22 May 2013

Virtual word-of-mouth: why modernising the world’s oldest advertising technique will help your small business

Submitted by: Suzanne Rogers

Word-of-mouth has been around for centuries. See why it’s important to be using it now, and how to enhance it with the technology you have at your fingertips.

Johannesburg, South Africa.92% of people trust recommendations from people they know, according to research conducted by The Nielsen Company last year. This means that over 90% of people are making use of the oldest method of advertising: word-of-mouth. Clearly, this age-old technique of telling people about your business still works today. But how do you actually use word-of-mouth to bring in more clients for your small business? Is there really a way to make sure 100% sure that your clients will advertise your business for you after using your product or service?

We would like to argue that you can use word-of-mouth to get more clients – you don’t just have to wait around for a client to give your number to a friend in need. The way you do this is by modernising word-of-mouth – taking the ancient concept and combining it with today’s technology in a way that will get your clients recommending you to all their friends. In a phrase? Virtual word-of-mouth.

But how do you do this? How do you modernise word-of-mouth using the technology you have around you? We would suggest the following:

1.     Get a website. Probably the best way for clients to see your service and tell their friends about you via word-of-mouth is to have a website that they can send their friends to by sharing the link to your site. (Remember, though, that it’s important to do something with the traffic that comes to your home page! Make sure your home page is friendly, inviting and easy for your clients to understand.)  

2.     Use social media. Make it easy for your clients to tell their friends about you by creating your own Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages, as well as any other social media site that your clients use. Encourage your clients to like your Facebook page or follow you on Twitter, and keep them interested with posts that are useful to them

3.     Use email. This seems like an obvious one, but it’s really important to have online contact details, in case some of your clients prefer email to telephoning. (This does require you to check your email regularly, though!)

4.     Create a blog. Look at starting a blog for your business. Write posts that will entertain or provide benefit to your clients, so they can share them with their friends on their own social media sites. (Think how many people will hear about your business when a client shares your blog post on their Facebook timeline. This is a good way for people to hear about your business!)

5.     Get published. See if you can get articles about your business published by online newspapers; submit press releases to online sites or get a friendly blogger to blog about you. The more pages on the internet that link to your site, the better. (This also means that it’s easier for your clients to share your service with their friends online.)

Basically, to really use word-of-mouth to its full potential, you need to tap into your clients’ social networks. You need to get your existing clients talking about you on Facebook and Twitter, or sharing your website, blog, press release or article links with their friends – that way, their friends will get to hear about your business, and may just become your new clients. Word-of-mouth on steroids? Exactly. That’s the beauty of virtual word-of-mouth – if you can get your clients to share your business with their friends online, you’ve got it made. You’ll get new clients without having to lift a finger!

Ledula.com uses this concept to get their home service providers more clients – Ledula uses your clients’ social networks to spread the news of your business through virtual word-of-mouth. Ledula actually encourages your clients to share your business with their friends, which means that all the hard work of advertising your company is done for you. 

For more information, or to ask any questions about how you can use virtual word-of-mouth to get more clients, email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We’d love to do anything we can to help your small business succeed.