The impact of buzz marketing is very hard to measure. Agencies that specialize in generating buzz create ads just for viral marketing. These viral-marketing experts start the process and track it wherever it goes.
There are all sorts of “buzz-meters” that claim to measure buzz by, for example, searching for the popularity of certain words and brands in selected blogs over time. But even companies that consciously do buzz marketing don’t necessarily know how buzz works. Word of mouth is hard to track or measure. After all, most conversations are private and ephemeral. Nobody keeps a record.
You can measure buzz in a few ways:
Sales: The most obvious measure is an increase in sales. It probably has something to do with the buzz you’ve generated.
Impressions: If you’re using viral marketing techniques, you can measure the number of hits to a Web site or click-throughs on a link in an e-mail message. Plus, things that are hot get picked up by blogs, magazines, and Web sites, so your press coverage will increase if you get the buzz going.
Word of mouth: This is more difficult to measure than sales or impressions, but you can do research after an event or stunt to find out how attendees heard about it. If there is an online component to your campaign, you can ask that question before granting access to a Web site.
