Best Business Expert

Recently, a satirical review of a t-shirt on Amazon attracted more and more satirical reviews… which turned into real sales for the company that makes the shirts! Read more about it here.

Or, just look at any book, business, or recording artist who makes an appearance on Oprah.

Or, consider how album sales are linked to controversial lyrics.

Or, how news reports of Twitter being the latest marketing craze feed the frenzy of people who suddenly NEED to be on Twitter.

When there’s buzz, suddenly the "volume" goes up. The number of people talking about the company increases. Attention is generated. And the business on the receiving end of the buzz notices a difference.

Getting people talking about the business has been around for a long time but one company seems to have turned it into an art form. The company is Half.com, which started like most businesses and was bought by Ebay for millions, got attention from getting people to talk about them. Although they had a number of initiatives that were worthy of watercooler conversations, their biggest, brashest word-of-mouth campaign was when they convinced a town to rename itself Half.com. They’ve been much quieter in recent years, but that initial buzz was enough to get the attention of a company like Ebay and entice them to pay.

It’s a snowball effect. Once you can generate enough positive, attention-getting headlines, people talk to their friends about you and then their friends tell other friends, and on it goes. Sometimes buzz is created by forces outside of your control (such as the satirical feedback posted on Amazon which drove business for the t-shirt company) but sometimes you can create your own buzz (by taking a page from Half.com). So, how can you create some buzz for your company?

• Start by looking at what you do and if there is a way that you can get some attention by doing it in a unique way. 1-800-GOT-JUNK does a great job of generating consistent local buzz by donating their time and talents to clean up public places. That’s a perfect example of the "sync" between the offer and some buzz-generating effort.
• Take it up a notch. While still striving for that fit between offer and buzz, find something that is unusual, bold, and unheard of. Renaming a town is a good example. This takes guts and perseverance to do successfully, and many good ideas are killed in the boardroom when the executives weigh the consequences and aren’t able to quantify the benefit. Buzz produces quantifiable benefits but must first pass through an unquantifiable stage. The inability to control the buzz is often an idea-killing reason, too.
• Buzz is a mindset. It’s not something that is easily done by flipping a switch. If you’re a conservative company that isn’t known for generating headlines, it will be much harder to do than if you are a company that doesn’t mind being a little brash and rough-around-the-edges. In other words, your buzz should sync with your brand. So consider adjusting your brand first.
• If you have a CEO or some other figurehead with a colorful personality, you can leverage this into some buzz. Compare Oracle’s in-your-face CEO with SAP’s very conservative (some might say "old school") approach to professionalism. And I don’t need to tell you that it works for rockstars, too.
• When planning to generate some buzz, don’t just come up with a great idea. Buzz won’t happen on its own. Figure out how you’re going to deliver it to the world, how you are going to nurture the conversations, and what you’ll do with the increased attention. Make sure that you’re ready to quickly ramp up marketing opportunities that leverage the buzz AND the ability to deliver increased products or services because of the buzz.
• Most importantly, don’t be afraid to fail. You might have to try a few different things before you’re successful with one.
   

Contemporary VA

@ContemporaryVA on Twitter.  Follow us to stay updated with our many resources that include business, accounting and bookkeeping, social media, and much more!

Related Articles:

• Word of Mouth Advertising
• Feeling Scatter-Brained?
• Employee Training
• Presenting Like a Pro
• Think Inside the Box