Doesn’t Viral Marketing sound exciting… and cheap? How can you not want to try a Viral Marketing campaign? If it works for a cool Indie band, maybe it will work for your company?
While reading the book about viral marketing, “And Then There’s This: How Stories Live and Die in Viral Culture” by Bill Wasik, I realized that viral marketing, in and of itself, will not predictably achieve success. It’s always exciting to hear about the one time it worked, but that’s not how you build a marketing plan.
In fact, in Wasik’s chapter on the viral marketing of indie-rock bands, I saw the predictability of non-success. He even has a chart showing the progression of how the blog/press reacts to an indie band. The pattern begins when a band is lucky enough to do something thar gets a blogger interested enough to write about them. Then, more bloggers write about how “this is the next band to watch.” They write some things that are really complimentary (in a qualified manner), and people start to buy the band’s songs on iTunes. Next, a few newspaper columnists write about how the “Blogosphere” is discovering this band. More sales, and people start going to see the band. Then a major newspaper reviewer will typically say he/she doesn’t know what all the fuss is about–this is just a good band, not great.
And then the tide turns. The number of blog mentions fall quickly to almost nothing. The band wonders what happened. According to Wasik, the whole process takes about six months.
Some smart bands (and this actually happens) then change their names, put out a new release, and start all over again.
The bands and artists that have a longer career have to have a complete marketing plan. They need a plan that includes an actual budget for PR, a good MySpace page, and hopefully a media company behind them to run ads. They can’t just hope that good luck and superior talent will get them to the top of the charts.
What I learned is there is no magic bullet, other than careful planning and an appropriate budget that can get the job done. No single tool is the answer. The answer for us at Placemaking Group is to use the proper set of tools to get the job completed successfully.
I heard about this book from a speaker at a Real Estate conference on how to use the new media and immediately got a copy from the library. After reading only 1 chapter I realized that the book had so much useable, practical information that I wanted to start using right away, that I ordered it. I have used it to educate myself and use the information, then passed it on to colleagues to borrow and return. It’s an excellent resource; it reads understandably for a non-techie and it works. I’ve had press releases run and blogs picked up. I’m working on video next. I highly recommend this book.
Lorrie W. Grillo
The New Rules of Marketing & PR, Second Edition, written by David Meerman Scott, is absolutely a worthwhile read. Scott does an excellent job of drawing a clear distinction between the “old rules” (the traditional methods of Marketing and PR) and the “new rules” (where the industry is rapidly shifting). Before ordering this book, however, I would warn you of one thing: while this book clearly highlights the necessity of understanding how Marketing is changing, it is written on a high-level, failing to do a deep dive into any specific area. At times this feels more like a Marketing 101 book, more targeted toward business owners, entrepreneurs, and students – basically, those people who need a general introduction and understanding of the industry, but don’t need the deep knowledge. Seasoned marketers will not find this book to be as valuable to read cover to cover, and instead I would recommend concentrating only on the chapters that are relevant to their business. Overview: The book is broken into three sections: section one makes the case for social media and shows how it differs from traditional Marketing; section two offers an introduction to web-based Marketing and the different platforms; and section three provides an action plan for using the new rules and implementing them into the different platforms. Section 1: Scott begins his book by drawing a clear distinction between the “old” and the “new” rules – and is not timid about providing his opinion on how he feels the “old” way of Marketing, simply put, can be a waste of money. Although I do not necessarily agree that the old way of Marketing should be forgotten, nor that the new rules are quite as simply as he makes them out to be, this section of the book does an excellent job of putting the changing landscape of the Marketing industry into perspective. This is a very interesting and extremely important section to understand. If nothing else, ALL marketers should read this short section, whether a social media strategy works for their business objectives or not. As marketers, we need to know where the industry is going and Scott provides this knowledge in an eloquent, easy to understand manner and provides plenty of proof points to build his case. Read this section. Section 2 and Section 3: I pair sections 2 and 3 – which are the majority of the book – together because they follow the same structure. Section 2 introduces the platforms and section 3 discusses the action plan in that platform. Scott has strategically broken these sections out into chapters by Marketing channel, meaning there will in most cases be two chapters on a specific channel, one in section 2 and one in section 3. In this way, Scott provides his readers the ability to jump around the book and choose the necessary information to read, rather than reading straight through. This was very useful and I found myself jumping ahead to read the chapters on video since I am currently implementing a strategy at work by way of this channel. This also made me again realize, however, how little detail each chapter offers. With that said, if you are specifically looking for a deep dive into creating videos for your Web site, I’d recommend buying a book on that subject alone. Since this book is meant to provide a broad view of the different ways to utilize social media and, in this way, the real value-add of this book are the anecdotes woven into every chapter. Sections 2 and 3 are jam-packed with examples of how certain companies have implemented the new rules into their Marketing strategies as well as many tips, reminders, and “internet etiquette” explanations. Most importantly, these sections drive home the new rules of Marketing and PR with real, tangible evidence. One of the best, most eye-opening examples of how the new rules can influence and engage consumers is the example of Scott’s “gobbledygook manifesto”. The basic story, without going into too much detail, is that Scott made up this word – gobbledygook – and tested to ensure it did not have Google hits before starting to use it. Within three weeks he was able to bring the fictitious word “gobbledygook” from 0 Google hits to over 500 Google hits. This goes to show how rapidly things move in the cyber world – and these two sections discuss the different things you need to think about in order to obtain these types of results. Criticisms: I have touched on a few “warnings” I have to readers, however my biggest criticism is that Scott tells a very one-sided story. His portrayal of the “new rules” is all butterflies and rainbows, when in reality many of these strategies won’t work for everyone. To be fair, he does have a short chapter at the end of the book and discusses how you should put a strategy in place and only use the platforms that fit your business objectives, but I think readers would have learned a lot more by hearing more stories about failures and challenges, and then seen how those companies learned from and worked through the challenges they faced. He briefly touches on collaborating with legal, but never provides actionable advice as to how to work through this – or perhaps more importantly provide examples of how others have handled this. Scott put so much emphasis on selling the idea of shifting to the new ideas that he fell through when providing actionable advice that was also realistic to most readers. All in all, I would recommend this book to all marketers. It’s a very eye opening piece of literature, especially if you are not very close to the web or social media. For those of you who are more seasoned in your professions, you will find value in some areas, but don’t read the book cover to cover – unless you are looking for a Marketing 101 refresher.
Hey there!
My band just made our first proper song!!!
Have a look, we’ve learnt a lot from your blog!
xxx