Web Ink Now

Open letter to Ed Whitacre, new interim CEO of GM

Dear Mr. Whitacre:

I was shocked to learn that Fritz Henderson was ousted this week as CEO by the GM board.

Having been critical of GM marketing and communications tactics in the past, I felt that Henderson was making great progress in this area.

I enjoyed my discussions with Henderson several months ago and felt confident since then that the marketing area was finally opening up to the immense power of the Web as a communications tool. Henderson understands new marketing and was an effective leader in this area.

Of course, I don't pretend that my narrow interest in how GM communicates to its customers is the only important thing for a CEO of GM. Based on press reports, you and the rest of the GM board had other issues of concern, such as your reported disagreement with Henderson on whether Vauxhall/Opel, GM's European division, should be sold. These are clearly things I know nothing about.

Qualifications of a CEO of GM

Now that you're in the process of searching for a new CEO, I urge you to require that the new CEO have an understanding of how people communicate online. I want to see the progress that Henderson has made continue. I hope the emerging culture of open and honest communications, especially online, will continue under whoever replaces Henderson.

Mr. Whitacre, with respect, this aspect is important for you to pay attention to because, from what I can discern, Web communications is beyond your comfort zone. According to BusinessWeek, while running some of the world's largest telecommunications companies, you didn't have a computer in your office and you didn't do email, preferring to write notes by hand or have letters typed by your secretary.

In addition, you most recently served as CEO of AT&T. In my limited experience, it would seem to me that AT&T has operated as a classic command and control organization. However, to succeed in the new world of always on, YouTube-driven, social media enabled, real-time marketing on the Web, a corporate culture of losing control is required.

As you interview candidates for the new role, I encourage you to ask questions and probe each person’s views and qualifications regarding the important new communications opportunities of the Web.

If the smart readers of this blog or me personally can be of any help to you in your search, please let us know.

Best regards,

David Meerman Scott
Author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR, a BusinessWeek bestseller published in 24 languages

The new rules of business-to-business marketing & PR

Back in June, I keynoted the Business Marketing Association annual conference.

Fortunately, the BMA made a video of my presentation and gave me permission to put it onto Vimeo.

This 45-minute keynote presentation The New Rules of Marketing & PR for B2B Businesses is the first time my entire keynote for a B2B audience has been made available in this way. After the keynote, I answer a few questions for another ten minutes.

I hope you can find time to watch.

Direct link to the video here.

More information about my keynotes and a speaking calendar here.

Gary Slack, BMA Chairman says of this presentation:

"David delivers! That's why we've invited him back to speak to "ENGAGE!," the Business Marketing Association’s 2010 national conference June 2-4 in Chicago. As one of 12 keynoters, David kicked off our 2009 "UNlearn" conference and mesmerized 450 business marketers from 27 states, earning the #1 speaker rating in our post-conference survey from among 55 keynoters and panelists in all, no small feat when you consider the many top marketers and authors who graced our podium."

Thanks Gary!

I'm psyched that the BMA has invited me back next year. Information on the 2010 BMA event here.

How the Obama campaign worked with bloggers

On Election Day 2008, an amazing 25 percent of Barack Obama voters were already directly linked to him through social media, including blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites according to The Nation. Putting aside politics and just considering the election from a marketing standpoint, I am absolutely convinced that Obama won the U.S. presidential election because he was the candidate who most strongly embraced new marketing. Way back before he even declared himself a candidate, Obama and his staff and volunteers jumped into the online world.

I had an opportunity to learn details about strategy when I sat down with Kevin Flynn, who worked on the Obama Campaign's New Media Blogging Team, a Chicago-based core group of online campaigners. "I was part of the blogging team, and in the midst of the new media braintrust," he says. "I ended up working on the social media efforts for fifteen states. Each state had their own blog, which had localized content, and I built contacts with people in each state who sent me stories, photos, and other information for the blogs. People were so excited to have someone in the organization who wanted to help, so they all fed me great content. Once they saw their photos on the national campaign pages, they got even more excited."

During the campaign, Flynn was responsible for editing and creating posts for a collection of state blogs that included Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Hawaii, Kansas, and Texas. "The Obama candidacy was exciting for his supporters and those of us working in the campaign," Flynn says. "The technology is easy. If you provide people with the technology tools and there is excitement, then people will make it successful."

Of course, the Obama campaign marketed itself in many more ways than just through social media. But the use of television, direct mail, door-to-door outreach, and rallies have been used for decades and are subject to limitations. "There is no way to talk back with traditional marketing like radio and TV," Flynn says. "With blogging, it creates a conversation and the campaign gets feedback. If there is interest in a topic, then the campaign can change quickly. People can get involved because it is two-way instead of just one-direction. You can grow when there is a dialogue."

Prior to working on the Obama campaign, Flynn had worked in the Chicago financial markets, so he has an ideal perspective to offer advice to corporations on blogging and social media. "Don't be afraid of change," he says. "Don't be afraid to hear things that are uncomfortable, because only by hearing things will you be able to adjust and grow. In this rapidly changing world, you need to listen; otherwise you won’t be able to survive."

The staff and volunteers from the Obama campaign worked very closely with the bloggers who cover politics and provided them with valuable information that helped them to write better posts. While some enlightened organizations do focus on influencing important bloggers by reaching out to them, most have a policy of ignoring bloggers, even as they spend a great deal of effort attempting to cultivate relationships with members of the mainstream media. This is a mistake. Bloggers are important voices. Just ask the Obama campaign—bloggers helped elect a president of the United States.

The Obama campaign example shows that making a concerted effort to integrate other bloggers' content into your own works very well. Although this example is from politics, similar strategies for engaging and influencing other bloggers can work for almost any organization. Another organization that's boldly working with bloggers is the New York Islanders professional ice hockey team. The team created what they call the Islanders Blog Box, a program that provides bloggers with press credentials for games. The program started at the beginning of the 2007-2008 season and was among the first of its kind for a major professional sports team. Each season, about a dozen bloggers are chosen to receive credentials, and the team links to their blogs from its site.

Other organizations set up "blogger days" where people who write blogs that are influential in their industry get the chance to spend the day with the company. They are treated to information about new product releases, have lunch with employees, and sometimes even meet with the CEO or other executives (like General Motors did with me a few weeks ago).

These outreach programs are critical to providing bloggers with the information they need to tell your story for you.

"Skip the Obama Dog" image courtesy of Kevin Flynn

FEAR

Every day, I run across FEAR of marketing on the Web.

- Fear comes from bosses who insist on calculating the ROI of the new rules of marketing & PR based on sales leads and press clippings.

- Fear comes from offline advertising and PR practitioners cautiously making the transition to Web platforms to generate attention.

- Fear comes from those who insist on copying the competition.

What's behind the fear? Let's take a look and then debunk a few myths:

FEAR OF PEOPLE SAYING BAD THINGS ABOUT US

Many company executives and public relations people trace their worries about the new rules of marketing & PR to their belief that "people will say bad things about our company" via social media.

This fear leads them to ignore blogs and online forums and to prohibit employees from participating in social media. In every discussion that I've had with employees who freely participate in social media, I've confirmed that this fear is significantly overblown. Let me repeat - everyone who has experience tells me this fear is overblown.

Sure, an occasional person might vent frustrations online, and now and then a dissatisfied customer might complain (unless you're in the airline industry and then it might be more than a few).

But the benefit of this kind of communication is that you can monitor in real-time what's being said and then respond appropriately. Employees, customers, and other stakeholders are talking about your organization offline anyway, so unless you are participating online, you’ll never know what’s being said at all.

The beauty of the Web is that you benefit from instant access to conversations you could never participate in before. And frequently you can turn around impressions by commenting on a "negative" post. Here's an example from Delaware North.

FEAR THAT WE WILL LOOK SILLY

When you write a first blog post, start shooting videos for YouTube, or begin to tweet it feels like you're just a big dork. I certainly did. But like anything, experience brings mastery. Just get going!

My daughter is learning how to drive a car this summer. Yes, she gets honked at and may even get "the finger" as she gingerly tries to park in a crowded lot. But she'll figure it out. Learning to drive takes time, but it is worth it because it beats the hell out of biking or walking in a Massachusetts winter.

I recommend that when you start a blog, you should password protect it for a few months. Begin blogging by sharing with trusted colleagues. As you find your "blog voice" you can tweak the content, delete posts, and then remove the password protection and look like a pro from the first day.

FEAR THAT IT DOES NOT WORK IN OUR INDUSTRY

One of the most frequent manifestations of fear is that the new rules of marketing & PR does not work "in our industry." The proof people provide is that nobody else is doing it. I've heard "The new rules do not work for mutual fund managers or lawyers or dentists or politicians or Singapore based software companies or Canadian blood donation centers or Florida based real estate agents or churches or rock bands.... I've heard them all. I see the excuses of "this doesn't apply to my market" and "people in my market do not use social media" literally every day.

Duh. Someone has to be a pioneer.

So my style and strategy in my books, speeches and this blog is to show examples from many different organizations. I also show examples from non-profits, the military, government agencies, doctors, rock bands, plus big companies, small companies, B2C, B2B and much more.

I am firmly convinced (and my audiences agree) that you can learn more from what a broad range of people are doing than from what other people just like you are doing. Don't copy your competitor, learn from a rock band or hospital.

Putnam Investments is a pioneer. So is the United States Air Force. So is Dr. Helaine Smith. So is Paul Levy. If these people had looked to the "competition" they would still be obsessing over TV commercials. newspaper inserts and Yellow Page ads.

The most powerful job in the world via the new rules of marketing & PR

And consider this. Barack Obama was elected to be the 44th president of the United States because of the new rules of marketing & PR. This is not a political observation but, rather, a thought about the amazing success Obama and his campaign team had in embracing voters. More than 5 million people supported Obama's profile on sites like Facebook and a half a billion dollars was raised online.

If you are an American citizen, it doesn't matter who you (or I) supported or voted for during the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Everyone (those who work in companies large and small, nonprofits, independent consultants, job seekers, musicians…well, everyone) can learn from Obama's victory. I certainly have.

After all, who would have predicted in 2006 that a young, skinny, half-black man with a strange name—Barack Hussein Obama—and funny ears, who had served less than one term in the U.S. Senate, could be elected to the most powerful position in the world, despite facing more than twenty other candidates, many of them better known and better funded?

There is no doubt in my mind that Obama was elected because his campaign used the ideas that I describe in this blog and in my books and seminars. Mind you, I’m not saying his aides had copies of my book on the campaign plane. But I am saying that the campaign observed and acted on the very same ideas you'll find in this blog.

Now imagine if the Obama campaign was obsessed with "I want examples of how this kind of marketing works in politics" before he acted?

Imagine if Obama insisted on ROI measurement analysis prior to acting.

Imagine if the Obama campaign copied what worked in the past for candidates like George W. Bush?

Imagine if the Obama campaign acted on fear?

I can guarantee you that if the Obama campaign waited for "proof" and "examples from my industry" then he would be simply a junior senator from Illinois today.

What other fears do you encounter? (And how do you deal with them?)

Top image: grivina/Shutterstock

Space available for my full-day seminars in Australia and Europe

I'll be in Melbourne and Sydney in September and Amsterdam in October running full day seminars about social media and the new rules of marketing & PR.

If you're based in North America and you have some travel budget available that need to be used by year-end, why not book a trip to Australia or the Netherlands?

Of course, if you’re based in Australia or Europe, here are the only chances to get together this year.

October 15, 2009 in Amsterdam
The New Rules of Marketing & PR
Information on Amsterdam gig here.

Although part of my family originally came from Dordrecht, and my middle name is a Dutch family name, I don’t speak the language so obviously the session will be in English. Look for the English button on the site.

Thanks to Spark Leadership Foundation for sponsoring the Europe event.

September 2, 2009 in Sydney
September 4, 2009 in Melbourne
Social Media Masterclasses
Information on Australia gigs here.

I don't speak very good "Strine" (Australian), but I’ll temper my American accent while in Australia.

Thanks to Jennifer Frahm Collaborations and next digital for organizing the Australia events.

Do the new rules of marketing & PR work worldwide?

Many people ask me of the new rules of marketing apply worldwide. Rather than do the easy thing and answer the question with a big fat “YES!” I thought I’d show you.

In the past six months I’ve delivered presentations in eight countries: Croatia, the Dominican Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, New Zealand, Turkey, and the United States. At each of my gigs, I used my trusty Flip Video camera to record a series of questions to compare and contrast how people research products and solve problems.

Damn these Flip videos are awesome. Usually I just held the camera myself. However in Wellington, New Zealand my friend Chris Brogan served as cameraman.

I want to thank my friends at PermissionTV for helping me to put the various clips together into a consolidated video.

I think you’ll agree after watching this video that The New Rules of Marketing apply worldwide.


Here is a direct link to the video.

On Wednesday July 29 at 2:00 Eastern, join me on PermissionTV Live for a discussion with Matthew Mamet on how to use video to create a World Wide Rave. Video is one of the best ways to get people spreading your ideas and sharing your stories.

Photo credit: NASA. "Blue Marble" photo taken by Harrison Schnmitt on Apollo 17 December, 1972

Does new marketing really work in Istanbul, too?

Last week, I was in Istanbul for the launch of The New Rules of Marketing & PR in Turkish. Of the 22 languages the book is being published in, I like the Turkish cover art the best. Thanks to my Turkish publishers MediaCat and to the book designer Kimac Cabuker for great work.

While in Istanbul, I delivered a presentation for 250 executives.

As some of you may know, when I begin a keynote, I always ask a series of questions to gauge the level of Web use compared to how people use mainstream media to research products and services and answer questions.

Many people just don't believe me when I say that people all over the world are using the Web in high numbers to research products and services.

So I pulled out my flip video camera and recorded the Q&A in Istanbul. Since I am recording myself while speaking it is a little jerky. And some audience members are listening to the simultaneous translation in Turkish. But the conclusion is clear.

Over the course of a year in front of more than 20,000 people from dozens of groups all over the world—including such diverse groups as college students, marketing professionals, and executives at Fortune 500 companies—the answers are surprisingly consistent. Between 5 and 20 percent of people answer "yes" to the first three questions, which means the ways that so many companies try to reach people today (direct mail, advertising, mainstream media) are only effective in reaching a small portion of potential customers. However, between 80 and 100 percent raise their hands for the last two questions.

Clearly, providing great stuff on the Web is critical for any business.

Rather than trying to convince buyers to pay attention to your products and services by dreaming up messages and ad campaigns, offering great Web content delivers interested people, from all over the world, right to your company's virtual doorstep.

This is a marketer's dream come true!

So, is social media global?

Many people ask: "Is social media global?"

Answer: YES

There is no doubt that we're in the middle of an international revolution in the way people communicate and smart organizations the world over are figuring out what it means for their marketplace.

One of my own little proof points comes in the U.S. mail every few weeks or so, another translated edition of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. As of this writing, the book is being published in 22 languages.

This past weekend I learned a little about how the Japanese translation came about. It should not surprise you that it was because blogging.

When the first edition of the book was published in English in June 2007, Kiyo-san talked about it on his blog. Masaki Ishitani then read Kiyo-san's post and also purchased the English language edition and he then recommended it to Ms. Kanbara who is CEO of social media marketing company News2U (they have a direct to consumer press release distribution service in Japan). These social media mavens then suggested to Nikkei, one of Japan’s most influential business publishers to do a Japanese language translation. The lead translator, Mr. Hirata, is also a blogger.

And Nikkei, my Japanese publisher, lost control by publishing a free PDF sample of The New Rules of Marketing & PR in Japanese.

The Japanese version of The New Rules of Marketing & PR ships next week from Amazon Japan.

Social media is indeed global.

Here are the translations. Some are complete (with links and covers here) and many are in progress.

Bulgarian

Portuguese (Portugal)
As novas regras de Marketing e Relacoes Publicas Note that my Portuguese publisher created a blog to promote the book.

Chinese (simplified)

Lithuanian
naujosios rinkodaros ir viešuju ryšiu taisykles

Russian

Polish

Chinese (Orthodox)

Czech
Nova pravidla marketingu a PR

Japanese
マーケティングとPRの実践ネット戦略

Korean

Portuguese (Brazil)
As novas regras de Marketing e do Networking

Vietnamese
Quy Luat Moi Cua PR Và Tiep Thj

Serbian
Nova pravila marketinga i odnosa s javnošcu

Turkish

Romanian

India

Arabic

German

Latvian
Jaunie marketinga un sabiedrisko attiecibu likumi

Bahasa Indonesian

Film producer builds pre-release buzz by making soundtrack available for free download

Readers of this blog know that a great way to build buzz and generate interest in products and services is to make select content available for free online. There's no doubt that free content sells. For example, my free ebook The New Rules of Viral Marketing has been downloaded over 330,000 times propelling my book The New Rules of Marketing & PR to bestseller status and helping to sell translation rights in 22 languages.

So it was with great interest that I had an opportunity to connect with Ryan Gielen, Executive Producer of The Graduates to learn about his strategy of making much the soundtrack of his new film available for free download. From this link, you can get a new song every week, or if you don’t want to wait, you can get the entire soundtrack for just 99 cents.

The Graduates, which will be released in May 2009, is an award-winning comedy about four friends who head to the beach without a care in the world, The film has been developing a loyal 18-34 year old following through a dozen sold-out festival and sneak preview screenings, advertised solely by word-of-mouth.

The film features the music of some incredible indie bands including:
The New Rags
Plushgun
Sonia Montez
The Mad Tea Party
Our Daughter's Wedding
The Smittens

Of course, the bands also benefit because people are exposed to their music and if they like it, may buy an album or see them live.

David Meerman Scott: How did the idea to offer the music free come about?

Ryan Gielen: "Marc Cuban wrote a great column on why studios should give away their soundtrack to every audience member, and advertise that as part of the ticket price. I forwarded it to my producers, even printed it out and put it on my wall, it's still there (I'm not a Mavs fan, but my best friends are, and turned me onto his blog).

Studios are extremely unlikely to ever adopt this model- for a lot of reasons- but we're not a studio film. We're a very indie film, with very indie bands on our soundtrack. Both the bands and the film need as much promotional help as possible, because we're competing with studio films, major marketing budgets, stars. We don't compete exclusively with low-budget films. We compete with everyone. So what do we have to offer our potential audience to set us apart? A great film and a great soundtrack isn't enough, we need people to know about it.

The film comes out in May, and we'll launch by giving away the first 20-25 minutes, free. But for now, we can only release the soundtrack. So we felt it made sense to give away half the soundtrack leading up to the release to build loyalty, show off the product, and compensate for a zero-dollar marketing budget, all in one fell swoop.

And when the film does well, everyone including the bands will make more than enough money to ease the pain of giving songs and 25 minutes of film away."

DMS: Was there any resistance from others on the film (producers, artists, etc.)?

RG: "My producers and I all loved this idea, and when we carefully explained it to the musicians they came along. I think it helped that everyone was aware of how hard the producers and I are working to promote the film and the individual bands on the soundtrack. They recognized that we're extremely dedicated to their success, not just our own. I think the knee-jerk reaction is to get really uptight about giving stuff away, even if it's just one song, but that's so shortsighted.

I should add that movie studios will probably be very slow to adopt this model, possibly because they load soundtracks with famous music that is too expensive to give away. But anyone outside the studio system can recruit brilliant music from tens of thousands of indie bands and use the soundtrack as a living, breathing flexible promotional tool.

This model is why iTunes has turned record stores into dinosaurs- anyone can preview the product on iTunes, we never have to buy blind again. Our giveaway is really just another version of the preview. If you're already letting people preview your music, why not give a song or two away, just to make sure everyone is listening to you, instead of the MILLIONS of other bands available."

DMS: What advice would you give musicians and filmmakers?

RG: "Music licensing is an enormous headache for indie filmmakers (and probably for ad agencies?), and we have enough challenges in front of us with this tiny little film to promote. We all agreed early on that we would go out and find great bands that hadn't been discovered because that would help us license the music, and they would be excited by the exposure. I expect that if we had pitched this to established, signed bands we would've been laughed out of the room.

But that's their own shortsightedness. The media landscape is so broad that we literally had 9,000 bands submit, something like 100,000 songs to choose from. If our little film takes off, people all over the country will discover new music and buy it through our website and iTunes. The worst-case scenario for even an established band is that we just crafted a $100,000 music video for them. The Rolling Stones should laugh us out of the room, but this is a good opportunity for many, many bands.

Bands need to take their future in their own hands. Track down indie filmmakers on IMDb and send them links. I listen to everything people send because I know they're as hungry as I am. One good indie film can set you up with a brand new audience around the country. One great indie can set you up around the world. If they were really clever bands would even insist on having a thirty-second or one-minute trailer cut exclusively with their song. The filmmaker would be likely to agree because it costs him nothing, and he gets a great piece of music, and the band just got a free music video.

Which, of course, they should give away immediately to any and all potential fans."

DMS: Nice work Ryan! You, your produces, and the bands that are participating are doing the right thing. I wish you great success with The Graduates!

Marketing Me: How smart digital natives reach potential employers

I just love that my book The New Rules of Marketing & PR is used in many college and university classes. Frequently I’ll find references to the book on students' and professors' blogs and I often end up with students as my new Facebook friends or Twitter followers. What a terrific connection to up and coming communicators!

Kyle F. Reinson is professor of Communication at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, NY, requires The New Rules of Marketing & PR for his COMM 376 class. Besides his teaching gig, Reinson trains business writers and consults on PR strategy for a variety of industries, although he specializes in real estate development.

COMM 376 prepares students for the practice of public relations and students are challenged to think managerially and tactically. They work with traditional press releases, special events and advertisements, Web-based applications and Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC).

One project the students worked in was a blog devoted to campus fashion. Motto: We love fashion and want to share it with the world!

Marketing Me

Another project the class worked on was to market themselves online.

"In the 'Marketing Me' project they either had to construct an online portfolio future employers could access or they had to exhibit thought leadership on an idea or concept that they found of interest," Reinson says. "I had very few rules. The class featured guest speakers from the Student Press Law Center, RIT and Kodak -- all helping the students to address how they might market themselves to future employers as digital natives."

If you're looking to hire someone to help with your online marketing and PR, take a look at these digital natives or those studying at other colleges and universities with strong online communications programs.

David Baker
Catherine Alton
Selena Cochran
Jim Ernst
Emily Urbanski