Buzz Book Winners: Creating Buzz Isn't That Hard, Is it?

First of all, thanks to everyone who participated in the Create Some Buzz, Win a Book contest. We had some wonderful entries, all to win a copy of Buzzoodle Ron McDaniel's great book, Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing.

Special thanks goes to Ron, for supplying 300, I mean 3, signed copies of books for the readers of Make It Great!
Obviously contests like this can't be done without the generosity of the authors who graciously share their greatness with us and allow me to ask them Spanish inquisition like insightful questions.

We have some winners!

First up is Aaron M. Potts, who shared these nuggets of wisdom:

As with so many things that help a person out, this method was actually spawned with no thought of benefit for myself.

I am working on a personal development system that will be released soon, and in the meantime, I spend most of my time blogging in order to learn what people need, build up my credibility, find my audience, etc.

Phil, as I'm sure you know, getting "found" in the blogosphere can be be difficult at first, and as I pondered that thought one day, I came up with the idea to do another "meme".

Now, I'm not personally a big fan of the meme concept, but the idea that I came up with seemed like it would help everyone involved, so I figured I would give it a shot and see if anyone took to the idea.

Well, more than double my RSS reader subscription rate, and more than triple my blog pageview count later, I'd say it was a success!

In fact, it is still going strong and I am personally responding via blog comments to every person who participates, which I believe is also part of the success rate.

So, in a nutshell, the meme was intended just to help out the people who participated - which it has - but it has also drastically expanded my own reach as well. And again, I capitalized on and showed respect to that fact by personally "meeting" each person who got involved.

Here is the original URL where you can learn the details of exactly what I did:

http://todayisthatday.com/blog/simply-successful-secrets/

In fact, Phil, I think you owe me a response! :) j/k

How's this for a response Aaron?

YOU ARE A WINNER!

Next up is C.O. Solberg, who shared this way to buzz for yourself and your Toastmasters club: (sorry, no picture of C.O.)

Hello fellow MIGS (Make It Greaters)

I am going to tell you about I help people create buzz while at the same time creating buzz about my Toastmasters group.

Buzz = visibility.

I work at a large bank (think stagecoach) and am the co-founder of one of our company's 8 Toastmasters club - which are spread from Minnesota to California. To help create "buzz" about our Toastmasters clubs, I decided the best way to do is to create "buzz" for somebody else.

Our TM group sponsors quarterly lunch and learn seminars that are open to all employees. What we do is bring a local expert to talk about interesting, fun topics such as self-improvement and career improvement.

Last fall we had the owner of Marty Mathis Personial Clothier present a Dress For Success seminar ( This is a very small business located in my office building. Marty, his wife and their partner, Jim, sell custom "classic styled" suits that make you look like a million bucks!) Marty had never done this before and never thought of doing anything like it. This seminar was so successful, that he was invited to give the same presentation at our Twin Cities mortgage campus. Toastmasters is the sponsor of the event, we get our name in front of all Twin Cities bank employees and those that show up for the seminar get an informational packet on Toastmasters - complete with a wonderful testimonial from our company leader explaining how Toastmasters helped him get to where he is.

Now we are tyring to bring in Marty to give his presentation to our summer interns and their managers here at the bank.

In May we are bringing in an etiquette expert to talk about "Essential professional soft skills that create confidence and success."

We are giving these small business folks a chance to put our bank name on their resume, and get in front of influential corporate leaders they would never have access to. In fact, this next seminar is being video-conferenced across the company to let other Toastmasters clubs promote themselves while giving the speaker that much more exposure.

Trying to create buzz for yourself? Try contacting your local Toastmasters clubs or local companies. Maybe they are looking for someone with your expertise to give a presentation on their behalf? It is a win-win situation for all involved.

Even if you do the presentation for free, the "buzz" you will get is priceless - guaranteed!

C.O., YOU TOO ARE A WINNER!

J. Patrick Greer also submitted a great entry about the "new buzz"

How do you create “Buzz” about your business or organization on a limited budget? We work with a lot of clients and deal with this issue ourself. We apply what we do by combining one one one networking, old media and new media in creative ways. As of right now we have three people working our business on a regular basis with occasional contract work being done on an as need basis. We can’t compete at this time based on our size or ability to invest heavily in the “old media” venues such as radio, TV and “prestigious” are highly distributed print media.

However we are leveraging the use of “personal print media” such as brochures, business cards, etc. to promote web sites, podcasts and other electronic “new media”. This has proven to be the most cost effect means of generating buzz through affordable print jobs, web presence and personal networking. That is how we establish “first contact” but what keeps the buzz, “buzzing” is consistent customer service, an open mindedness to new technologies strategies and being easy to understand by translating technical jargon into a user-friendly language that helps the customer, “get it.”

PATRICK, YOU ARE OUR 3RD WINNER!

Honorable mention goes to HP Van Duren, and special mention goes to Carma Dutra, for...

Something I'll announce tomorrow.

Stay tuned to Make It Great! for more interviews, contests, and other ways you can take your life from where it is to where you want it to be! And if you've won, please send me an e-mail with your preferred address where we can send your free book!

Technorati Tags: buzz, wom, free book, buzzoodle

Comments

[Aaron M. Potts]

Phil,

YAY! I'm actually at the beginning of a day "off" from the Internet that I will be spending with my family, but I saw your update on my way out the door, and how cool is that?

You do something to help other people out, you end up creating a lot of buzz for your own business, and then you win a great prize on the way out the door as you are about to spend some quality time with your family.

I can't imagine it getting much better than that! Thanks again for hosting this contest, Phil, and for helping others to learn about the "buzz" concept! :)