Design Thinker David Armano posted a graphic design contest about 3 weeks ago for a free pass to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s Seminar in mid May. So I busted out the following graphic in about 5 hours of work, to convey some of my thoughts on what WOM means. Please note that I’ve exagerated negative WOM in this sample scenario only because promotors and super brand evangelists get a lot of marketers attention. Yet, there are many controversial subjects (as opposed to brands) that get booed all the time. Personally, I feel that more people like to share positivity than negativity, because it’s a reflection of who we are, and we probably would rather be perceived as positive. More notes below the graphic.
While an infographic should be self-explanatory, I will explain some of the thoughts behind my concept:
- At a basic level, there are at least 5 types of affinity levels from detest to love.
- People increasingly are inclined to tell others when their feelings toward like or dislike become stronger.
- Indifferent opinions have little propensity to be shared, unless if feedback is solicited.
- Some nodes have the opportunity to tell a LOT of people and influence their opinion (whether fully formed and objective or not).
- Highlighting different recipient reactions than from the original transmitter is reflective of reality; we don’t all share the same degrees of like/dislike, no matter who the influencer was nor how they communicated their opinion.
- There are some experiences that we may not want to share with a lot of people because of their personal nature, be they positive or embarrassing (for ourselves or others). Another circumstance could be that we learn something valuable, but out of self- or group-interest, we want to keep this knowledge just to ourselves or a very limited number of people.
- Everything depends on the quality of the idea first.
With that said, I’d like to point out one flaw I noticed in my diagram. Sandwhiching the label Detractors between the two big groups at the bottom could make one think all those people ARE detractors, when in fact they’re just recipients of the previous node’s recommendation, which itself is exagerrated according to the probabilistic behavior of nodes earlier in the tree.
Anyways, hope you enjoy it! Feel free to share along, as it’s under the following Creative Commons License
Hey Mario,
Awesome website, I first discovered you after seeing your cool visual on Logic and Emotion. Look forward to reading more of your work. If possible, try and write some longer posts. You clearly understand social media really well and I would love to hear more from you.
-Russ
@Russell: Thanks! When I write on social media topics, I’ll try to elaborate more.
about Word of Mouth: “People are 3.75x more likely to tell others of Hate than Love” — Mario Vellandi http://tinyurl.com/c7ny5t
Word of Mouth Visualized: http://tinyurl.com/c7ny5t
Hi! Great way to show what WOM is all about! I just finished my 3 year education in Denmark with an project about WOM. THX.
“Word of Mouth Visualized” – http://bit.ly/umqJZ
Pingback: 12 Key Elements of AMAZING Infographics | Grown Up Thinking
Could you elaborate on what each symbol means? I love this diagram, but want to be sure I am getting the full picture.
I followed a link from your Infographic on pamorama.net to see what else you had to say about it. In my experience, the huge majority are passives and negatives are far more influential than positives.
Consumers are far more likely to be suspicious of and discount recommendations and far more likely to act on negative information even if they feel it may not be even be accurate. Most people are afraid of being taken and may avoid businesses that have strong positive recommendations if they have any strongly negative reviews or warnings online.
Because of this, businesses need to be very proactive at making sure they provide excellent service and products and in reaching out to dissatisfied customers and doing their best to resolve complaints.
Every business gets complaints and some people can not be pleased; however, the more a business listens and cares about their buyers the more likely word-of-mouth-marketing will benefit them rather than hurt them.
If you ever create a similar diagram I would make the ratio of passives much higher. The number of detractors IS generally much higher than promoters because most people are more motivated to complain when unhappy than to recommend when they are satisfied.
Because of this I am amazed that more companies are not wooing their cheerleaders. There are only a small number of people who proactively and consistently recommend anything and they can only recommend a couple handfuls of specific products or services on a regular basis. Sharp businesses should be actively seeking out and working with those who genuinely believe in them.
Hi Gail, thanks for your comment.
By suggesting an increase of the number of Passives, I think you are referring to the number of people that FEEL this way. I certainly agree.
However the point of this diagram is to show how many people will go the next step and TALK about it. I believe that unless actively solicited, most people will not tell others about something they either don’t care or have a neutral opinion about.
Regarding the ratio of detractors to promoters, I think an overarching generalization would be unfair since the topics and feelings behind them really depend on the subject at hand, demographics, and psychographics.
Pingback: 35 Infografias sobre Social Media « Eduarea's Blog
Pingback: 40 Interesting and Mind Blowing Social Media Infographics - tripwire magazine