Often when people talk about wanting “word of mouth”, they’re really talking about wanting something quick and easy. “Let’s make a word of mouth campaign,” roughly translates to “Let’s make something that’s going to get a lot of people talking about us in a short amount of time.”

Here’s my problem with that line of thinking: it’s short-sighted, and very difficult to pull off effectively. And it can backfire.

The Skittles Social Media Fiasco

Back in March of 2009, Skittles decided to try a little experiment with their website. When you went to Skittles.com, you didn’t see a corporate website, but essentially a shot of search.twitter.com, with the query “Skittles”. You could also navigate to their pages on Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia via a menu bar.

Word of mouth about this campaign was an understatement. People – especially on Twitter – talked about it all day.

Then the backlash began. By day two, people were sick of hearing about Twitter, and their “homepage” began to be filled with not-so-positive tweets. Needless to say, the campaign didn’t last much longer.

Word of Mouth vs. Community Building

The reason marketing often gravitates towards word of mouth campaigns is that they’re effective in the short run. Yes, Skittles did see an amazing increase in traffic to its website when they launched their campaign. But did it build trust in their brand? Did it make people want to be a part of their community over the long run?

The reason community building is unappealing is that it is hard work. It takes time and energy. And it’s harder to measure. (Note: I said harder, not impossible.)

But a well-built community is an infinite resource for a business. It’s the building block of any successful online campaign. Otherwise you run the risk of alienating or even insulting people.

3 Ways to Start

Some simple steps anyone (including Skittles) can take to start building a community:

1. Listen. Monitoring what people are saying about you is a crucial first step. You’re not the one positioning yourself in the marketplace, your customers are. Find out what they’re saying about you.
2. Engage. Are people voicing complaints? Address them. Are they complimenting you? Thank them. Are they giving you suggestions? Tell them you’re listening.
3. Adapt. There is no better way to build trust than to change something at the suggestion of a customer.

You can dazzle people with shiny objects, and they’ll take interest. Then what?

I’d rather do it the other way around, and dazzle a community of people who have come to know and love me.

What do you think? Have you seen a successful word of mouth campaign turn into a community? What are your opinions about Skittles’ most recent campaign?

Photo credit: katybate

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Tagged as: Community, Skittles, Social Media, Twitter, Word of Mouth