Gord Hotchkiss write a great article in MediaPost about some of the key ideas underpinning how word of mouth travels:
- Weak ties are important. Word of mouth only travels a short distance to people that you have strong ties with (family, close friends, co-workers). For it to travel widely, it needs to be able to jump across week ties (loose acquaintances, random contacts) to fresh networks of people.
- Selfishness matters. We won’t tell anyone If we think we’re going to lose out on a hot deal, or there is a scarce offer that we know about. You don’t tell anyone until after you score the great seats at the sold-out concert.
- The web extends weak ties. When we recommend something online it is seen by tons of people that we have little or no relationship with. Readers of a product review or blog post are really weak ties – you probably don’t know them. But the web lets you influence them.
- This stuff ain’t new. Gord quotes studies from the ’70s and ’90s. The science of word of mouth has been around for a while. We’re just finally putting it together into something we can work with.