Last month I joined Zuberance ceo/founder Rob Fuggetta for a webinar on creating and energizing brand advocates through word of mouth marketing.

Rob presented his company’s recent work for Symantec’s Norton anti-virus software where 10,000 Norton brand fans were energized to post online reviews. The result was significant: average online ratings increased from two-stars to four-stars and Norton’s “net promoter” score doubled. This online word of mouth program from Zuberance was recently awarded a 2009 Groundswell award.

I opened the webinar with some general information about the impact of word of mouth and a unique way to look at creating on-going word of mouth.

Watch and listen to this archived webinar…

At the WOMMA “Creating Talkable Brands” Conference in Vegas, I stumbled upon Steve Hershbeger (ComBlu), Blake Cahill (Visible Technologies), and Sean O’Driscoll (Ant’s Eye View) doing their “Socializing Media” podcast in the conference room foyer at Paris Hotel.

Their weekly podcast routinely highlights smart marketers and smart thinking about how brands can better connect with customers in the online world.

This video shares snippets of smart marketers talking community, influencers, word of mouth, and social media. The smart marketers include Scott Wilder, Emanuel Rosen (“Anatomy of Buzz Revisted”), Ian Baer (Cheil Worldwide), and Pauline Ores (IBM).

Video breakdown:
0:00 – 0:45 | Intuit community building with small businesses
0:45 – 2:08 | Distinguishing between “Influencer” & “Influential”
2:12 – 4:30 | The next big idea for marketers
4:31 – 4:40 | Emanuel Rosen on the state of WOM
4:41 – 6:25 | Attention Building vs. Community Building
6:25 – 8:05 | Consumer electronic brands and social media
8:05 – 8:50 | Kristen Smith, WOMMA Exec. Director

In the hour-long show, more smart marketers joined the podcast to sound off on all things word of mouth and social media marketing. Click here to listen to the full episode of “Socializing Media.”

When you return from a conference chock-full of insights, it’s difficult to share everything you learned. Sure, you can transcribe your notes but your notes are bound to have some holes. You can also pull insights from summaries other attendees have posted on their blogs.

Or … you whittle through the thousands of tweets from attendees to carve out a more complete list of insights. That’s the path I’ve chosen to take after returning from WOMMA’s Creating Talkable Brands conference.

Over 470 attendees shared 3,600+ tweets (.pdf download) with the #WOMMA hashtag during the three-day conference. I’ve whittled down the 3,600+ tweets to a more digestible collection of 165 tweets and compiled them into this SlideShare presentation. Enjoy.

NOTE: I’ll also be sharing video snippets and more in-depth summaries after the Thanksgiving holiday.

Did you see this? PQ Media has released its second Word of Mouth Marketing Forecast Report. The report offers a deep dive into the size, scope, and growth of the Word of Mouth Marketing industry.

It’s a hefty read at 115 pages. But the information is worth digging into for marketers at both brands and agencies.

WOM spend is on the rise, even in today’s recessionary times. In this report you’ll find out where money being spent, why it is being spent, and how companies are benefitting from their strategic WOM spend.

WOMMA members get this report free. (Membership perk.) Others must pay.

However, I’ve compiled a few highlights from the report into this short video. (Hopefully this video will whet your marketing appetite to learn more from reading the full report.)

I recently listened in on a WOMMA Webinar with Dr. Walter Carl, founder and chief research officer at ChatThreads Corp. Walter is a faculty member at Northeastern University and serves as chair of WOMMA’s Measurement & Research Council. (So when it comes to measuring WOM, he knows his stuff.)

Walter shared interesting information on measuring the value of conversations. In one of the more provocative points in the webinar, Walter shared an analysis of a Premium Pet Food word-of-mouth program he was involved with. Part of his analysis included using ChatThread’s Conversation Value® Model to crank out some ROI data.

For programs they work on, Walter’s company has the ability to track person-to-person conversation ripples and then tie those conversations directly back to sales for a straight ROI analysis. From there, ChatThreads also projects a lifetime ROI measurement.

[Scroll below to jump right into the webinar snippet on measuring conversations. Or, continue reading for some background information on the numbers discussed by Walter.]

The “advocacy campaign” for a Premium Pet Food brand Walter talked about in the webinar started with an initial 5,000 participants. The initial 5,000 people engaged in conversations with people and then, those people engaged others in conversations about this pet food brand.

So, Wave 1 of this program included an initial 5,000 participants in an “advocacy campaign” for a premium pet food brand.
[Wave 1 total: 5,000 people]

The next ripple, Wave 2, saw the initial 5,000 people each carry on a conversation about this premium pet food brand with, on average, 12 other people. Thus, 61,167 people heard the advocacy message for this pet food.
[Wave 2 total: 61,167 people]

Wave 3 saw these 61,167 people pass along the pet food advocacy message to nearly 3 people each, broadening the reach to an additional 173,101 people.
[Wave 3 total: 173,101]

In total, 239,268 people heard the advocacy message about this premium pet food brand.
[5,000 + 61,167 + 173,101 = 293,268]

It’s important to note, all of the people involved in these conversations were not current customers of this pet food brand. According to the study Walter cites, these were all new potential customers.

Watch/listen to this snippet from Walter Carl’s WOMMA Webinar. Pay special attention beginning at the 4-minute mark of the webinar snippet. This is where Walter breaks down the ROI analysis of this program in two ways: (1) straight ROI and (2) lifetime ROI. The straight ROI for this program was 64% and the lifetime ROI was 220%.

All you research wonks probably have a kagillion counterpoints to make. Go for it. I’ll pass-along your rebuttals to Walter and hopefully, he’ll answer your counterpoints.

You may also be interested in reading Walter’s recent article on Measuring WOM Marketing.