Word of mouth is an amazingly powerful force ? but how does it really work?.
Businesses have become obsessed with stimulating word-of- mouth to counteract the declining effectiveness of advertising. But it’s easier said than done.
As the founder of BzzAgent, a community of more than 400,000 people who volunteer to talk to friends and acquaintances about products they genuinely love, Dave Balter is a successful practitioner, not a theorist. And he’s figured out how to measure and harness word-of-mouth without corrupting it.
In Grapevine, Balter shows why honest feedback ? about books, restaurants, gadgets, or anything else ? is more believable than any paid endorser. And he answers some of the most elusive questions in marketing, such as what makes word-of-mouth very different from ?buzz” and ?viral marketing.”
Dave Balter is the founder and CEO of BzzAgent (www.bzzagent.com), the ground-breaking word-of-mouth marketing firm that has been profiled in Forbes, Fast Company, and a New York Times Magazine cover story.