Yesterday, I bought a new pair of shoes. That, in and of itself, is not much of a shocker. I don’t even bother to try to hide my shoe obsession.

What I did, however, after buying the shoes, may interest you. I took a photo of them with my  iPhone and posted it to my personal Facebook profile. I then wrote a little blurb saying where I’d bought the shoes, and encouraging my similarly shoe-obsessed girlfriends to check the store out. I became an ambassador for the Freedman Shoe Outlet on 4th and Burrard today.

And I’m not the only one. Every day, people post online about where they’re eating, buying shoes, or getting the best deals on electronics. It’s our nature to want to share when we’ve gotten a smoking deal, great customer service, or a fabulous dinner. I would like to believe that we do this because we want our friends to also score a good deal or eat the most amazing creme brulee ever. Probably, however, in reality, it’s because we like to make our friends jealous. 🙂

It’s not hard to create ambassadors for your business. If you make it easy for people to talk about you, and you give them something to talk about, they will. This means making sure you have “Follow Us on Twitter!” or “Like us on Facebook!” buttons on your website, so that people can easily start following you with one click. You should also make sure you have sharing buttons on your site, so that people can easily Tweet about you or talk about you on Facebook to their friends. When you do see someone Tweeting about you or talking about you on Facebook, be sure to thank them. A little appreciation goes a long way.

On Monday, I gave you some tips about how to handle negative feedback from your clientele.  In keeping with that, check out this great article on Mashable: 5 Ways to Turn Social Customers Into Brand Ambassadors.