It really depends on your definitions We define word of mouth marketing as marketing activities designed to increase the amount of recommendation for your product. Note: NO MENTION of media. These recommendations happen in all the venues that the audience of the product interact with eachother. For youth oriented products it will happen face to face AND appear in social media For products aimed at people less technically capable it might not appear so strongly online. See the Keller Fay (http://www.kellerfay.com/) research about the vectors of communication for more details on this. Finally if you look at the Mccann Ericson research you will see that their results show that yes everyone is an "influencer" but there are some that seem to be more powerful that others. Walter's new research is more or less in alighnment with this Disclosure: I am CEO of one of Asia's leading word of mouth and social media marketing business - www.vocanic.com If you want more info on this and related topic you can see my blog at www.thepowerofinfluence.com