Social networking over the years has really evolved, and many online marketers are realizing they can no longer ignore it. Sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have brought many businesses more brand awareness as well as helping with lead generation. Google is now adding their expertise to the mix, and are offering Google Buzz to their arsenal of tools.
Quoting Google’s blog, “Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting. It's built right into Gmail, so you don't have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch — it just works. Our goal is to make Buzz a fully open and distributed platform for conversations.”
Integration into other Social Networking Sites
Because of the openness set into Buzz, businesses that already have Twitter accounts can integrate their tweets into their Buzz streamline. This could add extra exposure for the information you are tweeting about. Besides Twitter, you can also integrate your streamline to share pictures if you have a Flickr account, or a Google Picas account.
Google profile
There is also the possibility of added exposure to your business because of the Google profile you set up. Having your company and employees set up profiles through Google will allow businesses to boost inbound and search marketing. Remember these links set up in your Google profile will be on a PR10 site. This is a great asset, and something you should not pass up.
RSS enabled
Another feature Buzz boasts is the fact it is RSS enabled. If you have a contact that you find provides valuable content, you can subscribe to their stream and get all of their buzzes in your RSS reader. On the flip side, being able to have anyone subscribe to your buzzes could be beneficial for your company as well.
Buzz is mobile
Like with other social networking sites, Buzz is mobile. As of right now it is available for iPhone and Android devices. This makes one more door for mobile marketers to be able to catch people on the go. It is very important when doing a campaign via mobile web that you have your web designer construct mobile web friendly landing pages. Loading time for cell phones need to be quick, and easy to read.
Can’t deny the numbers
If you’re still a skeptic of social networking, and you think Buzz is just another hyped up tool, consider this. Buzz was officially up and running on Feb. 9, 2010. Just two days later Google reported that there were already 9 million posts and comments-- that works out to 160,000 comments and posts per hour. With these numbers, it seems like many people are quickly jumping on Google’s bandwagon.
The best anyone can do is at least try it out and see if it brings any benefit to your company. Free is always a number business owners can afford when it comes to trying new marketing tactics. We all will have to wait and see if Google Buzz will make the cut in the social networking arena, but it seems to be generating a lot of ‘buzz’ for the moment.
