Why are people talking about me?

Who is talking about me? What are they saying? Who are they talking to? Where are they talking? Perhaps people are saying nice things? But what if they are not? Am I getting paranoid? If people are not talking about me, why not?

As a construction business, whether small, medium or large, domestic or international, consultant, contractor or manufacturer, if people aren't talking about you then you have a problem.

Word-of-mouth marketing is the key marketing tool for construction professionals in the business-to-business marketplace. You can spend your hard earned profits on so-called traditional marketing techniques, but at the end of the day, you are as good as your last job. Reputation building IS brand building in the construction industry. Word-of-mouth marketing is a challenge to manage. But manage it we must.

According to wikipedia, "word-of-mouth is a reference to the passing of information from person to person. Originally the term referred specifically to oral communication,(literally words from the mouth), but now includes any type of human communication, such as face to face, telephone, email, and text messaging".

There are many types of word-of-mouth techniques being applied today including "buzz", "blog", "viral", "grassroots", "cause influencers" and "social media marketing". If you are skeptical about the impact of all this, consider why politicians in particular, have got increasingly concerned about a shift away from traditional broadcasting, towards this form of communication. People are able to get information from a whole range of different traditional and online sources. They no longer rely on "official" or "controlled" media.

The same applies in the business/commercial world. Consumers and other key stakeholders are looking for testimony and reviews of products and companies before they buy or invest.

So what is the "buzz" about your company? Have you stopped to consider how your company is perceived by your clients and other key stakeholders? In times of economic slow down perhaps its time to take a good look at ourselves in readiness for better days ahead. The opportunity and challenge is to start to influence the "buzz".

Some useful references on the impact of word-of-mouth marketing include -

Renée Dye, 'The Buzz on Buzz,' Harvard Business Review, November-December, 2000.
Rajdeep Grewal, Thomas W. Cline, and Antony Davies, 'Early-Entrant Advantage, Word-of-Mouth Communication, Brand Similarity, and the Consumer Decision-Making Process,' Journal of Consumer Psychology, October, 2003.
Frederick F. Reichheld, 'The One Number You Need to Grow,' Harvard Business Review, December, 2003.
Yubo Chen and Jinhong Xie, 'Online Consumer Review: A New Element of Marketing Communications Mix,' http://ssrn.com/abstract=618782, July, 2004.
Florian v Wangenheim and Tomás Bayón, 'The effect of word of mouth on services switching: Measurement and moderating variables,' European Journal of Marketing, September, 2004.
Paul Marsden, Alain Samson, and Neville Upton, 'Advocacy Drives Growth,' Brand Strategy, December, 2005