WOM is for small organisations too

I’ve spent the past two days plugged into my dongle, travelling between Darlington and Newcastle to give half-day workshops for culture and arts organisations in the north east of the UK. Impeccably organised by Audiences North East, it has been a welcome opportunity to talk word of mouth and social media with the museums, galleries, theatres, arts centres, public gardens, councils and universities in the area.

Many of these institutions have limited budgets and want to know how to get involved in social media when they don’t have the resources to launch full campaigns or constant WOM listening. My first message was not to panic: there was a sense of dismay at having to suddenly plunge wholeheartedly into every hot new platform, when really they should be choosing what tools work for them. There’s no point in having a Twitter account if you don’t have the time, resources or interesting daily updates to keep it dynamic and relevant. If they can’t really add value to these venues, it could be enough for the moment just to listen and learn from the opinions of their visitors and start to get a sense of their WOM triggers: what is and isn’t conversational about their current activities and approach.

The workshops have been a great reminder that bluechip corporations aren’t the only ones eager to begin communicating with and inspiring their consumers in new ways, and they’ve inspired some excellent ideas about how smaller institutions can start to develop some grassroots advocacy and prioritise where to start with WOM.

Brought into the world on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 and filed under Uncategorized.