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The Anatomy of Buzz
Emanuel Rosen

Emanuel Rosen is the former vice president of Marketing for Niles Software. The company makes EndNote, a reference tool for researchers. He tells the story of how a few months before the first version of EndNote was released, a letter from New Jersey arrived, asking to purchase the product. Rosen and his colleagues were baffled; Niles Software was a Silicon Valley company that had done no advertising for its product. To their knowledge, only a handful of people in California knew it existed.

How did a company across the country hear so much about a secret product that it was ready to buy? Buzz.

Based on research Rosen has done with over 150 executives and marketers who have successfully built buzz for major brands, this book explains the mystique behind word-of-mouth and viral marketing.

In illustrating the architecture and psychology of how buzz spreads, Rosen explains that it travels over invisible networks. Pick up an in-flight magazine and examine the airline's flight paths. Amongst the paths you'll see hubs, where flights originate and land. Rosen says, now imagine the hubs as people and the flight paths as connections between people. Buzz travels through these connections via face-to-face meetings, the Internet, phone calls, etc..

Continuing with his airline analogy, Rosen names buzz-spreaders as hubs. They are trusted sources of information who can disseminate information quickly and make an impact on your organization. There are two kinds of hubs:

* Mega-hubs: newspaper and magazine writers, Oprah, politicians, etc.

* Individual network hubs: people in the community who can influence a sizable network of co-workers, friends and family -- it's typically those people in your office who always seem to be up on the latest movie, fashion or gadget

So now that we know how buzz spreads, what causes it in the first place?

Some products are "contagious," and there are ways to accelerate their natural contagion. Rosen explains that the hit HBO series "The Sopranos" is contagious because it's a brilliantly written show, and it's about people. Colorful and unusual people. Rosen's research shows that our innate interest in other people causes us to talk so much about them.

Rosen argues that buzz about a restaurant is often about the people who eat there. Movie buzz is often focused on the real-life actors in the film.

And what about stimulating product buzz?

Rosen suggests that in working with network hubs, be diligent in finding and tracking them. Target them first with a new product or service. Network hubs love to be the first to know something new. Bring the network hubs to forums where they can talk with others.

Devise ways to make sure others see hubs using your products. For example, PowerBar created a "PowerBar Elite" program. Athletes earn money when their picture appears in the media eating PowerBars or wearing PowerBar gear.

Filled with other research-based information and examples, the "Anatomy of Buzz" thoroughly explains how individuals, not just the traditional "mega-hubs," contribute to awareness of your product. Buzz-based programs can be an addition (or a substitution) to the mass media approach of traditional PR firms. With Rosen's helpful book in hand, marketers should add a section to their marketing plans for creating buzz.

By talking directly with your customers, finding individual champions and establishing relationships with them, you are on your way to creating good buzz.

-- Jackie Huba