If you are a regular reader, you know that our thing is creating a little buzz all the time with as many advocates as possible. Doing that can lead to a long tail effect for buzz and grow your organization.

I had a form up where you could sign up to get information on my book, Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing as it nears release. I have been promoting it in a variety of small ways, and the funny thing is that each different way gets me a little more results.

• My Network – My personal network is the only thing that has resulted in a lot of interest right away. Some people have pre-ordered copies for all of their employees already.

The rest are all about even. All of the following areas have generated 1-5 people interested.

• My Squidoo Lens – Had I not taken 15 minutes the other night in bed to update my Squidoo Lens, I would have lost out on a couple of interested people.
• This Blog – Even with 50-150 readers a day, this blog has underperformed with sign ups. Only a few.
• eNewsletter – I have not made the announcement in our eNewsletter yet, but it landed in someone else’s and resulted in someone being interested.
• Trackback on Seth Godin’s Blog – Making comments and doing trackbacks on popular blogs also generate interest, and has generated conversions.
• Google Search – Yes, even the traditional search engine is bringing in contacts, and I didn’t even pay anyone for SEO.
• The great unknown – Several people have personality flaws and refused to let me know how they found the page. I might delete them, but then again, I might not.

This is in about 10 days of working at it in my spare time. The real lesson here is that Buzz Marketing should not be about hitting a home run. It should be about creating a little buzz here, a little buzz there and building it into a roar that sticks around and grows.

Creating buzz really can be thought of like a game. There are lots of ways to measure your success (points.) Here are the different point options you have. And by the way, you can help measure ROI with this as well.

• Sales Increase – Are your sales going up and Buzz is the only thing different?
• Website Sales – Can you track where sales are coming from on your website through your ecommerce store?
• Website Traffic – Is your website traffic growing faster? Do you see a bump after a buzz marketing effort?
• Blog Mentions - How often are you mentioned on blogs? Is it going up?
• Google Trends – If you are popular enough, Google trends will show you website search trends.
• Call and Email Volume – If you are getting more calls and emails for information, it is a good sign that buzz is paying off. Be sure to ask people how they heard about you.
• Search Engine Ranking – Believe it or not, Buzz effects search engine ranking. Blogs are excellent for SEO.  Every time someone links to your page from a credible site they are helping you archive better ranking. Measure your search engine rank for main keywords.
• Inbound Links – The same as search engine ranking. You can measure your inbound links on the major search engines.
• Referrals - If you are creating good buzz and have good products and services that people understand, you will see an increase in referrals.

I am sure there are more ways to measure your results. I know of some more sophisticated products out there but this is a simple list you can start with today. Be sure to write down your measurements so you can compare them over time.

As a general rule of thumb, I like to create buzz for something before it is available.  However, it is not the same kind of buzz before release and many people trying to do their own buzz marketing need to understand the difference.

For example, I started seeing movie trailers for Flicka a long time ago (more than 6 months, I believe) and my daughter has been asking to go.  I honestly thought we somehow missed it and it should be coming out on DVD soon.  The initial excitement (for my daughter, don’t worry…) is long gone.  I do not think it was a huge mistake, but it did create a sense of a let down instead of excited anticipation.

So what should you do before a product is released?

1. Keep some secrets.  Tell people enough to get them excited but not enough to make an I’m not interested decision before it is available.
2. Build relationships – Blogging or newsletters where you can capture an audience of people that are interested in your topic, and you know will be interested in your product when it is released.
3. Build online advocacy – Get people to interview you, link to you, talk about you… but do not leave them with nothing in the end.  If you are talking about your upcoming product and it is not available for 6 months, you would have been better just talking about the general topic your product addresses and getting people to subscribe to your rss or sign up for more information.
4. Remind your audience – In the case Flicka, imagine if they’d sent a poster to my daughter with the release date on it. She would have looked at it every day and the energy level would have grown instead of shrunk.
5. Don’t put all your energy up front – Selling almost anything is a long haul.  Don’t put so much energy up front that you are exhausted once you can really start selling it.
6. Save your big budget for after people can buy. – Create lots of free buzz before your product is available.  Use your marketing dollars after people can really buy.  – The exception to this rule is in products like movies that have a short life span.
7. Recruit Advocates – Recognize the people that are truly excited about your product and help them be better advocates.  Give them insider tidbits.  Keep their energy level high. Publicly recognize them.
8. Make it a cause – Create a cause around your product.  Sell the cause before the product is available. I could book all my travel online, but I use Coleman Travel because they have a cause.  All profits go to helping people with mental illness. 100%!
9. Have a focus group – The closer you get to release, the bigger your focus group should get.  Have them review and assess your product.  Give them permission to talk about it, but ask them to keep some things secret until the release date.  (No one can keep a secret, don’t worry.)
10. Train every person you can – Do not wait for your marketing or sales team to start building buzz.  Get the designers, writers, programmers and anyone else in the development process excited and give them permission to start buzzing.  If you are not sure how to do that, get my book, Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing.

I see so many people get all excited and create so much buzz for a product before it is avalalbe and then, when it is not an immediate hit, they give up.  Dreams of best sellers are gone.  The reality is that the pre-buzz is just the start.  If you are not familiar with the Long Tail, read that, pace yourself and set realistic expectations.

When I go out and speak about getting employees involved with creating buzz and word of mouth for the company, I always get a lot of nay-sayers that think it is not possible.  The fact is, involved management that helps a certain percentage of the workforce create buzz will improve employee morale and give employees a stronger sense of involvement with the company.

What does the management team need to do to increase buzz and employee morale?

• Identify which employees will enjoy creating buzz.
• Create some easy to repeat stories that employees know that they can spread.
• Let them know why creating buzz is good for them too.
• Get participating employees each a copy of Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing to give them ideas and inspiration to create more buzz.
• Celebrate success and keep employees moral and involvement high.
• Help employees feed off of one another person’s enthusiasm.

Challenge employees to make a difference in all aspects of the company.  This will help management improve buzz, improve employee morale for those that are willing to participate and make the sales guys job easier by generating more leads.

First off, the success of an organization is the responsibility of every person who gets a paycheck. Assuming buzz is not part of a job is like assuming showing up at the scheduled work time is optional.
It is important that employees understand the advantages of creating buzz for an organization. There are the obvious advantages an employer may wish to do, such as monetary incentives, rewards or bonuses based on increased business or stepped up buzz efforts.

Here is a brief summary of some of the other employee buzz creation incentives.

Employee Buzz Creation Incentive #1: Successful companies can give bigger raises.

Employee Buzz Creation Incentive #2: Job Security. Companies will be less likely to outsource the jobs of employees that are creating positive word of mouth and buzz.

Employee Buzz Creation Incentive #3: When employees become better connected and create more word of mouth, they are going to know more people and be recognized as a valuable resource. This may lead to other opportunities in the future.

Employee Buzz Creation Incentive #4: Secure company future by helping build it’s reputation and visibility.

Employee Buzz Creation Incentive #5: Become a more influential person by learning how to create buzz and word of mouth about the organization as well as about other things they care about.

Employee Buzz Creation Incentive #6: Increase friendships and industry connections as they reach out to create more buzz and build their personal network.

Employee Buzz Creation Incentive #7: Stand out in the eyes of peers and managers as someone who goes beyond the normal scope of a job and is dedicated to the success of the organization.

This is an incomplete list of employee incentives and benefits for creating buzz for their place of employment. The truth is that each employee will have a different experience that will have a different set of benefits to that person. Employers must keep positive, illustrate the benefits and continue to create buzz about creating buzz by recognizing top employee buzz performers.

New hires, you hope, are energetic and excited about their new job. Many companies require new salesman to contact all their family, friends and ex coworkers in an effort to get early sales.

This same emphasis can be put on all new hires if you make the goal a little buzz, instead of closing sales.

Here are some ideas you can do with new hires to get them involved with creating some buzz in those first few months.

• Letters to family and friends, letting them know what they are doing now and inviting them to stop by, if appropriate.
• If they left their last job on good terms, put together a little after work party between some ex coworkers and new coworkers.
• Do a press release on the new hire.
• Get a mentor from outside the company to support them through this transition. (Think of this as an excuse to call some people and let them know you are growing, plus help the new employee expand their network.)
• Have the new hire update all of their online profiles with new job info.
• Contact their alumni association and let them know that you have just hired on of their graduates.
• Help the new hire write a stunning email signature and send out announcements of their new job to all of their contacts.

New hires have a honeymoon period where they are excited about the job and will do most things asked. Start the emphasis on Buzz early and they will continue it as a part of their everyday job.

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.

Are You Asking “What is Buzz Marketing?”

Buzz Marketing is word of mouth marketing on steroids.  Buzz Marketing is when something big happens, or when enough small things happen and a buzz starts to build.  Traditionally, Buzz Marketing has been thought of for the big bang sort of buzz.  However, strategies can be put in place to steadily increase the buzz for an organization.

This steady growth of buzz comes from the careful planning and training of employees to act as advocates for the organization.  Tools exist for company employees to create more and more buzz for the organization even if they are not sales and marketing people.

Microsoft has a large percentage of their staff blogging regularly.

Buzz does not just happen online though.  With some thought to your message and what you ask employees to do, you can use Buzz Marketing techniques to create online and offline buzz.  Buzzoodle actually measures each time someone creates some buzz and gives the employee a score.

What has been most effective when using employees to do Buzz Marketing is to have those that are more technical or writing oriented focus their efforts on the web and with email, while having those people that enjoy talking and phone conversations work more with creating buzz when out in public.

Never underestimate fantastic customer service or original products for creating Buzz.  The best buzz marketing results will come from being exceptional, not from buzz marketing tricks and gimmicks.

Ask yourself these five questions and ask other people in your organization the same questions. Identify areas in common and then start creating some buzz about the good stories and special qualities. Everyone in the organization should know at least a few stories they can tell someone that paints the organization in a good and memorable light.

1. What makes the company different and unique? (Hint: It does not have to be directly about your product or service)
2. What makes working with us special? (Hint: Find examples of going above and beyond good customer service.)
3. What kind of crazy things have people in your organization been involved with? (Hint: People like to work with real live human beings that have some personality.)
4. How does your product or service make the buyer smarter, sexier and more attractive? (Hint: Yes, even selling accounting you have to answer this. It is the question your buyer is asking themselves, even if not consciously.)
5. What would our current clients likely tell their friends and colleagues about us? (Hint: Find things they can comfortably say about your and ask them to tell their friends.)

Use the answers to these questions to get everyone in your orfanization involved in your Buzz Marketing effort.

Here are eight free Buzz Marketing Ideas that you can use to create more regional buzz for your organization. Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing encourages lots of buzz marketing efforts in an ongoing way utilizing a variety of employees.

Buzz Marketing Ideas: #1 Ask your customers what they like best about your product or service. Ask them if they talk about you with other people and what they say. Use this information to craft good buzz stories and encourage your employees to work them into their every day conversations.

Buzz Marketing Ideas: #2 Create a local Blog and have people in your organization update it with interesting things going on in the area. Make sure it is clear that your organization is sponsoring the Blog.

Buzz Marketing Ideas: #3 Visit businesses within a short distance of yours. Let them know what you do and find out more about what they do. Invite them into your business to meet some of the staff.

Buzz Marketing Ideas: #4 Throw a dinner party (or lunch) for a group of people you would like to meet and could have a positive impact on your organization. Be sure to have some interesting buzz worthy stories to tell about your organization.

Buzz Marketing Ideas: #5 Email a reporter, writer or other media professional at least once a week and let them know you like their work and offer ideas you have for stories. Contact different people in different weeks, and try to develop a relationship with some of the people that could eventually write a story that would create buzz for your organization.

Buzz Marketing Ideas: #6 Surprise a current customer or client. The more often you pleasantly surprise your customers the more likely they will be to talk about you to other people. The more frequently you do this and the bigger the surprise the more buzz you will create.

Buzz Marketing Ideas: #7 Strive to be worth talking about. Review customer service, support, product quality, customer relationships and attention to detail. No matter how hard you try to create buzz, it will be short lived once people see a product or service that does not live up to all the hype.

Bonus Buzz Marketing Ideas: #8 Write an article and put it on your website that uses key words your target audience may search on. This article was written to get search engine results for Buzz Marketing Ideas because we noticed a fair amount of traffic coming to our site already with this keyword search, and we wanted the site to rank higher.

For more Buzz Marketing ideas buy the book, Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing