“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.