Buzz marketing works. Creating buzz works. Providing people with a reason to spread your gospel and your story works.

My 3-Week Buzz Marketing Challenge hammered home a few important points; lessons learned and steps you can take to master the art and science of buzz marketing.

The Science

1. Start Simple. Pick 3 or 4 of the simpler buzz marketing techniques and focus on those. The most effective will be contacting old friends and acquaintances and contacting stale connections.
2. Keep Trying. Buzz marketing isn’t a 3-week crash course. It’s something you should always be doing. 15 minutes of fame are nice, but oh-so-fleeting…you want to build upon each success. Each buzz trail that goes out should feed the next. Think: sonic boom.
3. Develop a Routine. I’m all for setting up personal systems to manage things. Buzz marketing is the same. Even if you do it regularly, without a system to manage and control what you’re doing, it won’t be as effective. Keep track of your initiatives, record them, review what worked and what didn’t, and get into the routine of creating buzz.

   Routines can be regimented and managed. Eventually, the routine becomes a habit and you’re buzzing all the time without even realizing it. Jackpot.

The Art

1. Get Comfortable. Not everyone is comfortable tooting their own horn. You’ll have to be if you want to master buzz marketing. It’s not about idiotic self-promotion, but if you’re not comfortable or confident in your own successes and telling others about them, no one else will be either.
2. It’s About People. Some people have a flair for communicating with people. They make you feel at ease, they open up quickly, suddenly you’re telling them every little secret…nevermind. Point is, buzz marketing is about people. Techniques and systems help you reach those people but once you’ve connected, art takes over.

   Master the art of re-connecting with people. It will help you get comfortable with the idea of buzz marketing, without going over the top. And you’ll learn to craft your message better over time when you take on bigger, more complex challenges.

3. Be Creative. The basics will work. Even if you stick to connecting with old acquaintances, customer follow-ups and a few of the other simpler buzz marketing techniques you can be successful. But now is your chance to do something off-the-wall zany. Buzz marketing is a great combination of basic communication efforts and total creativity. Take the essence of the challenges – reaching out to people and getting your success stories talked about – and find new ways of doing it. Be bold. Be entertaining. Have fun.

The real key to buzz marketing is getting others to buzz for you.

If you’re the only one standing on the rooftop shouting your name…it will eventually fall on deaf ears. When you marshal an army of buzz agents – people openly and truthfully willing to talk about you – you’ve won the game big time.

My 3-Week Buzz Marketing Challenge is over. I completed a good number of the challenges but certainly not all of them. Getting on a board of directors isn’t easy! (But I did try!)

I didn’t post about every buzz marketing challenge I took on. Some of them I was doing beforehand as well. These last few challenges are summarized below, so you can get a clear picture of what was accomplished in the 3-week time period.

For those of you that are new to Instigator Blog, my goal was to complete as many of Ron McDaniel’s 57 buzz challenges as possible, from his book Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing in 3 weeks. At least 2 or 3 others followed up after me and also started their own 3-week challenges.

Generally speaking I was very pleased with what I was able to accomplish. More than anything I learned a number of important lessons, which I’ll be sharing soon.

1. Call Someone You’ve Never Talked To. I tried (but left a message.) This is a tough challenge because many people are shy about calling strangers. I absolutely believe this can work though. Ron McDaniel recommends calling someone that you’ve read about in the newspaper, congratulate them about their success and go from there. That’s precisely what I did when I called Mohammed Hassan, who is involved with a microloan/microcredit organization in Montreal (which I had read about in the Montreal Gazette.) Mohammed did call me back, now we’re playing phone tag.
2. Online Directory. The challenge here is to use online directories to put your name and profile out there. An example used in Ron’s book is LinkedIn. I’ve used LinkedIn for quite awhile but not actively. Very soon I’ll be updating my LinkedIn profile, so stay tuned!
3. Instant Messaging. I use instant messaging constantly to communicate with people. Often it’s to share industry news as well as updates on what I’m doing. As Ron points out in his book, instant messaging can be disruptive, so use it cautiously and don’t get frustrated if you don’t get an immediate response. A powerful use of instant messaging is to spread news quickly. If you’ve got a big enough contact list you can ping people fast, and spread some serious buzz.
4. Write a Blog. Well, obviously I’ve got this one covered. Writing a blog is the single most effective way of growing your personal brand and generating buzz. End of story. Once you start blogging, tons of opportunities will come. You may be able to republish your content on reputable websites. Connect with like-minded guys doing interesting things for the blogosphere. It’s incredible what blogging can do.
5. Produce an e-book. This is not something I’ve finished doing, but I’ve been talking to a couple of people about the possibility. E-books and audio books remain quite popular, and even if you give them away for free, they can generate a lot of buzz. Ron points out that e-books can be great sales tools. It’s important to brand them properly so people know where the e-book came from.
6. Send a Press Release. I undertook this task for my friend, Jimmy Moore, from The Livin’ La Vida Low Carb Show which is a great, in-your-face and inspirational podcast. We sent out an initial press release to a variety of health magazines and websites hoping to seed the turf a little bit and get him some recognition. Recently, Jimmy’s been asked to speak on two radio shows, so the PR might be working!
7. Give a Speech. I didn’t do this within the 3-week period, but I’ve been invited to speak at 2 events coming up in the near future – one in May and one in June.

Buzz marketing does work. Take a look at the 57 buzz marketing challenges and get started.