Few marketing strategies are as powerful or as elusive as word of mouth. It’s an ancient strategy that still carries intense importance today toward building brand power, but where does word of mouth fit into modern social media tools?

If your business is using Facebook to create an active conversation with your audience, you’re already boosting your word of mouth potential. Yet many organizations make the mistake of throwing up some random posts or comments as a Facebook strategy, or feeling they’ve succeeded if they gain new numbers of fans. The reality is that the numbers of “Likes” you have on Facebook doesn’t necessarily equate to word of mouth power.

Here are some strategies to help you gain more value from Facebook and turn those conversations into word of mouth success:

• Aim past the likes. Aim for active, consistent dialogue instead. This is where your organization’s online community begins.
• Feed that consistent dialogue with fresh content, using keywords and focusing on valuable, quality information in your posts. While you may think it’s interesting that you got a new goldfish, keep in mind that even a Facebook post is true content and your audience is looking for quality and value.
• Add links in your posts to your blogs. (Sounds simple, but some organizations overlook this step).
• Put elements like how-to lists, tips and “blast from the past” items as links in your Facebook posts. This builds your element of quality, and encourages audiences to share your Facebook posts with their friends.
• Run a planned campaign on Facebook. A simple way is the “Like-gate” tool, which asks your user to take the basic step of liking you if they’re interested in a discount, coupon or special piece of content.
• Use tabs feature across your Facebook page to highlight what you want users to do next, such as download an article or a coupon. Tabs are a portal toward getting users to do something, and even if you need to take an extra step or two to get the tabs running, you may find them very valuable. Even smaller businesses can likely afford the tools and strategies needed to carry out a social campaign on Facebook and see real results.
• Implement Facebook to get people excited about going to your site and signing up for your enewsletter. Bait this offer by including an easy link to your email signup in your Facebook post, and offer a chance to win something if they take that step.

As you implement strategies to move past the “Likes” on Facebook, listen. If you have a sale or event, listen to customers talking. Chances are good you’ll hear “I saw this on Facebook,” or, “a friend sent it to me from Facebook.” This is word of mouth power, and it is powerful indeed – especially when integrated into an overall content marketing strategy.

If you’re ready to take this new direction but don’t have a plan, we’ll work with you to put together an effective strategy. To learn more, contact Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Solutions today.