You’ve invested all this time and money in a new dynamite website. You think it’s great, and your current customers have all told you how much they love it, too. The problem is, it isn’t generating any new interest.
Translating current customers into future customers is the holy grail for any business. Throughout the entire history of business, word of mouth is the only advertising form that has never went up in cost. There are fewer better feelings than hearing how much a current customer likes your work. One of them is hearing it from a new customer.
But, be realistic: We don’t call each other anymore, we text. We don’t mail, we email. We don’t network in person, we network on-line. The development of the Internet allows us to communicate to almost anyone in the world. The problem is, we tend to interact the same way with the person in Italy as the person on the next street. We have fewer chances to interact directly, but we have unlimited chances to interact on the web, so we have to harness word of mouth advertising in a slightly different way.
Facebook ‘Likes’ and Twitter ‘followers’ have the direct advantage of allowing you to contact current customers. If you include those fans on your website, you get the indirect advantage of proving to potential customers that people, in fact, do like you and would recommend you. It’s social networking’s version of the word of mouth.