel Rosen's new book, The Anatomy of Buzz. According to Seth Godin's testimonial on the back cover, the book is, "Clear, lucid...The last chapter by itself is worth the entire price of the book."
We somewhat agree with Mr. Godin. He's more notable than Jane, so we presume his comments will drive more sales of Mr. Rosen's book than our little book review. But, the last chapter is not the most valuable part of this book-- from Jane's perspective.
Jane was far more impressed by the explanation of the nature of networks: what they are, how they work, and how to get them to work for you. Those dedicated marketers who research and read as avidly as Jane does, will be familiar with Malcom Gladwell's The Tipping Point which introduced the idea of people as connectors, with distinctive personality types-- folks who are natural pollinators of new ideas and trends, in other words, the people who create the phenomenon of word of mouth.
The Anatomy of Buzz follows Gladwell's lead and delves into the way networks work in hubs-- with groups of people in one place forming a community of thought leaders. These are the people who can be most helpful in a word of mouth marketing blitz.
To introduce the concept, in "How Does Buzz Travel?", Rosen says,
"Sometimes sparks move from one node to thousands or millions of other nodes, such as when Oprah recommends a book to viewers of her show or Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal writes about the latest thing in the computer industry. This image is the foundation of this book: 6 million glowing blue dots--the people on this planet--some of whom are linked by established connections. Green sparks--comments--constantly travel over these established connections."
Rosen's book concentrates on the concept of network hubs, or nodes. Of what they are, how to court them, indeed, how to get into them at all.
The idea of word of mouth isn't a new one, of course. Jane has been telling you for months now that women are word of mouth masters-- but the reality is a bit cloudier. Women talk, yes, mostly to each other, and across great distances, using the Internet, these days. There is tremendous value in getting them to talk about you, as evidenced by Rosen's work in this book. The problem is: which women are the leaders, at the head of a network that stretches into the thousands, and which are merely passing along gossip--which, in and of itself, is word of mouth marketing.
Rosen talks about "Accelerating Natural Contagion" by saying, "Two things are needed to create buzz successfully. The first, as discussed in the last chapter [8], is to have a contagious product. But having such a product alone is not enough. Companies that get good buzz also accelerate natural contagion."
Find the right woman--the one who will take your product to her coffee klatch, her next networking event, her family reunion, her office...and give her a free sample. It works.
As Rosen says, "It is critical for a company at this stage to have at least one person who is obsessed with spreading the word."
In the second half of his book, Rosen gets into "seeding." Seeding involves creating buzz by getting your product out there into the public's hands. He says seeding only works for some categories of products, and not others.
"Seeding only works in categories that people talk about: cars, books, computers, fashion, and so on-- what we call 'conversation products.' "
There is much, much more to this book than Jane can discuss here. We did a book review on the book for Blogcritics also, which you may read here. We think you should read this book carefully and consider the women you know-- where do they fit into the network hub? Which one or two or three of them are the adapters, women who like to spread the news about new products and services?
Almost as importantly, do they have blogs...and are they writing in these blogs on a regular basis? Blogs, in the truest sense of the word, are word of mouth marketing at work-- on a daily basis, on an interactive basis-- on a real-time communication basis. We think women will play a much bigger role in the blogosphere as this year moves into its second quarter. If you learn how to create female-friendly content, you will begin your own word of mouth marketing campaign.
In the meantime, Rosen is speaking at the WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) Summit in Chicago at the end of this month. Jane cannot be there, but she hopes some of you, dear readers, will make it. We hear he is an excellent speaker. He will be joined by:
Guy Kawasaki: Selling the Dream and Art of the Start
George Silverman: The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Jackie Huba & Ben McConnell: Creating Customer Evangelists
Mark Hughes: Buzzmarketing
Ed Keller & Jon Berry: The Influentials
A stellar cast of characters. Alas, we only see one woman...and we are certain WOMMA could have found more, if they'd tried. (where is Susie Gardner from Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies?) Jane would, also, have been happy to represent the thousands of women we know-- women who are, this moment, talking about---YOU, dear reader? Just maybe!
What's not to like about that?
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