As advertisers and audiences continue to drift apart, word of mouth remains an invaluable tool for brand building. According to survey statistics, 92 percent of people trust recommendations from people that they know personally, while 70 percent of people trust consumer opinions that are posted online. How does word of mouth work in the digital realm, and how can it help your brand?

Harness The Power of Social Media

Social media is one of the most powerful sources of word of mouth on the Internet. Individuals are viewed as non-biased and more truthful than brands. Therefore, a recommendation from an ordinary person could bring greater rewards than a high-budget advertisement. Recommendations from hundreds of people? Well, then your brand is winning.

Influencers

This is why influencers have risen in popularity over the past few years. Although they have a large reach and promote sponsored products, influencers are still viewed as trusted third-party sources of information. From micro-influencers with ten thousand followers to mega-influencers with over a million followers, you can now find influencers for every niche.

Tag-Friendly Presence

That said, there are numerous organic avenues for word of mouth on social media. Facebook allows people to ask for recommendations, while Instagram Stories is flooded with people posting about all kinds of products and services. Maintaining an active presence on social media makes it easy for users to tag your brand and for you to engage with them further.

User-Generated Content

User-generated content is another way to activate your word-of-mouth army. Hashtag campaigns such as #myvanspic where users can post their photos to win a chance in the spotlight are fantastic for brand building. In fact, no words are needed when you have forty thousand people posting images of your product. Need an extra boost? Ask them to tag three friends.

Competitions

Giveaways and contests are a tried and tested way to increase post shares and views. Aside from asking your audience to tag their friends you can also ask them to leave a comment on why they love your product or service. This will skyrocket your engagement and provide you with plenty of word-of-mouth reviews that you can use in your campaigns later.

Improve Your Visibility on Google Search

With billions of searches occurring on Google each day, your brand needs to have a strong presence on the search engine. In addition, research has shown that the majority of users only click on the top three results on a search engine results page (SERP). Hence, search engine optimization (SEO) is essential to ensure that you rank higher in SERPs.

What Are Backlinks?

What has this got to do with word of mouth, you ask? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Part of Google’s proprietary search algorithm is backlinks. Backlinks are the links from external sites that point to your website. The better the domain authority (DA) of the external sites, the higher your SERP ranking. In other words, Google is using online word of mouth to rank your search listing.

Unlike social media, where you can pay for people to post about your brand to some degree, paying to buy backlinks can be considered a black hat SEO technique. This means that it violates Google’s webmaster guidelines and could result in your page facing penalties. White hat link building, on the other hand, creates legitimate, quality links that keep Google happy.

How to Start White Hat Link Building

White hat link building is time-consuming and technical. This is why the companies that do it often specialize solely in link building. You need to research keywords, craft content, conduct outreach, and analyze the results. Link building can take weeks or months but their effects will help you to move up the ranks in Google and gain heaps more organic traffic.

First of all, you need to find the keywords that your users will use to search for your brand and the related products or services. Some keywords are more competitive than others. Choose a good mix of generic keywords and more specific long-tail keywords that are a minimum of three words. Then, check out your current ranking for those keywords and set a goal.

Content And Outreach

Creating great content is the key to improving your Google search ranking. With your keywords in mind, craft a piece that will be helpful or interesting to your target audience. This ties into the social media aspect as well. Typically, the more unique and valuable your content, the more organic shares and forwards you will receive on social media.

The quality of your content will also determine whether reputable high-DA sites will link back to your page. You can additionally conduct outreach and offer to write guest content for the sites that you admire in return for a link in the article to your site. This can help you to earn hard-to-get backlinks from prestigious publications like Forbes.

Word of mouth is undoubtedly a formidable form of organic marketing. As consumers trust each other more than brands, you must build a strong word-of-mouth foundation that supports your brand. Through managing your social media campaigns and investing in link building, you can harness the power of word of mouth for your success.