Google Buzz is here—should you care?  You may well wince at the thought of adding another social network to keep up with in the name of online marketing.  Or you may be wondering if you can stick your head in the sand and skip this one, hoping that it goes the way of MySpace and Second Life.  But, after all, this is from Google, arguably the biggest gorilla in the room.  With Google’s history of innovation and market dominance, will it be long before Buzz knocks Facebook and Twitter out of the picture?

If you don’t have a Facebook page for your business yet, get one.  Ditto for Twitter.  Connecting with your customers through these media is simple, straightforward, and doesn’t take a lot of time out of your day.

(If it does, you may need to pull back and look at your time management strategies.  The first lesson in how to start a business online is to spend as little time as possible on automated and outsourced tasks that can get your marketing to the largest number of potential customers.)

It would be nice if social networking for online marketing were as easily automated and outsourced as your web site hosting directory or tools like affiliate marketing uk, but, alas, it’s not.  Social networking is still something you’ll want/have to do yourself.  That being so, you don’t want to get involved in a new social network unless you’re reasonably certain that there’s a real payoff.

So what about Google Buzz?  Well, you can watch a video introducing it if you like.  It’s one of the oddest promotional videos I’ve seen.  This is mostly because it seems to be about Facebook—that is, all of the features it promotes for Buzz are more or less identical to all of your favorite Facebook features, including sending updates directly to your email inbox.

Not what I was expecting from the legendary innovators at Google.  And this hot on the heels of their wonderful Super Bowl ad.  It almost seems to me that Google is just getting into social marketing for the sake of appearances.  Being the Internet behemoth that it is, Google may just be feeling left out without a social networking presence.

News coverage has been interesting.  A CNN commentator noted Buzz’ lackluster debut and concluded glumly that Buzz will be moderately successful anyway just because it’s from Google.  Newsfactor notes that Buzz may automatically be exposing your Gmail account information to the public, even if you haven’t actually signed up for it, making it an intrusive privacy risk.  Of potentially more interest to you as an online entrepreneur is that Buzz is not yet available for many smartphones—including older versions of Google’s own Android.

The Christian Science Monitor and readers who answered a Wall Street Journal poll are both more charitable and optimistic about Buzz’ future.  I, for one, am taking a “wait and see” approach.  If Buzz explodes in popularity, there will be time enough to exploit it for marketing.  If not, you won’t have wasted your time and energy becoming an early adopter.

Share