New Book by BIF-3 Storyteller Dave Balter: The Word of Mouth Manual, V. II

As consumers, we are all word-of-mouth marketers. We buy a product, love it and share our opinion with a couple of our friends. Conversely, if we hate the product, well we don’t keep that view to ourselves either. Either way, what we say can have a dramatic impact on a company’s bottom line.

Of course the difficulty for marketers is creating the right kind of buzz with enough momentum to carry it over the tipping point. Dave Balter, founder and CEO of BzzAgent and his network of 450,000 volunteer “agents” believe they’ve figured out a way to crack that code.

We first met Dave last year when he spoke at the BIF-3 summit last fall. He brought his artist-in-residence, Seth Minkin in tow. Dave has just published a new e-book called The Word of Mouth Manual, Volume II.

If you saw Dave at the summit, then you know he's an open and transparent kind of guy. Which explains why he's opted for a different sort of publishing route by offering his book for free download through several thought leader sites. (Thanks to Dave for considering BIFSpeak one of them - you can download your free copy here.)

BzzAgent CEO Dave Balter presenting at the BIF-3 summit while artist-in-residence Seth Minkin paints. The bee is an older painting.

Since 2001, Balter has been creating a different type of loyalty model which organizes massive groups of people to share their opinions around products and services and then, rewards them for doing it. With his company BzzAgent, he's developed a system that organizes, manages and measures word-of-mouth. CRM systems, he says, are filled with insane amounts of data. They’re knowledge platforms. “I wanted to create a ‘people’ platform of opinion and insight. I see word-of-mouth becoming a media channel that companies repeatedly tap into for everything from ideation to innovation.”

Now Balter wants to share with the world his secrets to word-of-mouth marketing. Here's how he describes his new book:

My new book, The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II, is an embodiment of Word of Mouth itself. Every aspect of it was conceived as an illustration of how to get people talking. There are dozens of elements of WOM in action which will become entirely obvious once you see it, read it and hold it. For example, the title begs people to ask, "Where's Volume I?" which is as good a way as any to get a dialogue going. The same goes for the monkey on the cover (and how that guy eats bananas, of course).

For Balter, what began as a “lifestyle” business—he told me last year that "BzzAgent was intended to be a nice, small five-person company”—is now a firm with more than 70 employees and a big time dream. When I asked him where he wants BzzAgent to be in the next five years, he answered: “Like TV networks or cable companies are the distribution platforms for advertiser’s commercials, I’d like to be known as the media channel in anyone seeking to engage the power of people’s credible opinions. If you’re going to do anything in word-of-mouth, you need to tap into the Bzzagent network.”

If you want to learn how to manage your own word-of-mouth, check out Dave Balter's new book.

Related BIF Content
Download a full (and free) copy of the book here.
Watch Dave Balter's BIF-3 video here

Other Content
Dave spoke with Guy Kawaski recently about his new book. Read the interview here.
BzzAgent's artist-in-residence Seth Minkin is becoming famous in his own right. Check out his recent segment on CBS Sunday Morning.
Learn more about BzzAgent