With bags of 300 free chocolate bars, wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt, and showing big fun slides with words like "Love" and "Happiness," Andy Sernovitz practiced what he preaches about getting people to talk during his session at the recent eBay Live conference. But what else would you expect from a guy who has a blog called "Damn! I Wish I'd Thought of That!"

At "Word of Mouth Marketing in Five Simple Steps," Sernovitz was chock-full of ways to get your customers spreading the word for you for free, and especially specific things eBayers can do. "The most obvious thing" for eBayers, he said, is to "put stuff in the box." Put multiple coupons, refrigerator magnets, etc., in your packages so people can share them with their friends.

He said rather than asking for generic feedback from customers, eBay sellers should say something more like, "Anything I can do?"

Among the "four classic word of mouth tools," he said, were:

• Asking people to tell a friend (e.g. saying "please forward to a friend" in your email newsletter).
• Making it easy for people to share. An example of this is YouTube, where "every single video has 13 different ways you can share it with a friend." (That idea was essentially worth $1.6 billon, the price Google paid for YouTube, said Sernovitz).
• Solve "the matchbox problem" - give out free samples and takeways that help people market for you. Matchboxes used to this more when they were more prevalent. The brand "Kiehl's" does this by making sure nobody leaves the store without free samples - "One for you, your sister, your roommate."
• "Take part" - every day, look up your stuff, and when you find people talking about your stuff, comment.

Sernovitz gave lots of examples of companies doing things to build buzz. Red Envelope sends gifts in a beautiful red package with a bright bow; the Drury Inn offers free long distance phone calls, which, Andy quipped, gets people calling their friends: "I've nothing to say to you, but it was free!"

"They've got their customers in their hotels telemarketing for them," he said.

But the key is having that "reason to talk" - if you don't have that, "no one's going to talk about you," he said.

Another example of something eBay sellers can do is what the GAP and J. Crew do - offer something analogous to a "secret employee discount code." It's the "Us" concept - people want to "feel part of the group." So you can do "simple stuff like create a buyers' club."

Maker's Mark whiskey offers an "ambassador program," and if you sign up they start sending you presents, like bar glasses; "friendly, chatty emails"; and not least of all, "your name is engraved on a brass plaque on an aging bottle of whiskey." There are some 50,000 Maker's Mark ambassadors, said Sernovitz, and he gave the audience as "homework" to go to their web site, makersmark.com, and check out the program.

"You're building a business strategy based on love," he said, showing a slide with a big red heart. And "new love is like no other kind of love. When your customer opens that box, you want everyone to say, "Wow, it's here!""

And nobody talks more than lovers in a quarrel, he said - if something goes wrong, they're going to tell five times the number of people. But, if you solve the problem and make up with that customer, they will tell ten times the people about the positive experience.

Sernovitz cautioned that "love and money don't mix," and if you bring money into word of mouth, it can backfire. "If my friend finds out I'm getting a discount for saying this, they're going to think I'm a creep."

He wrapped up the session by showing the "5 Steps to Word of Mouth Marketing," which are talkers, topics, tools, taking part, and tracking & measuring.

Figure out who will talk about you, like the Wynn hotel in Las Vegas did when it opened. They gave cabbies - who spread the word to many tourists about hotels - a free stay, entertainment, and a great time. Now when people ask them, "What's the best hotel?" they say the Wynn.

The web site woot.com shows one deal a day. One day they showed something unusual - a "bag o' random crap." This wacky item got "more word of mouth than they got all year," he said.

"What's your bag o' crap?" joked Sernovitz.

And happiness? "Happiness is how we change the world. Companies that make us happy sell more stuff," he summed up.

At the end of the session, the audience filed out happily clutching their candy bars and free bookmarks.