WOM CH1-5

I strongly agree that all marketing efforts must be ethical. Especially nowadays the internet makes everything spreads so much faster, I must pull out an old Chinese saying, "Paper can never hide a fire". Good news are hard to spread, but bad news usually travel farther than we expect. I also agree that I trust real strangers on the web than advertisements. Before I bought a curler on Amazon.com, I skipped the product description and went straight to comments. Those are comments written by people I never met and probably never will meet in my life! Another important point that makes me think is the fact that WOM marketers must make the topic EASY to talk about. I am starting to think that a doctorate degree may not help in this field of study. Should I still think about getting a doctoral in Marketing someday? Last but not least, marketing efforts should also be invisible. Giving your customer a voice can be very risky though. "Let the customers do the talking" is almost like "let your people govern the nation". This raises an important question that I wish Joe Barnes, my respectable professor, can answer. How are you sure if your message will get across and come through the invisible-ness? How do you take care of the unintended consequences (i.e. people got confused about what product you are trying to promote, or people did not even realize that you are promoting a certain product until some news reporters spread the "truth" that such and such viral video was fake)?

My First Day of Class

Reason for taking this class

This class word of mouth attracted me a lot when I registered it. This is because this technique has been widely used and growing rapidly within these few years. For example, we can see how successful Facebook links people together and businesses make use of this chance to market and advertise their businesses with just a small amount of money. However, I think this is not a easy skill as we see, it is a skill which we have to learn in order to use it in a right and most beneficial way to us. I feel like if we know how to master this skill, it will be a great advantage for being either an employer or employee.

What I learned

After I read the required materials from this course, I conceptually understand the most recent trend for marketers. Web and Internet should be a growing and on-going trend for all kinds of businesses. Everyone love convenience and is impressed by those companies which provide them the ease of access. On the other hand, I was very impressed by the Five Ts of Word of Mouth Marketing. How companies get people talking and make them involve. Through this way, they can have access to how their customers view on their business without spending extra resources to follow up the opinions of their customers. And from this, companies can make continuous improvement and keep their pace up-to-date to the recent changing environment.

Day One of Mktg 491

Every quarter, the first day of classes is something like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates because you never really know what you're going to get. This time around, however, you've hand selected 3 chocolates (well... classes). You know what the outside looks like, thanks to the course description, but what will be on the inside? It could be chocolate ganache, marshmallow and caramel (my absolute favorite), coconut, or some awful creme. Coming into Mktg 491 I knew the outside of the chocolate looked quite tasty, but wasn't sure the inside would measure up to my favorite marshmallow and caramel combo. Luckily, Joe Barnes has the ability to make learning fun, relevant, and hip. I never expected that a 6-8pm class to be able to hold my attention. It probably helps that I'm a marketing major about to interview for a social media job, but this is the kind of class that I wish all my classes were like: interactive, dynamic, and fun. Yeah, I say that now. I'll keep you posted as the quarter continues. Either way, on the first day (when you usually just learn about the syllabus), I gained a new perspective on word of mouth marketing. Instead of talking, we, as marketers, should be listening. Listening! In listening to customers (not just hearing them) true conversations can form around a brand and in turn those conversations will help build relationships. Building relationships = buildings sales... and who doesn't want that? To conclude, I've read the first 5 chapters of Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz. What a great read! This book is full or great one-liners. My favorite from today being: "You can't fake love-or positive word of mouth." Love it! And I'm not faking it. Seriously, I tweeted it this morning. This book is the introductory self-help book for marketers who are looking to dip their toes into the pool of word of mouth marketing. Join me, jump in, and enjoy the swim.

Thoughts on day one...

This will probably be the first blog that I regularly contribute to, and that's because it's required. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of blogging (as scary as it is to permanently put your thoughts out there on the internets, eek!) and I even have 2 blogs which I sporadically write in! And by sporadically I mean like once or twice since inception. Anywhoo, this will be an interesting experience and I am reeeeeally looking forward to this commitment.

As far as Sernovitz's book goes...so far I absolutely love it. He has such a clear and concise writing style that gets his point across without being stuffy or, as bad as this may sound, "academic." I can easily read, relate, and even (gasp!) remember what it is he is talking about. I'm only a few chapters in but I already have used numerous sticky notes and underlined little pearls of wisdom I found relevant. I am really looking forward to diving more into this book, class, and even this blog.

My first day of class

I am taking this class is because I think this is very interesting and useful class. I feel like traditional marketing is no longer a method to target customers. Social media has played an important and powerful role in our life such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. In order to target customers and to know what their needs and wants are, marketers need to know how to use social media effectively. Social media not only can advantage companies but also can disadvantage them. In the lecture, we watched the tongue brush commercial on Youtube. The company expended their product by posting an interesting advertising on Youtube. It has attracted lots of people watching their commercial and purchasing their product. They did not spend any money on their commercial, it showed how powerful the social media is. I am looking forward to learn more in this class. I believe after this quarter I will know more about social media and know how to use it in effectively ways.

My First Marketing491 Class

First Day of Class

With the growth of social media over the past few year, marketers have been seen a potential marketing opportunity to expand their reach to customers through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and etc. Social media has become a new trend to engage with customers. Unlike traditional marketing strategy, the word of mouth marketing turns out to be more powerful and creditable way to understand consumers’ needs and wants. When I sign in this class, I did realize that social media will impact marketing and advertising industry to the whole different perspective in the future. However, unorganized and poor design social networking could damage brand awareness, lost valuable customers and etc. I am very exciting to learn how to use the word of mouth marketing in the right way to make people talk about products, services or anything. I believe the next 3 months will be a very interested journey.

What I Learned

I think the most important thing I learned during first class is “Listen to your customers!” By watching couple YouTube video, I realized that today’s market model is not around Business to Business or Business to Consumer. It’s about Business launch customers talk to other customers. In addition, companies are starting to use social media to solved consumers’ complain or unsatisfied services in a quick way. For example, Alaska and Horizon Presidents use YouTube to apologize for cancels flight after outage. I am very impressed that Alaska Airline uses the social media to explain and apologize for their serious mistakes right on the first stage.

In the end, I am looking forward to learn for word of mouth marketing!!!! And I am glad that I sing up this class. : )

Class Experience and Book Review

Word of mouth marketing- To me is a very interesting topic because companies just need to spend small amount of money on marketing. This is the main reason why I want to know more about these tools. Another reason I take this class because now many companies hire people who know about social media. To be honest, many people in our age have been using social media, but at least I don't know how to use social media effectively. I have feeling that I will change my view of marketing after this class.

What I have learned The first thing that I have learned is about "Storytelling". In my past experience, my marketing professors never mentioned about "Storytelling" as a marketing tool. But when I think back, I just realize that those ads I remember are because of storyline which I can easily remember. However, I would like you to show us more about reality example and help us to become a storytelling person since I am not good at it.

The second thing that I remember is about only 14% of people trust TV ads. I feel little bit surprise. The fact shows that consumers lost their trust. It's truth. I always use "On Demand" to watch drama because I can skip the ads. Ads push people too much and which makes me feel that using social media to sell products is very important. Social media became success is because we trust other consumers than companies.

"Word of Mouth Marketing" book review

I quite like this book because the author uses simple words to describe. Also, the topics are very organized which I can easily follow. Some ideas change my thinking, For example, He said that "Marketing is what you do, not what you say." The other idea is very useful, but I couldn't find which pages it is. The idea is about PR are not try to cover the truth. Their job is about changing the conversation from bad to good. Using different kind of word shape people’s opinion, but PR still tell the truth.

However, when I read this book, I feel that there are not too many reality examples. Sometimes I wonder that is it worked on the business world. I think that the author should use more statistic and a little more examples to prove his points.

What I Learned During Class: Number One

When I first signed up for this class, several weeks ago, I assumed the course contents would be applicable to my current internship position with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. {I assumed correctly and am looking forward to utilizing anything and everything I learn this quarter to help out M-A-W!} After yesterday evening's session, I am now confident that what I gain from this class will also be highly relevant to my future career in marketing/advertising.

First Impressions

I enjoyed the format of yesterday's introductory class. The mix of video and PowerPoint was engaging and really held my interest. The brief introduction given on Andy Sernovitz's book gave me a nice preview of some of the concepts we will be covering this quarter. I definitely left the classroom intrigued by the general concept of word of mouth marketing. I've heard of social media marketing and viral marketing, amongst others, but have never formally been introduced to word of mouth marketing.

What I Learned

The most important thing I learned during this first class is conceptually quite simple, but has the potential to completely alter the current marketing environment. "Think as an internet user rather than as a marketer." i.e. Be your own customer! As was pointed out during class, many companies rely on one-way means of communication, often overwhelming consumers with unsolicited, ineffective advertisements. It is to everyone's benefit for a company to connect and converse with its consumers. An example of a company that does an outstanding job of communicating with its consumers is Old Spice. Last year's "Old Spice Man" YouTube videos almost instantly became a viral sensation. But Old Spice didn't just bask in the success of its online campaign; it creatively responded to its consumers comments with humorous, personalized internet responses. view here

...Looking forward to an enjoyable quarter!

First day of MKTG 491

Frankly, this blogging thing is a bit hard to follow up for me because I never blog before. I never do any blogging in my life, I got no social networking website or whatsoever. I did have a social networking account before but it troubled me with my privacy and I know I had to close my account. So now, the furthest I go is a MSN account and this blogging thing. The first day of class is fairly a smooth introduction to how important social media role is playing in our society. Professor Barnes showed us this short presentation on how social networking and social media is impacting our lifestyle. I was fascinated by the statistics such as only 14% of consumers will actually buy a product because of an advertisement where the rest of the percentage is drawn to purchase by the powerful words of mouth. That's quite interesting because many big companies spends millions of dollars for advertisement. I am looking forward to learn how our generations have change by technology and how I can bring this lessons to my future career in Commodities Derivatives Exchange.

3/29 E-Marketing

My first day of class was very intriguing. As a senior status and Spring quarter being my last quarter for that matter at Seattle University, I was very meticulous about what classes I chose. I am very pleased to say this subject matter has much relevance to my future career aspirations as a Sales Associate for HP down in Sacramento, CA. I am excited to be engaged with another company throughout the quarter (hypothetically) which will be the company Light Rail. The individual and group strategy reports is something I have not yet done in my academic career and am curious to find out what it is all about. There are several websites/organizations/forms of social media that I did not know about until today's class (maybe that is just the Canadian ignorance I guess). The first of which is linkedin, the second is "the experience economy", third PCC market and fourth but not least Twitter. All of which I am going to look more in depth at over the next couple days. The main focus I got out of today's class was the five T's of word of mouth marketing which are talker's: who will tell their friends about you? Topics: What will they talk about? Tools: How can you help the message travel? Taking Part: How can you join the conversation? And Tracking: What are people saying about you? We watched a couple videos in class today and one of which stuck with me; the breathe brush commercial. It was interesting to see the approach the marketer's took for this YouTube video. They quoted "Be your customer's" and "Be an Internet user not a marketer...want people to find my ad and look for it". The advertisement itself had a very appealing touch with humor and spontaneity triggering a certain nostalgic value to it. Very memorable and impressive. To finish my blog I am going to let you know that I am currently searching for the best deals on Amazon.com for the two books I have not yet bought for this class which are required. Glad to hear the assignment is put on an extension until next Tuesday. Very hectic but positive week. Thanks for the first class!

3/29 First class blog entry

I must admit it will be hard to write 3 paragraphs on the first day of class. Nobody has written anything yet, I hope you all don't mind I get started to get this over with before I forget anything. Just thinking of the fact that anything I write is permanent on the internet (per one of the videos we watched today) gives me goosebumps. Maybe I shouldn't use my real name. Maybe I shouldn't use any pictures... But I supposed I don't have the talent to offend anybody to the extent that I would invite any lawsuits. Just on a side note, I've heard that pictures get you more views and more "friends". So do it, upload them all, my friend. I am glad that the professor showed the Alaska/Horizon apology video. I heard on the KOMO radio at the beginning of Spring Break that many people who were planning to go to Hawaii were stuck in the airport. The representatives only give $200 vouchers, and no taxi reimbursement nor hotel accommedations. Now the apology video says that people can book their next flights for free. That sounds a whole lot better than a $200 voucher. On the other hand, I stare at the presidents' eye balls the whole time. I want to see if there is any trace that they are reading off a a huge script. Well, I didn't find any, yet. So well done, Alaska and Horizon, for making the effort in an unexpected disaster. I enjoyed the videos in class. They are what keep the class interesting. They are relevant and up-to-date. Videos and pictures always speak louder than words. I wish I have one of those video device the professor showed today, so I don't have to write my boring entry in words. Donations, anyone?