Sometimes, what you do is done as well as it can be done. It's a service that people truly love, or a product they can't live without. You're doing everything right, but it's not remarkable, at least not in the sense of "worth making a remark about."

What's up with that?

Here's a smorgasbørd of reasons:

1. It's embarrassing to talk about. That's why VD screening, no matter how well done, rarely turns into a viral [ahem] success.
2. There's no easy way to bring it up. This is similar to number 1, but involves opportunity. It's easy to bring up, "hey, where'd you get that ring tone?" because the ring tone just interrupted everyone. It's a lot harder to bring up the fact that you just got a massage.
3. It might not feel cutting edge enough for your crowd. So, it's not the thing that's embarrassing, it's the fact they you just found out about it. Don't bring up your brand new Tivo with your friends from MIT. They'll sneer at you.
4. On a related front, it might feel too popular to profitably sneeze about. Sometimes bloggers hesitate to post on a popular source or topic because they worry they'll seem lazy.
5. You might like the exclusivity. If you have no trouble getting into a great restaurant or a wonderful club, perhaps you won't tell the masses because you're selfish...
6. You might want to keep worlds from colliding. Some kids, for example, like the idea of being the only kid from their school at the summer camp they go to. They get to have two personalities, be two people, keep things separate.
7. You might feel manipulated. Plenty of hip kids were happy to talk about Converse, but once big, bad Nike got involved, it felt different. Almost like they were being used.
8. You might worry about your taste. Recommending a wine really strongly takes guts, because maybe, just maybe, your friends will hate the wine and think you tasteless.
9. There are probably ten other big reasons, but they all lead to the same conclusions:

First, understand that people talk about you (or not talk about you) because of how it makes them feel, not how it makes you feel.

Second, if you're going to build a business around word of mouth, better not have these things working against you.

Third, if you do, it may be a smart strategy to work directly to overcome them. That probably means changing the fundamental DNA of your experience and the story you tell to your users. "If you like us, tell your friends," might feel like a fine start, but it's certainly not going to get you there.

What will change the game is actually changing the game. Changing the experience of talking about you so fundamentally that people will choose to do it.

Newswire: OversockArt.com, one of the web’s most successful distributors of reproduction oil paintings, has set up shop on one of the world’s most popular youth-driven websites – Facebook.com

The company’s new application called, “My Art Gallery”, allows Facebook members to upload photos of various pieces of art for sale on the OverstockArt.com website for free. Members can enjoy works from such notable artists as Van Gogh, Degas and Monet to name a few.

Like other businesses tapping into the youth markets through popular social websites like Facebook, OverstockArt.com is gearing its affordable products toward trend-savvy, college-age individuals who want to boost the atmosphere of their apartments and dorm rooms with real oil paintings.

“We think the younger market is a great place to pitch our product,” said Amitai Sasson, OverstockArt.com’s marketing director. “Kids are becoming more and more trend-savvy these days and are also interested in uploading cool applications to highlight their profiles on social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace.”

OverstockArt.com’s application allows members to choose as many paintings as they want from all the available paintings on their website. Members can also choose to invite friends and comment on their friend’s galleries. Each uploaded painting also has a purchase option attached to it.

New Application from OverstockArt.com Gears Product Toward Trend-Savvy Youths on Facebook.com [Newswire]

It's hard.

Sure, it's hard for you. Your brand doesn't get as much as you like.

But that's not what I mean.

It's hard for the consumer. A few people like to blab and babble. Most people don't.

Consider Iowa. Caucus turnout was huge. And yet it only represents a tiny percentage of the people who vote in the actual election in Iowa. What? The caucus stage is so much more important in the scheme of things (the Iowa electoral vote essentially never influences an election). So why skip the caucus?

90% of voters skip it because they don't want to stand up in front of people and tell them who they're voting for. They don't want to be challenged or made to look foolish. So they keep quiet.

That's what most of your customers do. They lay low, because they're afraid or shy or just not used to talking about brands and products or experiences.

Sure, 1% of your customers blog or post or just plain talk. They're louder than ever before. But the other 99% represent a real opportunity for you. Figure out how to get them out there. Cajole them to go to a caucus.

Great article in BusinessWeek about Chipotle's success without traditional advertising. If you've never been to one, Chipotle's is a burrito place. They used to be owned by McDonald's but got spun out and went public in 2006. Since then their share price has tripled. They've experienced double-digit growth for nine straight years! Here is the kicker: they don't do traditional advertising.

Actually, they do a little traditional advertising. Some billboards (see image with this post) and radio, but they spend less than 1% of their revenue on advertising compared with 4% or more for McDonald's and Taco Bell.

According to Steven Ellis, the Chipotle founder and CEO, "Advertising is not believable." When he opened his first store in Denver he had no money for advertising so he decided to let his burritos do the talking and started giving them away free. They recently opened a location in midtown Manhattan and gave away 6,000 burritos. People stood in line for two hours. It cost $35,000 (about the cost of an ad in The New York Times) and they got 6,000 promoters plus a mention in BusinessWeek out of it. Not bad.

What are you doing to get your customers talking?