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The Anatomy of Buzz (Revisited)

Written by: Jay Hamilton-Roth

Article Overview: Everyone is looking for buzz – people talking about their offering. We all know that word of mouth marketing is the strongest form of marketing: it’s free, it spreads, and it’s personal. But how can you get your message to be spread virall

The Anatomy of Buzz (Revisited)

Everyone is looking for buzz – people talking about their offering. We all know that word of mouth marketing is the strongest form of marketing: it’s free, it spreads, and it’s personal. But how can you get your message to be spread virally?

Emanuel Rosen has been studying buzz for over 10 years (the accidental, the intentional, and the incorrect) and has amassed a lot of rules/tips to help you increase your “buzz factor”.

Today, the common advice you’re given is: go on a social media site (such as Facebook or Twitter), befriend a lot of people, join their conversation, and tell your story. The hope is that by sheer numbers, your story/message will go viral. The problem is, that advice only works if: your message is viral-friendly and if you have the right audience.

Is your message viral-friendly? People tend to talk about exciting products, innovations, personal experiences/interactions, complex products (that take an expert to understand), expensive products (to validate the price/value ratio), and visible products (things that they see in their environment). We are programmed to talk with each other, and we’re always looking to connect our lives with others’. A viral-friendly message is something that would naturally occur in our day-to-day interactions and whose purpose is to establish a positive social connection.

Do you have the right audience? The right audience may not be who you think they are. The the essence of any marketing strategy: identifying your target market to ensure you solve the problem they’re facing. Most people, after identifying their target market, try to target it with buzz directly. The problem is, not everyone that’s reachable is listening to you (an unknown or someone with a vested interest in the message). Instead of trying to try to target everyone – target the influencers. In the past, the influencers were editors/writers of newspapers and magazines. While these people are still influencers, there are now a large number of other people (”network hubs”) that are listening for something new/interesting to share with “their people”. It may be their Twitter followers, their blog readers, the eNewsletter subscribers, or their social group.

All network hubs share the following qualities: Ahead in adoption, Connected, Travelers, Information-hungry, Vocal, and Exposed to the media more than others (ACTIVE is the acronym). The book focuses on how to find such hubs:

1. Letting network hubs identify themselves
2. Identifying categories of network hubs
3. Spotting network hubs in the field
4. Identifying network hubs through surveys

Once you’ve identified the hubs, you need to give them something worth talking about and encouragement to share the message with others. And by all means, make sure that what they’re talking about is something of true value (otherwise, your buzz will turn negative on you).

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Article Tags: buzz factor, complex products, emanuel rosen, exciting products, facebook, influencers, innovations, marketing strategy, personal experiences, reachable, rsquo, sheer numbers, story message, target market, twitter, value ratio, vested interest, visible products, word of mouth, word of mouth marketing



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Re: Hello From Mr.Ven - Hi All, Nice to see the welcome messages. Bits about me, i am doing busy with my day job and recently jumped into this online biz domain. Now i am exploring the internals of Internet biz, marketing, seo etc. As a first step, i have launched my blog and started posting articles on what i am learning and thinking. I titled the blog as "Anatomy of Online Business" and i am building the content (basement) now, will be monetizing soon. Moreover I am dreaming/aiming to become a successful entrepreneur online.
A Simple Test - I have no franchise, I've got to say this upfront, but, using the 'The E-Myth Revisited' principle as well as a self-taught measure I used for myself and have taught others since. Is it capable of working just as well, if not better if you are not there? If this isn't possible, what tweaks need to happen to make this so? That, I believe, is what might make it franchisable (as well as all the technical stuff that's been said before).
Re: Google Buzz - Any Thoughts? - [quote="MichelleJ":3u0447fv][quote="Trent Brownrigg":3u0447fv]I'm not too big into these social sites but Buzz looks to be just as good as the next. I have started using it more and more.[/quote:3u0447fv] How are you finding it Trent. I haven't got around to it yet have been very busy with offline work and so my time has been limited and have used it adding more articles etc to my website. Still have Buzz on my to do list. MichelleJ[/quote:3u0447fv] It seems to be similar to Twitter but you are not limited in length on what you write and people can directly reply to your updates kind of like on Facebook. It's sort of a cross between the two. I like it better than Twitter but not as much as Facebook so it's somewhere in between in my opinion.
Re: Google Buzz - Any Thoughts? - I'm not too big into these social sites but Buzz looks to be just as good as the next. I have started using it more and more.


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