What's Bugging You?

I get a lot of questions from clients about the value of "Buzz Marketing". For those of you wearing DEET, Buzz Marketing is a type of viral marketing that involves dropping hints about an upcoming event to key people so as to orchestrate a buzz in the market independent of your traditional outreach strategy. While some criticize these efforts as deceitful or subversive in nature, the truth is they are guerilla tactics at their finest. After all, we all want to create a buzz around our products. So how do you do it legitimately? There are really two ways (anything else is a variation on the theme) ... The first is through traditional PR. The upside is the potential to reach millions in one fell swoop. The downside - and reality for most small companies - is that unless you are a major player you're on the short end of bad odds. The second is using new media. Chat rooms, personal blogs, IM, and other message boards even the playing field. Used properly these can yield big results regardless of the depth of your pocketbook. The key to success is to develop a long term plan, build a following and only deliver high-value content. This will drive your users back time and again and will get you recommended faster than you can say MySpace.