Far too many website owners are under this bizarre, acid trip fantasy that if they simply generate a “buzz” around what they are offering, they are going to attract paying customers in droves. As sad as it is to say this, such thinking is almost always untrue, for all of your best intentions and hard work. The world simply does not work off of buzzing people (unless you are a barber, perhaps). The whole notion of a buzz is even a bad idea, simply because of what a buzz really is. Over time, generating solid revenue has got to be based on properly expressing your solid fundamental value offerings, which is just a fancy way of saying that you have got to get people to know that you are offering them something that they like. As great as generating a buzz can be, you are not going to generate much sustainable revenue for your site that way.
Everybody knows about websites such as Facebook, ebay and Google. These sites have been buzzed so much, they could almost be called the queen bees of the Internet. But while there has been a lot of gossip about all of them, and they have attracted a lot of attention, they were actually making money before any of the press got out about them. In some cases it is about corporate partnerships, and in some cases it is about advertising. In some other cases a website will generate its money through making its own sales, or through collecting a commission on the sales other people make through it. But at any rate, the buzz came from the money making idea, and not the other way around.
Another thing about a buzz that makes it a stupid goal for you to have is that a buzz is a waste of your time. A buzz is a fad, because it is a large flash of interest followed by a substantial dropping off. True, you can build something from an initial buzz. But if you think a buzz will last long, remember pet rocks and mood rings.