CHANGING MINDS – FROM THE WORD-OF-MOUTH TO SOCIAL MEDIA

New media have turned one of the oldest concepts in communication into today's hottest marketing tool. Traditionally known as word-of-mouth, its powerful new channels are social networking websites and its might is being felt from the boardroom to the classroom.

Friends telling friends about something they've experienced has always been around, but word-of-mouth and opinion leadership have become so front-and-centre because they are technology enabled.

New media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and the vast array of blogs and interactive websites enable that kind of fragmentation - people self-identify as part of a group forming an online community that converses, shares information and creates opinion leaders.

The ultimate aim of any teacher or marketer is to modify behaviors and thinking. Instructors develop learning objectives that specify the behaviors and skills students are to have mastered by the conclusion of the course. Outcomes could include the ability to understand theoretical concepts, articulate ideas in a clear manner or critically evaluate works based on acquired knowledge. Teachers assess students’ progress toward the objectives by means of tests, papers or other exercises. Achieving these outcomes requires that students think and act differently than before they entered the class.

Prompting changes in behavior and thinking are also what marketers aim to do. Common behavioral marketing objectives include encouraging trial or purchase of a product or service so as to increase market share or expand the current market. Often customers must be educated about the benefits and features of a product before they will risk spending their money on it. To educate customers, marketers take on the role of teacher by using their communication channels to explain how the product solves particular problems. In this paper we will discuss what changes have been brought by new technologies to the world of teaching marketing skills. It will be discussed how to use wikis, blogs and social networks to create new techniques to be used as marketers.