BzzAgent is a word-of-mouth marketing agency - a company that recruits everyday folks (that’s unpaid everyday folks) to act as agents, generating “buzz” about the agency’s clients.

It’s a cutting-edge marketing concept from a cutting-edge marketing company. Naturally, they’re committed to a cutting-edge blog.

The 90 Days of BzzAgent

BzzAgent’s initial blogging effort was “90 Days of BzzAgent” - a blog written by a writer acting as an embedded reporter instead of company marketing agent.

Limiting the blog to 90 days was brilliant; it slaps an “act now or you’ll lose your chance” incentive to join the conversation, and provided a graceful exit should the project fail.

Labeled an “experiment in organizational transparency,” it differed little from the content delivered by a normal “insider” business blog.

Inc. Magazine profiled BzzAgent’s blogging efforts in its December “Hands On” column, and the company has been extensively featured in mainstream media.

In engagement terms, the writer (John Butman) does a masterful job of finding the human faces behind BzzAgent, but he’s hardly an outsider; the writer co-authored a book with BzzAgent’s President Dave Balter.

At the end of 90 days, BzzAgent decided the project was a success - and moved onto their next “buzz” blog: Bento Box

Bento Box - Stretching Boundaries.

A mix of posts, artwork, essays and comments, Bento Box replaces linear blogging with a patchwork template.

I was put off the by the approach at first (adding topic labels to the Bento Box pictures instead of pop-ups would help), but came to appreciate its non-linear “on-demand” nature.

Like 90 Days before it, Bento Box operates with an expiration date (24 weeks); after that, BzzAgent (who are in the buzz business after all) will move onto the next blog.

Engagement’s The Goal. But Not With Customers.

Most organizations aim their engagement marketing at customers, but BzzAgent is a different animal. It aims to engage with its BzzAgents, who are the standing army generating the “buzz” about BzzAgent’s clients.

It’s an interesting goal. A blog that exposes the organization’s human side to its “agents” is a powerful engagement marketing lever - especially as the company grows and the sheer size of the organization creates distance between the organization and its “agents.”

(I’m interested to see how the unpaid “agents” react when the company is bought and the “paid” employees enjoy a hefty payoff.)

While it’s difficult to measure the ROI of this kind of engagement marketing, give a little thought to the intensive (and expensive) contact efforts needed to keep in touch with BzzAgent’s unpaid army through conventional means - none of which offer the opportunity for feedback and comment.

In simplest terms, it’s a no-brainer.

What’s Next?

Blogs are shiny and new and evolving rapidly. No doubt the medium will grow and mutate (I already find myself wishing for stronger magazine-style features in my own blogs - relics of my decades of print experience), and in a couple years, the blog you’re reading now will seem quaint and hopelessly old fashioned.

The organizations who create an engaged community now - discovering what works and evolving engagement marketing - will weather upcoming changes far better than those who grapple with engagement only after their competitors have done so.

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