“New Rules of Marketing and PR”

“New Rules of Marketing and PR” is a book by author David Meerman Scott. I am reading this book for my PR Methods course, and I absolutely recommend it to everyone that pursues public relations as a career.

Its emphasize is on how traditional media is no longer a successful tool to consider when marketing, advertising or simply promoting a product, idea, etc. Scott thinks of the Web as “a massive focus group with uninhibited customers offering up their thoughts for free!” Basically, you can find what people are saying and thinking about organizations and products via RSS feeds on the Internet.

I have only read up to Chapter 8, but so far I have learned a lot about “the new rules,” and I now look at social media and the Web through a total different lenses.

Here are “the new rules” that Scott mentions often throughout the book:

* Marketing is more than just advertising.
* PR is for more than just a mainstream media audience.
* You are what you publish.
* People want authenticity, not spin.*
* People want participation, not propaganda.
* Instead of causing one-way interruption, marketing is about delivering content at just the precise moment your audience needs it.
* Marketers must shift their thinking from mainstream marketing to the masses to a strategy of reaching vast numbers of understood audiences via the Web.
* PR is not about your boss seeing your company on TV. It’s about your buyers seeing your company on the Web.
* Marketing is not about your agency winning awards. It’s about your organization winning business.
* The Internet has made public relations public again, after years of almost exclusive focus on media.
* Companies must drive people into the purchasing process with great online content.
* Blogs, online video, e-books, news releases, and other forms of online content let organizations communicate directly with buyers in a form they appreciate.
* On the Web, the lines between marketing and PR have blurred.

I will keep you guys posted on my adventure throughout this book!

*I find this funny because there is a PR show on The E! Network called The Spin Crowd.

What was life like before social media?

I entered the social media world in high school. MySpace had recently launched, and it was the "it thing" to do. My page was frequently updated with status messages, a hit single and photos of my friends and me. Once I entered college, Facebook was the new MySpace. I logged on numerous times a day, checking my feed often. I signed up for Twitter about a year ago, and just like my addiction with MySpace and Facebook, I tweet often. Today, I joined Foursquare, and I really hope this doesn't take over my life as well.

I said all of that to say, "What did humans do before social media entered our lives?" Did we simply jot our thoughts in a journal, meet up with our friends to discuss our day, or simply keep all our thoughts to ourselves? I personally cannot remember. Social media has really transformed the world. People now have the ability to display their opinions and thoughts for the world to see. I am still trying to figure out if this is a good or bad thing.

Have you ever thought about going back to the days that consisted of calling your friends and not tweeting them? Or how about the days when creating a scrapbook was cool and not uploading your latest pictures in a Facebook album? What if the norm was to still have a magazine or newspaper subscription and not be able to read your favorite blogs?

Reverting back to those tasks can be done, but is it actually worth it? Social media plays a big part in today's world, and not having a presence on the Web could probably hinder you.