TOP 10 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW TO CREATE A BUZZ

1. The single most important thing to remember is to maintain the integrity of your brand. Once you lose sight of that, the rest is just fluff.

2. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Get out and meet people; see and be seen.

3. Make it viral – take a lesson from the Faberge Organic Shampoo commercial: They told two friends and they told two friends and so on and so on. Use every promotional vehicle you have and barter with friends to use theirs. Blog, tweet, Facebook and more.

4. Don’t take yourself too seriously – you may have to take the bullet for a bad idea. Don’t fight it. Accept it, learn to laugh at yourself and move on.

5. Know your audience – don’t sell ice to Eskimos.

6. Think outside the box – not outside the realm of possibility. Remember that you’re trying to get from point a to point b, not off the charts or into space.

7. Make your message easily accessible (like a top 10 list); it needs to be simple enough for a reporter to quickly grasp, write about and then move on. Time is money and these days most of us are short on both – reporters are no exception.

8. Recycle – there’s no such thing as an original idea. Tried and true formulas work for a reason: They’re tried and true.

9. There is strength in numbers. Create a network of colleagues who work for and with like minded brands. Constantly reach out to them to create synergies and forge alliances to create win/win results.

10. Have fun but don’t try to be funny – not everyone shares your sense of humor. When in doubt – call a colleague within your network and run the idea past him. Then think to yourself: Is he laughing with me or at me??