Is It All Just Word of Mouth Marketing?

Is the marketing affect of social media synonymous with word of mouth marketing? Do we use social media just to drive some form of word of mouth or are their other reasons we use it?

At the risk of jumping willingly down a semantic rabbit hole, I would say this:

Everything an influencer or average user can do online via social media - that marketers really care about - involves some form of word of mouth.

and this:

Innovations in digital marketing allow brands to engage people (keep involved) via multimedia and social channels in order to involve them in a marketing relationship (okay, just say deliver marketing messages)

Social Media-Driven Word of Mouth Matters Most
Why do brands want lots of Facebook fans? To simply market directly to them or is it to leverage their social graph? The latter of course and that is word of mouth. As fan to Zara, the Spanish department store, when I "like" the wall posting about their new mobi app, all of my friends see that in my news feed or on my Wall. While not an explicit recommendation it is an implicit one.

And that seemingly understated endorsement might be more powerful than if I simply shouted "I love Zara's" in a blog post. Emanuel Rosen touches on this in his book, Anatomy of Buzz Revisited, where he talks about the value of implicit recommendations like branded wall paper a user applies to their MySpace page.

If I send a video link to a friend, favorite a video, comment on a post, tweet about a special offer at Starbuck's, become a fan, a follower or favourite a photo in Flickr - it's all an endorsed "share" and that is word of mouth. Marketers who want huge viral-like impact are crazy. It wil leither happen or not. Marketers who want to engage people such that they will pass along are after a form of word of mouth. Thats not crazy, that's why you would bother.

Innovations in Digital Marketing Engage and Lead to WOM
So many great innovations in digital marketing from episodic video programs to new iPhone apps like  Zipcar's utility to location-based offers via Loopt are meant to reach and engage users to drive them to some action or increase prefernce for a product. They are also, 9 times out of 10, meant to activate some form of WOM where I pass it along to a friend, post it effortlessly to my Twitter stream or Facebook wall. We care about the direct relationship with the "one" but count on the effect of the one passing along to their many either explicitly or more subtly. We know that peers connecting with peers are most often more relevant than our marketing messages. So, social media may not be completely synonymous with word of mouth marketing but its sure why most of us use it to solve marketing challenges. 

Comments

[Mayank Dhingra]

Spot on..It's also the visual buzz(Hat Tip Mr Rosen) of various websites having embeddable badges/widgets that adds to the WOM of Social Media

[Victor]

John: Some folks say that Social Media is not a platform or broadcast medium. On the other hand, I have also come across posts which seems to suggest that it is exactly that. What is your take?