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2:00 – Andy Sernovitz on Amazing Word of Mouth for Your Blog

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The theme of SOBCon09 is the ROI of Relationships. Relationships with customers, employees, colleagues, coworkers, builders, contractors, developers, and CUSTOMERS — in the form of readers, buyers, clients, and others — are the success of any business.

How do we form the best relationships; bring our best to them; build environments that nurture them; and measure our success?

Join the Comment Box Conference. Ask questions. Discuss answers. Meet people in the comment box. Find out.

Andy Sernovitz

Andy Sernovitz is author of “Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking” and CEO of the Blog Council.

He is President Emeritus of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, teaches word of mouth marketing at Northwestern University, and is CEO of GasPedal. An 18-year veteran of the interactive marketing business, Andy has spent years helping the biggest brands and hundreds of entrepreneurs learn how to do better marketing. He taught entrepreneurship at the Wharton School of Business, ran a business incubator, and started half a dozen companies. Today, Andy will let us in on the secrets of

Amazing Word of Mouth for Your Blog

  • Word Of Mouth Marketing
  • Ethics and Disclosure
  • Crazy Cool Buzz
  • Dealing with Negative Word of Mouth
  • Offline Promotion of Your Blog
Andy’s name is synonmous with Word of Mouth Marketing. He writes about it and companies that do it well at Damn, I Wish I Thought of That
Follow @sernovitz at Twitter.

Word Is You Can Be a Word of Mouth SuperGenius

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Learn from the Guy Who Wrote the Book

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Many of you have seen Andy Sernovitz speak at SOBCon07 or in other venues across the US. He founded WOMMA — the Word of Mouth Market Association — at wrote the book on the Word of Mouth.

In just two weeks, Andy is launching a Word of Mouth Crash Course!
He says, “You’ll learn to be a word of mouth marketing supergenius!”

Andy sent me these details.

This is a very practical, hands-on course. In one intense day, you will:

  • Master the five steps of word of mouth marketing
  • Construct an action plan that you can use the very next day
  • Get the same training that big corporations (Microsoft, TiVo, eBay) have received — for a fraction of what they paid
  • Know how to translate word of mouth marketing into real ROI
  • Participate in an active, intense day of practical brainstorming (not boring theory)
  • Learn from the guy who literally wrote the book on word of mouth marketing

I promise you will learn a repeatable, proven marketing framework that is easy to execute,
affordable, and provides measurable results within 60 days.

You can find out more information: http://events.gaspedal.com
The course is in Chicago on three dates: July 30, September 4, and October 9

Oh yeah, and there are a couple of other things you should know if come for the Crash Course.

Andy can show you how to invite others to spread the news of your products and services in ways that make them feel proud to do it. My favorite takeaway from when I saw him speak was . . . if your product isn’t boring people will want to talk about it.

Word of mouth says this is a good investment.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Buy the ebook and find out the secret.

Hear Phil Gerbyshak at A Brand You World

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He’s Also Got Great Things to Say

A Brand You Summit

No doubt that Phil was fun last night at Open Comments. The man has an imaginative brain. Put that same brain to work on a problem or an idea, and you’ll find he has exciting and profound things to say. You’ll get your chance tomorrow in a teleseminar that’s part of A Brand You World, the celebration of the 10th Year of Personal Branding.

Phil’s speaking on line 2 at 6pm ET/11pm UK — his topic is Identity You: Creating a Personal 5×5 Branding Strategy.

So tune in. Those of us who heard Phil’s keynote at SOBCon07 know the high value of listening in when Phil is speaking.

The A Brand You World teleseminar schedule lasts 12 hours with two parallel tracks. The list of SOBs on the venue include:

Listen in. Finding an answer you’ve been searching for is winning. Hearing someone say a truth you know is inspiring. How can you lose?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Got Clients? Advertising Is for Boring Businesses

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Think About It . . .

“GET” STICKY!

I’ve been hearing myself repeat the same thought lately. It’s something that Andy Sernovitz said when he spoke last May at SOBCon07. Andy knows a few things about what people talk about. He wrote the book, Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking. What he said was . . .

Advertising is for boring businesses.

Andy was making the point that if our product or service was compelling, interesting, people would already be telling each other to check it out.

In his book, Word of Mouth Marketing, Andy explains that to people talking about us and our stuff, we need to know what people talk about. We talk about three kinds of things.

    We talk about other people and their stuff.

    We talk because it makes us feel smart, important, and helpful.

    We want to feel part of a bigger group.

Talking to each other is what we do . . . on a regular basis.

Interesting, exciting, satisfying, compelling products that do what they promise are sticky. They get us talking. We share experiences that we find remarkable and defining.

Obviously Andy’s talk was anything but boring. Here I am telling you about it 5 months later. He doesn’t need advertising. His message stuck with me.

What was the last product or service you talked about? What about it made you want to tell the story?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Find out about working with Liz.

WOMMA: What Gets People To Talk About You?

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What People Talk About

Word of Mouth Marketing Book

Andy Sernovitz knows what people talk about. He knows how to get people like me talking the way I’m talking to you about him right now. In fact, he wrote the book Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking.

If you want to get people tarking, Andy says in his book. You need to know what people talk about. People talk about three kinds of things.

  1. We talk about other people and their stuff. If you are interesting, we talk about you or the stuff you are selling. We talk about how the service you offer is grander or more remarkable than we expected or how you have done something that captured out imagination. We want a reason to talk about you. Good conversation makes our life more interesting too.
  2. We talk because it makes us feel smart, important, and helpful. We remember how you treat us and pass that along to our friends. Treat us exceptionally nice, and we become die-hard fans. Give us a product or service that amazes us, and we’ll become the experts on where to find you — making sure everyone knows you are the best in your field. Everyone likes to feel that they have the key to something special. We like to help our friends by showing them how to find a great deal. Keep your attention fresh and exciting, and you will keep us interested and talking about you.
  3. We want to feel part of a bigger group. When we share how we feel about a product or a service we have enjoyed, we feel connected to the experience and connected to the people we tell about it. The more times we tell the story, the more we identify with it as a part of us and our life. Offer something people want to be a part of and they’ll tell others about it.

Talking to each other is what we do — on the phone, at our desks, in the comment box, in the grocery, over the kitchen table. We fill up our life with stories about our experiences. Talking is how we share the experiences that we find interesting and defining.

People like to talk to people. What can you do to get people talking about what you do? What stories come to your mind when you read this? Are they all BIG and heroic or are some stories of regular size?

Thanks Andy. I can’t wait to hear you speak at SOBCon.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Hurry! The special rate rooms in the SOBCon Block at the OHare SOBCon 07 will be released back to the hotel on April 13th.

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WOMM: If You Hate Self Promotion, Get People to Talk about You!
Andy Sernovitz Is Speaking at SOBCon! Pass It On!

WOMM: If You Hate Self Promotion, Get People to Talk about You!

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Get People Talking

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Remember in Jr. High, the worst that could happen was to know that people were talking about you. Even if what you heard might be good, you couldn’t be sure. It was creepy.

Life is different now. Talk is how people share the news about interesting, fascinating, dangerous, marvelous, outrageous, remarkable, unique, and outstanding events, people, businesses — anything that isn’t BORING OR INVISIBLE.

If folks AREN’T TALKING about you and me, we virtually DON’T EXIST.

Don’t exist as in we are invisible. How does a business thrive if no one knows it’s there?

Some folks seem to have a knack for getting folks to talk about them. I’d name, but that would be redundant. The fact that they’re good at it means you already know who they are.

So what do they do that gets them talked about? Andy Sernovitz says they do four things. In his book, Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking, Andy names four rules to follow if you want t6 be talked about.

  1. Be interesting. No one talks about boring. Give people a reason — an unexpected detail, a moment of something, a visual surprise, a unique feeling. People tell othere people about interesting things.
  2. Make people happy. Inspire your readers. Get them jazzed or move them to action. Energize them with positivity. Tim Sanders wrote a whole book in the Likeability Factor. Put it to work for you. We love to talk about people we like.
  3. Earn respect and trust. Know your truth and live your values. Keep your promises and make people proud to say they know you. Who doesn’t like to talk about their friends and family?
  4. Make it easy. Have a simple message and help folks share it. Put your message everywhere people look. Keep it in motion. Say it yourself whenever you talk.

Makes total sense doesn’t it? Four ways to spread the word gets people talking about you, me and our ideas.

Thanks Andy. Tomrrow, we’ll check out what folks talk about.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Check out the SOBCon 07 blog

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Andy Sernovitz Is Speaking at SOBCon! Pass It On!