Word of mouth, without the mouth.

Every marketer knows the power of “word of mouth.” As advertisers, we strive to generate positive conversations, or word of mouth, at every opportunity. There is nothing more powerful and more rewarding than to have your target, your customers and people in general talking about your brand because you’ve created something that rings true and has meaning. Enter social media, which is essentially tactics providing your brand the opportunity to enter into people’s conversations, sometimes quite literally. But, make no mistake; the tactics have changed, but the ideas and message are what actually creates the conversation, not the tactic.

One hundred years ago, when someone received a letter from a friend, that letter was social media. Fifty years ago, when they called a friend to talk about a new product they saw in a commercial, that phone was social media. “Social media” as we define it today generally applies to digital, but it is simply another form of interpersonal communication.

The key to incorporating social media into your marketing is to simply create something (an idea) and introduce it to people so they share it with people they know – no different than running a great ad in the 1960s and having people talk about it around the water cooler the next day.

And of course, the great benefit to all of the new and evolving channels is that you can bring these people right to you, instantly.

How you introduce your idea to many people has changed, but at its core, it’s still just advertising.