Most of the roles I’ve written about this week are appropriate for authors, coaches, consultants and professional service people. But what if you have a retail or restaurant business? Or maybe you are a larger company with a product launch? You’ll want a different role, that of buzz creator.

Your goal will be to get people talking about your product or your place of business. What are the best social media channels for you?

If you are a retail business or a restaurant, you’ll want to look at channels like Twitter or Foursquare. Twitter is where people go to keep up with the latest buzz, and Foursquare is where people go as they travel around. A good Foursquare special will bring in impulse business. It worked for American Eagle a couple of weeks ago when I checked in nearby, saw the special and stopped by to buy jeans for my son.

Foursquare check-ins can be posted on Twitter, which is why you need a presence in both places.

Planning a product launch? Twitter is ideal. Create a hashtag for your product and get people tweeting about it. Hold a Twitter chat. Create a contest for people using the hashtag. There are lots of ways you can get people talking about you and your new product.

What does your time look like? You want to start the buzz by letting people know you’re there, but mostly you’ll want to let other people do the talking while you chime in to keep the conversation moving.

Want to see a good example? Check out Lounge 201, a club/lounge in Washington, DC. (Yes, they were one of my clients.) If you look at their mentions, there are a variety of people talking about them and promoting events at their location. Then look at their stream. Yes, they talk about their specials. But most of their stream is engagement with their followers: light banter, thank yous and the like. That’s a good Twitter stream. They have attracted some new regulars because of their Twitter presence.

How does this bring your company business? The answer should be obvious. If people are talking about you, they are going to remember and buy your stuff. Social media can lead to impulse purchase like my American Eagle example. And if you engage with your customers, they are going to remember you, like you and talk about you with their friends.

The Millennial Generation is very active in social media. They look to it for recommendations. They use it to ask their friends what’s hot and what’s not. If you aren’t there, encouraging and participating in the buzz, you’re not going to be hot.

By the way, a colleague of mine wrote an excellent post on engagement in social media. Read it for some more perspective and ideas on social media engagement.

Tags: communication, social media, time management

This entry was posted on Friday, August 13th, 2010 at 7:13 am and is filed under social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.