Come to our upcoming BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media conference in San Francisco to hear Farmers Insurance, Rogers Communications, Target, Yahoo!, NVIDIA, Hitachi Data Systems, Verizon, and Autodesk share 8 great case studies on corporate social media.

This event is all about how big brands use social media. No agencies, no startups — just big companies sharing what they’ve learned. You’ll get practical, how-to advice on developing your social strategy, scaling your program, driving sales, engaging internal and external audiences, and measuring it all.

You’ll ask questions, discover new ideas, and learn how to make your social media program phenomenal — all in one fantastic afternoon for just $250.

…and you’ll experience a bunch of great case studies, like this one from our BlogWell in Atlanta:

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Numbers from September 2011 show Yelp has more than 61 million monthly visitors who are reading more than 22 million reviews. It’s an incredibly powerful word of mouth community that every day influences where millions of people do business.

How to get more of your fans leaving reviews:

1. Remind your customers
2. Link to your Yelp profile
3. Reply and respond

1. Remind your customers

When was the last time you woke up and said, “Today’s the day I write a review for that business I love!”? For most of us, we just don’t think this way. This is why you need to regularly tell your customers how important their word of mouth is to you. Put signs on your tables, add it to your business cards, put it on your invoices, and remind people on the way out the door. Just keep it simple and don’t be pushy — something like, “Please let us know how we’re doing on Yelp” can make a big difference.

2. Link to your Yelp profile

Even when you’re not openly asking for reviews, you can still drive a lot of fans to them by simply linking to your Yelp profile from your website, your email signature, and your newsletters. And if you’re hesitant because you’re concerned about your current ratings, remember this: Strangers are already going to Yelp first. Pointing your happy customers and loyal fans there means they can add their voice to the conversation.

3. Reply and respond

Like any community, your Yelp page is healthier and better when you’re involved. The more you engage, the more reviews you get (and the higher quality they’ll be). For more on this, check out Yelp’s recommendations on how to participate.

[Welcome back to the You Can Be a Word of Mouth Marketing Supergenius! newsletter. This is text from the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.]

Triggers are simple items that prompt a word of mouth conversation. Think of little, visible things that get people to ask about you.

Here are a few easy places to add yours:

1. Your receipts
2. Your email footers
3. Your packages

1. Your receipts

Receipts are great places to put word of mouth triggers because they’re something you’re already handing out to every customer. Start conversations by putting sharable coupons on them, passes to special events, and an invitation to subscribe to your newsletter. You’re already handing out so many of these every day, why not use them to start conversations?

2. Your email footers

Think about how many emails you send. Now multiply that by the number of people in your company. It all quickly adds up to a lot of opportunities to get people talking. Try putting your latest word of mouth topic at the bottom of your emails and see what happens. You don’t have to make it complicated or salesy — it can be as simple as “P.S. We’re doing this cool project over on our Facebook page, have you seen it?”

3. Your packages

Your packages, your bags, and even your products themselves are great places to put word of mouth triggers. Throw in extra samples, catalogs, menus, branded gear, hand-written notes — anything that will help your customers tell the next people they see about you.

[Welcome back to the You Can Be a Word of Mouth Marketing Supergenius! newsletter. This is text from the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.]

Topics are the ideas, features, and attention-grabbers you use to give your talkers something to talk about. You should be creating and testing as many as you can, as often as you can, until you find a few that really take off.

What to remember when developing yours:

1. Keep it simple
2. Make it organic
3. Look for the unexpected

1. Keep it simple

Simple topics are easy to share and are much more likely to get repeated than long, jargon-filled ones. Recent favorites to inspire you are IKEA’s “Manland,” JetBlue’s auctioning of seats on eBay, and the library where you can check out a human being. All these topics are great because they’re simple, they’re fun, and they’re easy to tell a friend about.

2. Make it organic

Organic topics are built in to your products. They’re key features, perks, and bonuses that inspire conversations. The best all-time example of this is the flower vase built in to VW Bugs. This simple feature continues to start conversations every day, even though it originally came out in the 1950’s. (Note: VW removed this feature for the 2012 model, which is a topic for a future issue on how to kill a great conversation.)

3. Look for the unexpected

Some of your best topics will come not from you, but from your fans. Watch how people use and talk about your stuff and if you see a great topic emerge (even if it’s not perfectly aligned with your brand message), go with it. Think like Duck brand duct tape when they saw kids creating prom outfits with their tape. They saw a great topic and created a scholarship to encourage other kids to do it, and have since created a whole bunch of new conversations.

Come to our upcoming BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media conference in Dallas to hear Texas Instruments, Shell, AMD, Coldwell Banker Real Estate, United Airlines, Level 3, Northwestern Mutual, and AT&T share 8 great case studies on corporate social media.

This event is all about how big brands use social media. No agencies, no startups — just big companies sharing what they’ve learned. You’ll get practical, how-to advice on developing your social strategy, scaling your program, driving sales, engaging internal and external audiences, and measuring it all.

You’ll ask questions, discover new ideas, and learn how to make your social media program phenomenal — all in one fantastic afternoon for just $250.

…and you’ll experience a bunch of great case studies, like this one from our BlogWell in Seattle:

Boeing: Social Media at the Paris Air Show, presented by Bernard Choi from GasPedal and SocialMedia.org on Vimeo.

[Welcome back to the You Can Be a Word of Mouth Marketing Supergenius! newsletter. This is text from the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.]

You’ve got an infinite number of talkers you can seek out and earn word of mouth from. But because you don’t have an infinite number of hours in the day, start with these:

1. New customers
2. Long-time customers
3. Loyal employees

1. New customers

First-time customers make for powerful, eager talkers. But you only get one first impression, so you need to make the most of it. Give these potential talkers the chance to sample your best stuff and the tools to tell everyone about you. If you’re a restaurant, for example, this could be your one shot to blow them away — so make sure they get to sample that dessert everyone raves about (and a menu to take back to the office).

2. Long-time customers

Long-time, loyal customers can be your word of mouth bedrock. They already know how great you are, but they forget or don’t realize just how important their referrals are for you. Inspire them to talk by inviting them to join VIP groups, asking for their input on business decisions, or just simply asking them for referrals. Think about it — when was the last time you reminded your best customers how much their word of mouth means to you?

3. Enthusiastic employees

It’s fun to work at a place worth talking about, and many of your employees would love to help share your company and cause with their networks. Make sure they have access to samples, beta products, sharable discounts, and any sales materials they can forward to friends and prospects. Use tact in doing this — you don’t want to make anyone feel pressured to talk — but you want to make sure they have all the tools to do so when they feel the urge.

Come to our upcoming BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media conference in Dallas to hear Texas Instruments, Shell, AMD, Coldwell Banker Real Estate, United Airlines, Level 3, Northwestern Mutual, and AT&T share 8 great case studies on corporate social media.

This event is all about how big brands use social media. No agencies, no startups — just big companies sharing what they’ve learned. You’ll get practical, how-to advice on developing your social strategy, scaling your program, driving sales, engaging internal and external audiences, and measuring it all.

You’ll ask questions, discover new ideas, and learn how to make your social media program phenomenal — all in one fantastic afternoon for just $250.

…and you’ll experience a bunch of great case studies, like this one from our BlogWell in Seattle:

The Clorox Company: Co-Creating with Consumers, presented by Greg Piche from GasPedal and SocialMedia.org on Vimeo.

[Welcome back to the You Can Be a Word of Mouth Marketing Supergenius! newsletter. This is text from the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.]

As we kick off a new year, we wanted to pause for a minute to look back at some of the greatest word of mouth stories from the past one. Here are three favorites that got us talking:

1. The movement that raised $100 million in 30 days
2. The chain restaurant that doubles as a community center
3. The movie theater that delights fans by kicking out jerks
4. Share your favorites

1. The movement that raised $100 million in 30 days

The Movember project had it all: It was fun, inspiring, easy to get involved, easy to talk about, and it raised a ton of money for men’s health.

With support from more than 850,000 people, Movember raised an unbelievable $105 million in 30 days. Think about that: There were no corporate sponsors. This was a worldwide movement powered by millions of on and offline conversations.

There were so many great word of mouth concepts used by this project, we wrote a whole newsletter on it.

2. The chain restaurant that doubles as a community center

If you follow us at all, you know we’re constantly talking about how the path to true word of mouth is built with a zillion tiny, genuine gestures designed to earn the respect and recommendation of your customers. Few embody this ideal more than Hamid Chaudhry who took over a small-town Dairy Queen franchise and steadily earned the love of his entire community.

He frequently hosts fundraisers for local groups (and regularly donates more than these modest events raise), he randomly shows up at schools with frozen treats, and people see his restaurant as the central hub of the town.

Today Hamid has an incredible base of fans that will carry him through good times and bad, and it’s something we all should be striving for.

3. The movie theater that delights fans by kicking out jerks

Word of mouth isn’t about making everyone happy — it’s about making the right customers fall in love. That’s the heart of the Alamo Drafthouse’s strict “no talking or texting during movies” policy. They’re serious about it. So much so, they posted an angry voicemail they received from a customer they booted for texting.

The video became an absolute sensation with more than 2.3 million YouTube views and the theater received an outpouring of support for defending their much-loved policy.

Standing for something (and against something else) is how brands build loyal followings, and the world needs more of it.

4. Share your favorites

Do you have a favorite word of mouth story from 2011? What companies are you talking about, and how are they inspiring you to do it? Big or small, we’d love to hear about it.

Add your favorites in the comments below.

Come to our upcoming BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media conference in Dallas to hear Texas Instruments, Shell, AMD, Coldwell Banker Real Estate, United Airlines, Level 3, Northwestern Mutual, and AT&T share 8 great case studies on corporate social media.

This event is all about how big brands use social media. No agencies, no startups — just big companies sharing what they’ve learned. You’ll get practical, how-to advice on developing your social strategy, scaling your program, driving sales, engaging internal and external audiences, and measuring it all.

You’ll ask questions, discover new ideas, and learn how to make your social media program phenomenal — all in one fantastic afternoon for just $250.

…and you’ll experience a bunch of great case studies, like this one from our BlogWell in Seattle:

Deluxe Corporation: Project REV, presented by Nathan Eide from GasPedal and SocialMedia.org on Vimeo.

Come to our upcoming BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media conference in Dallas to hear Texas Instruments, Shell, AMD, Coldwell Banker Real Estate, United Airlines, Level 3, Northwestern Mutual, and AT&T share 8 great case studies on corporate social media.

This event is all about how big brands use social media. No agencies, no startups — just big companies sharing what they’ve learned. You’ll get practical, how-to advice on developing your social strategy, scaling your program, driving sales, engaging internal and external audiences, and measuring it all.

You’ll ask questions, discover new ideas, and learn how to make your social media program phenomenal — all in one fantastic afternoon for just $250.

…and you’ll experience a bunch of great case studies, like this one from our BlogWell in Seattle:

Itron: Listen Before You Leap, presented by Michelle Jung and Dawn Shrum from GasPedal and SocialMedia.org on Vimeo.