Social media flings v word of mouth relationships

I found this great deck from Saneel Radia about social media flings (via Propogation Planning).

When I presented at last week’s Wildscreen 2010, the international festival for wildlife and environmental filmmaking, there was much discussion about how to go viral.

I explained the difference between viral and word of mouth in similar terms to Radia. A viral basically creates a social object – be it an Old Spice Man, a baby panda sneezing, or a T-Mobile flash mob – that is, a piece of content or experience which stimulates a low entry, huge and rapid peak of emotional engagement and social sharing.

Pretty quickly, that drops away. Which looks like this.

What word of mouth does is use those social objects or triggers as the start and not the end of the process, using that initial burst of excitement to kick-start a continual journey for the people involved. A WOM approach examines the reaction to the social object. It knows who is involved, why and how. It finds ways to then take their specific passion and build it into sustained and meaningful (i.e. revenue-driving) brand advocacy.

Which looks like this.

As Radia says, flings and meaningful relationships are not mutually exclusive. But I pretty much guarantee that if you enter a relationship thinking it’s just going to be a fling, without the ability and intention to turn your one night stand into a thousand and one nights of joy, you’ll be staring at an empty pillow tomorrow morning.

Unloved.

Brought into the world on Wednesday, October 20th, 2010 and filed under 1000thoughts.