Coffee. Junk food. Pretty girls.

No, that's not my new version of "A Few of My Favorite Things."

It's all about free! Today, there is a lot of free stuff up for grabs. In New York City pretty girls are handing out hotel room keys. Really. It's all about creating buzz for Harrah’s new Waterfront Tower in Atlantic City.

McDonald's is giving away free chicken sandwiches at 14,000 locations today. I'm not sure what it says that I see a ton more buzz about the free chicken than the pretty girls....what is this society coming too?

And, Dunkin Donuts is giving away free coffee. (again, more buzz about coffee than the Harrah's models)

Sure, this is all a great way to get people to try a product, but even more so, it's a great way to create buzz. Would anyone write about new hotel, sandwich or coffee if there wasn't some hook? Probably not. But free? Free is worth talking about.

One word of warning. Free is worth talking about. Cheap? Discount? Coupons? Not nearly so much. Many clients will shy away from free, assuming that discounts or incentive programs are almost as good. Not so. Free is free. There aren't degrees of free. If something is free, it's worth talking about. Coupons, incentives and discounts equal "strings attached" to consumers.

Worried about over exposure? Don't be! Limit the free promotion to the first 500 customers or to a 24-hour period. Scarcity of free is even better than plain old free, when it comes to buzz.

Ask yourself this...would you talk about free tonight at the dinner table? Probably. Would you talk about a great coupon? Not so much.

Do you blog or Twitter? Do you live in Ohio? Are you free on May 19th? Do you love the chicken served at conferences? If you answered "yes" to three or more of these questions, read on.

What do Jennifer Laycock (Editor of Search Engine Guide), Adam Goldberg (the guy who started Google's AdWords inside sales team), Nihar Bihani (the SEO extraordinaire who has worked on some of the largest and most visited business websites on the Internet, including Manta.com which features more than 45 million URLs--and who just accepted a position with that website that sells a ton of books and is named after a rather large rainforest) have in common?

They all love the chicken served at conferences too!

Okay, maybe not. In fact, I think Nihar is a vegetarian.

But they will all be featured at the Ohio Web Leaders conference on May 19th and we want you to be involved.

See, among the cornfields and factories here in Ohio there is this vibrant pocket of online marketers. We've all banded together for this event and we're looking for a great blogger and Twitterer to cover the event? What's in it for you? Well aside from great networking, recognition as our official blogger and Twitterer, and a free conference pass, there's the chicken!

If you're interested in covering the event, email me at bbalderaz@webbedmarketing.com. For more information on the conference, visit www.ohiowebleaders.com.

So my ears are still ringing. Diamond Dave, Eddie and the rest of the Van Halens were in town last night, and wow, what a show.

So what does Van Halen have to do with great word of mouth?

I'm sure every blogger and reporter out there has received the very "tired" pitch from a public relations or marketing person:

"Dear Reporter,

Our staplers are the most innovative paradigm industry leading blah blah.

Please write about us.

Thanks,

Tired PR Guy"

Okay, Tired PR guy. Maybe you're pitching 20 bloggers today. And maybe you pitched 20 yesterday. But if your message is this canned and rehearsed, you might as well send zero emails-- because no one is going to bite on these.

Now look at Dave Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen. Touring hundreds of cities for decades. Singing the same songs night after night. Last night though, everyone in that arena felt like the show was the most important thing in the world to the band and that Columbus was Van Halen's all time favorite city ever. We all Danced the Night Away. Well, I stumbled more than danced, but it was dark.

My point? A 54-year-old rock star who has been touring for 30 years singing the same songs thousands of times put on a genuine, passionate performance that felt like it was custom made for Columbus. The crowd left last night feeling like they were the only thing on Dave's mind that night and everything from drunken banter in the parking lot to the late night radio shows were buzzing about the great show.

Make your pitches as fresh as Eddie's "Eruption" or Dave's encore performance of "Jump" and the Cradle of WOM Will Rock.

One of the fastest ways to get bloggers talking about your brand is to blanket an entire city with foam and send a bunch of people handheld video cameras, inviting them to film the aftermath.

Okay, barring that, another really fast way to get bloggers talking is to issue press releases optimized on keywords your targeted bloggers use when searching for content. For example, if you want bloggers to find your story on green building, realize that you'll be competing with about 20,000 other stories on green building and make sure that your release, both in content and in distribution, is optimized for the search term "green building".

We typically like PRWeb for our distribution. With PRWeb's reach and trust with search engines, and our methodology of targeting keywords, we have always managed to get on page one of Google and Yahoo! News search results, even for very competitive words like "Second Life" "Fitness" and yes, "Green Building." PRWeb has been great to us and its customer service is outstanding.

But because we are all about testing different tools, last week we tried Webwire for distributing an internal press release. We were very happy with the results. We grabbed number one ranking on Google News for our targeted search term as we'd hoped. But surprise, surprise.... we shot to the top of the main Google organic SERPs within hours of the release hitting the wires. The release actually outranked our own website page for the same term that we'd optimized in the release.

Even cooler? Webwire did some AdWords for us. Really. There in the left hand column of the image below, an AdWords ad, built on our targeted keyword and directing searchers to our press release on Webwire. So I'm counting this as three wins: number one on Google News, number one in the main organic index and free AdWords. And while I still think PRWeb is a great service, Webwire just may be getting some more business from Webbed Marketing.

Or David Meerman Scott and sex.

At Webbed Marketing we look at every big news story as a chance to create Buzz for our clients. In one paragraph the theory goes something like this:

People are searching for content about a hot topic. The Buzz is already there, we don't have to create it. We just have to be associated with it. If our clients can provide good, relevant content related to a current news story, everyone wins. Our clients get great and qualified traffic. Web searchers find content related to the topic they are researching. Webbed Marketing gets paid.

That second sentence is key. If we don't honestly believe that a web searcher would be genuinely interested in the client's content, we don't execute the campaign.

So here's one we killed.

Last Saturday, the headlines here in Columbus screamed "Skybus Bankrupt!" Thousands of travelers were stranded. The media was up in arms. We knew search traffic for content related to the story was about to skyrocket. At the same time, here at Webbed we were working on a press release announcing a record quarter and the addition of some high powered new team members. But, let's face it, a release like that has limited Buzz potential. Then the headline hit me:

"Skybus Bankrupt! Webbed Marketing Doing Great"

We could optimize the release so that a lot of media and consumers would find it. All those people with Google Alerts set up for Skybus news would get our release in their mailbox. It would be great.

Or so I thought for about three seconds. Would consumers or the media looking for Skybus related content really care about how well Webbed was doing? Probably not. If the content isn't valuable, then, well, the idea is slimy, no matter what it could do for exposure and site traffic.

But a lot of times this tactic works great. One of our clients is an online workout and personal training website. When the government releases a study on the importance of diet and exercise, we're right there, releasing content optimized on keywords related to the study, promoting really great relevant content. Consumers and the media looking for content related to the government study find the client's content. The client gets great media exposure and Buzz among consumers.

Another client focuses on educating the public about issues related to mental health. When the newsstand tabloids were screaming about Britney Spears suffering from bipolar disorder we were all over it. We helped the client drive site traffic to its content on bipolar disorder. It was great, useful, objective and relevant content. Again, everyone wins.

David Meerman Scott has a great post about relating content to a hot topic. In David's post, he looked at two recently released ebooks. One is about shaving, one is about dental hygiene. Both ebooks associated themselves with highly searched, highly Buzzable topics---David and Sex. Okay, Sex never really goes out of vogue, it's more of an evergreen topic to rally around.

As an aside, the shaving ebook advises all us guys:

"The amount of sex you get is in direct proportion to how well you shave!"

Don't get me wrong, I'm certain that a clean shave and a straight set of teeth would help improve anyone's odds, but there are probably million pieces of content about shaving and good teeth that neither David or I will ever blog about. Not because they aren't as good as the aforementioned books, but because the authors don't associate the ebooks with sex.

The authors did at least one other very smart things in their books...they mention that David inspired them. In his blog post, David is clear that he had nothing to do with developing either book. However, by mentioning him in their book, the authors got great coverage on David's blog and some peripheral coverage here.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go figure out how to get a closer shave.

(and no, the irony that I've associated this blog post with Skybus, sex, Britney Spears and David Meerman Scott is not lost on me)

Quick--name two really boring things...

Did you say "the study of the history of words" and "flight safety instructions"? If so you are very, very wrong.

I really respect the Word of Mouth experts. I read their books. I attend their sessions at shows. I follow their blogs. They share a lot of common advice. It goes something like this: Great Word of Mouth programs must have compelling content, online influencers, and good communication channels.

And hot chicks.

Okay Ben McConnell and Andy Sernovitz probably don't use the term "hot chicks" much in their sessions and books.

Or maybe that is what they mean by "compelling content."

But there's not doubt that attractive people can make even the most boring topics oh so compelling. Delta's flight safety video on YouTube is living proof. In the video, a cute flight attendant goes through the same spiel we've all heard a hundred times. Though judging from 700,000+ times this video has been viewed on YouTube, and the repeated references to the way she wags her finger, you'd think this was some brilliant cinema.

Okay, so Kathy Lee (or Deltalina, as her fans call her) of Delta is a conservatively dressed, proper lady we could take home to meet mom. But Marina of "Hot For Words"? Well, lookout.

See this philologist (and I mean that in the nicest way), produces YouTube videos in which she discusses the history of words while wearing lingerie.

(Cue Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher")

Marina's channel on YouTube now claims 1.8 million views and is one of the most subscribed channels on the site. And yes, she really talks about the history of words. I think.

Now, we just need some cute girl talking about title tags for the SEO crowd!

Or, "Dr. Pepper --running out of Patience."

There are a lot of reasons why I love Guns 'n' Roses. I remember the night in high school when me and a carload of friends drove all night and were whistling "Patience" together as the sun came up.

"Her hair reminds me of a warm, safe place" is one of the coolest lines ever.

Slash just rocks.

But even I'm getting a little antsy waiting for years on a new album. So is Dr. Pepper. In the last day the blogosphere has been full of news about how Dr. Pepper is going to give a free can of its syrupy goodness to everyone in America if GnR releases the long awaited "Chinese Democracy" album in 2008. Technically, they are offering everyone except Slash and Buckethead a can of Pepper, but I'd be willing to pick up their tabs.

All of this begs the question... does a refreshing can of Dr. Pepper satisfy an Appetite for Destruction?

Every August we get calls like this:

"This is Dean Smith calling from State University. When you Google the name "Dean Smith" all the results are MySpace pages talking about what an idiot I am. Fix this please."

Every Christmas a retailer calls and says that when you Google the name of its best product the search engine results show how one angry customer is posting bad reviews everywhere.

Okay, our job is to find out if Dean Smith really is an idiot or if the product really does explode upon opening. Assuming that we're dealing with good people and products, our approach is to look at providing positive content that is likely to be found, indexed and ranked well by search engines-- and create a positive first impression to consumers online.

Another strategy is to try to get the bad stuff removed. We're seeing this service popping up from all corners of the web, including at a site called ComplaintRemover.com.

Two approaches to the same problem...is it better to remove bad content or create good? My thought is that the legal issues and the potential backlash that could occur from trying to get rid of bad publicity makes that option less attractive.

Sure we've all vanity searched ourselves on Google. But what if the results include more than just that 5K you ran last year and the charity barbecue you chair? Or what if the results on a vanity search of your company name reveal content you'd rather not have tied to your brand name?

"Google is no longer just a search engine; it's a reputation engine," says Chris Dellarocas, a professor at the University of Maryland, in this article over at MSN.

In most of my presentations, I show examples of cases where that "reputation engine" returns results no company wants to be associated with. My favorite is a search on one of the world's biggest consumer goods companies who also happens to be known as a great marketing machine. Its SERP includes terms like "rumors of satanism" and "cruelty to animals." While these would be great names for rock bands, they aren't so hot when you're selling diapers and laundry soap.

The MSN article has some useful advice for tracking your online reputation. Aside from Googling yourself (or your company), the article recommends searching social networks like Facebook, "opting out" when filling out online registrations and using a site like Choice Point to conduct a free public records search.

The role of blogs and other consumer generated content in the primaries and elections is grabbing headlines everywhere. So in my campaign to get your endorsement, you're invited to join Webbed Marketing's free webinar on the role of online buzz in the election. Visit our site, www.webbedmarketing.com to register.

And we're not the only ones talking about the role of the Internet in the election.

Square Oak notes that Barack is beating Hillary in terms of Google pages indexed, links and traffic (per Alexa).

Okay, I thought our own Webbed-O-Meter was a great way to measure Buzz. But um....we can't measure neuro marketing of the candidates' YouTube videos.

And I can't improve on Gerri Leder's quote from yesterday, so I'll repeat it:

"Viral marketing built campaign followings and chat rooms amplified them. Blogging added analysis and feedback, while viewer videos drove debate questioning. Candidate messages landed on YouTube. Web-enabled surveys provided instant response. Ask yourself how you can tap into the power of this communications revolution."

I love this older post. Hillary is using Yahoo! Answers, which in my opinion is probably one of the most underutilized social media sites out there (from a marketing perspective).

Of course Barack's site is full of social media goodness. As this post from a few months back notes, he's the Web 2.0 candidate. His site also provides the social tools needed to springboard a good viral campaign.