mobites - ideas, inspiration, insight

Before buzz had any buzz, this guy was all over it.

Emanuel Rosen, god-father of word-of-mouth marketing is buzzing around again. Seven years after he wrote the original, groundbreaking treatise on the subject he has revisited buzz marketing in the new age of social networking.

Building on some of his original principles, he’s taking a new, state-of-the-art look at one of the most important societal and communications factors of our time.

You might be interested in seeing and hearing what he has to say on the subject.

Unless you’re time-crunched or video-impaired

In that case, I’ll give you a quick written summary that does not do him justice. But it does reduce his brilliance to bullet points and overly simplistic, numbered steps which, of course, is all that really counts on a blog post.

According to Rosen, two recent and major trends have affected the way buzz spreads today:

• Text-based buzz through social networking and media has reached a massive scale.
• Your customers have ever richer ways to communicate with each other. Including audio and video technologies as well as tools that give them more opportunities to observe each other.

Buzz in the land of twits and tweets
In this new marketing environment, Emanuel suggests eight principles at work in social networks that affect buzz in the era of LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter. Answer these questions in the affirmative and you’re on your way. If you can’t, then it would be a good idea to figure out the steps you’ll have to take so you can.

1. Do you have the right product / service … one that impresses people enough to get them talking about it?
2. Do you have the right approach … an attitude of honesty, directness and networks?
3. Are you listening … to customers, prospects and market buzz?
4. Are you working with network hubs … connected people who talk more than most people?
5. Have you considered all possible techniques for building buzz … including grassroots seeding, sneak previews and surprise?
6. Are you engaging people … helping them to create something, participate and involve themselves in experiences?
7. How can you keep the buzz alive … by keeping the offering new and associating it with innovation?
8. Are your ads building buzz … research has shown that the right kind of advertising substantially increases buzz?

You know what happens when you ass u me

All of which brings up an important point. There seems to be an assumption among many marketers that content in the form of blogs supported by tweets is audience engagement. It is not. Engagement is more about integrating those eight questions into your branding and marketing program and using many media to create brand relationships.

Pure, raw content is not engagement. It never has been. It never will be. You have to make that content engaging in one way or another or no one will ever get to it. It has to stand out, not blend in to the mass of content that is drowning business people around the world.

If you’d like to explore that idea in more depth (including the need to integrate traditional media like advertising into social networking programs) check out the free eBook entitled The Age of Engagement.

But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

What’s your take?