Hyderabad-Based Achyut Menon runs a recruitment agency that specialises in providing jobs to Indians returning from abroad. With hundreds of firms offering such services countrywide, Menon realised he could cut through the clutter only by creating a unique “buzz” about his services. He started an interactive blog that sought to address queries on topics like work culture and emerging sectors in India. This soon began receiving a stream of enquiries from not only job-seeking NRIs but also international recruitment firms.

Welcome to the new world of online buzz marketing, where the art of generating “word-of-mouth” has taken a massive technological leap since the early days of simple publicity. Rather than blitzing the airways with “low-recall” TV commercials, corporates are discovering the efficacy of deploying new-age digital media like blogs, online communities, newsgroups and forums, to create a sustained buzz about their offerings.

“My blog acted as the best way to attract potential job-seekers and also helped create a strong brand-name,” says Menon, founder of Options Executive Search.

That, in essence, is what Internet-based buzz marketing encapsulates. It employs the tried and tested gambit of slipping into the conversational pathways of those who either use products, or make them.

“The buzz is started by our customers, who discuss our products through blogs. There are also trade blogs where someone posts a query like ‘does anyone know a product which can ...’ We post replies directly to such questions, revealing our corporate identity,” says Vikas Joshi of Harbinger Group, an e-learning solution provider.

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