Walk the Walk, Evangelists

"Evangelism" is the catchword of the day. Companies are diligently turning their customer-service reps into "evangelists." How precious. But is there something behind this movement? Is evangelism actually taking CRM to a new level? Ben McConnell thinks so, and he cites an example at the Church of the Customer Blog. "It's one thing for your company to say, in blog posts and email newsletters, that it loves customers. It's another thing to go out and do the hard work of brand grassroots-building, and demonstrate it face-to-face."
That's what he says Betsy Weber, chief evangelist at Michigan software company TechSmith, does daily. "[Betsy is] building a passionate fan base for TechSmith by meeting customers and being the warm, caring person she is naturally," he notes. He cites some of her evangelical numbers. Over the past six years, Betsy has:
Met 7,000 customers in person
Attended 30 conferences per year
Picked up 3,000 followers on Twitter
Have her efforts paid off? Apparently so. "TechSmith has done well in that time: double-digit revenue growth every year," McConnell says.
The message for marketers? Be a good listener. The old model of talking the talk (hawking your products to a mass market) has shifted to walking the walk (letting your customers have their say, and adjusting your offerings accordingly).
The Po!nt: Walk that extra CRM mile. These days, engaging with customers across a range of media is a real key to keeping them loyal.
Source: Church of the Customer Blog. Read the full post here. Get to the Point! MarketingProfs

Educational site for Word Of Mouth/Social Media

Through one of my networking connections, I found this Virtual University on Social Media with very interesting 2 minutes "plain English" videos on several techniques (used for Social Media marketing) like Intro to RSS, Intro to Twitter, Intro to Podcasting, etc.

They have developed some simple courses on each. They also have some more in-depth courses packages on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

This is focused on how to use those techniques and systems and is quite well done as such. They also have some so called homework assignments to get started.

I will connect with the Chancellor of this university for more insights and information...and we let you know more.

Social Media Metrics and Monitoring tools

2 overview articles on the key tools that are available for respectively Social media measurements, ROI analysis and monitoring on one hand and Social Media information access and analysis on the other hand.

Very comprehensive set of tools for monitoring, analyzing and tracking Social Media...I did not test the all list my self but this is quite impressive...a good reference as you dig in WOM Marketing.

ROI for Word Of Mouth Marketing

Interesting article which gives some perspectives on how to integrate ROI calculation with Word Of Mouth Marketing with CPG examples.

Interesting perspective as we try to make some sense of the business validity of WOM Marketing