Web Ink Now

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?

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.

Forrester Research misleads CMOs by confusing advertising with marketing in new research report

UPDATE November 5, 2007

This afternoon I had a conversation with Shar Van Boskirk, the author of the Forrester US interactive marketing forecast report that I talk about below and Tracy Sullivan, Senior Public Relations Specialist at Forrester Research. They also sent me a copy of the report.

I want to thank them for reaching out to me. Clearly Forrester is monitoring blogs and engaging bloggers. Good for them. Very few companies that I talk about in this blog contact me.

Van Boskirk provided some additional information and clarification about the research which was designed as a way to do market sizing of social media. As she explained, in many cases (such as YouTube) the only way to measure how much marketing activity is going on is to measure advertising and use that as a proxy for total spend. After all, it’s not like companies have a YouTube budget that could be quantified. Forrester analysts also looked at things like agency fees and spending on technology.

I agree. It is difficult to measure marketing in many social media and advertising spend is a decent proxy for the interest in the area among marketers. However, I still believe marketing and advertising are very different and some aspects of the way the report was described in the news release and landing pages was misleading.

Sullivan said that the press release has been added to the media room pages.

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ORIGINAL POST

Last week Forrester Research "an independent technology and market research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology" released a report called US Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2007 To 2012, written by Shar VanBoskirk. I have not read the report, but have seen the news release about it as well as the summary of the report on the Forrester site.

Some of the highlights of the report include:
> "Interactive Spend Will Better Align With Consumers' Media Behavior"
> "Interactive Marketing Will Top $61 Billion By 2012"
> "Search Marketing Will Triple In Five Years"
> "Online Video Ads Perpetuate A Virtuous Cycle Of Growth"
> "Social Media Will Drive Emerging Channels To $10.6 Billion By 2012"

While this data is certainly interesting, I am dismayed that the statistics refer to interactive advertising spending. In my opinion, it is misleading for Forrester to use MARKETING when they really mean ADVERTISING.

As readers of this blog and The New Rules of Marketing & PR will recall:

OLD RULES -- buy your way in with advertising and beg your way in with the media
NEW RULES -- publish your way in on the Web for free

As far as I can tell, this report is about the old rules of marketing (buying your way in) but just applied to the web. As I've said many times, marketers have long-term ingrained habits. Many of us assume that we must spend money to play the game. We equate marketing with advertising (as Forrester has done).

However, as many successful marketers know, on the Web, marketing is not the same as advertising. Marketing is all about creating great content. For free. To be successful, you must unlearn what you have learned.

It's not about advertising on YouTube, it is about making a YouTube video. It's not about advertising on social media sites like Facebook, it is about participating by creating profiles, groups and events on Facebook.

I like Forrester's work. In my last corporate job as VP marketing for a technology company, I was a Forrester client. Some of the companies I work with are Forrester clients. I have found their research valuable.

There is something deeply troubling in VanBoskirk's quote at the end of the press release. "These changes will not only affect the budget structure of marketing organizations, but it will also give interactive marketing professionals a more legitimate seat at the marketing table," VanBoskirk continues. "In fact, with interactive marketing gaining executive visibility as much for its popularity with young consumers as for its measurability and cost effectiveness, we see a class of marketers emerging who will involve themselves with a few high-profile interactive experiments in order to catapult themselves into the CMO seat."

In my opinion, advertising people already had their chance in the CMO seat and they've screwed it up. We've already got CMOs who understand the 30-second TV spot and who are skilled at interruption techniques. That's not marketing. That's not what consumers want. That's why the average tenure as CMO is less than two years according to Spencer Stuart.

Businesses certainly don't need trade CMOs who know TV ads with those who know how to run banner ads on YouTube and Facebook.

Instead, we need CMOs who know how to resonate with potential customers. We need CMOs who are skilled at creating products and services that people want to buy. Instead of dreaming up "creative" ads to interrupt people and shout "buy my product," we need CMOs who are Tuned In to their marketplace. We need CMOs who connect with buyers by publishing great content on the Web.

Here's another interesting thing. When I was writing this blog post on October 15 (four days after the Forrester report had come out), I had wanted to point to the press release on the Forrester site to drive any traffic from this blog to them directly. But the Forrester press release is not on the Forrester site, so I am pointing to it on Yahoo.

I entered the phrase US Interactive Marketing Spending To Reach $61 Billion (the headline of the press release) into Google and (at least the time that I looked) none of the top 50 hits pointed to the Forrester site.

While I completely advocate using the news release wires to send releases, they should also be published on a company's online media room. Maybe it was just an oversight on Forrester’s part.

The new rules of marketing and PR is about publishing interesting content that people want to consume and bringing them back to your own site where they can learn more.

Facebook Applications: Silliness, spam and spoofs

Is it just me or have Facebook applications become too damn annoying?

Don't get me wrong. I think Facebook is terrific. I love when someone I know from a past life friends me. Or better yet, I am thrilled when someone who has read my book or heard me speak live connects via Facebook. I've got Facebook friends from all over the world (keep the friends requests coming folks).

As much as I like Facebook, I'm just not into the third party applications thing. I find the applications that require some sort of reply to be particularly annoying. So-and-so wants to "network using business cards" and this one "dedicated a song to you" and that one "asked her friends a question". The problem with these things is that they require action on my part. So I think of them as sort of spam-like. Sure it only takes a moment to click the ignore button, but these things seem a little outside the scope of Facebook, at least the way that I am using it.

Am I being overly harsh?

There are now 4,500 Facebook Applications, the vast majority developed by people who do not work for Facebook. In fact, this is a very hot area for Venture Capitalists to put money these days. There are sites that review and recommend applications. It's all very new and we're all learning as we go. But I predict a backlash against some of the more annoying applications.

Facebook is great for connecting. But I don’t see it as a game. I don't really want to know "What My Stripper Name Is" (Note, if you're actually a stripper, this switches to "What's Your Internetweb Geek Name") and I don’t want to use BoozeMail to "Send your friends a drink (or even a round of drinks) on Facebook." Although, I must admit I'm rather intrigued by NaughtyGirls "Get Naughty. Send very naughty gifts and very naughty messages to all of your friends."

And here's something really creepy to really gum up the works. Today I got a Facebook Application spoof email. It looked exactly like a typical Facebook request email, but when I moused over the URL, it was some dodgy address somewhere, not Facebook. Ugh.

Just when we figured out how to deal with comment spam and trackback spam, we’ve got to deal with Facebook app spam.