Word of mouth

On Facebook this evening I was checking out my sister in-law’s Facebook page and saw that she’s excited to get a new laptop that my brother suggested to her. Very cool.

Here is a thread of comments that people posted.

Incredible!

During my advertising classes in college we often talked about word of mouth. My professors always talked of its importance and that it’s the best advertising a company can have (when it’s positive word of mouth anyways).

The old way to do it was to actually pay some mom to talk about Tide laundry detergent while talking to other mom’s at her son’s little league game. That always seemed a little dishonest to me, and it’s probably still done with some products in some places. But the internet has changed everything.

When my professor’s talked about word of mouth Twitter didn’t even exist yet and Facebook was only limited to a select number of colleges. Only a few years after that and it’s an entirely new ballgame.

Apple Computers couldn’t be doing any better. What an incredible testament that thread of comments is to their brand loyalty and the excitement their users generate over their products.

There are some companies that pay money to people to leave comments like this. Well, the good companies don’t have to. The good ones don’t even have to advertise. Some products are just that good.

Social media has completely changed the game for word of mouth advertising. It’s amazing to see a thread like this (and of course I’m a die hard Apple user myself) where customers do all the advertising for the company.