If you’ve been slaving away at your website or weblog, you probably want to know if what you’re doing is really working. There are many metrics you could use to see if your buzz marketing ideas are taking off, and these are 21 signs to see how your buzz marketing ideas are working.
1.) Pingbacks. Pingbacks mean there are links to your content out there, which means that someone is reading your stuff and your page rank is inching up.
2.) Lots of comments. Comments are a conversation centering around your content. Think of every comment you get as a little tidbit of buzz. Also, as people leave comments, they feel more invested in the content and will keep coming back, particularly if you take the time to respond.
3.) Spike in traffic. Check your analytics. Steady incline is great, but quick sharp spikes in traffic let you see which bits of buzz bait worked best.
4.) Digg. If one of your posts end up on Digg, you definitely did something right. The more Diggs you get, the better you should feel.
5.) Likes. Be sure that your blog or site allows folks to “like” your content. The more likes you get, the more effective your buzz bait is.
6.) A jump in RSS subscribers. It feels good to have subscribers, and it feels even better when you get a whole bunch of them all at once. If you have a big boost in subscribers, you have your buzz-worthy content to thank.
7.) Stumble. If one of your pages has been submitted to StumbleUpon, it’s usually because it’s buzz-worthy. The more Stumbles it gets, the more likely it is that your content is buzz baiting gold.
8.) Tweets. A lot of content is getting shared on Twitter all the time. If your pages are being linked to in other people’s tweets, it is either informative, funny or something else that makes it a winning post.
9.) Facebook fans. You need a Facebook Fan Page. If you don’t have one, you can’t watch the number of likes your blog or site gets grow and grow. Be sure to post links to your best content on your Facebook page; if your winning buzz marketing idea is already on Facebook, it is easier for your fans to share.
10.) MySpace friends. Even though fewer and fewer folks are on MySpace, there are still many MySpace users, which means that it is worthwhile to set up your presence here. As MySpace members decrease, if you can make your friend base increase, your ideas for buzz are definitely hitting the spot.
11.) Email sharing. You should have your site set up so that visitors can email your top-notch content directly to their friends, family and colleagues. Look for a big bump in shares when your ideas are winners.
12.) Profits pop up. If your site is monetized, you should see some bigger earnings if you have been churning out buzz-worthy posts.
13.) Conversations on other sites. An excellent sign that you are indeed building buzz is other sites and blogs are talking about your posts. Instead of just linking to your site, folks are talking about it too.
14.) Better Search Result Ranking. You know you Google your common keywords every now and then to see where your site shakes out. As you start seeing your site sooner, you know that your buzz marketing ideas have started to pay off.
15.) Copy Cats. Imitation is said to be the sincerest form of flattery. While it stinks to see someone ripping off one of your posts, you can take solace in knowing that the main reason it was stolen was because it was so darn good!
16.) Emails. If a way to email you is available on your site, you will get a flood of them after one of your buzz marketing ideas really pays off. The majority of these emails won’t come from real people, but it shows that more eyes (including bot-eyes) are on your site, possibly due to better search rank.
17.) Real-World Praise. If you get word about how cool one of your buzz marketing ideas were offline, it means that your post was super effective. Friends and family surely check in on your site all the time because that’s what they’re there for, but if they take the time to tell you how awesome something was, that means that it was particularly great. Unless, of course, this praise comes from your momma because, let’s face it, she likes everything you do.
18.) Solicitations. No, not that kind of solicitation. If you have hit on a really great idea, you will find an influx of other bloggers and marketers trying to get in touch with you. They will want you to let them put guest blogs and other content on your site to help them sell their products or webpage. They may or may not want to pay you, and you may or may not want to participate. Regardless of whether or not you take the bait, know that they found you either because of the massive shares your site got or because of increased search rankings.
19.) Shares on other social media sites. There are A LOT of social media sites, and you probably haven’t heard of a fraction of them (unless your niche is international social media experts). They many not call it sharing, but once your stuff is getting linked to on obscure sites, you know your idea was gold.
20.) It goes big time. If you find your post turned into a meme or featured on HuffPo or another big name blog, news site or aggregator, you know your buzz marketing idea was a big time success, and you can just watch the influx of new visitors start flocking to your site.
21.) It ends up on another media altogether. You seriously have buzz marketing platinum if this happens. When your web-based buzz marketing idea ends up on the radio, on television, in actual print or anywhere other than the internet in the original medium it was created in… way to go! If your content can hop away from the web and to another medium on it’s own, you did very good work. This one deserves a celebration.
_____
Remember, these aren’t the only indicators that you have been successful in your campaign to build buzz. What things do you look for when you want to know how well you’re doing when building buzz?
