Free books: Buzz and WIN!

If you don't already have your own copy Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing, you still have a chance to win 1 of 3 copies, just by leaving a GREAT way to buzz in the comments or by tracking back to this post.

To catch you up on my conversation with Buzz Marketing Genius Ron McDaniel, CEO of Buzzoodle, check out  the first parts of our conversation at Introducing Ron McDaniel and Word of Mouth and Web 2.0, and keep reading for more GREAT tips from Ron on how YOU can use Buzz to kick butt in whatever product you have, including YOU!

Win your very own copy of
Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing: 57 Word of Mouth Marketing Challenges for the Entire Workforce

Phil: You wrote THE book on Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing. Give us an overview of the book.

Ron: I wanted to make it easy for anyone to create buzz in a few minutes per day.  The book has 57 ways to create a buzz.  Many of them can be done in a small amount of time and at no cost.  You can skim the book and get started within a few minutes.  It is a road map to creating buzz and makes it easy to enlist the help other people as well.

The biggest difference between Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing and other books on Word of Mouth and Buzz Marketing is that the book focuses on actions you can take right away.  It still discusses some of the big picture items, but it also makes it easy to pick 5 or 10 items you think you can do and start buzzing.  And if you enlist some team members, family, friends and happy customers, you will generate all kinds of word of mouth and buzz in a short time.

Phil: Who is the target audience? What can businesses take from your book? What about individuals?

Ron: The book is ideally suited for small and mid-sized organizations. Owners and marketers can use it to design a buzz strategy.  I also wrote it so that owners can buy a copy for every team member to make it easy for everyone on the team to contribute.

It is also exactly what you need to do if you want to establish yourself as an expert in your field.

Phil: How many blogs do you read? What tips do you have for those that read as many blogs as you do?

Ron: I go in spurts on blogs.  When I have more free time, I read more.  When I am busy I still monitor a few that are important to me.

I read a blog by our city manager every day.

I read blogs by some top entrepreneurs and marketers every few days.

I read blogs that I see linking to me every time they link.

And I read Make It Great 3-4 times a week, along with a few other blogs that are written by exceptional people I have met through blogging.

Phil: Thanks Ron!

Phil: You almost always seem to comment on other people's blogs that talk about you and your company. What do you do to stay on top of this?

Ron: As I mentioned above, I monitor what people say about us on a daily basis.  I use technorati.com and blogsearch.google.com to stay on top of it.  Plus I think it is fun.  I also strongly feel that people want to get comments or replies to emails, so they are happy to hear from me and know that I noticed it.  Most people that read blogs are too shy about commenting.  That is too bad, because it is stopping them from becoming part of a broad and influential community.

Phil: Where is Buzzoodle headquartered?

Ron: We are located in Kent, Ohio.  It is south of Cleveland and just a few blocks from Kent State University.  We hire interns and employees from the university.

Phil: How can a company located in such a small town have such an amazing presence in the WOM arena?

Ron: Effort and Internet.  If I just said that the Internet made it possible, it would only be half of the story.  We use our own philosophy to promote ourselves every day and after almost two years of effort, we are well received in the WOM Arena.  I also travel all the time speaking at conferences and getting people excited about the idea of creating buzz, which helps a lot.

Phil: What's next for you? For Buzzoodle?

Ron: We are launching more products and services soon that will help companies create more buzz and will enable us to work with companies that would like helping buzz.  We had to take a step backwards recently and look at how to build a more scalable service at an aggressive price point, and we will be launching that service soon.

For me personally, to really become THE expert in this industry and do more teaching, writing and speaking is what I am working towards.  We have no shortage of ideas and opportunities in this space, and we just need to perfect the business model that will drive growth.

Phil: Where can we find more about you?

Ron: Our corporate site is: www.buzzoodle.com

My blog is located at http://blog.buzzoodle.com and you can get some of the posts in Spanish at http://espanol.buzzoodle.com

The book, Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing is available on Amazon here.

---

So you've read the interviews, now win the book! Leave a short comment about how you've created buzz for yourself, your company, and you are entered to win an autographed copy of Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing. I read this book in draft form and endorsed it. I've re-read the book in final form and I LOVE IT! Each of the 57 ways is something anyone can do with a little time and a little elbow grease.

[For more great interviews, stay tuned to Make It Great! There are a LOT more where this came from.]

Technorati Tags: buzz, wom, buzz marketing, genius, guru

Comments

[Buzzoodle Ron]

Thanks Phil, you are super. And it is true that I am monitoring us, or I would not be the first one to comment here.

PS: If I win the book, give it to someone else. I already have a couple.

[Aaron M. Potts]

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

[Carma Dutra]

Marketing is key to any business small or large. I have a small business in a small town and the most beneficial "Buzz" to my business is being seen in the community.

Go to the local coffee shop and have coffee. Introduce yourself, pass out cards, join local networking groups. Send out thank you cards to every client.

[C.O. Solberg]

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!

[HP van Duuren]

Thanks for this book winning opportunity.
To Buzz - besides posting on blogs and forums - I created a Syndicated Column called "HP's Happy Vibe" (it goes without saying with at the bottom of my Column a hyperlink to my weblog.)

Besides just reading my Column, People can use my Columns for their own blogs, websites or newsletters. Apperently it has been syndicated more than a hundred times already. (Today I also placed an 'advertising link' for my Column on my own weblog.)

'Music and Happy LifeStyle'

That's what my blog is about, Feel free to bookmark my blog at your favorites, and have a look at:

* DAILY Items
* My Readers Comments
* My Happy LifeStyle Articles

My 'Happy Vibe Column'

* Happy LifeStyle Products
* Inspirational Quotes
* FREE eBook Preview
* FREE Report
&

M O R E ! ! ! !

[Patrick]

Phil,

I tried to trackback from my blog on one of my sites but for some reason it is not showing up in your trackback section so I will repost it here
----

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”.