Social Twist which introduced its nifty Tell a Friend tool last year has added another edge to its tool. The company which claims to simplify word of mouth marketing has announced the launch of Tell A Friend For Ads or TAF4A. SocialTwist previewed its new product in the TAF4 series at ad:tech. TAF4 ADs uses the popular word¬-of-mouth referral widget, Tell-a-Friend, to enable viewers to share the ad with friends as well as visit the sponsored link.
When we first came to know of Tell A Friend at WAT we were very impressed, so much so that we put it on the site the next day. What went in favour of TAF is that it had all kinds of sharing options in one click, and was designed well enough to grab attention. It could easily replace our email this widget and social bookmarking icons and still get the job done.That way it did put Word of Mouth in the proper context of things and not just in the name.
However the new widget takes this to a different level (whether good or bad is another question, but it does take it elsewhere). This is what happens on a website once they install TAF4A – Visitors to websites that use TAF4 ADs can pass on any banner ad to friends on their social networks, along with a comment. So instead of content earlier, now it will be banner ads that get passed on.
Viralness of ads is an important point on the web, I believe so. A good campaign which is not viral in its nature goes viral if it is innovative, has some relevant information or is simply intriguing enough for people to talk about it. For instance, I once tweeted about the online campaigns of Political Parties rating one better than the other. Esssentially they were banner ads, but it did create word of mouth for the one who did better (got a bunch of replies, was’t just my tweet). So that way, virality creeping into advertising is actually good. However, expecting people to send ads to others I guess is hard to digest for a lot of people.
Why would anyone bother sending even if they actually like the ad? The answer might lie in this statement in Social Twist’s release – SocialTwist has a performance-based pricing model and the ad referrals can be incentivized making them attractive for senders and receivers. Bees squirm around flowers not for beauty but for honey and that’s case here as well. Though we didn’t receive any information on what might be the share for referals. This however createsanother doubt in my mind.
Following the preview Mark Schreiber, General Manager, SocialTwist said, “Word of mouth and personal referral is implicitly trusted and carries higher chance of a click-through leading to a transaction.” Now personal referrals are trusted for a reason, the reason that the referral doesn’t have any other intention of sharing than sharing itself. How does Social Twist plan to safeguard this integriy of sharing while keeping the attraction of money intact? Won’t it affect the very basis on which Word of Mouth is built?
It will be interesting to see how the adaption of this product takes shape in the coming days.
