New Rules of Marketing and PR write-up, pg. 101-132

New Rules of Marketing and PR- You Are What You Publish: Building Your Marketing and PR Plan

This chapter is all about reformatting marketing and PR plans to provide solid content for buyers, with a clear goal and a focus on consumers. Meerman Scott goes against traditional marketing advice which is to focus on the four P's: product, place, price and promotion. Rather than building an online presence based around products, he suggests that companies should build content around what buyers need to know, what their interests are. This requires a company to identify who they should target and to find out everything possible about this group. The challenge then is to create content that those groups will be interested in, that they will need. In order to make your company's way up the Google rankings, it's important to find out what words your buyers are using and what they will search with. This advice works for any company marketing a product, as well as to any organization that is seeking donations, volunteers, votes or whatever.

Now, having done that summary, I just have to say that I DON'T LIKE THIS BOOK.

And I'll tell you why:

David Meerman Scott seems to go against his on advice in this book. He gives way too many irrelevant examples and the whole thing comes across to me as though he was just grasping at content that could make his few great ideas into a book.

Very contradictory to the whole premise of the New Rules.

I have a hard time not skimming or skipping whole passages while I'm reading and generally I feel like in each chapter, there are entire sections that are just a waste of my time.

I'm also not seeing that there's anything really groundbreaking in the book. It all seems fairly obvious to me. Maybe because I haven't been trained in traditional marketing and PR, but still. I really think this 257 pg. book could easily, and much more effectively, been 100-150 pages.

David Meerman Scott, shame on you for breaking your own rules.

New Rules of Marketing and PR write-up, pg. 247-257

New Rules of Marketing and PR, David Meerman Scott

Search engine marketing is arguably the most effective type of online marketing a company can do. It is effective because it requires people to search your company out — changing the whole face of disruptive marketing.

Getting to the top of a search engine is something of a science, known as search engine optimization (SEO). Here are a few tips:

• Direct searchers of specific keywords to landing pages that are about those keywords, rather than a homepage.
• Write from the searcher's point of view.
• Provide costumer testimonials.
• Ask for only necessary information such as email and name.

SEO can, and should, be used to market any company.

"Twitter Jumped the Shark This Week"

"Twitter Jumped the Shark This Week" article summary

This article from the Daily Beast discusses the downsides of Twitter. Along with the author as well as other Twitter critics, I sometimes wonder when people became such exhibitionists. Social media provides many wonderful ways for people to communicate, but how far does the micro-blogging go?

I think Twitter is really valuable for breaking down the walls that exist within certain industries. For example, I can follow my favorite journalists or actors and see what they're up to, which is really fun. But I don't like everybody knowing what's going on with me every second of the day.

New Rules of Marketing and PR, David Meerman Scott Write-up, pg. 91-109

New Rules of Marketing and PR, David Meerman Scott

"Going Viral: The Web Helps Audiences Catch the Fever"

A viral campaign is the pot of gold at the end of the marketing rainbow — but it's nearly impossible to create for one's own company. Most viral videos get that way without intending to. If such a scheme goes viral, it's important for any affected companies to monitor the implications. When a company has big news, they should try to make it go viral by releasing news releases that will be exposed to bloggers and others who can increase exposure to the story.

"The Content-Rich Web Site"

One of the things I like best about Scott in this book is that he encourages companies to put out information that will be useful to people. As a consumer, I know that I trust companies who are "thought leaders" in their fields, especially when they are willing to collaborate with the consumers to make their products better. I think this is a huge strength for any company, and particularly for any company that specializes in an area that the public does not know much about. Informing consumers builds a relationship with them, the kind of relationship that fosters trust in a company and in their products.

New Rules of Marketing and PR, David Meerman Scott Write-up, pg. 61-68

New Rules of Marketing and PR, David Meerman Scott

"The New Rules of News Releases"

The traditional role of press releases (Scott refers to them as "news releases") is changing. No longer are PR people confined to writing releases for journalists, hoping their story will be picked up by the media. Now companies can create their own buzz by releasing useful news releases consistently and online. Through this kind of marketing, including using key search phrases in the copy of news releases, consumers can easily find your company through search engines.

New Rules of Marketing and PR, David Meerman Scott Write-up, pg. 43-60

New Rules of Marketing and PR, David Meerman Scott

"Blogs: Tapping Millions of Evangelists to Tell Your Story"

Blogs tie in perfectly with viral marketing. They are a great way for people all over the world to connect with news stories and share opinions, which means they are vital for marketers and PR people to understand. Scott underscores the importance of PR reps being up-to-date with what is being said about their products/services on blogs. One of the big issues with this that Scott talks about is that many media professionals don't take blogs seriously enough.

For a company to have their own informational blog signals to the blogosphere that they are committed to informing people, something that is important to today's consumers.

New Rules of Marketing and PR, David Meerman Scott write-up, pages 1-26

New Rules of Marketing and PR, David Meerman Scott write-up, pages 1-26

"Every business has information that can contribute to the education of the marketplace."  —Jim Peterson, President, The Concrete Network

I'm digging this book so far :). The New Rules of Marketing and PR are all about educating consumers. I love that lines are being crossed — companies communicate directly with consumers and consumers can give feedback on products and services. I think it all contributes to an improvement of consumer experience, both in perception and in progression, meaning that consumer's will feel that they are a part of product/service development, and their feedback will contribute to improved products and services.

Word, David Meerman Scott.

"Pupils to study Twitter and blogs in primary schools shake-up"

Primary schools in England are looking to the future in a revamp of their curriculums.

The new plans would require students to learn about Twitter, Wikipedia, blogging and other social networking sites as a part of the curriculum. Students would also learn history in the context of its chronology, with the goal being that students could place their historical/cultural knowledge in the context of what led to it, what happened after it, etc.

There would also be a component of the curriculum that would focus on a broad health and well-being program, including how to deal with peer pressure and bullies.

While this new curriculum seeks to be progressive, the government is concerned that it will look like they are trying to scrap the old educational format.

Viral Expansion Loops

Article Summary-

Viral expansion loops are the marketing genius behind the exponential growth of companies like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and pretty much every other social networking site. As start-ups, they are brilliant; creators of these types of websites don't need to generate content, only to organize it.

Viral Loops essentially work this way: one person uses a site and is motivated to invite others to begin using the site as well. Thus, the site's growth is exponential, and its users do its marketing for free.

Social networking sites are a great example of viral expansion loops because they utilize "inviting friends" and "sharing videos", etc.

Frequently Visited Websites- For New Media class

Twitter- I hate Facebook, but love Twitter. With Facebook, I hated having 800 friends' activities showing up on my mini-feed, most of whom I wasn't very close to. I also don't like people knowing what's going on with my life without my directly letting them in on it. So I deleted my Facebook profile (I know, I know...I'm technologically going backward!). That said, I really like Twitter because I'm actually interested in what the people I am following have to say. Like Shaq. He is HILARIOUS.

YouTube- I'm a big fan. I think it's so interesting how people are using entertainment as advertisements, so that people will actually be seeking out these advertisements for their entertainment value. I like YouTube for finding new musicians and recording artists.

byuicomm.net- I think this is going to be a cool site. I visit it more for administrative purposes, but hopefully it's going to become big on this campus.

Google- Maybe this is an obvious one, but I use Google for everything. It's just so darn pervasive, that Google.