Marketing 101: What is Marketing Buzz?

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

…And How to Leverage It For Your Primary Business

What is marketing buzz?

In the marketing world, a marketing firm or individual marketer wants to create buzz around the marketed product, service, or brand. This is achieved in many ways, but primarily it comes when “influencers” in a society or niche help to propel word-of-mouth communication.

Buzz is the rapid spread of communication about the marketed item. On the Internet, a new word has been used to express this same phenomenon: viral. More often, viral content is consumed by thousands to millions of Internet users in a very short span of time, resulting in many page views of the viral content.

When a marketing firm or marketer has their content go viral, then it’s possible to receive high interest, tons of prospects or leads, and increased sales from the extra eyeballs that are viewing the viral content.

It can be said “buzz marketing” and “viral marketing” are essentially the same thing, or at least, have the same purpose, in creating vibrant word-of-mouth communication between people in a society.

What are influencers?

Influencers are popular individuals in a society that have the ability to influence others. One common example of an influencer is a celebrity who has status, authority and credibility. This is why marketing firms often use celebrities to promote their products.

A recent example includes rap artist Pitbull who is in a cross-promotion with Walmart and Sheets. The national campaign is using in-store video adverts and television ads to promote the contest, where the Walmart store’s Facebook fan page that gets the most ‘Likes’ will have a special in-store visit from the musician.

Because of Pitbull’s music success and celebrity status, he’s able to heavily influence others to buy the Sheets breath-enhancing product and participate in the contest. Surely, Walmart stores are seeing more Facebook ‘Likes’ and Sheets is seeing increased sales from the national advertising campaign.

These ads, featuring Pitbull, are generating buzz online and offline, exactly as the campaign is designed to do.

But when does marketing buzz happen?

I believe, as an online marketer, that marketing buzz occurs when enough influencers start talking about the product, service or brand to their circle of friends, family, acquaintances, and business contacts. Influencers are generally near the top of their personal or business network.

Influencers are a “go-to” source of information and people often seek out their knowledge, advice, or expertise. There are large influencers like a celebrity, but as marketers we must recognize there are smaller influencers in our societies. The consumer influencers are the most sought after, because they can decide whether or not buyers will end up making a purchase or not.

When enough influencers, from hundreds to thousands of personal networks across a society, talk about a product, service, or brand, then a tipping point is reached. Author and writer Malcolm Gladwell ( to visit his website) made this term popular with his 2000 bestselling book, “The Tipping Point.” ( to read the Wikipedia page about the book).

What is the tipping point?

A tipping point is defined as…

The tipping point is the critical point in an evolving situation that leads to a new and irreversible development. The term is said to have originated in the field of epidemiology when an infectious disease reaches a point beyond any local ability to control it from spreading more widely. A tipping point is often considered to be a turning point.

How do marketers view the tipping point?

Marketers see it as a threshold that, once reached, will result in additional sales.

Did you read that last sentence above? I’m sure that you did, but read it one more time, because it’s extremely important for marketers.

A threshold must be reached, and once that threshold is reached, then additional sales are met. Additional sales are reached when a particular threshold is hit. You must find and go beyond that threshold in order to see massive action.

When the threshold is reached, there’s buzz about the product, service, or brand, resulting in more people talking about it and shelling out their cash.

As more people buy the goods or service, more people talk about it. Not all those people are influencers in their inner circles, however, some of them are, and thus results in more potential sales.

The marketer’s dream is to reach and breakthrough this threshold, then continue to scale it outward until more and more people find out about the product or service.

What is online marketing buzz?

With the advent of the Internet and social networking technologies, it’s become commonplace for people (and consumers) to share their opinions about the products and services they buy and use. Amazon.com makes it possible for anyone (with an account) to write a comment about any item in Amazon’s shopping catalog, whether they purchased the goods from Amazon or not.

People to like to share their experiences from their life and about the stuff they use. Sharing is part of what makes humans social creatures.

Twitter, Facebook and Google+ are social platforms that allow people to share anything at any time. It can be a story, a link to a well-written article, a funny video, or a review about a new product they tried out. It doesn’t matter. People will share what they want to share.

As marketers, you must try to influence what people share. As well, your job is to tap into the major influencers who have the largest social circles and get that word-of-communication spreading, hopefully, turning into a large, humming buzz.

P.S. Want to learn how the Empower Network is a giant marketing buzz model that continues to add 500 new members every day? Then, get yourself registered to find out the marketing buzz techniques you need to drive your primary business.