Mistakes: Being scared of buzz

Are you afraid of buzz? What does that cost you? 

A local small business owner asked me to not share photos of her renovated historic building until after she has a grand opening. I was surprised. I mentioned that her renovation had been featured in a newspaper article, with photos! She said again, "don't show them around," so I decided to hold them. 

[The photos were on Flickr. I've now marked all the interior shots as private, until I hear about her grand opening. I left the street view public, since anyone can drive by and see it. That's the photo to the right.]


After she left, I kept thinking about how much you and I talk here about building buzz, sharing freely, and reaching out. I really thought my sharing was to her benefit. 

So I asked you on Twitter, "How is my sharing going to hurt her? Or is buzz bad?"

That drew four immediate replies:  

alizasherman:  On flip side, I've got a biz owner who'll share photos as they build a small kitty litter factory, step by step, to build buzz.

tawnypress:  Why not build anticipation? All buzz is good buzz, just look at Hollywood, even bad news flips into good. :)

CoryOBrien: Maybe they have other plans? I can't see why else they'd want you not to.

LisaVanAllen:  Are they afraid of too much publicity? Not being able to handle the mob that shows up?? :0)

Solutions

Don't fear the buzz! Add to it! Share, encourage sharing, promote it, help it happen. My handful of photos would only serve to generate even more interest in her special opening event. 

The right question for her to ask might have been, "How are you planning to use those photos you took? Can you help us build some interest in our grand opening?" Then she would have found out that I could post them to some Flickr groups for historic Oklahoma, or that I could profile her and her business here, or that I would be happy to email the photos to her for her own use. 

I don't know how you overcome the basic reaction of hiding rather than sharing. CoryOBrien suggested showing the biz owner examples of other business that have shared pre-release building photos. That could work! Do you have ideas? 

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