What is the best form of advertising? Word of mouth. What is the worst type of advertising? Word of mouth.

One might say how can something be the best and the worst. Very easily. There are two types of word of mouth: good & bad. When people have a bad experience, they tend to tell many people about it. When people have a good experience they will tell people about that. Unfortunately in our society people tend to share about bad experiences more often than sharing about good experiences.

Word of mouth is very powerful whether it is good or bad.  When we feel passionate about something good or bad, we will tell anyone that is willing to listen. We will give all the details, and try to sell our listener on why they should or shouldn’t use a product or do business with a company.

Think about it.  Say you just bought a new cell phone that just came out and you love it. You are going to tell friends, family, co-workers, etc just how great the phone is. You will tell them about the cool features. More than likely you will also show them.

Now say that cell phone’s battery doesn’t last long or you are having some other issues. You call customer service and the person is not helpful. You are going to tell friends, family, co-workers, etc how the phone stinks and the service stinks. You are going to tell them all the things that you don’t like. You may or may not say what you do like it all depends.

Either scenario is word of mouth. It is selling others on the product or service. If it is good, you will attempt to influence them to buy the same product or service. If it is bad, you will attempt to influence to not buy that product or use that service.