Buzz can be generated by intentional marketing activities by the brand owner or it can be the result of an independent event that enters public awareness through social or traditional media such as newspapers.
Therefore, a successful social media campaign must find, and engage with influencers that are positively inclined to the brand, providing them with product information and incentives to forward it on to the community.
[5] Budweiser’s Super Bowl advertising has been the most successful at generating buzz as measured by the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter survey over its 26-year history, a testament to its masterful use of heartwarming stories, cute baby animals, majestic horses, and core American values to stir the positive emotions of audiences across a wide range of demographics.
Many tools are available to gather buzz data; some search the web looking for particular mentions in blogs or posts, others monitor conversations on social media channels and score them on popularity, influence, and sentiment using algorithms that assess emotion and personal engagement.
[11] It occurs when high levels of individual engagement on social media drive the buzz volume up for positive associations with the product or brand.
[12] Examples of products with strong positive marketing buzz upon introduction are Harry Potter, Volkswagen's New Beetle, Pokémon, Beanie Babies, and The Blair Witch Project.
If not swiftly counteracted, negative buzz can be harmful to a product's success and the most social network savvy organizations prepare for these eventualities.
Examples of negative buzz include the United Colors of Benetton's shock advertising campaign that generated numerous boycotts and lawsuits, and the 2014 General Motors recall of cars many years after a known issue with a faulty ignition switch which they admitted had caused 13 deaths.
In the latter case, traditional media also contributed to the amplification of the story through reporting on the ongoing recalls and GM CEO Mary Barra's testimony before the US House of Representatives.
[citation needed] Buzz works as a marketing tool because individuals in social settings are easier to trust than organizations that may be perceived to have vested interests in promoting their products and/or services.
[5] A 2013 paper by Xueming Luo and Jie Zhang[8] lists numerous previous studies that have shown a positive correlation between buzz rating and/or volume and product sales or company revenue.
To expand further on that research, Luo and Zhang investigated the relationship of buzz and web traffic and their effect on stock market performance for nine top publicly traded firms in the computer hardware and software industries.
They also found that due to increasing online content and limitations in consumer attention, competing buzz for rival products could have a negative effect on a firm's performance.
[14] With the addition of new interactive and digital media technologies into the marketing industry, a significant emphasis has been put on the use of online content to generate buzz about a product, service, or company.