As I’m prepping for an upcoming presentation on buzz marketing, my daily email from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association comes across the wire.  Fortuitously, it includes a link to an article  on the best and worst social media campaigns of the year. 

While I think it may be a little early to start posting the best and worst of the year – it’s the equivalent to Christmas décor showing up in the department stores before Halloween – this is definitely a good read.

What’s noteworthy about the top selections is that they fit in perfectly with the top traits of buzz. 

Obama won the top slot, naturally, for his campaign.  While the article applauds his use of social media, you’ve got to recognize the buzzworthiness of the man as well.  The nation’s first African-American president.  Young, charismatic, stirring up hopes of change, mobilizing a country to get out and vote.  His team’s use of social media was fantastic, but would McCain have won the election if he’d been just as proficient?  I doubt it.  Buzz shows up at the ballot boxes.

The next campaign to win a top slot is the Compare the Meerkat campaign, which outfitted a cute little meerkat and equipped him with a cheesey Russian accent.  Humor hard at work, combined with a rip-off from the Wonderful World of Disney.  Personally, I liked Timon’s one-liners better.

The third post is for Zappos, a company that really understands how to use social media because of its simplistic approach.  It seems like they’ve unlocked the secret by bypassing all the PR strategies and Mad Men media models, and they’re simply being authentic.  (Unlike the worst of campaigns included in the article.)  The CEO tweets, and he’s really an engaging Tweeterer.  Twittererst?  Tweetist?  

The bottom line is that Zappos is that these guys generate buzz because they’re a highly successful company that appears to be run by a very normal, goofy, fun-loving group of people.  No stuffy CEO types here.  Unless this is a covert front established by some truly ingenious Mad Men.

The final campaign is for Beat Cancer everywhere.  It draws upon a disease that has touched far too many people.  The campaign featured eBay/PayPal and MillerCoors donating one cent to breast cancer research for each mention of the #beatcancer hashtag on Twitter.   The campaign boasted a buzzworthy statistic, beating a Guiness World Record for the “distribution of the largest mass message through social media within 24 hours.”  I’m sure this blog post will top that mark.

Of course, you’ll want to read the worst campaigns.  Each includes such tremendous lapses in judgment and common sense that prison sentences or astonishing levels of government regulation should be inflicted upon the perps.  And I may pick a fight on this one, but I was even more amazed by the amount of time people invested in complaining about the drivel. 

We can talk about these in greater detail if you can join me at the Midwest Regional Conference hosted by the American Marketing Association at the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater.  Now I need to quit working on this post, and get back to working on that presentation….

This sad news came to light this past week, as I was preparing the deliver the first-ever address to the nation’s schoolchildren by a freelance copywriter and buzz marketing consultant. 

I had spent months working on my speech, practicing for it hours on-end in front of my cat.  I was ready to speak to our nation’s young on the merits of staying in school and pursuing a career in copywriting and buzz marketing, my two specialties. 

As you’ll surely agree, the need for this speech was glaring. 

Yes, our country is always looking for more engineers to build things like bridges and strip malls, but we also need practitioners in the art of writing persuasive copy and exceptional content.  Small to mid-sized businesses also need buzz marketing specialists who can help them generate buzz through use of creative ideas and the leveraging of social media.  Our young ‘uns need to know that the world needs help in these areas.

I was ready to send out the uber-Tweet announcing my speech.  And that’s when I heard about President Obama’s “historic first.”

Was this a coincidence?  I think not. 

I’ve been producing buzzworthy ideas for clients for years, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all this the President had employed his vast covert-resources to keep an eye on gmwrites, and conveniently “borrow” some of my epiphanies whenever he decided it would fit into his agenda.

You think me paranoid?  Then ask yourself, isn’t it strange how on the exact same week I had prepared my historic speech, President Obama suddenly decided to deliver the exact same type of address?  Don’t you think it somewhat odd that in the middle of a highly controversial, nationwide health care debate, he found time to make a speech on education and snatch the “historic first” title only days before I was about to do the exact same thing?

What truly annoyed me is that this wasn’t the first time I’ve been, shall we say, “intellectually plagiarized” by President Obama.  I’ll give you an example that’s sure to upset your stomach. 

A few years ago, I began using a service called Facebook, and a nifty little social networking tool called Twitter.  I would use it to generate word-of-mouth advertising, leveraging the buzzworthy events I’d create for myself and my business.  Well wouldn’t you know it – candidate Obama decided to formulate an entire campaign around social media, and it became a key factor in his capturing the White House.

I let that transgression pass, but enough is enough.

As a buzz marketing specialist, let me point out why President Obama’s address was so successful.  It adhered to one of the buzz marketing principles:  It’s something remarkable.  It was the first time a President had ever addressed the nation’s schoolchildren, and it didn’t hurt that it created a bit of controversy.

I can only imagine the kind of buzz my speech would have delivered. What’s done is done, however.  I don’t have time to dwell in the past.  Since President Obama stole my swagger, I’ll have to pick another of the buzz marketing methods.  

Fortunately, there are plenty of other tactics to generate buzz.  The use of humor, for example, can get you noticed.  Maybe next time I’ll try it.