A dose of B2B-uzz with Google Buzz?

(B2Buzz incidentally was the initial name proposed for this site).

So Google Buzz is slowly working its way through the Gmail universe and praise and encomium are being heaped by the minute. Like anything of its ilk, Google Buzz is destined to be loved passionately or hated pathologically (also here). But can it mean something for B2B marketing? Can it’s real value be in business networking?

It can, with one caveat to start off with: it needs to be enabled in Google Apps. Google Buzz in one’s personal email can quickly become a huge privacy monster (I for one realized that my followers get to see all those who I follow <horrors>; but being the geeky tinkerer that I am, I found the option to disable this pretty easily – but yes, it ought to be made more prominent for the average user). But in the work space, especially one where email is the communication core, Buzz could fit in very well (especially if bundled with Google Wave) as an all-integrating logical collaboration and social networking tool where we get notified within email of updates to documents and status.

For better or worse, our Google Profiles (ill-publicized as it is) will now show all our public buzzes, and that could help boost inbound and search marketing.  It’s time for us to spruce up our own Google Profiles and connect with the corporate web!

The power of small groups. With buzz, Google seems to throw some focus lights on one-to-notsomany interactions, hitherto ignored by the most common social platforms  today. And small groups today appear to have increasing influence than large groups. B2B marketers can now look forward to results ranked higher due to key influencers suggesting it, and that’s something they can exploit.

Real-time search will soon top conventional search. So perhaps it’s time for everyone in the company to start engaging in the social web (Twitter and other platforms) and actively contributing content to be discovered first in search, thereby driving traffic and leads (works better with keyword optimization!). And Google Buzz makes this super-convenient (updates are a tad slow at the moment though)  – check out Jason’s buzz.

The other thing Google Buzz has to the potential to do is make social media far more mainstream than anything else has so far. The fact that it’s right there in your inbox can be so tempting (I am find it hard to resist checking the Buzz tab when it shows an update – thought I am still very much an observer at the moment). Social media in B2B was typically used to influence influencers but with buzz tightly integrating various elements of social media so tightly together you are going to find a lot more people slipping into mainstream without even realizing it – and some  are going to love it.

How else can Google Buzz be an integral tool of B2B marketing? Chime away!

(Or if you are really bugged by buzz, simply switch off the blasted thing).

Tagged as: b2b marketing, google, Google Apps, Google Buzz, Google Wave, social media, Twitter