I saw this 5 hour energy commercial a couple weeks ago and can’t stop thinking about it. It illustrates a trend I’ve noticed, but I am curious if you have too.

The commercial spoofs the type of young, skateboarding, scruffy-haired, Jeff Spicoli meets Sean White meets Andrew WK soda drinkers. 5 hour energy makes a convincing case by being the staid older brother – more able to make a smart decision about his choice of beverage.

It made me think – is marketing finding a better ROI by toning down the rhetoric? Are they gaining by using logic instead of screaming?

I don’t know if you’ve watched Ideocracy lately, but Brawndo seems even more ridiculous than it did a few years ago. It was always a parody, but now it feel like a parody beyond its time.

Maybe it’s the recession. Maybe it’s a move from TV to online. Maybe people just got sick of commercial pitchmen who sounded like drag racing promoters (Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!).

Do you agree that marketing is starting to tone it down?

Let’s take a less adrenalin-prone product than energy drinks. Perhaps the most mundane is toothpaste.

I noticed a change in toothpaste packaging as well. A few years ago, it was all about which one could make your teeth the whitest. It was about the surficial beauty, the EXTREME clean.

Have you seen the way toothpaste is marketed today? The design colors are much cooler. They’ve swapped “extreme” for “total.” There is an emphasis on health, rather than beauty. Check it out:

Am I just creating patterns where none exist or are we seeing a shift in priorities? Is volume of message being replaced by quality of message? I have no scientific studies to back this up; it’s just something I’ve been noticing and wondering if you have as well.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Feel free to use the comment area below to share your thoughts with the community.

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BG and I took the train together yesterday morning and I had an epiphany.

The morning commute is the perfect marketing tool. And no one uses it (pretty much).

Yesterday was the first day I wasn’t cocooned in my iPod and book. I was chatting with BG and had my eyes and ears totally open to the world around me.

I’m ashamed to say, it was probably a first.

A New World

I listened to the way people talked about current events, I spied what they listened to on their iPod, and I peeked over shoulders to see what people were reading (yeah, I’m that guy).

It was great! I picked up more details about human interaction than I would have after a week researching online.

How is this a marketing tool? Marketing is all about relationships, and becoming more so all of the time. As I mentioned in a post about how marketers are now anthropologists: “Now, relationships are a prerequisite to business, not vice versa.”

On the train, I was able to observe how people related to media, other people, and the world around them. You can figure out someone’s priorities pretty quickly in a packed train car.

For 30 minutes, I studied sociology, anthropology, and marketing all at the same time. And it was awesome.

Try Something New

What’s the alternative? Enveloping yourself in the retreat of a car interior?

If you live in a city with public transportation, let someone else do the driving tomorrow morning. It’ll give you time to study that elusive “public” marketers are always talking about. To paraphrase David Ogilvy, the customer isn’t an idiot, she’s your train companions.

If you’ve got the guts, we’d love to hear about your experience. Or, if you have another secret marketing tool – a place you go to check out human behavior – please also share it in the comments section below.

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(Image courtesy of paintMonkey via Flickr)

I’m trying a new format for my book reviews. Instead of a measured, logical summary and analysis, I’m just going to cut straight to the meat of it – here’s why I think you should buy this book (or why you might want to skip it).

I recently finished David Meerman Scott’s new book, World Wide Rave. I am a big fan of Scott’s work – he’s an innovator who has the guts to practice what he preaches. (He quit a high-paying job to write books like these, for instance.) You can check out his website at WebInkNow.com or check his Twitter stream at @dmscott.

So here are 5 reasons why I think you should buy his book (and 2 reasons why you might not want to).

[Sidenote: I read this thanks to Amazon's Kindle for iPhone WhisperSync. Hence, page numbers are between 1-2928. Sorry. You can use my citations to give a rough idea of where to find particular sections though.]

Get It

1. He hits on ideas central to social media marketing (and marketing in the future)

Scott emphasizes again and again that we need to think in terms of what we’re giving to the community, not in old media terminology. He most succinctly put it as such:

“You’ve got to think in terms of spreading ideas, not generating leads. A World Wide Rave gets the word out to thousands or even millions of potential customers. But only if you make your content easy to find and consume” (pg. 959).

Tenets like this seem really easy, but they are still a major sticking point for marketers in firm companies. Scott makes it simple to focus on what really matters in a web 2.0 world.

2. He translates theory into language your boss can understand.

Or rather, he confronts your boss’ out-moded ideas of how we gauge marketing success. His discussions about the old rules of measurement – tracking “leads” and “press clips,” especially – reveal exactly why these markers don’t make sense in social media marketing (pg. 1080).

And Scott speaks frankly. ROI obsession is causing your marketing to get boring. Like, soul-crushingly, lawyer-infused, uber-numbingly boooooring. And then he tells you why (pg. 1117 onward). (Try highlighting these sections before gifting this book to your boss or corporate overseer.)

3. Even n00bs can get it.

Scott speaks to the 90% who are still figuring out their online marketing, much less social media marketing strategy. That can be a tad frustrating for the other 10% of us, but hey, if we’re meant to be advocates, we need to get off the high horse.

It’s good that Scott covers the basics. No matter how new you are to social media marketing, I’m confident you will not get lost in this book. Heck, he even takes a moment to define social media – something that often gets skipped in even the more basic books (pg. 1261, the “Let’s Be Honest” section).

4. He makes the case for true content marketing

Content marketing, as I understand it, just means that you garner trust due to the content you put out. It’s not direct marketing; you generally build up trust until someone thinks of you when they have a need in your specialty.

Content marketing has its advocates, notably Joe Pulizzi from Junta42 and (to a slightly lesser degree) Rick Liebling from eyecube. But it’s pretty rare for a marketer to call this out in such detail. He says:

“A good journalist [someone you could hire for your content marketing] can create interesting stories about how an organization solves customer problems and can then deliver those stories in a variety of ways…Consumers will love it. How refreshing to read, listen to, and watch these products of journalistic expertise instead of the usual come-ons that typical corporations produce [read: marketing schlock]” (pg 2258).

5. He’s fun to read and that’s rare

Have you ever taken a business book on your summer vacation? Here’s how it normally goes: You have the best of intentions, so you drag this tome out to the beach with you. Before you know it, you’ve dozed off before finishing the preface and your snooze in the sand results in a bright red burn and your vacation is ruined.

That’s how it usually works for me, at least.

I’m not saying it’s a laugh riot, but this book is engaging. It moves. It has a sense of purpose. It’s got a lot of examples interspersed with the philosophy. And that’s miles better than most of the other books out there. And I’ve got the burns to prove it.

Skip It

Nothing is perfect in this world, so here are 2 valid reasons for skipping this book.

1. Lack of evidence

I don’t expect every marketing book to be chock full of research, graphs, and charts like Groundswell was (despite how much I love that book!). But, a little supporting evidence wouldn’t hurt, ya know?

And it’s not like Scott doesn’t provide a lot of citations – he does. But I feel like his most salient points are where he drops the ball in this regard.

Take for instance his argument about social media restrictions for employees. He builds up a case where those who have restricted open access for their employees in the past have been haunted by this decision. He provides a reasonable hypothesis of trends relating to computers, then the internet, culminating in social media. He provides all of the theoretical proof you could want.

But his thesis falls short without real-world evidence. Has Microsoft or Starbucks done this? What were the specific ramifications for Business X when they restricted employee access? Which companies have avoided this fate? I admit I was left wanting in just a few instances like these in the book.

2. Same ‘ol, same ‘ol

I was disappointed at a few parts in the book when examples were trotted out that I’d heard about months (nay, years) ago. It seemed tired. It seemed like something I’d read before. Seriously, I’ve heard that MailerMailer story 500 hundred times before.

But! (And this is a significant “but.”) The reason I’m sick of examples like MailerMailer is because I’m such a fan of Scott’s work. So really, this is hardly his fault. He’s trying to reach a new audience with this book and it’s likely they’ve never heard most/all of these stories before.

It’s only because I have read all of his white papers and many of his blog posts that things like “Where the hell is Matt?” seem trite. If you haven’t, then it’s new to you.

Final Verdict

This time, I leave the final verdict in your hands. In other reviews, I have ended the post with a pithy thought and recommendation. But that kind of post is boring, to be honest.

This time, I’d like to hear from you. Would you buy David’s book from this post? Or, if you have read it, what did you think? Would you recommend it to others? (Better yet, if you read his blog and white papers but haven’t bought the book – will you?)

I enjoyed the book and believe I’m a better marketer for reading it. Plus, because Scott practices what he preaches, he gave away the book during the first five days of publication and I essentially read it for free (Thanks, David!). So, while I have no real obligation, if it made me a better marketer, as a gentlemen I damn well better talk about it, right?

So, what do you think? Would you read World Wide Rave? Or did you read it? What did you think?

P.S.: If you enjoyed this review, you might also like my recent review of Paul Gillin’s Secrets of Social Media Marketing; Goldstein, Martin, and Cialdini’s Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways To Be Persuasive; and my list of the top 5 gift books for marketers.

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Social media has already changed business profoundly. If yours hasn’t, you are already behind the curve. If you have customers, their expectations regarding how they interact with businesses has likely already shifted dramatically.

So how will you deal with these changes in your business? They will surely impact marketing and legal, perhaps even I.T. But what else is on the horizon?

This is my list of five employees you might hire in the next five years (and whose positions didn’t exist five years ago). Part of this equation depends on how big you are and how ingrained social media becomes in your business. Another aspect is your company’s size – smaller companies may likely combine aspects of these jobs.

That said, it’s likely that someone will need to fill the following positions in some way. How are you preparing?

1. International Community Compliance Chief: Facebook and MySpace may be dominant in the U.S., but how much attention are you paying to social networks in other countries? Do you have a presence on Korea’s Cyworld, Orkut (huge in Brazil), Mixi in Japan, Bebo in the UK, or Grono in Poland? Someone in your company needs to claim the company name on all of these sites, oversee even moderate design, set up unique referral links, and ensure that all of these efforts match your company’s over-arching strategy. (Thanks to Paul Gillin’s Secrets of Social Media Marketing for these examples, roughly on pages 101-106.)
2. Community Manager: People are talking about your brand. If they do it within the auspices of the company, in a sanctioned forum, message board, or internal blog, you will need a community manager. This employee needs to both ensure (through personal interaction) that the community is a valuable assets without spammers or flamers (definition #1) and they need to set up the internal documentation with which you regulate employee interaction. These people are the face of your brand to the outside world and the customer ambassador to internal staff.





3. Online Reputation Manager: While the community manager has a public presence and is sanctioned to act, an online reputation manager is wider-reaching in their scope, but largely hidden from public view. This is the person you turn to when you need to know which online influencers are talking about your brand. They need to have a comprehensive view of your competitors’ online reputation. They need to identify openings in the market or current customers’ requests. The online reputation manager is the spy agency (within reason) for your company.
4. Blogger Outreach Manager/Blog Cultivation Expert: A lot has been said about the right way to approach bloggers and the wrong way to approach bloggers. Do you have an expert on your staff who already has relationships with bloggers in your industry? Everyone needs good PR or the occasional digg/stumble/sphinn/[insert goofy web 2.0 term of the day]. “[Bloggers] are a potentially significant new constituency for public relations efforts, and they are the engine that drives successful viral marketing promotions” (Paul Gillin’s Secrets of Social Media Marketing, again.) Let the blogger outreach manager cultivate like-minded souls online and advise you to the up-and-comers. Allow this individual to build relationships with them now before you need their help.
5. Chief Conversation Officer: This is the big kahuna of social media leadership in your company. The Chief Conversation Officer is an amalgamation of many of the roles described above. However, the CCO reports directly to the top and it is a soup-to-nuts position: they are responsible for finding the online conversation, documenting it, sharing it, analyzing it, and ultimately joining in on the conversation (in a non-creepy, non-”marketese” kind of way). Here are more details about the Chief Conversation Officer position.

How are you preparing for the influx of social media into your business? Are you cultivating leaders within your organization to help? Please share your ideas and suggestions in the comments section below.

(Image courtesy of preciouskhyatt via Flickr)

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I read a lot for this blog and I try to pass along the books that I especially recommend. Some are simply must-reads if you’re on the cutting edge of marketing and social media.

But it’s rare that I quote a book more than a handful of times. If you read about a particular book on this blog more than a couple times, it means that it’s a true resource for me – something I go back to again and again for guidance and ideas.

Sometimes these books are heavy on research and statistics (like Groundswell). Sometimes they provide a philosophical direction that keeps me on the correct path (like Join the Conversation).

It is rare, however, that a book is so chock-full of information that I know it will be a resource before I’ve even completed it. I’m only half-way through Paul Gillin’s Secrets of Social Media Marketing and I already know you must buy it.

90% And 10%

Gillin begins the book by introducing the intended audience:

“This book isn’t intended for the 10 percent of marketers who are on the leading edge of this phenomenon. It’s for the 90 percent who are still trying to figure out how to start.”

Since I consider this blog aimed at that audience as well, I commend Gillin’s efforts. However, I also respectfully disagree. As a member of that 10 percent, I know that it’s useful to other 10 percenters, not just the 90 percent trying to figure it out.

For instance, his outline of search engine capabilities was largely new to me (page 44) and I haven’t heard of many of the examples he mentions, including the Twitter Baja 1000-Jim Beam promotion (page 116). Even the most prominent blogger, marketers, and social media enthusiasts will gain something by reading this book.

That said, it’s also great for the 90 percent who are trying to figure it all out. They will benefit from other’s successes and missteps. Gillin does a great job of walking the reader through a social media marketing campaign from idea to strategy to execution to measurement.

Examples And Research

In my opinion, the two most useful aspects of this book are the examples and the research. Gillin isn’t simply spouting off his theories – he is backing them up with real-world intelligence.

Like Made To Stick, this book supports it’s premises and ideas with concrete examples and research. The section on CEO blogs featured several business leaders with positives and negatives about their experience. Likewise, his section on customer conversations was supported by influential authors and the facts and figures that inspire trust in his work.

The Gist

I highly recommend that you buy Secrets of Social Media Marketing. (It ships on November 1, but you can pre-order it on Amazon with that link at a third off the cover price.) I think it is a great resource for marketers, small business owners, or anyone who touches social media – and that’s most of us.

Regular readers know I will rip into a book I think stinks. But I’ve been really impressed with Gillin’s work and this book, in particular. Please let me know what you think in the comments section below.

P.S.: Gillin did something smart by creating a website well before the book is released: http://SSMMbook.com/. Check it out if you want to know more about his work, read other reviews, and get all of the footnotes in one convenient place.

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