No matter how many online social media exist: people still mainly talk to each other about products, companies and experiences in ‘real-life’ in person contacts.
This does not mean that opinions on social networks, online peer reviews, blogs and all the other only digital media where people can get informed by influencers have no impact.
But still: word of mouth is and remains primarily an offline matter.
Many marketers still wrongly think that word of mouth (WOM) mainly revolves around communication. However, actually it doesn’t.
Of course there is a communication aspect in WOM, but it is not the essence, it is rather a necessary element. The main question, however, is why people talk about stuff, including our companies, brands and products.
Besides all possible psychological reasons (and there are quite a few), we often forget the essence of WOM: the message itself, the topic or rather, the story.