Buzz Marketing in Startups - A case study on the online dating service Mazily

Sammanfattning: The aim of thhis thesis is to explore and describe the phenomenon of buzz marketing in the context of a resource-limited startup. The focus of the study is on the organization’s perspective to buzz marketing and how companies can encourage third parties to amplify their marketing messages. Three semi-structured interviews in combination with secondary data collection involving internal analytical data provided by Mazily. The data shows that a startup can use buzz marketing to encourage third parties to amplify their marketing messages and spread the product by implementing various buzz marketing tactics. These tactics include on-site features that allow and encourage sharing within the users’ social network. They can offer extrinsic incentives to motivate sharing but should also attempt to appeal to intrinsic motives. Furthermore, startups can create buzz though media by creating valuable content for all three parties involved (i.e. media outlets, the users of the media and the startup itself).