Web Ink Now

Top ten PR tips for small businesses

Last week I participated on a call with John Jantsch who asked me to share my top ten PR tips for small businesses with his audience. John is the author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide and he writes the very popular Duct Tape Marketing blog.

I had to take the call from my room in the Beverly Hilton because I was speaking at The Milken Institute Global Conference. OK, I'll admit that I didn't prepare for the call (sorry John) and just banged out ten tips a few minutes before we spoke.

After the call, I realized that sometimes there is value to top-of-mind ideas. Nuggets of value may be lost when you obsess over getting every detail perfect. So I thought I'd share the list with you. No, it is not comprehensive - given time I would choose different things for the list and re-order what's here:

1. The old ways to get noticed were to buy expensive advertising and beg the media to write about you and your products. The best way to get noticed today is to publish great content online.

2. Don't talk about what your products and services do. Instead talk about how you solve problems for your customers.

3. Be enthusiastic and have fun. People want to do business with people they like.

4. Don't rely on spamming the media with your press releases and PR pitches.

5. Use press releases to reach buyers directly.

6. Comment on blogs, forums and chat rooms (but don't talk about your products and services).

7. Read the popular books in your market and write a review on Amazon. Use your real name and affiliation.

8. Shoot a short video and put it up onto YouTube

9. Know what search terms people are using to find products and services like yours and create content that search engines will reward with high search engine rankings.

10. Don't be egotistical. Nobody cares about you and your products. Your buyers care about themselves and solving their problems.

World Wide Rave! vs. Unscrupulous and Illegal Viral Marketing Techniques

World Wide Rave: People talking about you and your company and your products.

World Wide Rave: When a community is eager to link to your stuff on the Web.

World Wide Rave: Tons of people visit your Web site and check out your blog and watch your YouTube videos because they want to (and without being coerced).

World Wide Rave: The online buzz that drives people to you, generating interest in your products and services.

For decades, the only way to spread ideas was to buy expensive advertising or beg the media to write (or broadcast) about our products and services. But now we have a tremendous opportunity to create a World Wide Rave, generate stuff on the Web that people want to consume and that they are eager to share with their friends, family, and colleagues. A World Wide Rave sells an idea or a product by virtue of its educational or entertainment value.

But David (you might say) it sounds like a World Wide Rave is the same thing as "Viral Marketing"? No.

What is viral marketing?

Many of you have read my recent ebook The New Rules of Viral Marketing: How word-of-mouse spreads your ideas for free (published January 2008). Thanks to people sharing it on their blogs and a version that appeared on ChangeThis, the ebook has been downloaded over 125,000 times in three months. Thank you.

Since I wrote and published the ebook, more than one hundred of you have sent examples of viral marketing initiatives to me. I will include the best in a new hardcover book to be published by Wiley in early 2009 called World Wide Rave: Creating triggers that get millions of people to spread your ideas and share your stories.

Unfortunately, in the past few months I've come to realize that viral marketing has a significant dark side - quite a bit more extensive than I had been aware of…

Unscrupulous Marketing Techniques

Many viral marketing examples that people send me are nothing more than traditional advertising techniques that rely on interruption, bait-and-switch gimmicks, inane games, and frivolous contests. It's the old rules of marketing transferred to the Web. These are not examples of a World Wide Rave. Instead, this is trickery and coercion in an attempt to sell products. Frankly, this stuff gives all of viral marketing a bad name.

I've also noticed that a cadre of viral marketing "experts" happily take large amounts of money from naive and unsuspecting companies to create viral marketing "campaigns". Typically, advertising agency-developed viral campaigns involve buying access in the same old ways, such as purchasing an email list to spam people or launching a microsite with a pricey print or TV ad.

Worse, some dodgy agencies set up fake viral campaigns where people who are employed or in some way compensated by the agency create videos or blog posts purported to be from a customer.

Misleading viral marketing techniques have become so widespread that the European Union enacted Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations to protect the public from the most deceitful activities. The Regulations become UK law on May 26, 2008 and The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), the industry body and professional institute for leading advertising, media and marketing communications agencies in the UK, is helping its members come to grips with what this means.

"If advertisers and their agencies ignore the ethics of responsible advertising, the damage to the advertising and marketing industry generally will be considerable, undermining all commercial messages, their effectiveness and the self regulatory systems," says Marina Palomba, IPA Legal Director.

According to The IPA one particular clause in the Regulations will make the following activities a criminal offence:
- Seeding positive messages about a brand in a blog without making it clear that the message has been created by, or on behalf of, the brand.
- Using "buzz marketing" specialists to communicate with potential consumers in social situations without disclosing that they are acting as brand ambassadors.
- Seeding viral ads on the internet in a manner that implies you are a simple member of the public.

Because th term "viral marketing" has taken on dirty and sleazy connotations by many organizations causing marketers and executives to become increasingly skeptical, I've started using the phrase "World Wide Rave" instead. I want to draw a clear distinction between the amazing ways that millions of people spread ideas and share stories online and the bogus crap that people are resorting to.

A World Wide Rave is valuable content that spreads because people want to share. Not because of some silly contest or dishonest activity.

A World Wide Rave—having others tell and spread your story for you—is one of the most exciting and powerful ways to reach your audiences. Anyone with thoughtful ideas to share—and clever ways to create interest in them—can become famous and find success on the Web.

The Milken Institute Global Conference: My brain's gonna hurt

I speak at a lot of conferences and events (about one per week on average). It's a cool job because every few days I meet a fresh set of interesting people in a fun setting and learn something new.

This week I'm leading a panel discussion at The Milken Institute Global Conference. Holy cow what a lineup of presenters! I think my brain's gonna hurt.

How about this panel discussion for cool factor!

Decision '08: What Awaits the Next President?
- John Cleese, Comedian, Writer, Actor and Producer
- Frank Luntz, Founder and CEO, Luntz, Maslansky Strategic Research
- William Bennett, Former U.S. Secretary of Education
- Jerry Brown, Attorney General of California
- Richard Schiff, Actor (Toby on The West Wing)
- Moderator: Bill Schneider, Senior Political Analyst, CNN

I will send updates as much as possible via twitter if you want to follow it.

The Milken Institute Global Conference, April 28-30 at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, brings together some of the most extraordinary people in the world - from scientists, business executives and philanthropists to journalists, academics and Nobel laureates - to discuss, debate and deliberate today's most pressing social, political and economic challenges.

Some other A-list discussions that sound interesting: Tennis great Andre Agassi on "Taking the 'Risk' Out of At-Risk Youth," Peter Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation on "Pursuing Your Passion," There's a Conversation With T. Boone Pickens. One I'm eager to hear is "Business Innovations That Are Changing the World" with Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO, Google. Or maybe just pop over to hear His Royal Highness Michael of Kent participating in a one-on-one interview.

These are other panels I hope to attend:

Paying the Piper: How Can Music Keep Its Revenues and Its Customers?
- Quincy Jones, Producer; Composer; CEO, Quincy Jones Music Publishing
- Andrew Lack, Chairman, Sony BMG Music Entertainment
- Justin Goldberg, Founder and CEO, Indie911
- Moderator: Larry Carroll, News Anchor, KFWB News 980

A Discussion With Nobel Laureates in Economics
- Gary Becker, Nobel Laureate, 1992; University of Chicago
- Edmund Phelps, Nobel Laureate, 2006; Columbia University
- Myron Scholes, Nobel Laureate, 1997; Platinum Grove Asset Management
- A. Michael Spence, Nobel Laureate, 2001; Stanford University

I'm leading a killer panel called The Changing Rules of PR and Corporate Influence in the Digital Age
- Jason Calacanis, Founder and CEO, Mahalo.com
- Robert Dilenschneider, Founder and Principal, The Dilenschneider Group
- Steven Rubenstein, President, Rubenstein Communications Inc.
Moderator: David Meerman Scott (that would be me)

Follow my thoughts on twitter.

Parents against reprehensible metal music

I was just on Technorati and saw a banner ad that caught my. They almost never do. I probably click on one banner a month.

I was attracted first to the Flying Vee with the universal symbol for "no". Then the headline "Parents against reprehensible metal music."

"Cool," I thought. Tipper Gore wannabes on the rampage. This will be fun. So I clicked.

As the father of a 15-year old daughter who likes obscure metal sub-genres and songs with "explicit" lyrics, I couldn't wait to share this with her so we could both get a chuckle. One of the questions in the banner is: "Does your teen show any of the following signs: Wears excessive amounts of black."

Um, yup. Lots of black clothing in my house. But on dad as well.

Imagine my surprise when the banner linked to a site for Toyota Matrix. At first I thought that The Double Click ad server was on the fritz. But then I realized, holy cow, it's a bait and switch banner!

I was immediately incensed. It reminded me of those annoying "You are the 1,000,000th visitor! You won! Click here!" ads.

But then after a moment, I decided it was pretty cool. I Googled the phrase and found a nifty little site ParentsForPARMM.com "Our censor sensor is always on high alert!"

So here I am writing about it - promoting the site and no doubt sending them a few thousand more clicks. I guess that's what they wanted, right? Well, then it worked.

So what do you think? Is this a reprehensible bait and switch? Or just plain fun? What would the transparency police say?

Sex, shaving, and your oral health

Please forgive the gratuitous headline but I couldn’t resist. Two new free ebooks have been sent to me recently and both of them involve sex. Well, sort of.

Dianna Huff points us to Dr. Helaine Smith, a Boston, Massachusetts cosmetic dentist. Dr. Smith asks the question: "When was the last time you thought about your teeth? That's like asking when you last thought about your femur or your elbow."

In her new e-book, Healthy Mouth, Healthy Sex! Dr. Smith explains the connection between oral health and sexual well-being: "a topic not too many people talk about."

She says: “What many people don't understand -- or even consider -- is that the health of our teeth and mouths has a huge connection with our overall physical health -- and our sex lives!

Luke Faccini points us to an ebook that his agency The Sponge created called The 6 Essential Elements to an Exceptional Shave!

The ebook asks: "Were you taught how to shave by a pro? More likely you've unknowingly taken on the bad habits of your father, or even worse, you've taught yourself to shave from what you've seen on television commercials. If you ever get razor burn, ingrown hairs, redness or irritation then you have to read on!"

The ebook includes six reasons why you should pay attention to your daily routine with number 6 being: "The amount of sex you get is in direct proportion to how well you shave!"

The sex angle, while just a teeny bit gimmicky, does spark some interest because the authors are linking sex to unexpected things like shaving and dentistry.

I really like these ebooks. If a dentist and an Australian company producing "male grooming products that were created to increase the appeal of the uncompromising man" can find topics to write an ebook about, it shows that virtually any company, product, or organization can use an ebook to tell a story.

You can too!

Disclosure: Both of these ebooks kindly mention me in the acknowledgments and I thank the authors for that. I had nothing to do with the development of either ebook. However, both authors were in some way inspired by the information about creating ebooks that I included in this blog and in my latest free ebook The New Rules of Viral Marketing: How word-of-mouse spreads your ideas for free.

What the heck is Web 2.0 / social media / social networking and how do these concepts relate to the new rules of marketing & pr?

Recently I've noticed that many people have been using a bunch of definitions, including "New Rules of Marketing", "Web 2.0 marketing", "social media marketing", and "social network marketing" interchangeably. (Feel free to substitute "PR" for "marketing" if that’s appropriate for you.)

I don't think these concepts are the same at all, and I think that using them interchangeably creates problems for all of us.

Here's a summary from my perspective: "social media marketing" and "social network marketing" are two different things. From the marketing & PR perspective, both are subsets of "the new rules of marketing & PR". On the other hand "Web 2.0 marketing" is essentially a meaningless phrase. See below for details of where I'm coming from.

I wanted to spark some dialog about this as I think that there is a great deal of misunderstanding about what some of the various phrases mean. Additionally, the tools and techniques vary.

Please jump in with your thoughts.

Here are mine:

The new rules of marketing (and the new rules of PR).
These phrases were not used prior to me introducing them in 2006. If you Google either phrase today, you'll see that links to my site, blog, and work dominate the top results.

I say that the old rules of marketing & PR were that you either had to buy expensive advertising or beg the media to write about you. Prior to the Web, there weren't other significant ways to get noticed. The Web has changed the rules. The new rules of marketing & PR are that you can bypass the gatekeepers and publish your own content online in the form of content-rich Web sites, blogs, YouTube videos, photos, ebooks and the like and reach buyers directly.

Web 2.0 marketing (and Web 2.0 PR)
The term Web 2.0 is credited to Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly media.
"Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform."

Many people have taken the "Web 2.0" phrase and slapped "marketing" or "PR" on the end to designate something new. My opinion is that the term Web 2.0 (as coined by O'Reilly) was meant to describe how people use the Web and how software companies are creating applications that are Web-based instead of requiring downloading to your PC or delivered via a client-server environment.

I'd say that people who use the terms "Web 2.0 marketing" and "Web 2.0 PR" (or the related "marketing 2.0" and "PR 2.0") are using those phrases as a catch-all to describe "new" and most can't really define exactly what they mean except to say that "it includes blogs and YouTube and Facebook and other stuff like that."

Personally, I steer clear of using Web 2.0 when describing marketing and PR because it is imprecise and confusing.

Further reading – the Web 2.0 Wikipedia entry.

Social media marketing (and social media PR)
I'd suggest that the term social media describes online media with a participatory or interactive component.

A news story that is delivered online becomes social media if there is a place for readers to comment on the news story. Blogs, forums, Wikis, and chat rooms are all social media in my opinion because they include an interactive component.

Marketing and PR using social media involves creating social media content (starting a blog perhaps) and participating in social media (by leaving appropriate comments other people’s blogs or forums).

Further reading – the Social Media Wikipedia entry.

Social network marketing (and social network PR)
I'd suggest that the term social networking describes online networking tools and the ways they are used to connect groups of people on the Web.

By my definition, social networking sites include Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, SecondLife, Bebo, and others similar to these. People use these sites to network and stay connected with friends and colleagues and to meet other like-minded people.

Marketing and PR using social networking involves creating personal profiles, creating and joining groups, and building applications for others to use. It involves participating in social networking sites.

Further reading – the Social Network Wikipedia entry.

Here's something important.

By my definitions, "social media marketing & PR" as well as "social network marketing & PR" are two different things and both are subsets of the "new rules of marketing & PR."

The way I see the world, as marketing and PR people we need to think about the new rules as including lots of tools and techniques and social media and social networking are two of those. But there are many others.

What are your thoughts?

Show, Don't Tell: the SAP Marketing Community Meeting

Imagine that you are a senior executive at a large enterprise, one with over 2,000 people who work in global marketing. What would you do if you wanted to provide them with ideas about online marketing, social media, viral marketing, and other so-called "Web 2.0 marketing" concepts?

Well, you could bring everyone from far-flung corners of the globe to some hotel ballroom somewhere and talk to them.

That's not what SAP is doing.

On April 8, 9 & 10, SAP is bringing all 2,000 marketers in the company together for a virtual event - SAP Marketing Community Meeting. How cool is it that SAP is using the tools of social media to educate people about social media. "Show, don't tell" in action!

SAP invited external bloggers and speakers (virtual, of course) to help drive knowledge transfer to the SAP Marketing Community.

I am pleased to be a guest blogger at the SAP Marketing Community Meeting together with:

Seth Godin

Ze Frank

Dennis Howlett

Zoli Erdos

Ross Mayfield

David Armano

Laura "Pistachio" Fitton

At this stage, the community is open to SAP marketers only. However, some of the discussions may be shared in the future.

As SAP knows, the best way to understand social media and the new rules of marketing & PR is to jump in. Don't just talk about it. Do it.

Al Gore: PR agent for planet earth

Al Gore was on 60 Minutes last night and I was struck with how successful he is in the role of Public Relations.

(Please note: This is not a political blog. I am not commenting on presidential politics or on the politics of global warming. This is commentary on Gore as a communicator.)

PR and marketing professionals should look to Gore as an important case study on how to do things right. Here are my top-of-mind thoughts:

1. Al Gore has successful communicated a powerful idea, that "Global Warming is the greatest challenge facing our time." He doesn't talk about his products -- books and movie -- instead he communicates powerful ideas. He knows exactly what he wants his buyer personas to believe.

2. Gore pays attention to buyer personas and he tailors his presentations accordingly. For example, when he talks to evangelical Christians, he includes passages from the Bible.

3. Gore is persistent, building his ideas over time. When he first started talking about Global Warming years ago, very few people were interested. He kept at it, speaking to hundreds of groups and building the buzz.

4. Gore understands how to use the media to help deliver his information. In practically every interview I've seen with him, Gore talks about climate change. To use an old PR term, he is "on message." Even when reporters draw him into other discussions, like who he supports for President, he brings the conversation back to what is important to him.

5. Gore understands how to use the Web. He has an attractive, content rich Web site and he is a blogger.

6. He is the undisputed thought leader when it comes to climate change and he delivers his ideas through various media including online, print (his book An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We can do about it), and video (the documentary An Inconvenient Truth.)

7. He knows how to deliver compelling live presentations.

8. Gore understands global communications. An Inconvenient Truth been translated into 27 languages, and he delivers speeches all over the planet.

9. Like many successful PR pros, Gore knows that sometimes advertising is important in an overall communications campaign. He is using the profits from his books and documentary as well has his Nobel prize award to kick off a $300 million advertising campaign to raise awareness about climate change. (You should start seeing TV ads soon.)

10. Awards programs, another PR tool, are part of his work. You can't do much better than an Oscar and a Nobel. (An Inconvenient Truth won an Academy Award for best documentary feature in 2006, and Gore was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize (together with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) for the "efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change." And when he wins an award. Gore talks again about his powerful idea because he know the world's media is paying attention.

Al Gore, PR Agent for Planet Earth.

PR and Marketing pros can learn from his work. I certainly have.

When reaching out to bloggers, don't ask for them to write about you!

Lately I've been getting dozens of pitches a week from PR people who want me to write about their stuff on this blog. Most of the pitches are just spam, with the PR types using the exact same techniques that they have used with journalists for years.

To paraphrase the Wikipedia entry, spam is sending email that is both unsolicited by the recipient and sent in substantively identical form to many recipients. That's what PR people do to bloggers now. And then at the end of their email they basically say: "please write about me."

Here are portions of actual emails I've received recently. (I've paraphrased or modified to remove the identity of the people who contacted me).

"Would [this news] be something you are interested in covering? If so, when would be the first time you could publish something on it?"

"Are you going to be able to post something about...? I can send you suggested copy."

"Can I send you [the new book] so you can review it on your blog?"

(It's not just me. Other bloggers I've spoken with have the same problem with PR people.)

Here's the thing. Bloggers are not the same as journalists. We don't have editors telling us what to do. We write about what interests us and we are always on the lookout for things to share. But it is not our job to write about you and your stuff.

Here is an important point missed by virtually everyone - bloggers have other identities and can help you in other ways:

> Would you be happy if I talked about your stuff in front of the 20,000 people I speak to at conferences and events per year?

> Would you like to see your stuff profiled in my next ebook? (The last one has been downloaded 100,000 times in three months).

> Want to be in my next dead tree book?

> How about if I wrote about it in one of the magazines I write for?

> What if I mention your company the next time I am on the phone with The Wall Street Journal?

> Or perhaps I could write something in one of the other blogs I contribute to such as The Tuned In blog?

> What about a tweet on something you did?

It's OK to share things with a blogger that you feel they might be interested in. Just don't spam them with broadcast pitches and whatever you do, don't ask for coverage. We all know why you contacted us -- don't belittle the information you send and embarrass yourself by begging.

Want the good news? I'm always looking for things that are of interest to me! I'm happy to have you send stuff my way. (Other bloggers are too). But don't ask me to write about it on this blog. And don't send me the same pitch that you sent to dozens of others.

Thanks for reading this far! Here's bonus information for alert readers like you. I am currently looking for interesting examples of online viral marketing for possible use in an upcoming hardcover book I am writing that will come out in 2009. If you have a great example of reaching people online, go ahead and send it to me via email. Hey, maybe I'll even write about it on this blog too.

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles blog and open-source Chinese restaurants

Because I am on airplanes nearly every week traveling to my speaking gigs, I read a lot of books -- novels, thrillers, and nonfiction. I look for things that I can enjoy. It's all about entertainment and amusement to make the downtime on the plane ride fun.

I just finished The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food. I read it in two sittings: through page 201 on a San Francisco to Boston flight on Friday and the rest yesterday. (I did get up to use the toilet a few times, so I don't know if that is really two sittings or not). What's so great about the book is that it is an entertaining and well written romp into a world we are all familiar with, but until now really didn't knew that well.

Jennifer 8. Lee (her middle name "8" connotes prosperity in Chinese) tracked down so much cool information about Chinese food, like who writes the fortunes that go in the cookies, who is General Tso and did he really like Chicken, and much more. I lived in Hong Kong for a few years and lived in Asia for nearly a decade. I now live in the Boston area and eat Chinese a few times a month. I thought I knew about Chinese food. Ha! I didn't know squat (until now).

Readers of this blog know that I very rarely do book reviews. I'm writing about Jennifer's book because I discovered that she has one of the best book blogs I have ever seen. Everything, from her writing, to the design, to the choice of topics to blog about is spot on. And she mixes stuff about the book with things that are interesting to people who have already read it.

To the many wannabe author-bloggers out there, do check this blog out.

One more thing about this terrific book. Jennifer tells her readers that there are twice as many Chinese restaurants in the U.S. as McDonalds and then used an analogy to open-source software that is just wonderful. McDonalds is centralized standardization of fast food by a large corporation. Everywhere you go it is the same. That's the Windows of the fast-food world. However, Chinese restaurants are nearly as predictable fast food but each independently run restaurant draws on an open-source network of suppliers (packs of soy sauce, wooden chopsticks, takeout boxes, and the like). Through word-of-mouth good ideas are copied and improved upon, by thousands of restaurant owners. Chinese restaurants are the Linux operating system of the restaurant world. In her book, Jennifer included an email exchange she had with Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia about the analogy which I found fascinating.

ANALYSIS: Value of quote in the Wall Street Journal with a link to your blog and product

Many business people consider a "hit" in The Wall Street Journal as one of the best ways to get noticed. VC funded startups happily pay tens of thousands of dollars a month to public relations agencies to pitch them to reporters at the Journal and other important business publications like BusinessWeek and Fast Company. firms justify their fees when they secure a hit and show the press clips as proof of their skills when pitching new business.

For years I've been convinced that such exposure is overrated in terms of quantifiable measurements of success.

Now before I jump into an interesting analysis, I do want to say that there are many intangible benefits to being quoted in a major business publication or having your product talked about in them. You can put the information on your site and tell all your potential customers. It may convince an investor to jump in, an analyst firm to initiate coverage, or a potential employee to join the company. I am certainly not knocking the many benefits nor would I ever stop speaking with reporters when they call me. Coverage is important.

But what about the tangible results?

On Monday March 17, I was quoted in an article in the print edition of The Wall Street Journal. The article was titled "Attention, Bloggers: For small businesses that can't afford a lot of marketing, the blogosphere offers a cheaper alternative" and appeared on page R5 (the small business section of the paper). My full name (searching on it brings up only me) and my blog URL were both listed in the paper. The article was in my area of expertise and the things I write about in my books and this blog.

The article also appeared in the online Journal at WSJ.com (my blog URL was a hyperlink) together with a companion article called "Recommended Reading Small Business: Marketing With Social Media." In this piece, the WSJ asked Scott Monty for recommend a list of blogs and books for owners and managers at small companies looking to learn more about tapping social media to engage customers online. Scott mentioned my book The New Rules of Marketing & PR and said it is: "A must-read. Mr. Scott delves into strategies of how to reach consumers directly and how to get into the social-networking space." (Thank you Scott).

So what would you expect? Ten thousand extra links that day? More? A thousand books sold on Amazon that day? More? That's the sort of result that many people expect and why they spend so much on PR firms.

The reality is much more sobering.

Let's make a value of 100 as the baseline of the amount of blog traffic I got in an average day this month. On the day of the WSJ hit, I got a 95. That's right, on the day of my WSJ hit with my blog URL listed, I got fewer visitors to my blog than an average day in the month of March. My best day this month was March 5, the day after a post I wrote called "The new rules at universities – authors connecting with students." Lots of people shared that article and some wrote about it on their blogs. On March 5, I scored a 186 (almost twice my average traffic).

The best traffic driver to my blog this year was a result of the hundred or so bloggers who wrote about the publication of my latest ebook The New Rules of Viral Marketing. For several weeks after I published the ebook, my traffic was double the norm.

What about books sales? I'll use my Amazon ranking as a proxy for book sales. The Amazon rank, which updates every hour based on actual book sales, indicates what number your book is among all the millions of books that Amazon sells. Since its release in June 2007, The New Rules of Marketing & PR has consistently hovered in the 250 to 850 range. Early in the morning of the WSJ hit, the rank was about 600. It finished the day at about the same place (meaning that the relative sales rate for that day did not change as a result of the WSJ mention). As I write this on Thursday morning, the Amazon rank is 328, meaning that substantially more books are selling today than Monday when the article appeared. But during no day this week did my rank go above the typical range that it has been for the past nine months or so.

What can we learn from this?
> A hit in the WSJ and other big business publications is great—but not as great as you might think. If you get one, think about tangential benefits (like bragging rights), not actual sales. Think how you can leverage the notoriety, not just what will happen without your help to push it along. Use it to influence other media and analysts, don't just sit back and wait.
> There really isn't a holy grail of marketing & PR. The closest I've found is to create something yourself and publish it online to drive traffic. That blog post I put out had more success than the WSJ. The best thing I've ever done to drive traffic is write an ebook. The case examples I write about prove this theory.
> Lots of little hits are much better than one mega PR hit. Passionate bloggers drive traffic to my blog and help drive sales (thank you all!).
> Mega PR hits may drive some interest with what you do, but you should really think through if it will actually drive sales.
> Maybe, just maybe, WSJ readers buy books in physical bookstores instead of Amazon. Perhaps I'll see a sales bump at Barnes & Noble and other stores in March… But I doubt it.

Meet Greg the (software) Architect

The good people at TIBCO Software have a great series of videos about Greg the Architect. TIBCO is one of those enterprise software companies that has a difficult marketing challenge – how to make what they do interesting. The About page says: "TIBCO Software Inc. provides enterprise software that helps companies achieve service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management (BPM) success."

This is my favorite from the series. I've known a lot of B2B software salespeople, and man do they nail the types here in this video. But it's all in good fun. Watch how the sales guys work over poor Greg.

Watch more videos and meet the cast here.

Hat tip to Erin Smith, Director of Marketing Communications at Axeda for pointing me to Greg .

Why CEOs and executives must work harder to blog successfully than mere mortals

In the past year, I've had many conversations with CEOs, Presidents of companies, and other senior executives about the new rules of marketing and about blogs in particular.

I've always wondered why these senior executives have so much more trouble creating a popular blog than mere mortals. Why, in most companies, is the most popular blogger a product manager or junior marketing person? At first I had thought it might be because CEOs and executives had less time to devote to blogging or that they relied on underlings to do first drafts of posts. While both of those may be true in some cases, that wasn't enough of an explanation for the relative lack of really good senior executive bloggers in most companies.

Last week, I keynoted the General Catalyst Marketing Summit. GC is a venture capital company (Brightcove, Kayak, HubSpot, and many other interesting startups). In a brilliant move, GC brought together the senior marketing people of more than 30 of their portfolio companies for a day of discussions and best practice sharing. Todd Defren also spoke at the summit, and talked about the difference between "Influence 1.0" (shouting about your product) and what he calls "Participation is Marketing." Todd is an excellent speaker and I was honored to share the stage with him. We were saying the same things but in different ways.

So with Todd's help, it finally became obvious to me why most CEOs and corporate executives make poor bloggers. CEOs are used to being the most important person in the room. When CEOs are in a meeting, everyone defers to them. At conferences, people clap at CEO speeches even if they suck. CEOs talk about their company, its products, and nothing else. CEOs happily ignore email and phone calls because nobody expects a personal answer back. CEOs direct others to do their work for them.

These are precisely the things that make for crappy blogs.

CEOs and executives expect that the world will stop everything and pay attention and The Wall Street Journal will write about them as soon as they put out their first blog post. The posts they do write shout: “look at me!” CEOs don’t comment on other people's blogs or link outside their own little world. Yeah, a few ass kissers might comment but unless the CEO is saying something interesting, the blog will fail to gain traction. Then the executive will quit blogging.

There are notable exceptions like Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems.

Great bloggers participate. They link to other bloggers. They comment on other people's blog real estate. They blog because they want to, not because they have to. They talk about things other than their own products and services.

Attention corporate executives: check your ego at the door if you want to be a successful blogger.

The new rules at universities – authors connecting with students

I went to Kenyon College, graduating in 1983 with a BA in Economics. I took only one English class and got a "gentleman’s C" so it's an odd thing that I should end up writing books. Go figure.

While at Kenyon, the professors' ideas were clearly important to the education process. Reading and independent study outside of the classroom environment was also a valuable aspect of learning (although in my case, I was more interested in the finer points of partying and debating the merits of punk, ska, reggae and new wave bands, so I didn’t do all that much studying). Considering Kenyon is a small liberal arts college that uses the seminar approach for advanced classes, fellow students were also an a significant part of the learning experience.

However in four years, I don't ever recall giving the authors of the books we were reading for class any thought whatsoever. I vaguely recall Milton somebody wrote my Economics 101 text, but don't recall any other names. I never met any authors and they were not a part of my learning experience whatsoever.

There is a new model for learning today, and I'm thrilled to be a part of it.

Forward thinking schools are involving authors of the books used in class by including them in a virtual social media classroom. Web-based collaboration tools and social networking allows an author to be an input into the learning process (from the comfort of their own offices) and smart professors understand this.

I've been asked a number of times by professors who use my book The New Rules of Marketing & PR for class to participate in virtual classroom discussions and I enjoy volunteering a bit of my time. I hear from students that they find the experience helpful too.

Robert French, who teaches public relations at Auburn University offered me my first exposure to virtual guest lectures. I spoke to his class via Skype and as a result of "meeting" students, have taken a look at some their blogs (students are given the assignment of creating a blog for class). Nothing like having the professor and the author of the text used in class looking over your virtual shoulder to get you thinking about that blog assignment!

I've also done virtual presentations to students at Diane Thieke's PR class at Rider University and Karen Russell's class at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.

One of the most interesting experiences is with Steve Quigley's New Media and PR class at Boston University. Each term, the class has a (closed) Facebook group and in the past two terms, the students invited me to be a member. Last term the Facebook group was called "New Media Rocks my PR World" (love the name) and this term the Facebook group is called "Media Socialites" (love this name even more).

Here is the Media Socialites Facebook group description: Professor Quigley's new batch of student social media sponges, eager to soak up as much information about New Media and PR in a semester as is humanly possible ... and, in proper social networking fashion, making important connections along the way.

In the group they share ideas and have pulled me into a few virtual discussions. I enjoyed the interaction so much that I joined the class in person last week for a conversation with students.

A new crop of really smart and social media savvy people are graduating this May. Companies should consider hiring people like Christine and Pamela and their many classmates.

University classrooms are being transformed by social media. How about your business? Is it transforming too?

Understanding an audience and creating great content

At every speech I give, I suggest one of the best ways to create great Web content is for companies to hire a journalist, either full or part time, to create it. Journalists (print or broadcast) are great at understanding an audience and developing information that buyers want to consume.

At a recent speaking gig in North Carolina, I met Kathy Boyd who works in corporate communications at Neighborhood America, a company that creates enterprise social networks for organizations to reach consumers.

Kathy is exactly the sort of person I'm talking about. She studied Mass Media Communications and Broadcast Journalism at Florida State. Upon graduation, she spent a few years as a TV reporter for WFTX-TV, the Fox affiliate in Ft Myers, Florida.

After Kathy honed her journalism skills as a TV reporter, she joined Neighborhood America and now works on the company's corporate newsletter, produces some stellar videos, and develops customer case examples.

Here are two videos Kathy created that you must check out.

The first one is a video case study of Adidas, a Neighborhood America client Adidas Goes Mobile At NBA All-Star Week 2007. Note how different this approach to a case example is compared to most written case examples that are either a) dreadfully boring or b) prattle on about the product or c) both.

This next video Mission Impossible: So, What Does Your Company Do? is Kathy’s video riff on my Gobbledygook Manifesto. After hearing me talk about gobbledygook, Kathy thought it would be fun to cleverly capture interesting information about Neighborhood America in a fun and approachable way. It works, don't you think?

Well done, Kathy. And kudos to Neighborhood America for taking a chance on hiring a journalist to do marketing instead of the "safe" route of hiring someone with a traditional marketing background.

How about your company? When will you hire a journalist?

CNN: Time to retire the inane "best political team on television" phrase

I'm enjoying the US Presidential race. As a marketer, it is fascinating to see how the candidates position themselves. And as a frequent keynote speaker at conferences, I also enjoy the snippets of candidates speaking on the stump.

Each primary night, I channel surf for hours as the returns come in.

Is it just me, or is CNN's slogan: "The best political team on television" incredibly annoying? I was watching CNN recently for about twenty minutes and I heard Wolf Blitzer utter the inane phrase three times. So I clicked over to MSNBC because it pissed me off so much. A bit later I came back to CNN and he said it again. Yikes! What’s up with that?

A search of CNN transcripts on Dow Jones Factiva reveals that the phrase has been used on air about 200 times in the past 30 days and 16 times on Super Tuesday alone.

A phrase like "The best political team on television" might be OK as an advertising slogan for billboards and magazine ads, because you want people to give CNN a try. But it is incredibly silly for the anchorman to keep saying it on air during the editorial content of a program - we are already watching!

There is no need to coerce viewers into continuing to watch your coverage. Anyone who is into politics enough to watch primary results instead of American Idol or ESPN or something else on TV has already made up their minds about what channels to watch and who has the best coverage. Don't interrupt our enjoyment with advertising in the form of silly catch phrases during the editorial content.

I'll be watching the Wisconsin and Hawaii primary results this evening.

Attention Wolf Blitzer and CNN: It's time to retire that stupid phrase.

Ask me anything about Viral Marketing

UPDATE - Due to a scheduling problem with the technology provider, the live event needs to be postponed to Tuesday March 4, 2008 at 6:00PM eastern time. Sorry for the inconvenience.

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I'll be on a live teleseminar Tuesday February 26th, 2008 at 5:00 PM EST to discuss viral marketing in depth.

For about 70 minutes, I'll answer questions that you submit to me and discuss the issues people face with going viral. It's free to participate. I hope you can make it.

Mike Sigers, of Simplenomics kindly offered to host the live Q&A with me. Mike will do the Q part and I'll do the A part. To submit a question for Mike to ask me, please go to the New Rules of Viral Marketing Virtual Book Tour site. You'll have an opportunity to post the question and then get the dial in information.

If you can't participate live, ask your question anyway. The New Rules of Viral Marketing Virtual Book Tour site will have the replay as an MP3 the morning after the live event.

Video mashups: Easy to create and informative for visitors

Alert readers of this blog know that I am a believer in the power of YouTube videos for any organization to show the world what they are doing. Video, done well, is great marketing.

Many people (particularly those from large companies) push back and say things like: "We can't do a video like Blendtec's Will it Blend – that seems too difficult. Besides, we’re a _______ company." (Fill in the blank with conservative, B2B, nonprofit, famous, startup, or some other excuse for not doing videos).

Well, there's an option. Why not do a video interview program that's essentially a mashup of the audio from a telephone interview with someone of interest to your market, with some in-house video.

WebProNews does a great job with this format. Kara Ratliff interviewed me on the phone for about a half hour and then condensed the conversation into just under four minutes in the studio.

Watch WebProNews Publicizing Your Blog

I've had many people tell me they’ve seen the video and there are 16 comments as of this writing. Clearly people are interested in this format.

Here's another example, WebProNews Reporter Kara Ratliff takes a look into how you can make money from blogging through syndication. She talked with President of Newstex, Larry Schwartz about benefits and disadvantages, along with other various topics of syndication.

Kara uses audio from Larry plus some video footage of him from the BlogWorldExpo conference and a bunch of screen shots. I syndicate my blog through Newstex (and, disclosure here, I am on the board of advisors of Newstex). Despite being affiliated with Newstex for several years, this is probably the best explanation of blog syndication I've ever seen and the video mashup format is what makes it work.

So if your company is considering some YouTube videos but you think that the funny viral stuff may not be for you, consider a video mashup like these from WebProNews. You can interview people in your industry, perhaps some customer, partners, and analysts, add in your own analysis, and pop the videos up onto YouTube.

New Rules of Viral Marketing update and free virtual book tour teleseminar

It's been twenty days since I released my new ebook The New Rules of Viral Marketing: How word-of-mouse spreads your ideas for free.

I'm amazed at the stats. In just 20 days:
> 42,810 downloads (based on my Web analytics)
> Close to 100 blog posts about the ebook (depends on which blog search engine is used)
> Well over 1,000 hits on the exact phrase "new rules of viral marketing" (on the day I put out the ebook there were zero hits on the phrase.)

How did I achieve these results?

I didn't do a thing. I didn't beg the media to write about it. I didn't pay for expensive advertising to promote it. I didn't interrupt people by sending it out via email.

All I did was post it on my blog. That's it. You did the rest. Thank you for downloading the ebook and for talking about it.

(Well, I guess I can safely say that my viral marketing ebook has gone viral.)

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UPDATE - Due to a scheduling problem with the technology provider, the live event needs to be postponed to Tuesday March 4, 2008 at 6:00PM eastern time. Sorry for the inconvenience.

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I'll be on a live teleseminar Tuesday February 26th, 2008 at 5:00 PM EST to discuss viral marketing in depth. For about 70 minutes, I'll answer questions that you submit to me and discuss the issues people face with going viral. It's free to participate. I hope you can make it.

Mike Sigers, of Simplenomics kindly offered to host the live Q&A with me. Mike will do the Q part and I'll do the A part. Mike is a sales and marketing consultant who simply tries to help people find easier, simpler ways to sell more and market their products and services for less cost with bigger results.

To submit a question for Mike to ask me, please go to the New Rules of Viral Marketing Virtual Book Tour site. You'll have an opportunity to post the question and then get the dial in information.

Your questions are really important to me. As I learn more about viral marketing and more about what you want to know about viral marketing, I will be creating more information about how to spread your ideas for free. The questions help me to speak, write, and produce the most valuable information.

If you don't want to ask a question, but would like to listen in, that's cool too. Please go here.

If you can't participate live, ask your question anyway. The New Rules of Viral Marketing Virtual Book Tour site will have the replay as an MP3 the morning after the live event.

Thank you for spreading my ideas.

Personal branding, great design, and a new masthead

I'm a huge believer in the power of personal branding on the Web. How cool is it that you can create interesting content that people want to read and share? Things like ebooks, blogs, YouTube videos and the like show the world your passions. And then interested people seek you out.

For nearly a decade, my favorite designer is a genius named Doug Eymer. I worked with Doug in my last corporate VP marketing job and continued using Doug to create killer designs for two of my book covers – Eyeball Wars and Cashing in with Content. Doug also designed my Web site and my two most popular ebooks The New Rules of PR and The New Rules of Viral Marketing.

I commissioned Doug to do a new masthead for my blog. The direction I gave Doug was that I wanted to convey through the masthead the ideas I talk about, particularly the concept that you can create great content on the Web and that you don't need to rely on expensive advertising or begging the media to get noticed.

I also wanted to carry consistency of my designs through my various publishing endeavors. The blog masthead was the one thing that had been a little "off" because the old design (which I liked very much) was done by a different person.

Here is the old masthead

My friend, the positioning guru Mark Levy, says of the new masthead: "Doug nailed it, David. It's perfect. It's energetic, passionate, and shows the power of the individual's mind and voice in action. Bravo."

I think Doug did a great job, don't you?

(Note – if you're reading this soon after I changed mastheads today and you're seeing my old masthead, you may need to hit refresh on your browser.)

Thanks Doug!

Why most CMOs get fired

A few weeks ago I get a call from Gary Stern, a columnist for Investors Business Daily.

Gary says, "I'm doing a story on the average tenure of Chief Marketing Officers, which is only 26 months. This is much shorter than 44 months, which is how long CEOs last. Can you comment?"

"Oh, boy can I," I say. "How much time do you have?"

(I could talk about this all day.)

We ended up talking for about a half hour. Basically I ranted. A lot.

I didn't give my opinions in quite this way, but here's a few ideas to let you know what I think:

> CMOs get fired because they would rather spend money on a PR agency to spam the media than be thought leaders that the media seeks out.

> CMOs get fired because they measure themselves on leads and press clips instead of what the marketplace thinks about their company and its products and services.

> CMOs get fired because they would rather spend millions on TV commercials than figure out how to get a free YouTube video that goes viral.

> CMOs get fired because they ________ (fill in the blank – there are many more reasons).

(And once they are fired and are looking for a new job, ex-CMOs obsess about resumes and networking and spamming people via LinkedIn instead of blogging, speaking, and writing about what they are passionate about.)

Gary did a terrific job with the article. It is slated for the print edition of IBD on Monday February 4. But here is a sneak peek via CNN online:

How To Move CMOs Out Of Harm's Way

Gary's article begins:
"Warning: If you're seeking job security, don't think about becoming a chief marketing officer. Over the last few months, the CMOs of Home Depot, Wendy's, Rite Aid, and Chico's CHS changed over."

Read the rest of How To Move CMOs Out Of Harm's Way

Do you know this person? Is it you?

Practically every day, people ask me for help and advice in creating the sorts of new rules marketing and PR that I speak about and write about.

This is always a difficult request that I never really know how to answer.

"Read my book and my blog" sounds egotistical.
"Attend my seminar" sounds like a sales pitch.
"I don’t know" sounds like I'm an idiot.

About 6 months ago, I put a little note on my site that went like this: "Please note: Due to the tremendous success of my latest book The New Rules of Marketing & PR, except for seminars, I am unable to take on new consulting clients at this time."

However, some people really need help and support, both full time and part time. Many companies are looking for smart people.

So I wanted to create a sort of new rules of marketing & pr job description. The idea for this came from Jeff Ernst, VP marketing at Kadient (I'm on the Kadient board of directors). Jeff has an open position right now and this is how he described what he's looking for:

"She (or he) created her Facebook profile well before any of her buddies did, then encouraged them all to join, and now has 700 friends on Facebook. She writes her own blog where she talks about her favorite bands. She loves to experiment with new ways to drive traffic to her blog. She's read David Meerman Scott’s book The New Rules of Marketing & PR, and is passionate about combining her love for social media with her work by applying the new rules in a B2B marketing environment. "

(I think Jeff was buttering me up with that last sentence, don't you).

Jeff says: "This doesn’t sound like the typical marketing job description."

I agree. But new rules marketing & PR isn't a typical marketing job.

I'd add a few other random things to our emerging alternative job description:

1. You're curious about new things and always try stuff like Skype, Second Life, Twitter, Ryze, XING, digg, and reddit early. But you are busy and there is so much to do so you don't keep up with the things you try (like Second Life for example) and you don't feel the least bit guilty when you leave a network.

2. You know that the bosses who tell you that ROI and leads and clipbooks are the most important measurements are dead wrong. To prove it, you are building up evidence that the things you're doing outside the traditional stuff -- like commenting on blogs, focusing on the phrases people use to search and tossing out a few online news releases -- are beneficial. But its tough because you really have two jobs -- a full time role in new marketing that you know is the way to go, and a full time role with the traditional crap to keep your bosses happy.

3. You don't "go online" and you don't "use the internet" because your physical life and virtual life are one in the same.

4. If you are located in the US, you follow the presidential election, but do so online and salivate at the thought of investing the sort of money that the candidates are spending on TV ads to implement a bunch of cool viral initiatives.

Does this sound like you? If so, you've got an amazing career in front of you.

Got something to add to the job description? Please add other thoughts to this ongoing riff.

Looking for a job? Maybe post a comment here with a link to your blog or Facebook page and someone in a cool company will find you.

The Truth in Ad Sales

Alert readers of this blog will recall that I really enjoy smart YouTube video spoofs on all things marketing. For example, a few weeks ago I shared the Make My Logo Bigger video.

Today, for your viewing pleasure, is The Truth in Ad Sales.

We're taken inside an Agency in London where we meet the owner of the agency, a bunch of agency staffers, a producer, and the client from "Kiddi Care."

This agency thinks outside box. When the other guys zig, they zag. They think 360. They think integrated communications. They think social networking. Massive ROI.