Also, make sure you are specifying the coordinate system
I'm assuming they are WGS84 if geocoded from ArcGIS Online or similar.
as for labeling near the point, make sure there is a column with some identifying name. Ones you make you Display XY event, you will want to save it to (right click and Export). To save it as a shapefile, call the file Mypoints.shp or if ou have a file geodatabase (fgdb - my preference), you can do similar to this where temp.gdb is the name of my fgdb.
To label the points, right click on the new layers so you can select the properties, and in the Label tab
Sorry this isn't pretty, but I know you are in a rush.
Once you buffer your points, if the unique name does come over to the buffers so you can use that for labeling, you can use a join between the two (since there should at least be a common field, or use the joinitem (to permanently attache the attribute from the point file to the buffer. Then you can use labeling on the buffer file.
I hope this helps. we've all been there on learning and having rush jobs. good luck.
edit: looks like Chris already responded and has the same info.