Who’s Buzzing You?

My new buddy (Andy, is it too early in our relationship to publicly proclaim we are buddies? :p) Andy Sernovitz is author of Word of Mouth Marketing, speaker, and instructor of the Word of Mouth Marketing class at Northwestern University. He posted about a new contest he has where he wants you to send him “stories about fun, honest, free, real word of mouth.” If he thinks it’s cool enough he’ll send you a bottle of wine. Click here for details.

So, why does this fit in my blog? I’ve been thinking about it since the 3rd, when I read it on his very cool blog. I’ve blogged about Brag! by Peggy Klaus and the concept of figuring out how to communicate your unique value propositions.

Andy’s message (which you’ll get from his book and his blog) seems to take it to the next step. Yes, he writes to “smart marketers”… don’t let that fool you. Remember, we are all “You, Inc.” and we are all our own marketing department.

So let’s say that we have Peggy’s stuff down, we get it, we have our “brag bites” ready to go. Now what?

Now switch to Andy’s stuff, and try and figure out how to create word of mouth marketing about you! This is were it is fuzzy for me, perhaps he’ll write something (or do a contest) about word of mouth on a personal level … how do we create word of mouth buzz about … us??

I’m not talking about all the networking and participation stuff that I’ve written about over the last year, I’m talking about getting others to talk about us (in a good way), the way they talk about other things. I’m going to dive into Andy’s book this month (I hope) and report back. For now, I’m left wondering how to get others to buzz my brand.

Two quick thoughts:

• I haven’t been able to get my hands on Dave Perry’s Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters yet, but this makes me want to more… I’ll try and do that soon… I’ve met Dave and we talked about stuff like this – I love his attitude about getting yourself out there and getting what you deserve (and what you are worth), so I’m excited to add this to the mix.
• Sarah Needleman, editor at CareerJournal, recently wrote Why Attention-Seeking Tactics Often Backfire on Job Hunters … I think that we are more worried about failing and tainting our brand, so we do nothing… but a word to the wise, don’t over-do it. Sarah collected some great stories of people going overboard (it’s a fun read :)).

Do you buzz someone else’s brand? WHY? What is it about them that makes you want to, and what exactly to you share with others?

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