Alltop.com

Social Media Examiner gets the lowdown from Andy Sernovitz, author of Word of Mouth Marketing and founder of the Social Media Business Council, on how to use word of mouth marketing, pitfalls of social media, and even his own story in this eye-opening Q&A.

Here’s a short excerpt of the longer piece:

Andy (Sernovitz): Word of mouth marketing is the art of getting people to fall in love with your brand. Getting them to be so thrilled and so turned on by what you do that they’ve got to tell people how awesome you are.

It’s a series of tactical things that I teach in my book. It’s a philosophy that says if we earn the respect and the recommendation of our customers, they’ll do all of our advertising for free.

Mike Stelzner (Social Media Examiner): Because they become advocates for you, right?

Andy: Because they love you. This is the Southwest and the Starbucks and the Zappos. When people love a brand, they love to talk about those brands.

Social media is a subset of that. It is one tool you can use to make it easier for your fans to talk about you.

These days, we’re really hot on social media. Everyone is saying, “Twitter, Twitter, Twitter.” We love the stuff, but we’re starting to let the tool take over the purpose.

Read the full interview at Social Media Examiner.

Stay on top of the latest in social media.

Photo credit: Fotolia