[video & article] Are Regular Consumers Using Buzz? If so, Should We Care?

If you’re wondering to yourself whether Google Buzz is being used by the non-techie majority in Gmail’s estimated 220 million users, here’s a tip for figuring out whether it’s active in your area.

Before you watch the video below to see the “how-to” of this, let me explain why this is of any importance, in case you haven’t already come to one of these conclusions yourself.

You see, now that the furor over Google Buzz has died down considerably, many businesses and site owners are thinking about how they can use it to get exposure to their sites. Some are discovering that simply plugging their Twitter feed into it, or treating it like Twitter is failing.

There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that if all your connections are other people in technology, they’re probably getting the same “shiny new thing” feeling that came when Twitter came out. We all found it, kind of got it but kind of didn’t. Those of us who got it more, stayed and used it for other things than to talk about about how great it is. The rest of us came back later when more coherent explanations of how to use it came about.

The second thing I’ve found is that Google Buzz users are a different group, with a expectation as to the level of engagement they get with you. I also believe the infrastructure isn’t mature yet – on Twitter, we have Tweetmeme, there’s no such central authority on Rebuzzes to help discover content for Buzz.

*Edit: My good friend Doug wrote to point out that there are tons of WP Plugins for Google Buzz.

Right he is, which I pointed out last week in my coverage of Google Buzz top articles and conversations.

However, what I’m referring to in this article is the infrastructure around the site Tweetmeme, not buttons that show how many sites have Buzzed a particular post, or even that show links to the actual buzzes.

Being technically able to Re-buzz something is neat, but without the infrastructure with the API, the tracking, the central repository that sorts by category – it doesn’t have the traffic power nor the research capabilities of a Retweet. Why is another post I’ll write another day.

But Google Buzz is important, not just because of what it is, but because of what it enables. If you missed how I connected Google Buzz to Google Social Search, and how that means more visitors for you, here it is in a nutshell:

People who use Google Buzz must have Google Profiles enabled.

People who have Google Profiles can be connected to you in Google Social Search, which can currently bring you a nice bump in traffic, and may bring you a Huge advantage in seatch in coming months.

The more people with Google Profiles in Google Social Search that you are connected to, the more you can be featured in their search results via your social circle connection.

Google Buzz gives people a reason to have Google Profiles, and gives current GMail users a reason to stay logged in.

(Not that I ever log out of my Google account if I’m in the house. But some people do.)

Google Social Search doesn’t have a big impact now, but Google Buzz makes the potential for that to be Huge. And not just other heavy internet users, regular people you would not normally reach in search results or in one degree connections via social media.

But I digress. To read more about that, you really need to pick up a copy of Google Social Search Secrets in five videos I go on about that and effective ways to use Google Buzz for about an hour.

Today, I want to show you a quick way to see whether regular people in your area are using Google Buzz.

Word of caution:

1- If you’re in a suburban area that’s not heavily populated, during business hours, like I was when I did this, you’re not going to see a Lot of people.

I’d take my laptop or mobile phone to a metropolitan area and do this.

2- Also, I only tested this successfully in Firefox on a laptop. Safari came up with a blank page, except on Mobile devices. If you don’t have Firefox, get it, or use your phone to get to the page.

Warnings over: let’s proceed.

The first step: go to this address in your mobile phone or laptop:

http://m.google.com/app/buzz

The video will show you why you don’t see the mobile version of Google Buzz right away, and why you will end up going here next, and what you need to do on this page for it to work.

Step Two: At the top of the page, click the nearby link. This will ask for your location (for just that session or permanently is up to you if you’re doing this on your laptop, see the video). Then it will display conversations taking place near your physical area.

If there have been conversations recently, obviously people are using Google Buzz. You’ll find that they aren’t just talking tech. Some folks are giving traffic tips, others are asking about places to eat.

Step Three: Also look at the Google Maps tie-in to Buzz. It’s quite revealing how much penetration Local Google has in your area when you look at who is on the Map. People who are using Local Google have Google Accounts, and another way to provide feedback could be another reason for people to use Google Buzz.

So yes, Google Buzz came with a database of users, but I think it’s too soon to call it dead in the water. Among techies, with our high expectations of what these tools are supposed to do, Google Buzz may be dead – for now.

But if consumers are using it, even lightly, there’s definitely a long-term benefit to Google Buzz that we may be too close to the beginning to see (outside of the immediate benefits of Google Social Search, of course).

Because it’s not the audience we already HAVE that will be the best opportunities for growth for our businesses via Google. It’s the non-techie, the person we would not encounter outside their email,, our neighbors who are looking for us but don’t know it yet.

The people we want to buy goods in our retail stores, eat in our restaurants, and otherwise patronize our business to business operations, those are the people still using Google Buzz. Access to even a few hundred of these folks could be what makes Google Buzz useful to us.

(Here’s a link to the Google Buzz mobile trick video if you can’t see it below. If you can and it’s too small, that button on the right makes it full screen.)