1. People talk.
2. People talk because they feel.
3. People talk about things that have meaning.
4. People talk about things of mutual interest.
5. Some people get listened to more than others.
6. You can identify the talkers who get listened to in your business.
7. Word-of-mouth is the primary means by which your reputation is spread.
8. Word-of-mouth universally is considered the best method to signal value to customers.
9. Word-of-mouth is controlled by your customers.
10. Champion customers who spread your reputation can expand and exaggerate your virtues or faults when you cannot.
11. The central figure in word-of-mouth communication is the "opinion leader".
12. Opinion leaders include people such as "market mavens", "product enthusiasts", and "influentials".
13. Opinion leaders help you by helping themselves and others.
14. The stronger the social tie between an opinion leader and an opinion seeker, the more likely the opinion seeker will act on the recommendation.
15. Opinion seekers depend upon opinion leaders to achieve their own goals.
16. Word of mouth covers the broadest range of interests and endeavors and covers the largest proportion of the population compared with any other promotion method.
17. Three kinds of social connections spread word of mouth: close friendships, casual acquaintances, and aspirational relationships.
18. Word of mouth is at the same time your best offensive and defensive weapon in marketing warfare.
19. Negative word of mouth travels faster than positive word of mouth.
20. Negative word of mouth is just as useful to potential customers as positive word of mouth in that it helps them discrimiate on one or more product/service attributes.
21. Word of mouth transfers the core meaning of a product from one person to another.
22. Between 20% and 40% of the population are opinion leaders.

A. Four corollaries of reverse polarity momentum:

1. If you try to stop it, word-of-mouth momentum increases.
   
2. If you try to force it into motion, you will probably stop it or prevent it from beginning.
   
3. Word of mouth increases as the product is more difficult to get.
   
4. The more secrecy shrouds a product, the more people want to talk about it.

B. Real word of mouth promotion is organic: it starts with the grass roots.

C. Six corollaries of word-of-mouth movement:

1. Movement: Word of mouth is always on the move.
   
2. Entropy: For any given product, word of mouth is time-limited and eventually will end or shift to focus on another product.
   
3. Velocity: Word of mouth usually has direction and speed - it can go fast in all directions.
   
4. Power: Word of mouth moves under its own power and according to its own rules.
   
5. Acceleration: The following elements tend to accelerate word of mouth: Controversy, surprises, the bizarre or unusual, free samples, a human-interest story, moral dilemmas, irony, curiosity, any core element of culture.
   
6. Deceleration: Word of mouth slows down as the community is satisfied that it has heard enough.

D. Naming a product assigns it an identity and supplies an easy conversational handle.

E. The positive power of negative valence: Negative word of mouth travels farther and faster than positive word of mouth travels.

F. In the perception of the consumer word of mouth always tells the truth, represents the truth, the hope for truth, or the fear of the truth.

G. Bipolar igniters of word of mouth:

1. Good deeds, evil deeds
   
2. The truth, the lie
   
3. High price, low price
   
4. High quality, low quality
   
5. Clarity, ambiguity
   
6. Disclosures, secrets
   
7. Answers, questions
   
8. Strengths, weaknesses
   
9. Opportunities, threats
   
10. The known, the unknown
    
11. Hope, fear
    
12. Solutions, problems
    
13. Gains, losses
    

H. Thirteen corollaries about rumors (from the book Rumors by Jean-Noel Kapferer):

1. Rumors do not begin with the truth and then degrade it. Rather, rumors are an attempt of the community to find the truth.
   
2. Rumors are troubling because they contain information that cannot be controlled by those in authority.
   
3. A rumor will spread as a direct result of the importance of the issues multiplied by the ambiguity of its content.
   
4. Once a rumor identified as such by the community, it stops spreading.
   
5. Rumors create community cohesion.
   
6. Rumors spread because they are popular not because they are necessarily true.
   
7. Rumors spread less from objective facts than from their perception.
   
8. Rumors spread because they have value.
   
9. Rumors have value because they contain a secret or information that is unsaid through official channels.
   
10. Rumors are more valuable if they contain information that is current.
    
11. The information in a rumor does not last. Therefore the community must use it up as quickly as possible for the users to get the most value from the rumor.
    
12. Rumor's power is increased when the information it contains agrees with the community's intuition or expresses a community hope or fear.
    
13. Rumors are not believed because they are true or proven. Rather, rumors are true because they are believed.
    

(For more information about these and other principles, read Let Your Customers Do The Talking)

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