Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing Challenge #4

We are posting a short Buzz Challenge each workday this week and next. Under 15 minutes and if you do all of them, and get all your colleagues and employees doing them as well, you will find an uptick in Buzz about your organization. Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing Challenge #4 OK, today lets make this challenge a bit harder than an email. Today I want you to meet someone you would not have met had you not read this Buzz Marketing Challenge. Ideally in person, but however you are comfortable. The challenge is to meet them and talk at least a couple of minutes, letting them speak at least half the time. If you are in sales, this is nothing for you. However, do not go after a prospect and sell, go after a human and listen. (So yes, this may be hard for a few sales people after all.) How does this create buzz? If one person in your organization does it once, it probably will not. Maybe you need to send out a company email that says today is meet someone new day. If 100 people do it, imagine, you have an instant new network.

Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing Challenge #3

We are posting a short Buzz Challenge each workday this week and next. Under 15 minutes and if you do all of them, and get all your colleagues and employees doing them as well, you will find an uptick in Buzz about your organization. Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing Challenge #3 Write an email or send a letter to a writer, radio or television personality and let them know how much you like their work. Let them know a bit about you and how what they do impacts your life or business. Mention something [ideally in your business] that they might be interested in. Be sure your signature line in your email is sharp. As a time savings device, here are some authors I have corresponded with. I did not ask their permission, but I know they are good at answering correspondence. David Lorenzo (Email on left) Seth Godin (Email on Page) Marc Miller and Jason Sinkovitz Email: info@sogistics.com Anita Campbell Ron Finklestein (Footer has email) Keith Ferrazzi This is just a quick list. All the better if you find someone in your industry or a local newspaper reporter. Just find someone that may be interested in writing or talking about you and your company. Again, under three minutes. Are you keeping up?

Buzz on the Radio - Podcast Actually

Anita Campbell at SMB Trendwire did an hour long interview with me yesterday. It is archived if you would like to take a listen to my ramblings on Buzz Marketing and building an advocacy base.

Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing Challenge #2

We are posting a short Buzz Challenge each workday this week and next. Under 15 minutes and if you do all of them, and get all your colleagues and employees doing them as well, you will find an uptick in Buzz about your organization.

Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing Challenge #2

Go to a blog or message board and post something thoughtful on an article you read. Be sure to link back to your website, and if possible, mention what you do. First and foremost make sure your post is something that adds value to the article.

If you do not know how to find other blogs, go to Technorati and do a search on your industry. If that is going to take you too long, I invite you to blatantly tell me what makes you special in this blog post comment area.

Under two minutes, no excuses.

Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing Challenge #1

For the next 10 business days (Every day this week and next) I will post a simple challenge that you can do to create more buzz for your organization. Each challenge should take under 15 minutes, and ideally only 2-3 minutes. If you want to get oodles of buzz, have all of your colleagues, employees and advocates visit this blog each day and do the challenge as well. By compounding the effort, in two weeks you will have created much more buzz for your organization. Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing Challenge #1 Email a family member or friend that does not understand what you do well or what your company does, and let them know a little about your organization, why you like working for the organization, and what kind of people you like to meet, that are beneficial to your career or organization. Yep, that is it for today. When one of these challenges result in great buzz, let me know and I will post about it.

What does an advocate do?

Our friend, Ron Finklestein at Your Business Coach wrote a book a while back. Disclosure: He does not pay me to help promote his book, although he does host a website with another company of ours. Tonight I was at the local library and saw his book in the new book area. Being an advocate of his, because he has always been so helpful to us and because the book is good, I took his book down and did a face out for him. (I made the book stand with the cover out, more prominent.) A small act, but how do you get your customers, employees and other advocates to take advantage of small opportunities to create more visibility and buzz? That simple act may lead to someone reading it and hiring him as a coach, resulting in a significant amount of income. In this case, I can tell you that he has been involved with us for years and has consistantly cared about our success, and likewise we care about his.

Buzzoodle in Action (in principle)

Our friend Phil Gerbyshak got mentioned on the never eat alone blog by Keith Ferrazzi. I am not sure that Phil did this because of Buzzoodle, but it screams our point. Contact authors you like and you never know when they will write about you. Congrats Phil.

Small Business Trends Internet Radio Interview

Small Business Trends Radio is interviewing me for about 45 minutes tomorrow, starting at 1:00PM EST. It will be put into their podcast archieves after that. Podcasts are a great tool for you to build buzz, and interviewing people is a great way to meet new people you might not have otherwise met.

Two Types of Buzz Building

Most buzz marketing experts are spending their time trying to think up the killer thing that will get a client noticed. You could do this for yourself too. Start trying to think of things you can do that will make everyone talk about you. However, these are hit and miss. If you hit, it could be a jackpot, but if you miss, it could be a colossal waist of time and could even backfire. We approach Buzz first from the Snowball Buzz route. This is when an organization embraces a steady effort to create small amounts of buzz through organic stories released in an ever increasing rate from a passionate group of advocates that are close to the organization. Like a snowball, it continues to build until it is huge. By focusing on the snowball, some of your advocates will eventually create some of the Jackpot Buzz that most buzz marketing experts would have you believe they can do for you. It is more likely over the long haul because of the constant broadcast of messages by the many advocates of the organization. And once the Snowball Buzz is in full force, you can always do some brainstorming on how to create better stories and more buzz faster with your advocates. The sure way to strengthen your organization and get the most from Buzz Marketing is to develop the Snowball Buzz strategy first, and then start thinking about how to hit the jackpot.

Suggest a Topic

Due to a holiday I am writing a little less, but please feel free to post suggestions for future topics in the comment field. I would love to know if there is something a reader is especially curious about, other than how I look. [Not like Dawn Yang, for sure]

Buzz Marketing: What Not to Say and Do

Just as there are magical things that can ignite a buzz frenzy, there are also things that can make people turn off right away and stop listening to your message. Here is a list of some things to avoid, and feel free to add other buzz killers in the comments. 1) We are a small company.... 2) We just started out.... 3) We do [tech mumbo jumbo] 4) Blame others, worst of all your customers, for problems 5) Make sexist or racist jokes [You would think this is obvious, but I have heard one of each in the last week.] 6) Fail to let your audience participate in the conversation 7) Assume other people care as much as you do 8) Tear something apart without posing a solution It really comes down to two things: Have confidence and be sensitive to others.

Amazon Wiki

Via Church of the Customer, Amazon is going to be allowing customer built information about each product through a wiki. 1) Fantastic and I am looking forward to seeing it. Since people can do it on thousands of websites and blogs anyway, why not make it part of your site! 2) What a great buzz opportunity to give good, thoughtful reviews about business books and such. Also, I am sure it will spawn a mini industry of people that will design Amazon Wiki material for products.

Buzz Marketing: HR as a Profit Center

This post makes a good follow up if you read the last one, about Buzzoodle as a more ethical form of Buzz Marketing. I met with someone today that took what we have known about our approach and went a step farther. She pointed out that by using the Buzzoodle approach for training employees to have a more positive outlook and spread more buzz and word of mouth, the HR department would stop being seen as a cost center and could take on a major role as a profit center. In fact, we often find ourselves working more with employees at staff meetings than with a companies marketing department, although both are important to the success of the effort. This is fairly revolutionary in corporate thinking. Those people in charge of health care plans could soon find themselves in charge of the most influential part of the marketing plan as well. And to me that makes sense. An organization is only as good as it's people, and HR is in charge of finding great people and making them greater.

Buzz Marketing Ethics

Why is Buzzoodle the most powerful and ethical form of Buzz Marketing? Disclosure. If I am a paid marketer creating buzz for your company, I am required by current ethical standards to disclose you are paying me to create buzz. Now consider how those rules impact family, friends and employees.

• I work for Buzzoodle and it is the most innovative company in the world. (Disclosed and passionate)
• My son started a company called Buzzoodle and he has all kinds of big clients. (Disclosed and non-threatening)
• I was just at a buddies house this weekend and he was telling me all about his cool new business, Buzzoodle. (Sincere word of mouth)
• I used to work for a company called Buzzoodle and it was so fun and innovative. (Watch it spread over time)

The Buzzoodle philosophy is to build these more legitimate broadcast centers and empower them. It is not a quick fix you can just throw money at, but it is the strategy that will have the best returns in the long run.

Buzz and Kids

With all this talk of Buzz Marketers exploiting children and generally ruining the world, I thought I would take a moment to discuss how I am using buzz with kids. I have an eight year old daughter who was just recognized by the chamber the other night because she is working to get her own business off the ground. Lemon aid stand? Paper route? No, that would just not do. New manufacturing and distribution company that will create innovative products? Two months ago I heard people saying it was not possible, now we have people lining up to help get it going. Keep an eye out and I will let you know more about it as she gets closer to her release date.