45 Pineapples for Gettin' Yo' Buzz On

Okay. Where do I start? I think I'm going to go with a short narrative followed by an informational segment and a capstone example. Ready/Set? Let's roll.

Last night we went out for dinner and drinks at The West Side Lounge over in Cambridge. After sidling up to the very crowded bar (and by "sidle," I mean finagle my elbow in between a crowd of people also trying to sidle), we notice a colleague and his new gf (charming and cute, btw) sitting at the bar, enviably post-sidle. Given that:
a.) Fridays typically mean take-out and pajama pants, so the fact that we were dolled up and "out someplace cool" on a Friday night was particularly conducive to others playing witness, and
b. We could obviously inherit their stools when they got seated,
we decided to say hello.

So, skip over a load of smalltalk (wait, wait, I'll highlight: you can get glasses of decent champagne by the glass for 7 dollars a pop here; I'm remembered by the colleague because I'm the girl that went on a "bazillion first dates"; why is there a newborn at the booth next to where we're sitting? Dead serious...I'm talking fresh from the womb, umbilical cord draped across a plate of duck and risotto). And then, and then: buzz marketing. What a great topic, particularly apropos because both couples at hand ended up here, together but separately, through word-of-mouth. We find out that Megan (the aforementioned new gf) works at a "non-traditional marketing firm." Way cool-- unlike "socially-responsible investment firms" and "sugar-free chocolates," this is a hyphenated phrase that makes me giddy and doesn't give me stomach cramps. Lemme cut to the chase-- buzz agents. Such an amazing concept, one that's been close to my heart n' mind for years... an organized, tracked, manipulated form of WOM advertising. A good first read about this is Seth Godin's Purple Cow, which, by the way, is a fantastic example of a buzzobject imbued with buzzprompts so incredibly elegantly. If you don't feel like waiting for Amazon to deliver, check out this Fast Company article for a quick overview: What's the Buzz?. Read it? Good. Brilliant, right? Although the woman "buzzing" in her grandpop's eulogy is a bit much, even for someone like me, obsessed-obsessed-obsessed with alterna-media trends like this. Lady, you can't buzz about beer over a casket, even babies and dummies know that.


And Megan-- this is your job, to track and analyze the work of buzzagents? So jealous I'm past green and back to purple.


I want to write about this forever and ever, but I really need to take a shower, so let me get to my capstone example. Guess who found me out? Jeff Guinee! Check out his comment in the post preceding this one. HA! He lives in my city-- who woulda thought? Jeff, are you the guy that walks his welsh corgi way too many times a day past my apartment? No, but really, Jeff, I support ya-- I'm buzzing about you (because, of course, blogs are a buzzer's bff), and more people are signing your petition, and you're buzzing about me in return. I feel a handshake coming on.


and while i'm at it, let me cite http://eclectech.co.uk for the lovely picture of a guinea pig enjoying pie. Know why this picture is important? Jeff, every time someone googles Bob the Bachelor, they are now directed to my blog, which in turn leads to more signatures for you. Guinea, Guiney, Guinee. See, right there--- signatures flowin' like wine in a Dionysian marketplace.


Buzz, yo: it's obviously always been a fantastic marketing tool, but to rein it in, organize it, and push it into mainstream fodder in an exciting new way? You mean I can talk about buzzagents in a bar and not just in a new media lecture hall? I'm a happy little bee.