Friday, February 20, 2009

BuzzGain - Why I like it.


In honor of my good friend, Mukund Mohan, whose interview in the Experts in the Industry series is coming up later today, I thought it was about time to do a quick post about BuzzGain, the company he co-founded with PR 2.0 guru, Brian Solis. In full disclosure, I'm on Mukund's advisory board which means that you now know that I can't be completely unbiased in this post. But if you know anything about me, you know that if I'm not passionate about something, I don't write about it.

By way of background, BuzzGain is "an online service for discovering and connecting with the people who will help your business thrive in today’s social economy – where attention is a precious commodity." It also allows companies – big and small – to find "long tail" communities where hidden influencers (or detractors) may live. The tool is able to look across traditional online media, blogs and other social sites like Flickr, YouTube, Twitter.

What inspired me to write this post is that our team at Powered has recently received demos from "listening service" providers like BuzzGain, Radian6 and coming next week, Techrigy. What makes our selection difficult is that I have friends at all three companies and like what I've seen so far of BuzzGain and Radian6. In BuzzGain's case, I'm realizing that while they are in the same category of Radian6 and Techrigy, they really are an animal unto themselves.

Here are three things I like about BuzzGain's offering that help differentiate it from other listening or "do-it-yourself" PR services:
  • Ability to get detailed information on blogs including their reach, search engine rankings, readership trends, post frequency, contact information and related/ relevant blogs
  • Provision of contact information on main stream media reporters with their email, beat information related to my campaign and their areas of coverage 
  • Sentiment analysis and tonality including positive, negative posts, news mentions and comments in a single place
I also like that Mukund and Brian are open about not only their shortcomings but are also transparent about their pricing. According to Mukund, pricing is $99 per month for companies under $100m in revenue, $100m - $1 billion is $500 per month, those with over $1b is sales is $1,000 per month.

Brian and Mukund have also responded quickly to initial feedback. See a step by step walk through of their new "user feedback" driven features.




Have you tried out BuzzGain yet? If so, how do you like it?

5 comments:

  1. Hi Aaron,
    My listening skills brought me over. :)
    I have tried out BuzzGain & yes Brian & Mukund have something good going! Although I may bring a bit of a different eye to it, that's all good too. It just means that I'm immersed in the listening industry.

    The one thing that I HAVE to give kudos to them for is that they're proponents of remote warriors. Radian6 also has people working remotely too. And I do so likewise. It's great to see that they're a total web 2.0 company! :)

    And yes we look forward to showing you Techrigy's SM2 next week! I always enjoy talking with you.

    Connie Bensen
    Community Strategist, Techrigy

    ReplyDelete
  2. Buzz Gain looks like an interesting product. In some ways it is repetitive of Andiamo, Radian6, Brands Eye, etc. But in other ways it appears to offer deeper drilling capabilities, offering the ability to draw more of a social net.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Aaron, thanks for the mention and consideration. Everyone offers a little something different based on their perspective. We like to think we are a great match.

    Warren Sukernek
    Director of Content Marketing, Radian6

    ReplyDelete
  5. -Connie/Warren - glad to see that you're doing a good job listening. ;) As I mentioned, we liked what we saw w/ Radian6 and I'm looking forward to seeing more of what Techrigy's got.

    -Richard, I think there is definitely overlap. I can let you know what we find out as we delve deeper into this experience.

    Best,
    Aaron

    ReplyDelete