IS YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY MISSING SOMETHING?
You're watching CNN and the reporter asks you to join the conversation using Facebook or Twitter to share opinions about a new product. You get an Evite from one of your LinkedIn groups to meet at Starbucks.
As you are on the way to meet some of your virtual group members face-to-face for the first time, the CNN story unfolds about this new product and you get an email post with commentary about the story on your smartphone that was automatically generated from a blog that you joined last week. You arrive at Starbucks and discuss the story and opinions you read with the group and naturally the story becomes the buzz that the majority of participants chat about before departing for their next appointments.
Buzz creates a positive association, excitement, or shared anticipation about a product or service. Positive "buzz" is often a goal of viral marketing campaigns, public relations, guerrilla marketing, and Web 2.0 media promotions.
IS BUZZ JUST SERENDIPITY OR
SHEER LUCK?
McKinsey research found that buzz, a phenomenon they dubbed "explosive self-generating demand", is hardly a random force of nature. Instead, it evolves according to a few basic principles. The research shows that companies can predict the spread of buzz by analyzing how different groups of prospects and customers interact and influence one another.
Once buzz is generated, moving from awareness to action is where Marketers do a surprisingly poor job of marketing -- They do not effectively bridge the distance between curiosity and acquisition.
Successful viral marketing programs identify individuals with high Social Networking Potential (SNP) and generate content that appeals to this segment of the population that will have a high probability of being passed along.
BUZZ GAP TM is the inability to cross the chasm from generating hype, stimulating curiosity, socially influencing, virally proliferating, and increasing brand awareness to achieving marketing objectives such as generating demand, eliciting response, emotionally connecting, acquiring customers and increasing market share. 