Is Buzz Marketing the Next SEO?

May 6, 2007

SEO - Search Engine Optimization - is a specialty that has been around for a long time. Buzz Marketing is a vague term that seems to be taking on more the meaning of creating a buzz in social media / Web 2.0 stuff and less meaning around the big and crazy stuff that gets people lots of buzz.

At a conference on Friday, it was interesting to hear an SEO person say she was now doing Buzz Marketing. I always thought of her as an SEO specialist, but more and more, buzz marketing is generating more content and getting more links, which is a great SEO strategy.

So you might ask yourself, are they the same thing?

No. SEO is the practice of targeting particular keywords and getting particular pages to rank highly for those keywords. A good SEO specialist will look at how your website is structured, the words in links, the text on the pages, the invisible (META) information of a webpage and who is linking to the pages. They will recommend places to buy ads and pay for directory listings. They will also attempt to get people to link to your page with the keywords anchored in the text of the link, because search engines use that information to help them rank pages.

Buzz Marketing helps SEO a great deal because it creates more content on a regular basis, which gives you more chances to appear in search engines for a higher number of terms, even though it is unlikely you take the time to optimize the message. - For example, this blog gets lots of hits from search engines because it has over 650 articles, not from any intentional optimization strategy. Buzz Marketing also encourages participation in the Internet as a social media. So you can generate inbound links all over the web to your website.

Those are simple definitions and in both cases, much more can be done. But for the sake of this post, let me move on.

I see that more and more of us are moving to some middle area. I do some SEO. I program sometimes. I am a marketer, a software developer, a data analyst, a PR specialist, a publisher, an author, a speaker, a blogger, a graphic designer, … I am not showing off. We are all taking on more and more rolls. I cannot hire someone every time I need an image cropped or a simple form put on the web.

So are SEO people morphing into Buzz Marketers? Probably.

Here is why: SEO serves some clients really well. Buzz Marketing has some other advantages that serve some clients really well. It just depends on the client and their needs.

Take cost out of the picture. Having someone do these things for you is time consuming either way. It takes research, analysis and tweaking all the time for either of these things to work well.

Advantages of SEO

The advantage of SEO is that it does not take constant creation of new content. Instead, the website owner opts to focus their attention on getting a few pages to rank on the first pages of search engines like Google and Yahoo. This is a very good strategy if:

  • Owner does not want to create content regularly.
  • Owner has specific terms they can target for. (This works really well with specific product names)
  • Website plays small role in company marketing plan.

Advantages of Buzz Marketing

Buzz Marketing has some advantages as well. It captures more listings in search engines for a particular term. For example, you may be listed 3 or 4 times in the top 20 spots in search engines. You may also get incredible spikes in traffic from word of mouth or viral messages that you did not even create. You are a good candidate for Buzz Marketing if:

  • You like to create regular content or can pay someone to do so. (Such as blogging)
  • You enjoy surfing the web, participating in online groups and doing online networking.
  • You would like to be seen as an expert in your field.
  • You can make creating buzz a daily habit, or can hire someone to be your online advocate daily.

SEO and Buzz Marketing are different. If you can do both, it is great. If you must focus your time, use the above information to decide which approach is right for you.

- Thank You!

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Internet Marketing 

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Comments

11 Responses to “Is Buzz Marketing the Next SEO?”

  1. Marcel Wagemeesters | J8 Zoekmachine Optimalisatie SEO on May 6th, 2007 3:20 pm

    Nice post Ron. I agree, that if you can do both, it is great. It creates synergy. Of course it depends on the needs of a client.

  2. Patrick on May 7th, 2007 9:57 am

    Ron, I tried to do a trackback through my blogging software, Ecto but it didn’t seem to come back here. Anyway I made an agreeable post referencing this post on my blog at;

    http://www.spinningsilkmultimedia.com/is-buzz-marketing-the-next-seo/

  3. Ron McDaniel on May 7th, 2007 10:12 am

    Thanks. I will look into the track back issue. I already saw the post and appreciate it. Keep up the excellent blogging!

  4. Jim Kukral on May 12th, 2007 11:10 am

    I think attention is the new PR.

  5. Mark McElreath on May 15th, 2007 11:15 am

    Transparency is key to ethical marketing. Are there not unethical SEO practices that put unethical Buzz Marketing and SEO in bed with each other? You don’t seem to be directly addressing unethical practices. It would be helpful if you would.

    Thanks.

  6. Chrissy Smith on May 15th, 2007 11:33 am

    Buzz Marketing is not always truthful. The FTC says it will deal with unethical Buzz Marketing on a case by case basis. Is it likely that the FTC will take on unethical SEO practices? What do you consider to be the most unethical SEO practices that the FTC should look at?

  7. The Scrappy Software Marketer on May 15th, 2007 2:14 pm

    Is Buzz Marketing the Next SEO?

    I am a big fan of Ron McDaniel.  He had a recent post on the whether  Buzz Marketing is the next SEO that you should really check out.
    Buzz marketing is the new marketing period.  (if done strategically and within reason)  (buzz marketing encompass…

  8. Chrissy Smith on May 15th, 2007 10:01 pm

    Buzz Marketing is not always truthful. The FTC should prepare guidelines for enethical Buzz Marketing. SEO can be considered unethical in some ways too. Should the FTC prepare guidelines for SEO?

  9. Ron McDaniel on May 15th, 2007 10:17 pm

    Thanks for all the comments on this post.

    There seems to be a lot of interest in ethics. I have addressed the issue in the past, but not recently.

    Lets assume Buzz Marketing is broadly the practice of getting people to pass along messages. There are clearly bad things, such as impersonating a happy customer when you are actually an employee, and there are clearly good things, such as creating real and transparent relationships with the interested public.

    Then there are some marginal areas that could be considered unethical depending on the fine details of how you execute them. Buzz Marketing is too broad a term to say something about the ethics. I can tell you we take seriously always following the ethical guidelines at http://www.womma.org

  10. SpinningSilk Multimedia - portable media, web technologies on October 17th, 2007 5:45 am

    [...] we tell others and we have learned it from experience in our own business. I encourage you to read the article about Buzz Marketing and SEO and think about how you can grow your business with this combination of [...]

  11. zoekmachine marketing on April 9th, 2008 3:59 am

    More attention means more buzz, means more links, means higher pagerank. It’s a part of SEO I guess…

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